The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 32: 1582-84Motley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 32: 1582-84
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
Meanwhile, Anjou, in addition to the punishment of hearing these
reproaches from men of honor, was the victim of a rapid and violent
fluctuation of feeling. Hope, fear, triumph, doubt, remorse, alternately
swayed him. As he saw the fugitives leaping from the walls, he shouted
exultingly, without accurately discerning what manner of men they were,
that the city was his, that four thousand of his brave soldiers were
there, and were hurling the burghers from the battlements. On being made
afterwards aware of his error, he was proportionably depressed; and when
it was obvious at last that the result of the enterprise was an absolute
and disgraceful failure, together with a complete exposure of his
treachery, he fairly mounted his horse, and fled conscience-stricken from
the scene.
The attack had been so unexpected, in consequence of the credence
that had been rendered by Orange and the magistracy to the solemn
protestations of the Duke, that it had been naturally out of any one's
power to prevent the catastrophe. The Prince was lodged in apart of the
town remote from the original scene of action, and it does not appear
that information had reached him that anything unusual was occurring,
until the affair was approaching its termination. Then there was little
for him to do. He hastened, however, to the scene, and mounting the
ramparts, persuaded the citizens to cease cannonading the discomfited
and retiring foe. He felt the full gravity of the situation, and the
necessity of diminishing the rancor of the inhabitants against their
treacherous allies, if such a result were yet possible. The burghers
had done their duty, and it certainly would have been neither in his
power nor his inclination to protect the French marauders from
expulsion and castigation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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