The final catastrophe was brought about by the open defection of Ghent. For some time past she had been halting between two opinions, but the success which the men of Bruges had obtained over the marauding knights, at the gates of their city, had emboldened her to make a definite engagement to fight shoulder to shoulder with Bruges until peace were established in Flanders, and even to despatch to her assistance a small band of fighting men; but presently one of her leaders, Rasse Onredene, a man who passed for an ardent patriot, but was in reality in Philippe's pay, pointed out that it would be more to the advantage of Ghent to act the part of peacemaker, with a view to arranging honourable terms than to openly side with either of the belligerents; and when a deputation of Bruges men went out, as they thought, to confer with their allies at Eecloo, they found them posing as neutral mediators. Soon they discovered that they were not even neutral, but open supporters of the Duke, and that they would compel them even by threats to absolute submission. Bruges refused the terms offered with disdain, Ghent retaliated by declaring her an enemy of the state, and if it had not been for the inclemency of the season--it was now December--she would have forthwith commenced a campaign against her rival. Bruges was thus left alone to brave Philippe's fury, and in what plight! Cold, starving, plague-stricken, eaten up with leprosy. The absence of supplies from foreign ports--she had long been cut off from the sea--and the devastation of the surrounding country had produced famine; then came that other handmaid of war, Pestilence, and on her heels, Winter, before his time. Added to this, the prevailing misery had favoured the spread of a disease always lurking in the insanitary cities of the period, and the weird cry of the lazar and the clang of his doleful bell were now heard in every street. [Illustration: The Lepers' Hospital, Marché au Fil] 'From the wretched hovel of the working man writhing in the clutches of famine, from the burning couch of the plague-stricken, and from the barred cell of the leper, there rose up one cry, poignant as the necessity which dictated it: Peace, peace.' Thus Kervyn, in his usual high-flown way.[35]