Presently (January 24, 1488) the deputies returned from Ghent with news that they had failed in the object of their mission. Maximilian, who received them in the hall of his palace, was bitterly disappointed, and though at his urgent request the burghers promised to try again, from that moment he again resumed his machinations against them, and mistrust and suspicion and evil foreboding were once more rife in the city. That very night his conduct at a banquet given in his honour at the _Hôtel de Richebourg_ by the widow of Martin Lem (burgomaster in the time of Charles the Terrible) was not a little disquieting. He had suddenly left the table to make a tour of the ramparts, carefully examining the number of guards at the gates, distributing money amongst them, and so forth. On January 27 he left the city, ostensibly for the purpose of hawking, but no one believed that sport alone was his object. So too on the 28th, and on the 31st he received two pieces of news:--Philip of Hornes was close to Bruges, and the second deputation to Ghent had been as unsuccessful as the first. The die was cast. Maximilian drew up his German guard in the courtyard of the palace and sent messengers to Hornes to enter the town at once by the _Porte des Maréchaux_. The same evening, accompanied by Burgomaster Van Nieuwenhove, one of his creatures, and a small band of attendants, to this gate he came, and demanded that it should be opened; but the gatekeepers, who suspected foul play, flatly refused. No power on earth, they said, should make them open their gates. There was no time to waste in parleying, the main object being to quietly admit Hornes and his reinforcements; but the burghers were aware of what was doing, and the Regent hastened with like result to the _Porte de Gand_ and the _Porte Ste. Croix_. More fortunate at the _Porte Ste. Catherine_, by this exit he went forth--may be its guardians believed he was bent on some further excursion--dispatched messengers to Hornes to bid him enter at this spot and not to attempt to do so by the _Porte des Maréchaux_, once more returned to the city and endeavoured by force to keep the way open for him. But the guardians, crying 'Treason, treason,' had meanwhile aroused the neighbours, and before Hornes could effect an entry they had lowered the portcullis. Whereupon Maximilian fled to the Princenhof and [Illustration: PORTE DES BAUDETS]