ON my way from Rotterdam to Delft I saw for the first time the plains of Holland.

The country is perfectly flat—a succession of green and flower-decked meadows, broken by long rows of willows and clumps of alders and poplars. Here and there appear the tops of steeples, the turning arms of windmills, straggling herds of large black and white cattle, and an occasional shepherd; then, for miles, only solitude. There is nothing to attract the eye, there is neither hill nor valley. From time to time the sail of a ship is seen in the distance, but as the vessel is moving on an invisible canal, it seems to be gliding over the grass of the meadows as it is hidden for a moment behind the trees and then reappears. The wan light lends a gentle, melancholy influence to the landscape, while a mist almost imperceptible makes all things appear distant. There is a sense of silence to the eye, a peace of outline and color, a repose in everything, so that the vision grows dim and the imagination sleeps.

Not far from Rotterdam the town of Schiedam comes into view, surrounded by very high windmills, which give it the appearance of a fortress crowned with turrets; and far away can be seen the towers of the village of Vlaardingen, one of the principal stations of the herring-fisheries.

Between Schiedam and Delft I observed the windmills with great attention. Dutch windmills do not at all resemble the decrepit mills I had seen in the previous year at La Mancha, which seemed to be extending their thin arms to implore the aid of heaven and earth. The Dutch mills are large, strong, and vigorous, and Don Quixote would certainly have hesitated before running atilt at them. Some are built of stone or bricks, and are round or octagonal like mediÆval towers; others are of wood, and look like boxes stuck on the summits of pyramids. Most of them are thatched. About midway between the roof and the ground they are encircled by a wooden platform. Their windows are hung with white curtains, their doors are painted green, and on each door is written the use which it serves. Besides drawing water, the windmills do a little of everything: they grind grain, pound rags, crumble lime, crush stones, saw wood, press olives, and pulverize tobacco. A windmill is as valuable as a farm, and it takes a considerable fortune to build one and provide it with colza, grain, flour, and oil to keep it working, and to sell its products. Consequently, in many places the riches of a proprietor are measured by the number of mills he owns; an inheritance is counted by mills, and they say of a girl that she has so many windmills as dowry, or, even better, so many steam-mills; and fortune-hunters, who are to be found everywhere, sue for the maiden's hand to marry the mill. These countless winged towers scattered through the country give the landscape a singular appearance; they animate the solitude. At night in the midst of the trees they have a fantastic appearance, and look like fabulous birds gazing at the sky. By day in the distance they look like enormous pieces of fireworks; they turn, stop, curb and slacken their speed, break the silence by their dull and monotonous tick-tack, and when by chance they catch fire—which not infrequently happens, especially in the case of flour-mills—they form a wheel of flame, a furious rain of burning meal, a whirlwind of smoke, a tumult, a dreadful magnificent brilliance that gives one the idea of an infernal vision.

In the railway-carriage, although it was full of people, I had no opportunity of speaking or of hearing a word spoken. The passengers were all middle-aged men with serious faces, who looked at each other in silence, puffing out great clouds of smoke at regular intervals as if they were measuring time by their cigars. When we arrived at Delft I greeted them as I passed out, and some of them responded by a slight movement of the lips.

"Delft," says Lodovico Guicciardini, "is named after a ditch, or rather the canal of water which leads from the Meuse, since in the vulgar tongue a ditch is generally called delft. It is distant two leagues from Rotterdam, and is a town truly great and most beautiful in every part, having goodly and noble edifices and wide streets, which are lively withal. It was founded by Godfrey, surnamed the Hunchback, duke of Lorraine, he who for the space of four years occupied the country of Holland."

Delft is the city of disaster. Toward the middle of the sixteenth century it was almost entirely destroyed by fire; in 1654 the explosion of a powder-magazine shattered more than two hundred houses; and in 1742 another catastrophe of the same kind occurred. Besides these calamities, William the Silent was assassinated there in the year 1584. Moreover, there followed the decline and almost the extinction of that industry which once was the glory and riches of the city, the manufacture of Delft ware. In this art at first the Dutch artisans imitated the shapes and designs of Chinese and Japanese china, and finally succeeded in doing admirable work by uniting the Dutch and Asiatic styles. Dutch pottery became famous throughout Northern Europe, and it is nowadays as much sought after by lovers of this art as the best Italian products.

At present Delft is not an industrial or commercial city, and its twenty-two thousand inhabitants live in profound peace. But it is one of the prettiest and most characteristic towns of Holland. The wide streets are traversed by canals shaded by double rows of trees. On either side are red, purple, and pink cottages with white pointing, which seem content in their cleanliness. At every crossway two or three corresponding bridges of stone or of wood, with white railings, meet each other; the only thing to be seen is some barge lying motionless and apparently enjoying the delight of idleness; there are few people stirring, the doors are closed, and all is still.

I took my way toward the new church, looking around to see if I could discover any of the famous storks' nests, but there were none visible. The tradition of the storks of Delft is still alive, and no traveller writes about this city without mentioning it. Guicciardini calls it "a memorable fact of such a nature that peradventure there is no record of a like event in ancient or modern times." The circumstance took place during the great fire which destroyed nearly the whole city. There were in Delft a countless number of storks' nests. It must be remembered that the stork is the favorite bird of Holland, the bird of good augury, like the swallow. Storks are much in demand, as they make war on toads and rats, and the peasants plant perches surmounted by large wooden disks to attract them to build their nests there. In some towns they are to be seen walking through the streets. Well, at Delft there were innumerable nests. When the fire began, on the 3d of May, the young storks were well grown, but they could not yet fly. When they saw the fire approaching, the parent storks tried to carry their little ones into a place of safety, but they were too heavy, and after every sort of desperate effort the poor birds, worn and terrified, had to abandon the attempt. They might yet have saved themselves by leaving the young to their fate, as human beings generally do under similar circumstances. But, instead, they remained on their nests, pressing their little ones round them, and shielding them with their wings, as though to delay their destruction for at least a moment. Thus they awaited their death, and were found lifeless in this attitude of love and devotion. Who knows whether during the horrible terror and panic of the fire the example of that sacrifice, the voluntary martyrdom of those poor mothers, may not have given courage to some weaker soul about to abandon those who had need of him?

In the great square, where stands the new church, I again saw some shops like those I had seen in Rotterdam, in which all the articles which can be strung together are hung up either outside the door or in the room, so forming wreaths, festoons, and curtains—of shoes, for example, or of earthen pots, watering-cans, baskets, and buckets—which dangle from the ceiling to the ground, and sometimes almost hide the floor. The shop signs are like those at Rotterdam—a bottle of beer hanging from a nail, a paint-brush, a box, a broom, and the customary huge heads with wide-open mouths.

The new church, founded toward the end of the fourteenth century, is to Holland what Westminster Abbey is to England. It is a large edifice, sombre without and bare within—a prison rather than a house of God. The tombs are at the end, behind the enclosure of the benches.

I had scarcely entered before I saw the splendid mausoleum of William the Silent, but the sexton stopped me before the very simple tomb of Hugh Grotius, the prodigium EuropÆ, as the epitaph calls him, the great jurisconsult of the seventeenth century—that Grotius who wrote Latin verses at the age of nine, who composed Greek odes at eleven, who at fourteen indited philosophical theses, who three years later accompanied the illustrious Barneveldt in his embassy to Paris, where Henry IV. presented him to his court, saying, "Behold the miracle of Holland!" that Grotius who at eighteen years of age was illustrious as a poet, as a theologian, as a commentator, as an astronomer, who had written a poem on the town of Ostend which Casaubon translated into Greek measures and Malesherbes into French verse; that Grotius who when hardly twenty-four years old occupied the post of advocate-general of Holland and Zealand, and composed a celebrated treatise on the Freedom of the Seas; who at thirty years of age was an honorary councillor of Rotterdam. Afterward, when, as a partisan of Barneveldt, he was persecuted, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and shut up in the castle of LÖwestein, he wrote his treatise on the Rights of Peace and War, which for a long time was the code of all the publicists of Europe. He was rescued in a marvellous way by his wife, who managed to be carried into the prison inside a chest supposed to be full of books, and sent back the chest with her husband inside, while she remained in prison in his place. He was then sheltered by Louis XIII., was appointed ambassador to France by Christina of Sweden, and finally returned in triumph to his native land, and died at Rostock crowned with glory and a venerable old age.

The mausoleum of William the Silent is in the middle of the church. It is a little temple of black and white marble, heavy with ornament and supported by slender columns, in the midst of which rise four statues representing Liberty, Prudence, Justice, and Religion. Above the sarcophagus is a recumbent statue of the prince in white marble, and at his feet the effigy of the little dog that saved his life at Mechlin by barking one night, when he was sleeping under a tent, just as two Spaniards were advancing stealthily to kill him. At the foot of this statue rises a beautiful bronze figure, a Victory, with outspread wings, resting lightly on her left foot. At the opposite side of the little temple is another bronze statue representing William seated. He is clad in armor, with his head uncovered and his helmet at his feet. An inscription in Latin tells that this monument was consecrated by the States of Holland "to the eternal memory of that William of Nassau whom Philip II., the terror of Europe, feared, yet whom he could neither subdue nor overthrow, but whom he killed by execrable fraud." William's children are laid by his side, and all the princes of his dynasty are buried in the crypt under his tomb.

Before this monument even the most frivolous and careless visitor remains silent and thoughtful.

It is well to recall the tremendous struggle of which the hero lies in that tomb.

On one side was Philip II., on the other William of Orange. Philip II., shut up in the dull solitude of the Escurial, lived in the midst of an empire which included Spain, North and South Italy, Belgium, and Holland, and, in Africa, Oran, Tunis, the archipelagoes of the Cape Verde and Canary Islands; in Asia the Philippine Islands; and the Antilles, Mexico, and Peru in America. He was the husband of the queen of England, the nephew of the emperor of Germany, who obeyed him as if he were a vassal; he was the lord, one may say, of all Europe, for the neighboring states were all weakened by political and religious disorders; he had at his command the best disciplined soldiers in Europe, the greatest generals of the age, American gold, Flemish industries, Italian science, an army of spies scattered through all the courts—men chosen from all countries fanatically devoted to him, conscious or unconscious tools of his will. He was the most sagacious, most mysterious prince of his age; he had everything that enchains, corrupts, alarms, and attracts the world—arms, riches, glory, genius, religion. While every one else was bowing low before this formidable man, William of Orange stood erect.

This man, without a kingdom and without an army, was nevertheless more powerful than the king. Like him, he had been a disciple of Charles V., and had learned the art of elevating thrones and hurling them down; like him, he was cunning and inscrutable, and yet he divined the future with keener intellectual vision than Philip. Like his enemy, he had the power of reading men's souls, but he also had the ability to win their hearts. He had a good cause to uphold, but he was acquainted with all the artifices that are used to maintain bad causes. Philip II., who spied into every one's affairs, was spied on in his turn and had his purposes divined by William. The designs of the great king were discovered and thwarted before they were put into execution; mysterious hands ransacked his drawers and pockets and investigated his secret papers. William in Holland read the mind of Philip in the Escurial; he anticipated, hindered, and embroiled all his plots; he dug the ground from beneath his feet, provoked him, and then escaped, only to return before his eyes like a phantom which he saw and could not seize, which he seized and could not destroy. At last William died, but even when dead the victory was his, and the enemy who survived was defeated. Holland remained for a short time without a head, but the Spanish monarchy had received such a blow that it was not able to rise again.

In this wonderful struggle the figure of the Great King gradually dwindles until it entirely disappears, while that of William of Orange becomes greater and greater by slow degrees until it grows to be the most glorious figure of his age. From the day when, as a hostage to the king of France, he discovered Philip's design of establishing the Inquisition in the Netherlands he devoted himself to defend the liberty of his country, and throughout his life he never wavered for a moment on the road he had entered. The advantages of his noble birth, a regal fortune, peace, and the splendid life which by habit and nature were dear to him, all these he sacrificed to the cause; he was reduced to poverty and exiled, yet in both poverty and exile he constantly refused the offers of pardon and of favor that were made from many sides and in many ways by the enemy who hated and feared him. Surrounded by assassins, made the target of the most atrocious calumnies, accused of cowardice before the enemy, and charged with the assassination of a wife whom he adored, sometimes regarded with distrust, slandered, and attacked by the very people he was defending,—he bore it all patiently and in silence. He did not swerve from the straight course to the goal, facing infinite perils with quiet courage. He did not bend before his people nor did he flatter them; he did not permit himself to be led away by the passions of his country; it was he who always guided; he was always at the head, always the first. All gathered around him; he was the mind, the conscience, and the strength of the revolution, the hearth that burned and kept the warmth of life in his fatherland. Great by reason alike of his audacity and prudence, he continued upright in a time full of perjury and treachery; he remained gentle in the midst of violent men; his hands were spotless when all the courts of Europe were stained with blood. With an army collected at random, with feeble or uncertain allies, checked by internal discords between Lutherans and Calvinists, nobles and commoners, magistrates and the people, with no great general to aid him, he was obliged to combat the municipal spirit of the provinces, which would none of his authority and escaped from his control; yet he triumphed in a conflict which seemed beyond human strength. He wore out the Duke of Alva, Requesens, Don John of Austria, and Alexander Farnese. He overthrew the conspiracies of those foreign princes who wished to help his country in order to subdue it. He gained friends and obtained aid from every part of Europe, and, after achieving one of the noblest revolutions in history, he founded a free state in spite of an empire which was the terror of the universe.

This man, who in the eyes of the world was so terrible and so great, was an affectionate husband and father, a pleasant friend and companion, who loved merry social gatherings and banquets, and was an elegant and polite host. He was a man of learning, and spoke, besides his native language, French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Italian, and conversed in a scholarly manner on all subjects. Although called the Silent (rather because he kept to himself the secret discovered at the French court than from a habit of silence), he was one of the most eloquent men of his time. His manners were simple and his dress plain; he loved his people and was beloved by them. He walked about the streets of the cities bareheaded and alone, and chatted with workmen and fishermen, who offered him drink out of their glasses; he listened to their discourses, settled their quarrels, entered their homes to restore domestic concord. Every one called him "Father William," and, in fact, he was the father rather than a son of his country. The feeling of admiration and gratitude which still lives for him in the hearts of the Hollanders has all the intimacy and tenderness of filial affection; his reverend name is still in every mouth; his greatness, stripped of every ornament and veil, remains entire, spotless, and steadfast like his work.

After seeing the tomb of the Prince of Orange I went to look upon the place where he was assassinated.

In 1580, Philip II. published an edict in which he promised a reward of twenty-five thousand golden pieces and a title of nobility to the man who would assassinate the Prince of Orange. This infamous edict, which stimulated covetousness and fanaticism, caused crowds of assassins to gather from every side, who surrounded William under false names and with concealed weapons, awaiting their opportunity. A young man from Biscay, Jaureguy by name, a fervent Catholic, who had been promised the glory of martyrdom by a Dominican friar, made the first attempt. He prepared himself by prayer and fasting, went to Mass, took the communion, covered himself with sacred relics, entered the palace, and, drawing near to the prince in the attitude of one presenting a petition, fired a pistol at his head. The ball passed through the jaw, but the wound was not mortal. The Prince of Orange recovered. The assassin was slain in the act by sword and halberd thrusts, then quartered on the public square, and the parts were hung up on one of the gates of Antwerp, where they remained until the Duke of Parma took possession of the town, when the Jesuits collected them and presented them as relics to the faithful.

Shortly after this another plot against the life of the Prince was discovered. A French nobleman, an Italian, and a Walloon, who had followed him for some time with the intention of murdering him, were suspected and arrested. One of them killed himself in prison with a knife, another was strangled in France, and the third escaped, after he had confessed that the movements of all three had been directed by the Duke of Parma.

Meanwhile Philip's agents were overrunning the country instigating rogues to perpetrate this deed with promises of treasures in reward, while priests and monks were instigating fanatics to the same end by the assurance of help and reward from Heaven. Other assassins made the attempt. A Spaniard was discovered, arrested, and quartered at Antwerp; a rich trader called Hans Jansen was put to death at Flushing. Many offered their services to Prince Alexander Farnese and were encouraged by gifts of money. The Prince of Orange, who knew all this, felt a vague presentiment of his approaching death, and spoke of it to his intimate friends, but he refused to take any precautions to protect his life, and replied to all who gave him such counsel, "It is useless: God has numbered my years. Let it be according to His will. If there is any wretch who does not fear death, my life is in his power, however I may guard it."

Eight attempts were made upon his life before an assassin fired the fatal shot.

When the deed was at last committed, in 1584, four scoundrels, an Englishman, a Scotchman, a Frenchman, and a man of Lorraine, unknown to each other, were all awaiting at Delft their opportunity to assassinate him.

Besides these, there was a young conspirator, twenty-seven years of age, from Franche-ComtÉ, a Catholic, who passed himself off as a Protestant, Guyon by name, the son of a certain Peter Guyon who was executed at BesanÇon for embracing Calvinism. This Guyon, whose real name was Balthazar Gerard, was believed to be a fugitive from the persecutions of the Catholics. He led an austere life and took part in all the services of the Evangelical Church, and in a short time acquired a reputation for especial piety. Saying that he had come to Delft to beg for the honor of serving the Prince of Orange, he was recommended and introduced by a Protestant clergyman: he inspired the Prince with confidence, and was sent by him to accompany Herr Van Schonewalle, the envoy of the States of Holland to the court of France. In a short time he returned to Delft, bringing to William the tidings of the death of the Duke of Anjou, and presented himself at the convent of St. Agatha, where the Prince was staying with his court. It was the second Sunday in July. William received him in his chamber, being in bed. They were alone. Balthazar Gerard was probably tempted to assassinate him at that moment, but he was unarmed and restrained himself. Disguising his impatience, he quietly answered all the questions he was asked. William gave him some money, told him to prepare to return to Paris, and ordered him to come back the next day to get his letters and passport. With the money he received from the Prince, Gerard bought two pistols from a soldier, who killed himself when he knew to what end they had been used, and the next day, the 10th of July, he again presented himself at the convent of St. Agatha. William, accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen of his family, was descending the staircase to dine in a room on the ground floor. On his arm was the Princess of Orange, his fourth wife, that gentle and unfortunate Louisa de Coligny, who had seen her father, the admiral, and her husband, Seigneur de Teligny, killed at her feet on the eve of St. Bartholomew. Balthazar stepped forward, stopped the Prince, and asked him to sign his passport. The Prince told him to return later, and entered the dining-room. No shade of suspicion had passed through his mind. Louisa de Coligny, however, grown cautious and suspicious by her misfortunes, became anxious. That pale man, wrapped in a long mantle, had a sinister look; his voice sounded unnatural and his face was convulsed. During dinner she confided her suspicions to William, and asked him who that man was "who had the wickedest face she had ever seen." The Prince smiled, told her it was Guyon, reassured her, and was as gay as ever during the dinner. When he had finished he quietly left the room to go up stairs to his apartments. Gerard was waiting for him at a dark turning near the staircase, hidden in the shadow of a door. As soon as he saw the Prince approaching he advanced, and leaped upon him just as he was placing his foot on the second step. He fired his pistol, which was loaded with three bullets, straight at the Prince's breast, and fled. William staggered and fell into the arms of an equerry. All crowded round. "I am wounded," said William in a feeble voice.... "God have mercy on me and on my poor people!" He was all covered with blood. His sister, Catherine of Schwartzburg, asked, "Dost thou commend thy soul to Jesus Christ?" He answered, in a whisper, "I do." It was his last word. They placed him on one of the steps and spoke to him, but he was no longer conscious. They then bore him into a room near by, where he died.

Gerard had crossed the stables, had fled from the convent, and reached the ramparts of the town, from which he hoped to leap into the moat and swim across to the opposite bank, where a horse ready saddled was awaiting him. But in his flight he let fall his hat and a pistol. A servant and a halberdier in the Prince's service, seeing these traces, rushed after him. Just as he was in the act of jumping he stumbled, and his two pursuers overtook and seized him. "Infernal traitor!" they cried. "I am no traitor," he answered calmly; "I am a faithful servant of my master."—"Of what master?" they asked. "Of my lord and master the King of Spain," answered Gerard. By this time other halberdiers and pages had come up. They dragged him into the town, beating him with their fists and with the hilts of their swords. The wretch, thinking from the words of the crowd that the Prince was not dead, exclaimed with an evil composure, "Cursed be the hand whose blow has failed!"

This deplorable peace of mind did not desert him for a moment. When brought before the judges, during the long examination in the cell where he was thrown laden with chains, he still maintained the same remarkable tranquillity. He bore the torments to which he was condemned without letting a cry escape him. Between the various tortures to which he was subjected, while the officers were resting, he conversed quietly and in a modest manner. While they were lacerating him every now and then he raised his bloody head from the rack and said, "Ecce homo." Several times he thanked the judges for the nourishment he had received, and wrote his confessions with his own hand.

He was born at Villefranche in the department of Burgundy, and studied law with a solicitor at DÔle, and it was there that he for the first time manifested his wish to kill William. Planting a dagger in a door, he said, "Thus would I thrust a sword into the breast of the Prince of Orange!" Three years later, hearing of the proclamation of Philip II., he went to Luxembourg, intending to assassinate the Prince, but was stopped by the false report of his death which had been spread after Jaurequy's attempted assassination. Soon after, learning that William still lived, he renewed his design, and went to Mechlin to seek counsel from the Jesuits, who encouraged him, promising him a martyr's crown if he lost his life in the enterprise. He then went to Tournay, and presented himself to Alexander Farnese, who confirmed the promises of King Philip. He was approved and encouraged by the confidence of the Prince and by the priests; he fortified himself by reading the Bible, by fasting and prayer, and then, full of religious exaltation, dreaming of angels and of Paradise, he left for Delft, and completed his "duty as a good Catholic and faithful subject."

He repeated his confessions several times to the judges, without one word of remorse or penitence. On the contrary, he boasted of his crime, and said he was a new David, who had overthrown a new Goliath; he declared that if he had not already killed the Prince of Orange, he should still wish to do the deed. His courage, his calmness, his contempt of life, his profound belief that he had accomplished a holy mission and would die a glorious death, dismayed his judges; they thought he must be possessed by the devil. They made inquiries, they questioned him, but he always gave the same answer that his conversation was with God alone.

He was sentenced on the 14th of July. His punishment has been called a crime against the memory of the great man whose death it was intended to avenge—a sentence to turn faint any one who had not superhuman strength.

The assassin was condemned to have his hand enclosed and seared in a tube of red-hot iron, to have his arms, legs, and thighs torn to pieces with burning pincers, his bowels to be quartered, his heart to be torn out and thrown into his face, his head to be dissevered from his trunk and placed on a pike, his body to be cut in four pieces, and every piece to be hung on a gibbet over one of the principal gates of the city.

On hearing the enumeration of these horrible tortures the miserable wretch did not flinch; he showed no sign of terror, sorrow, or surprise. He opened his coat, bared his breast, and, fixing his dauntless eyes on his judges, he repeated with a steady voice his customary words, "Ecce homo!"

Was this man only a fanatic, as many believed, or a monster of wickedness, as others held, or was he both of these inspired by a boundless ambition?

On the next day the sentence was carried into effect. The preparations for the execution were made before his eyes; he regarded them with indifference. The executioner's assistant began by pounding into pieces the pistol with which he had perpetrated the crime. At the first blow the head of the hammer fell off and struck another assistant on the ear. The crowd laughed, and Gerard laughed too. When he mounted the gallows his body was already horrible to behold. He was silent while his hand crackled and smoked in the red-hot tube; during the time when the red-hot tongs were tearing his flesh he uttered no cry; when the knife penetrated into his entrails he bowed his head, murmured a few incomprehensible words, and expired.

The death of the Prince of Orange filled the country with consternation. His body lay in state for a month, and the people gathered round his last bed kneeling and weeping. The funeral was worthy of a king: there were present the States General of the United Provinces, the Council of State, and the Estates of Holland, the magistrates, the clergy, and the princes of the house of Nassau. Twelve noblemen bore the bier, four great nobles held the cords of the pall, and the Prince's horse followed splendidly caparisoned and led by his equerry. In the midst of the train of counts and barons there was seen a young man, eighteen years of age, who was destined to inherit the glorious legacy of the dead, to humble the Spanish arms, and to compel Spain to sue for a truce and to recognize the independence of the Netherlands. That young man was Maurice of Orange, the son of William, on whom the Estates of Holland a short time after the death of his father conferred the dignity of Stadtholder, and to whom they afterward entrusted the supreme command of the land and naval forces.

While Holland was mourning the death of the Prince of Orange, the Catholic priesthood in all the cities under Spanish rule were rejoicing over the assassination and extolling the assassin. The Jesuits exalted him as a martyr, the University of Louvain published his defence, the canons of Bois-le-Duc chanted a Te Deum. After a few years the King of Spain bestowed on Gerard's family a title and the confiscated property of the Prince of Orange in Burgundy.

The house where William was murdered is still standing: it is a dark-looking building with arched windows and a narrow door, and forms part of the cloister of an old cathedral consecrated to St. Agatha. It still bears the name of Prinsenhof, although it is now used for artillery barracks. I got permission to enter from the officer on guard. A corporal who understood a little French accompanied me. We crossed a courtyard full of soldiers, and arrived at the memorable place. I saw the staircase the Prince was mounting when he was attacked, the dark corner where Gerard hid himself, the door of the room where the unfortunate William dined for the last time, and the mark of the bullets on the wall in a little whitewashed space which bears a Dutch inscription reminding one that here died the father of his country. The corporal showed me where the assassin had fled. While I was looking round, with that pensive curiosity that one feels in places where great crimes have been committed, soldiers were ascending and descending; they stopped to look at me, and then went away singing and whistling; some near me were humming; others were laughing loudly in the courtyard. All this youthful gayety was in sharp and moving contrast to the sad gravity of those memories, and seemed like a festival of children in the room where died a grandparent whose memory we cherish.

Opposite the barracks is the oldest church in Delft. It contains the tomb of the famous Admiral Tromp, the veteran of the Dutch navy, who saw thirty-two naval battles, and in 1652, at the battle of the Downs, defeated the English fleet commanded by Blake. He re-entered his country with a broom tied to the masthead of the admiral's ship to indicate that he had swept the English off the seas. Here also is the tomb of Peter Heyn, who from a simple fisherman rose to be a great admiral, and took that memorable netful of Spanish ships that had under their hatches more than eleven million florins; also the tomb of Leeuwenhoek, the father of the science of the infinitely small—who, with the "divining-glass," as Parini says, "saw primitive man swimming in the genital wave." The church has a high steeple surmounted by four conical turrets. It is inclined like the Tower of Pisa, because the ground has sunk beneath it. Gerard was imprisoned in one of the cells of this tower on the night of the assassination.

At Rotterdam I had been given a letter to a citizen of Delft asking him to show me his house. The letter read: "He desires to penetrate into the mysteries of an old Dutch house; lift for a moment the curtain of the sanctuary." The house was not hard to find, and as soon as I saw it I said to myself, "That is the house for me!"

It was a red cottage, one story in height, with a long peaked gable, situated at the end of a street which stretched out into the country. It stood almost on the edge of a canal, leaning a little forward, as if it wished to see its reflection in the water. A pretty linden tree grew in front which spread over the window like a great fan, and a drawbridge lay before the door. Then there were the white curtains, the green doors, the flowers, the looking-glasses—in fact, it was a perfect little model of a Dutch house.

The road was deserted. Before I knocked at the door I waited a little while, looking at it and thinking. That house made me understand Holland better than all the books I had read. It was at the same time the expression and the reason of the domestic love, of the modest desires, and the independent nature of the Dutch people. In our country there is no such thing as the true house: there are only divisions in barracks, abstract habitations, which are not ours, but in which we live hidden, but not alone, hearing a thousand noises made by people who are strangers to us, who disturb our sorrows with the echo of their joys and interrupt our joys with the echo of their sorrows. The real home is in Holland—a house of one's own, quite separate from others, modest, circumspect, and, by reason of its retirement, unknown to mysteries and intrigues. When the inhabitants of the house are merry, everything is bright; when they are sad, all is serious. In these houses, with their canals and drawbridges, every modest citizen feels something of the solitary dignity of a feudal lord, and might imagine himself the commander of a fortress or the captain of a ship; and indeed, as he looks from his windows, as from those of an anchored vessel, he sees a boundless level plain, which inspires him with just such sentiments of freedom and solemnity as are awakened by the sea. The trees that surround his house like a green girdle allow only a delicate broken light to enter it; boats freighted with merchandise glide noiselessly past his door; he does not hear the trampling of horses or the cracking of whips, or songs or street-cries; all the activities of the life that surrounds him are silent and gentle: all breathes of peace and sweetness, and the steeple of the church hard by tells the hour with a flood of harmony as full of repose and constancy as are his affections and his work.

I knocked at the door, and the master of the house opened it. He read the letter which I gave him, regarded me critically, and bade me enter. It is almost always thus. At the first meeting the Dutch are apt to be suspicious. We open our arms to any one who brings us a letter of introduction as if he were our most intimate friend, and very often do nothing for him afterward. The Dutch, on the contrary, receive you coldly—so coldly, indeed, that sometimes you feel mortified—but afterward they do a thousand things for you with the best will in the world, and without the least appearance of doing you a kindness.

Within, the house was in perfect harmony with its outside appearance; it seemed to be the inside of a ship. A circular wooden staircase, shining like polished ebony, led to the upper rooms. There were mats and carpets on the stairs, in front of the doors, and on the floors. The rooms were as small as cells, the furniture was as clean as possible, the door-plates, the knobs, the nails, the brass and the other metal ornaments were as bright as if they had just left the hands of the burnisher. Everywhere there was a profusion of porcelain vases, of cups, lamps, mirrors, small pictures, bureaus, cupboards, knicknacks, and small objects of every shape and for every use. All were marvellously clean, and bespoke the thousand little wants that the love of a sedentary life creates—the careful foresight, the continual care, the taste for little things, the love of order, the economy of space; in short, it was the abode of a quiet, domestic woman.

The goddess of this temple, who could not or did not dare speak French, was hidden in some inmost recess which I did not succeed in discovering.

We went down stairs to see the kitchen; it was one gleam of brightness. When I returned home I described it, in my mother's presence, to the servant who prided herself on her cleanliness, and she was annihilated. The walls were as white as snow; the saucepans reflected everything like so many looking-glasses; the top of the chimney-piece was ornamented by a sort of muslin curtain like the curtains of a bed, bearing no trace of smoke; the wall below the chimney was covered with square majolica tiles which were as clean as though the fire had never been lighted; the andirons, shovel, and tongs, the chain of the spit, all seemed to be of burnished steel. A lady dressed for a ball could have gone round the room and into all the corners and touched everything without getting a speck of dirt on her spotless attire.

At this moment the maid was cleaning the room, and my host spoke of this as follows: "To have an idea of what cleanliness means with us," he said, "one ought to watch the work of these women for an hour. Here they scrub, wash, and brush a house as if it were a person. A house is not cleaned; it has its toilette made. The girls blow between the bricks, they rummage in the corners with their nails and with pins, and clean so minutely that they tire their eyes no less than their arms. Really it is a national passion. These girls, who are generally so phlegmatic, change their character on cleaning day and become frantic. That day we are no longer masters of our houses. They invade our rooms, turn us out, sprinkle us, turn everything topsy-turvy; for them it is a gala day; they are like bacchantes of cleanliness; the madness grows as they wash." I asked him to what he attributed this species of mania for which Holland is famous. He gave me the same reasons that many others had given; the atmosphere of their country, which greatly injures wood and metals, the damp, the small size of the houses and the number of things they contain, which naturally makes it difficult to keep them clean, the superabundance of water, which helps the work, a something that the eye seems to require, until cleanliness ends by appearing beautiful, and, lastly, the emulation that everywhere leads to excess. "But," he added, "this is not the cleanest part of Holland; the excess, the delirium of cleanliness, is to be seen in the northern provinces."

We went out for a walk about the town. It was not yet noon; servants were to be seen everywhere dressed just like those in Rotterdam. It is a singular thing, all the servant-maids in Holland, from Rotterdam to Groningen, from Haarlem to Nimeguen, are dressed in the same color—light mauve, flowered or dotted with stars or crosses—and while engaged in cleaning they all wear a sort of invalid's cap and a pair of enormous white wooden shoes. At first I thought that they formed a national association requiring uniformity in dress. They are generally very young, because older women cannot bear the fatigue they have to endure; they are fair and round, with prodigious posterior curves (an observation of Diderot); in the strict sense of the word they are not at all pretty, but their pink and white complexions are marvellous, and they look the picture of health, and one feels that it would be delightful to press one's cheek to theirs. Their rounded forms and fine coloring are enhanced by their plain style of dress, especially in the morning, when they have their sleeves turned up and necks bare, revealing flesh as fair as a cherub's.

Suddenly I remembered a note I had made in my book before starting for Holland, and I stopped and asked my companion this question: "Are the Dutch servants the eternal torment of their mistresses?"

Here I must make a short digression. It is well known that ladies of a certain age, good mothers and good housekeepers, whose social position does not allow them to leave their servants to themselves—who, for instance, have only one servant, who has to be both cook and lady's maid,—it is well known that such ladies often talk for hours on this subject. The conversations are always the same—of insupportable defects, insolence that they have had to endure, impertinent answers, dishonesty in buying the things needed for the kitchen, of waste, untruthfulness, immense pretensions, of discharges, of the annoyance of searching for new servants, and other such calamities; the refrain always being that the honest and faithful servants, who became attached to the family and grew old in the same service, have ceased to exist; now one is obliged to change them continually, and there is no way of getting back to the old order. Is this true or false? Is it a result of the liberty and equality of classes, making service harder to bear and the servants more independent? Is it an effect of the relaxation of manners and of public discipline, which has made itself felt even in the kitchen? However it may be, the fact remains that at home I heard this subject so much discussed that one day, before I left for Spain, I said to my mother, "If anything in Madrid can console me in being so far from my family, it will be that I shall hear no more of this odious subject." On my arrival at Madrid I went into a hostelry, and the first thing the landlady said was that she had changed her maids three times in a month, and was driven to desperation: she did not know which saint to pray to: and so long as I remained there the same lamentation continued. On my return home I told my family about it; they all laughed, and my mother concluded that there must be the same trouble in every country. "No," said I, "in the northern countries it must be different."—"You will see that I am right," my mother answered. I went to Paris, and of the first housekeeper with whom I became acquainted I asked the question, "Are the servants here the everlasting torment of their mistresses, as they are in Italy and Spain?"—"Ah! mon cher monsieur," she answered, clasping her hands and looking above her, "ne me parlez pas de Ça!" Then followed a long story of quarrels, and discharging of servants, and of trials which mistresses have to endure. I wrote the news to my mother, and she answered, "We shall see in London."

I went to London, and on the ship which was bearing me to Antwerp I entered into conversation with an English lady. After we had exchanged a few words, and I had explained the reason of my curiosity, I asked the usual question. She turned away her head, put her hand to her forehead, and then replied, emphasizing each word, "They are the flagellum Dei!"

I wrote home in despair, suggesting however, that I still trusted in Holland, which was a peaceful country, where the houses were so tidy and clean and the home-life so sweet. My mother answered that she thought we might possibly make an exception of Holland. But we were both rather doubtful. My curiosity was aroused, and she was expecting the news from me; for this reason, therefore, I put the question to my courteous guide at Delft. It may be imagined with what impatience I awaited his reply.

"Sir," answered the Dutchman after a moment's reflection, "I can only give you this reply: in Holland we have a proverb which says that the maids are the cross of our lives."

I was completely discouraged.

"First of all," he continued, "the annoyance of living in a large house is, that we are obliged to keep two servants, one for the kitchen and one for cleaning, since it is almost impossible, with the mania they have of washing the very air, that one servant can do both things. Then they have an unquenchable thirst for liberty: they insist on staying out till ten in the evening and on having an entire holiday every now and then. Moreover, their sweethearts must be allowed in the house, or they come to fetch them; we must let them dance in the streets, and they are up to all sorts of mischief during the Kirmess festival. Moreover, when they are discharged we are obliged to wait until they choose to go, and sometimes they delay for months. Add to this account, wages amounting to ninety or a hundred florins a year, as well as the payment of a certain percentage on all the bills the master pays, tips from all invited guests, and all sorts of especial presents of dress-goods and money from the master, and, above all and always, patience, patience, patience!"

I had heard enough to speak with authority to my mother, and I turned the conversation to a less distressing subject.

On passing a side street I observed a lady approach a door, read a piece of paper attached to it, make a gesture of distress, and pass on. A moment later another woman who was passing, also paused, read it, and went on. I asked my companion for an explanation, and he told me of a very curious Dutch custom. On that piece of paper was written the notice that a certain sick person was worse. In many towns of Holland, when any one is ill, the family posts such a bulletin on the door every day, so that friends and acquaintances are not obliged to enter the house to learn the news. This form of announcement is adopted on other occasions also. In some towns they announce the birth of a child by tying to the door a ball covered with red silk and lace, for which the Dutch word signifies a proof of birth. If the child is a girl, a piece of white paper is attached; if twins are born, the lace is double, and for some days after the appearance of the symbol a notice is posted to the effect that the mother and child are well and have passed a good night, or the contrary if it is otherwise. At one time, when there was the announcement of a birth on a door the creditors of the family were not allowed to knock for nine days; but I believe this custom has died out, although it must have had the beneficent virtue of promoting an increase in the population.

In that short walk through the streets of Delft I met some gloomy figures like those I had noticed at Rotterdam, without being able to determine whether they were priests, magistrates, or gravediggers, for in their dress and appearance they bore a certain resemblance to all three. They wore three-cornered hats, with long black veils which reached to the waist, swallow-tailed black coats, short black breeches, black stockings, black cloaks, buckled shoes, and white cravats and gloves, and they held in their hands sheets of paper bordered with black. My companion explained to me that they were called aanspreckers, an untranslatable Dutch word, and that their duty was to bear the information of deaths to the relatives and friends of the defunct and to make the announcement through the streets. Their dress differs in some particulars in the various provinces and also according to the religious faith of the deceased. In some towns they wear immense hats À la Don Basilio. They are generally very neat, and are sometimes dressed with a care that contrasts strangely with their business as messengers of death, or, as a traveller defines them, living funeral letters.

We noticed one of these men who had stopped in front of a house, and my companion drew my attention to the fact that the shutters were partly closed, and observed that there must be some one dead there. I asked who it was. "I do not know," he replied, "but, to judge from the shutters, it cannot be any near relative to the master of the house." As this method of arguing seemed rather strange to me, he explained that in Holland when any one dies in a family they shut the windows and one, two, or three of the divisions of the folding shutters accordingly as the relationship is near or distant. Each section of shutter denotes a degree of relationship. For a father or mother they close all but one, for a cousin they close one only, for a brother two, and so on. It appears that the custom is very old, and it still continues, because in that country no custom is discontinued for caprice; nothing is changed unless the alteration becomes a matter of serious importance, and unless the Hollanders have been more than persuaded that such a change is for the better.

I should like to have seen at Delft the house where was the tavern of the artist Steen, where he probably passed those famous debauches which have given rise to so many questions among his biographers. But my host told me that nothing was known about it. However, apropos of painters, he gave me the pleasing information that I was in the part of Holland, bounded by Delft, the Hague, the sea, the town of Alkmaar, the Gulf of Amsterdam, and the ancient Lake of Haarlem, which might be called the fatherland of Dutch painting, both because the greatest painters were born there, and because it presented such singularly picturesque effects that the artists loved and studied it devotedly. I was therefore in the bosom of Holland, and when I left Delft, I was going into its very heart.

Before leaving I again glanced hastily over the military arsenal, which occupies a large building, and which originally served as a warehouse to the East India Company. It is in communication with an artillery workshop and a great powder-magazine outside of the town. At Delft there still remains the great polytechnic school for engineers, the real military academy of Holland, for from it come forth the officers of the army that defends the country from the sea, and these young warriors of the dykes and locks, about three hundred in number, are they who give life to the peaceful town of Grotius.

As I was stepping into the vessel which was to bear me to the Hague, my Dutch friend described the last of those students' festivals at Delft which are celebrated once in five years. It was one of those pageants peculiar to Holland, a sort of historical masquerade like a reflection of the magnificence of the past, serving to remind the people of the traditions, the personages, and illustrious events of earlier times. A great cavalcade represented the entrance into Arnheim, in 1492, of Charles of Egmont, Duke of Gelderland, Count of Zutphen. He belonged to that family of Egmont which in the person of the noble and unfortunate Count Lamoral gave the first great martyr of Dutch liberty to the axe of the Duke of Alva. Two hundred students on richly caparisoned horses, clothed in armor, decorated with mantles embroidered with coats of arms, with waving plumes and large swords proudly brandished, formed the retinue of the Duke of Gelderland. Then came halberdiers, archers, and foot-soldiers dressed in the pompous fashion of the fifteenth century; bands played, the city blazed with lights, and through its streets flowed an immense crowd, which had come from every part of Holland to enjoy this splendid vision of a distant age.

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