Part 4

The senators had come forth in a body to receive the burgrave and escort him to the hotel prepared for him. Arrived there, he lost no time in opening the business which had brought him to Antwerp. He held at once a long consultation with the upper branch of the government. Afterwards, day after day, he honestly, arduously, sagaciously labored to restore the public tranquillity. He held repeated deliberations with every separate portion of the little commonwealth, the senate, the council of ancients, the corporation of ward-masters, the deans of trades. Nor did he confine his communication to these organized political bodies alone. He had frequent interviews with the officers of the military associations, with the foreign merchant companies, with the guilds of "Rhetoric." The chambers of the "Violet" and the "Marigold" were not too frivolous or fantastic to be consulted by one who knew human nature and the constitution of Netherland society so well as did the Prince. Night and day he labored with all classes of citizens to bring about a better understanding, and to establish mutual confidence. At last by his efforts tranquillity was restored. The broad-council having been assembled, it was decided that the exercise of the Reformed religion should be excluded from the city, but silently tolerated in the suburbs, while an armed force was to be kept constantly in readiness to suppress all attempts at insurrection. The Prince had desired, that twelve hundred men should be enlisted and paid by the city, so that at least a small number of disciplined troops might be ready at a moment's warning; but he found it impossible to carry the point with the council. The magistrates were willing to hold themselves responsible for the peace of the city, but they would have no mercenaries.

Thus, during the remainder of July and the early part of August, was William of Orange strenuously occupied in doing what should have been the Regent's work. He was still regarded both by the Duchess and by the Calvinist party--although having the sympathies of neither,--as the only man in the Netherlands who could control the rising tide of a national revolt. He took care, said his enemies, that his conduct at Antwerp should have every appearance of loyalty; but they insinuated that he was a traitor from the beginning, who was insidiously fomenting the troubles which he appeared to rebuke. No one doubted his genius, and all felt or affected admiration at its display upon this critical occasion. "The Prince of Orange is doing very great and notable services at Antwerp to the King and to the country," said Assonleville. "That seignior is very skilful in managing great affairs." Margaret of Parma wrote letters to him fixed with the warmest gratitude, expressions of approbation, and of wishes that he could both remain in Antwerp and return to assist her in Brussels. Philip, too, with his own pen, addressed him a letter, in which implicit confidence in the Prince's character was avowed, all suspicion on the part of the Sovereign indignantly repudiated, earnest thanks for his acceptance of the Antwerp mission uttered, and a distinct refusal given to the earnest request made by Orange to resign his offices. The Prince read or listened to all this commendation, and valued it exactly at its proper worth. He knew it to be pure grimace. He was no more deceived by it than if he had read the letter sent by Margaret to Philip, a few weeks later, in which she expressed herself as "thoroughly aware that it was the intention of Orange to take advantage of the impending tumults, for the purpose of conquering the provinces and of dividing the whole territory among himself and friends." Nothing could be more utterly false than so vile and ridiculous a statement.

The course of the Prince had hitherto been, and was still, both consistent and loyal. He was proceeding step by step to place the monarch in the wrong, but the only art which he was using, was to plant himself more firmly upon the right. It was in the monarch's power to convoke the assembly of the states-general, so loudly demanded by the whole nation, to abolish the inquisition, to renounce persecution, to accept the great fact of the Reformation. To do so he must have ceased to be Philip. To have faltered in attempting to bring him into that path, the Prince must have ceased to be William of Orange. Had he succeeded, there would have been no treason and no Republic of Holland. His conduct at the outbreak of the Antwerp troubles was firm and sagacious. Even had his duty required him to put down the public preaching with peremptory violence, he had been furnished with no means to accomplish the purpose. The rebellion, if it were one, was already full-grown. It could not be taken by the throat and strangled with one hand, however firm.

A report that the High Sheriff of Brabant was collecting troops by command of government, in order to attack the Reformers at their field- preachings, went far to undo the work already accomplished by the Prince. The assemblages swelled again from ten or twelve thousand to twenty-five thousand, the men all providing themselves more thoroughly with weapons than before. Soon afterwards, the intemperate zeal of another individual, armed to the teeth--not, however, like the martial sheriff and his forces, with arquebus and javelin, but with the still more deadly weapons of polemical theology,--was very near causing a general outbreak. A peaceful and not very numerous congregation were listening to one of their preachers in a field outside the town. Suddenly an unknown individual in plain clothes and with a pragmatical demeanor, interrupted the discourse by giving a flat contradiction to some of the doctrines advanced. The minister replied by a rebuke, and a reiteration of the disputed sentiment.--The stranger, evidently versed in ecclesiastical matters, volubly and warmly responded. The preacher, a man of humble condition and moderate abilities, made as good show of argument as he could, but was evidently no match for his antagonist. He was soon vanquished in the wordy warfare. Well he might be, for it appeared that the stranger was no less a personage than Peter Rythovius, a doctor of divinity, a distinguished pedant of Louvain, a relation of a bishop and himself a Church dignitary. This learned professor, quite at home in his subject, was easily triumphant, while the poor dissenter, more accustomed to elevate the hearts of his hearers than to perplex their heads, sank prostrate and breathless under the storm of texts, glosses, and hard Hebrew roots with which he was soon overwhelmed. The professor's triumph was, however, but short-lived, for the simple-minded congregation, who loved their teacher, were enraged that he should be thus confounded. Without more ado, therefore, they laid violent hands upon the Quixotic knight-errant of the Church, and so cudgelled and belabored him bodily that he might perhaps have lost his life in the encounter had he not been protected by the more respectable portion of the assembly. These persons, highly disapproving the whole proceeding, forcibly rescued him from the assailants, and carried him off to town, where the news of the incident at once created an uproar. Here he was thrown into prison as a disturber of the peace, but in reality that he might be personally secure. The next day the Prince of Orange, after administering to him a severe rebuke for his ill-timed exhibition of pedantry, released him from confinement, and had him conveyed out of the city. "This theologian;" wrote the Prince to Duchess Margaret, "would have done better, methinks, to stay at home; for I suppose he had no especial orders to perform this piece of work."

Thus, so long as this great statesman could remain in the metropolis, his temperate firmness prevented the explosion which had so long been expected. His own government of Holland and Zeland, too, especially demanded his care. The field-preaching had spread in that region with prodigious rapidity. Armed assemblages, utterly beyond the power of the civil authorities, were taking place daily in the neighborhood of Amsterdam. Yet the Duchess could not allow him to visit his government in the north. If he could be spared from Antwerp for a day, it was necessary that he should aid her in a fresh complication with the confederated nobles in the very midst, therefore, of his Antwerp labors, he had been obliged, by Margaret's orders, to meet a committee at Duffel. For in this same eventful month of July a great meeting was held by the members of the Compromise at St. Trond, in the bishopric of Liege. They came together on the thirteenth of the month, and remained assembled till the beginning of August. It was a wild, tumultuous convention, numbering some fifteen hundred cavaliers, each with his esquires and armed attendants; a larger and more important gathering than had yet been held. Brederode and Count Louis were the chieftains of the assembly, which, as may be supposed from its composition and numbers, was likely to be neither very orderly in its demonstrations nor wholesome in its results. It was an ill-timed movement. The convention was too large for deliberation, too riotous to inspire confidence. The nobles quartered themselves every where in the taverns and the farm-houses of the neighborhood, while large numbers encamped upon the open fields. There was a constant din of revelry and uproar, mingled with wordy warfare, and an occasional crossing of swords. It seemed rather like a congress of ancient, savage Batavians, assembled in Teutonic fashion to choose a king amid hoarse shouting, deep drinking, and the clash of spear and shield, than a meeting for a lofty and earnest purpose, by their civilized descendants. A crowd of spectators, landlopers, mendicants, daily aggregated themselves to the aristocratic assembly, joining, with natural unction, in the incessant shout of "Vivent les gueux!" It was impossible that so soon after their baptism the self-styled beggars should repudiate all connection with the time-honored fraternity in which they had enrolled themselves.

The confederates discussed--if an exchange of vociferations could be called discussion--principally two points: whether, in case they obtained the original objects of their petition, they should pause or move still further onward; and whether they should insist upon receiving some pledge from the government, that no vengeance should be taken upon them for their previous proceedings. Upon both questions, there was much vehemence of argument and great difference of opinion. They, moreover, took two very rash and very grave resolutions--to guarantee the people against all violence on account of their creeds, and to engage a force of German soldiery, four thousand horse and forty companies of infantry by, "wart geld" or retaining wages. It was evident that these gentlemen were disposed to go fast and far. If they had been ready in the spring to receive their baptism of wine, the "beggars" were now eager for the baptism of blood. At the same time it must be observed that the levies which they proposed, not to make, but to have at command, were purely for defence. In case the King, as it was thought probable, should visit the Netherlands with fire and sword, then there would be a nucleus of resistance already formed.

Upon the 18th July, the Prince of Orange, at the earnest request of the Regent, met a committee of the confederated nobles at Duffel. Count Egmont was associated with him in this duty. The conference was not very satisfactory. The deputies from St. Trend, consisting of Brederode, Culemburg, and others, exchanged with the two seigniors the old arguments. It was urged upon the confederates, that they had made themselves responsible for the public tranquillity so long as the Regent should hold to her promise; that, as the Duchess had sent two distinguished envoys to Madrid, in order to accomplish, if possible, the wishes of the nobles, it was their duty to redeem their own pledges; that armed assemblages ought to be suppressed by their efforts rather than encouraged by their, example; and that, if they now exerted themselves zealously to check, the tumults, the Duchess was ready to declare, in her own-name and that of his Majesty, that the presentation of the Request had been beneficial.

The nobles replied that the pledges had become a farce, that the Regent was playing them false, that persecution was as fierce as ever, that the "Moderation" was a mockery, that the letters recommending "modesty and discretion" to the inquisitors had been mere waste paper, that a price had been set upon the heads of the preachers as if they had been wild beasts, that there were constant threats of invasions from Spain, that the convocation of the states-general had been illegally deferred, that the people had been driven to despair, and that it was the conduct of government, not of the confederates, which had caused the Reformers to throw off previous restraint and to come boldly forth by tens of thousands into the fields, not to defy their King, but to worship their God.

Such, in brief, was the conference of Duffel. In conclusion, a paper was drawn up which Brederode carried back to the convention, and which it was proposed to submit to the Duchess for her approval. At the end of the month, Louis of Nassau was accordingly sent to Brussels, accompanied by twelve associates, who were familiarly called his twelve apostles. Here he laid before her Highness in council a statement, embodying the views of the confederates. In this paper they asserted that they were ever ready to mount and ride against a foreign foe, but that they would never draw a sword against their innocent countrymen. They maintained that their past conduct deserved commendation, and that in requiring letters of safe conduct in the names both of the Duchess and of the Fleece- knights, they were governed not by a disposition to ask for pardon, but by a reluctance without such guarantees to enter into stipulations touching the public tranquillity. If, however, they should be assured that the intentions of the Regent were amicable and that there was no design to take vengeance for the past--if, moreover, she were willing to confide in the counsels of Horn, Egmont, and Orange, and to take no important measure without their concurrence--if, above all, she would convoke the states-general, then, and then only, were the confederates willing to exert their energies to preserve peace, to restrain popular impetuosity and banish universal despair.

So far Louis of Nassau and his twelve apostles. It must be confessed that, whatever might be thought of the justice, there could be but one opinion as to the boldness of these views. The Duchess was furious. If the language held in April had been considered audacious, certainly this new request was, in her own words, "still more bitter to the taste and more difficult of digestion." She therefore answered in a very unsatisfactory, haughty and ambiguous manner, reserving decision upon their propositions till they had been discussed by the state council, and intimating that they would also be laid before the Knights of the Fleece, who were to hold a meeting upon the 26th of August.

There was some further conversation without any result. Esquerdes complained that the confederates were the mark of constant calumny, and demanded that the slanderers should be confronted with them and punished. "I understand perfectly well," interrupted Margaret, "you wish to take justice into your own hands and to be King yourself." It was further intimated by these reckless gentlemen, that if they should be driven by violence into measures of self-protection, they had already secured friends in a certain country. The Duchess, probably astonished at the frankness of this statement, is said to have demanded further explanations. The confederates replied by observing that they had resources both in the provinces and in Germany. The state council decided that to accept the propositions of the confederates would be to establish a triumvirate at once, and the Duchess wrote to her brother distinctly advising against the acceptance of the proposal. The assembly at St. Trond was then dissolved, having made violent demonstrations which were not followed by beneficial results, and having laid itself open to various suspicions, most of which were ill-founded, while some of them were just.

Before giving the reader a brief account of the open and the secret policy pursued by the government at Brussels and Madrid, in consequence of these transactions, it is now necessary to allude to a startling series of events, which at this point added to the complications of the times, and exercised a fatal influence upon the situation of the commonwealth.

1566 [CHAPTER VII.]

Ecclesiastical architecture in the Netherlands--The image-breaking-- Description of Antwerp Cathedral--Ceremony of the Ommegang-- Precursory disturbances--Iconoclasts at Antwerp--Incidents of the image--breaking in various cities--Events at Tournay--Preaching of Wille--Disturbance by a little boy--Churches sacked at Tournay-- Disinterment of Duke Adolphus of Gueldres--Iconoclasts defeated and massacred at Anchin--Bartholomew's Day at Valenciennes--General characteristics of the image-breaking--Testimony of contemporaries as to the honesty of the rioters--Consternation of the Duchess-- Projected flight to Mons--Advice of Horn and other seigniors-- Accord of 25th August.

The Netherlands possessed an extraordinary number of churches and monasteries. Their exquisite architecture and elaborate decoration had been the earliest indication of intellectual culture displayed in the country. In the vast number of cities, towns, and villages which were crowded upon that narrow territory, there had been, from circumstances operating throughout Christendom, a great accumulation of ecclesiastical wealth. The same causes can never exist again which at an early day covered the soil of Europe with those magnificent creations of Christian art. It was in these anonymous but entirely original achievements that Gothic genius; awaking from its long sleep of the dark ages, first expressed itself. The early poetry of the German races was hewn and chiselled in atone. Around the steadfast principle of devotion then so firmly rooted in the soil, clustered the graceful and vigorous emanations of the newly-awakened mind. All that science could invent, all that art could embody, all that mechanical ingenuity could dare, all that wealth could lavish, whatever there was of human energy which was panting for pacific utterance, wherever there stirred the vital principle which instinctively strove to create and to adorn at an epoch when vulgar violence and destructiveness were the general tendencies of humanity, all gathered around these magnificent temples, as their aspiring pinnacles at last pierced the mist which had so long brooded over the world.

There were many hundreds of churches, more or less remarkable, in the Netherlands. Although a severe criticism might regret to find in these particular productions of the great Germanic school a development of that practical tendency which distinguished the Batavian and Flemish branches,--although it might recognize a departure from that mystic principle which, in its efforts to symbolize the strivings of humanity towards the infinite object of worship above, had somewhat disregarded the wants of the worshippers below,--although the spaces might be too wide and the intercolumniations too empty, except for the convenience of congregations; yet there were, nevertheless, many ecclesiastical masterpieces, which could be regarded as very brilliant manifestations of the Batavian and Belgic mind during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Many were filled with paintings from a school which had precedence in time and merit over its sister nurseries of art in Germany. All were peopled with statues. All were filled with profusely-adorned chapels, for the churches had been enriched generation after generation by wealthy penitence, which had thus purchased absolution for crime and smoothed a pathway to heaven.

And now, for the space of only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which all these treasures were destroyed. Nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents; not for the purpose of plunder, but of destruction. Hardly a province or a town escaped. Art must forever weep over this bereavement; Humanity must regret that the reforming is thus always ready to degenerate into the destructive principle; but it is impossible to censure very severely the spirit which prompted the brutal, but not ferocious deed. Those statues, associated as they were with the remorseless persecution which had so long desolated the provinces, had ceased to be images. They had grown human and hateful, so that the people arose and devoted them to indiscriminate massacre.

No doubt the iconoclastic fury is to be regretted; for such treasures can scarcely be renewed. The age for building and decorating great cathedrals is past. Certainly, our own age, practical and benevolent, if less poetical, should occupy itself with the present, and project itself into the future. It should render glory to God rather by causing wealth to fertilize the lowest valleys of humanity, than by rearing gorgeous temples where paupers are to kneel. To clothe the naked, redeem the criminal, feed the hungry, less by alms and homilies than by preventive institutions and beneficent legislation; above all, by the diffusion of national education, to lift a race upon a level of culture hardly attained by a class in earlier times, is as lofty a task as to accumulate piles of ecclesiastical splendor.

It would be tedious to recount in detail the events which characterized the remarkable image-breaking in the Netherlands. As Antwerp was the central point in these transactions, and as there was more wealth and magnificence in the great cathedral of that city than in any church of northern Europe, it is necessary to give a rapid outline of the events which occurred there. From its exhibition in that place the spirit every where will best be shown.

The Church of Our Lady, which Philip had so recently converted into a cathedral, dated from the year 1124, although it may be more fairly considered a work of the fourteenth century. Its college of canons had been founded in another locality by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Brabantine hero, who so romantically incarnates the religious poetry of his age, who first mounted the walls of redeemed Jerusalem, and was its first Christian monarch, but who refused to accept a golden diadem on the spot where the Saviour had been crowned with thorns; the Fleming who lived and was the epic which the great Italian, centuries afterwards; translated into immortal verse, is thus fitly associated with the beautiful architectural poem which was to grace his ancestral realms. The body of the church, the interior and graceful perspectives of which were not liable to the reproach brought against many Netherland churches, of assimilating themselves already to the municipal palaces which they were to suggest--was completed in the fourteenth century. The beautiful facade, with its tower, was not completed till the year 1518. The exquisite and daring spire, the gigantic stem upon which the consummate flower of this architectural creation was to be at last unfolded, was a plant of a whole century's growth. Rising to a height of nearly five hundred feet, over a church of as many feet in length, it worthily represented the upward tendency of Gothic architecture. Externally and internally the cathedral was a true expression of the Christian principle of devotion. Amid its vast accumulation of imagery, its endless ornaments, its multiplicity of episodes, its infinite variety of details, the central, maternal principle was ever visible. Every thing pointed upwards, from the spire in the clouds to the arch which enshrined the smallest sculptured saint in the chapels below. It was a sanctuary, not like pagan temples, to enclose a visible deity, but an edifice where mortals might worship an unseen Being in the realms above.

The church, placed in the centre of the city, with the noisy streets of the busiest metropolis in Europe eddying around its walls, was a sacred island in the tumultuous main. Through the perpetual twilight, tall columnar trunks in thick profusion grew from a floor chequered with prismatic lights and sepulchral shadows. Each shaft of the petrified forest rose to a preternatural height, their many branches intermingling in the space above, to form an impenetrable canopy. Foliage, flowers and fruit of colossal luxuriance, strange birds, beasts, griffins and chimeras in endless multitudes, the rank vegetation and the fantastic zoology of a fresher or fabulous world, seemed to decorate and to animate the serried trunks and pendant branches, while the shattering symphonies or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the wind through the forest, now the full diapason of the storm and now the gentle cadence of the evening breeze.

Internally, the whole church was rich beyond expression. All that opulent devotion and inventive ingenuity could devise, in wood, bronze, marble, silver, gold, precious jewelry, or blazing sacramental furniture, had been profusely lavished. The penitential tears of centuries had incrusted the whole interior with their glittering stalactites. Divided into five naves, with external rows of chapels, but separated by no screens or partitions, the great temple forming an imposing whole, the effect was the more impressive, the vistas almost infinite in appearance. The wealthy citizens, the twenty-seven guilds, the six military associations, the rhythmical colleges, besides many other secular or religious sodalities, had each their own chapels and altars. Tombs adorned with the effigies of mailed crusaders and pious dames covered the floor, tattered banners hung in the air, the escutcheons of the Golden Fleece, an order typical of Flemish industry, but of which Emperors and Kings were proud to be the chevaliers, decorated the columns. The vast and beautifully-painted windows glowed with scriptural scenes, antique portraits, homely allegories, painted in those brilliant and forgotten colors which Art has not ceased to deplore. The daylight melting into gloom or colored with fantastic brilliancy, priests in effulgent robes chanting in unknown language, the sublime breathing of choral music, the suffocating odors of myrrh and spikenard, suggestive of the oriental scenery and imagery of Holy Writ, all combined to bewilder and exalt the senses. The highest and humblest seemed to find themselves upon the same level within those sacred precincts, where even the bloodstained criminal was secure, and the arm of secular justice was paralyzed.

But the work of degeneration had commenced. The atmosphere of the cathedral was no longer holy in the eyes of increasing multitudes. Better the sanguinary rites of Belgic Druids, better the yell of slaughtered victims from the "wild wood without mercy" of the pagan forefathers of the nation, than this fantastic intermingling of divine music, glowing colors, gorgeous ceremonies, with all the burning, beheading and strangling work which had characterized the system of human sacrifice for the past half-century.

Such was the church of Notre Dame at Antwerp. Thus indifferent or hostile towards the architectural treasure were the inhabitants of a city, where in a previous age the whole population would have risked their lives to defend what they esteemed the pride and garland of their metropolis.

The Prince of Orange had been anxiously solicited by the Regent to attend the conference at Duffel. After returning to Antwerp, he consented, in consequence of the urgent entreaties of the senate, to delay his departure until the 18th of August should be past. On the 13th of that month he had agreed with the magistrates upon an ordinance, which was accordingly published, and by which the preachings were restricted to the fields. A deputation of merchants and others waited upon him with a request to be permitted the exercises of the Reformed religion in the city. This petition the Prince peremptorily refused, and the deputies, as well as their constituents, acquiesced in the decision, "out of especial regard and respect for his person." He, however, distinctly informed the Duchess that it would be difficult or impossible to maintain such a position long, and that his departure from the city would probably be followed by an outbreak. He warned her that it was very imprudent for him to leave Antwerp at that particular juncture. Nevertheless, the meeting of the Fleece-knights seemed, in Margaret's opinion, imperatively to require his presence in Brussels. She insisted by repeated letters that he should leave Antwerp immediately.

Upon the 18th August, the great and time-honored ceremony of the Ommegang occurred. Accordingly, the great procession, the principal object of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin, issued as usual from the door of the cathedral. The image, bedizened and effulgent, was borne aloft upon the shoulders of her adorers, followed by the guilds, the military associations, the rhetoricians, the religious sodalities, all in glittering costume, bearing blazoned banners, and marching triumphantly through the streets with sound of trumpet and beat of drum. The pageant, solemn but noisy, was exactly such a show as was most fitted at that moment to irritate Protestant minds and to lead to mischief. No violent explosion of ill-feeling, however, took place. The procession was followed by a rabble rout of scoffers, but they confined themselves to words and insulting gestures. The image was incessantly saluted, as she was borne along--the streets, with sneers, imprecations, and the rudest, ribaldry. "Mayken! Mayken!" (little Mary) "your hour is come. 'Tis your last promenade. The city is tired of you." Such were the greetings which the representative of the Holy Virgin received from men grown weary of antiquated mummery. A few missiles were thrown occasionally at the procession as it passed through the city, but no damage was inflicted. When the image was at last restored to its place, and the pageant brought to a somewhat hurried conclusion, there seemed cause for congratulation that no tumult had occurred.

On the following morning there was a large crowd collected in front of the cathedral. The image, instead of standing in the centre of the church, where, upon all former occasions, it had been accustomed during the week succeeding the ceremony to receive congratulatory, visits, was now ignominiously placed behind an iron railing within the choir. It had been deemed imprudent to leave it exposed to sacrilegious hands. The precaution excited derision. Many vagabonds of dangerous appearance, many idle apprentices and ragged urchins were hanging for a long time about the imprisoned image, peeping through the railings, and indulging in many a brutal jest. "Mayken! Mayken!" they cried; "art thou terrified so soon? Hast flown to thy nest so early? Dost think thyself beyond the reach of mischief? Beware, Mayken! thine hour is fast approaching!" Others thronged around the balustrade, shouting "Vivent les gueux!" and hoarsely commanding the image to join in the beggars' cry. Then, leaving the spot, the mob roamed idly about the magnificent church, sneering at the idols, execrating the gorgeous ornaments, scoffing at crucifix and altar.

Presently one of the rabble, a ragged fellow of mechanical aspect, in a tattered black doublet and an old straw hat, ascended the pulpit. Opening a sacred volume which he found there, he began to deliver an extemporaneous and coarse caricature of a monkish sermon. Some of the bystanders applauded, some cried shame, some shouted "long live the beggars!" some threw sticks and rubbish at the mountebank, some caught him by the legs and strove to pull him from the place. He, on the other hand, manfully maintained his ground, hurling back every missile, struggling with his assailants, and continuing the while to pour forth a malignant and obscene discourse. At last a young sailor, warm in the Catholic Faith, and impulsive as mariners are prone to be, ascended the pulpit from behind, sprang upon the mechanic, and flung him headlong down the steps. The preacher grappled with his enemy as he fell, and both came rolling to the ground. Neither was much injured, but a tumult ensued. A pistol-shot was fired, and the sailor wounded in the arm. Daggers were drawn, cudgels brandished, the bystanders taking part generally against the sailor, while those who protected him were somewhat bruised and belabored before they could convey him out of the church. Nothing more, however, transpired that day, and the keepers of the cathedral were enabled to expel the crowd and to close the doors for the night.