That monarch, born in Ghent and educated in Flanders, had a special feeling of regard for his “dear Netherlanders.” Incidentally, they were the richest jewel in the imperial crown, and he had drawn from them annually two fifths of the enormous revenue that he squandered in wars of ambition elsewhere. He had, moreover, proved his love for them by systematic slaughtering of dissenters, that the remnant might be preserved within the fold of the Catholic Church. It was Brussels, therefore, that he selected as the scene of his abdication. Formerly the capital of the Dukes of Burgundy, it had been under imperial rule the seat of government of the vice-regents of the Netherlands; a city of royal and princely palaces, immediately surrounded by parks and game-forests, and fields and gardens, teeming with opulence; the royal center of a group of cities. Of these Antwerp was the commercial chief, the greatest emporium of trade in Europe, with an exchange in which five thousand merchants daily congregated, and a port where five hundred vessels daily made their entrance or departure. It was the distributing-point for the imports from the East and for the products of the Netherlands: textiles of most sumptuous fabrics as well as of plain cloths and linens, works of gold and silver craftsmanship, agricultural and dairy produce from the rich polders of the northern provinces, and fish from a hundred thriving towns and villages along the coast. So when the emperor, enfeebled by excesses of action and appetite, felt his grip of power slackening, and determined to transfer this people of three million souls, the most industrious, versatile, and liberty-loving in the world, from his own pocket to that of his son, he saw to it that the proceeding should be conducted with a pageantry of ceremonial worthy of the occasion.