One morning Crévcoeur set Philip on horseback, and made him ride through the city, in order to show him to the people. Forthwith a report was spread abroad that the French were going to carry the young prince off to Paris, and so threatening was the attitude of the mob that Crévcoeur deemed it prudent to quit Flanders and take up his headquarters at Tournai. This was on June 11, 1485. Meanwhile Maximilian, profiting by these quarrels, for it was not only at Ghent, but throughout Flanders, that opinion was divided, had been scattering gold broadcast amongst those burghers who were known to be wavering in their allegiance to France, and by this means had succeeded in raising up a party in his favour at Ghent and at Bruges. On June 1, when the people of the latter city were making solemn procession round the _Place du bourg_, with relics, and incense, and torches, to implore the protection of Heaven for the armies of Flanders, news came that the town gates had been treacherously opened to Maximilian's mercenaries, and immediately afterwards a great troop of knights and German horsemen galloped into the market. So sudden and so unexpected was the calamity which had befallen them that the burghers, who seem to have lost their heads, made no show at resistance, and when John of Houthem, the German commander, made them a speech, and asked the vast throng assembled before him whether they wished for peace or war, a great cry went up: Peace! Peace! 'Then will you accept the Archduke for regent,' demanded Houthem, 'and acknowledge his right to the guardianship of his son?' and, with one mouth, the people answered, 'We will.' So too was it at Ghent. The funds expended in corruption there proved an equally satisfactory investment. Hardly had the burghers hounded their French friends out of the city than, just chastisement, Maximilian's Germans took possession of it.