The Czolgosz of the occasion, the perpetrator of the dastardly act, was Bathazar Gérard, alias Francis Guion, the self-alleged son of a martyred Calvinist, a religious fanatic who had long cherished an insane desire to murder Orange. “The organization of Bathazar Gérard,” says Motley, “would furnish a subject for profound study, both for the physiologist and the metaphysician. Neither wholly a fanatic nor entirely a ruffian, he combined the most dangerous elements of both characters. In his puny body and mean exterior were inclosed considerable mental powers and accomplishments, a daring ambition, and a courage almost superhuman. Yet those qualities led him only to form upon the threshold of life a deliberate determination to achieve greatness by the assassin’s trade.” After long and exasperating delays, Gérard had finally succeeded, on account of his ambitions, in nursing himself into the good graces of Alexander of Parma, the Spanish governor of the Netherlands at that time. On the other hand, “Parma had long been looking for a good man to murder Orange, feeling--as Philip, Granvelle, and all former governors of the Netherlands had felt--that this was the only means of saving the royal authority in any part of the provinces. Many unsatisfactory assassins had presented themselves from time to time, and Alexander had paid money in hand to various individuals--Italians, Spaniards, Lorrainers, Scotchmen, Englishmen, who had generally spent the sums received without attempting the job. Others were supposed to be still engaged in the enterprise, and at that moment there were four persons--each unknown to the others, and of different nations--in the city of Delft, seeking to compass the death of William the Silent.” Upon the death, at this time, of the French Duke of Anjou, Gérard was recommended to Parma by various parties as a capable messenger “to carry this important intelligence to the Prince of Orange.” Concerning the outcome of this mission, I can do no better than to quote John Lothrop Motley from his “The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” as I have done elsewhere in this chapter: “The dispatches having been intrusted to him” (Gérard), “he traveled post-haste to Delft, and to his astonishment the letters had hardly been delivered before he was summoned in person to the chamber of the Prince. Here was an opportunity such as he had never dared to hope for. The arch-enemy to the Church and to the human race” (that is, the Prince, so called), “whose death would confer upon his destroyer wealth and nobility in this world, besides a crown of glory in the next, lay unarmed, alone, in bed, before the man who had thirsted seven long years for his blood.