been for some time absent from her. "The Sire de Viry," says she, "has imparted to me your commands that I should go to meet you, but I am unhappily too weak. I must wait at least six or eight days, during which time I can, if it pleases God, take the air as far as the Hague, in order to see what I am equal to." And on the 3d of April she thus writes:-" Respecting my state, I have at moments apprehended danger, which annoyed me, on account of your absence; but now I have no more apprehension, but hope, on the contrary, with God's help, for a return of good health. I have from time to time fits of faintness-a weakness to which I am, as you know, subject, but I hope that will also cease."1 The numerous personal dangers which beset the prince's path also occasioned her no small anxiety. Not only was he surrounded with the perils necessarily incident to war, but he was exposed to the risk of being assassinated by the unprincipled emissaries of Spain and Rome, hurried on to the perpretation of the horrid deed by a relentless fanaticism, as well as by a tempting bribe-the price set upon his head. He himself was not insensible to these dangers; but he was exempt from the restlessness, suspicion, and stern character almost invariably acquired by public men whose lives are constantly threatened by the dagger of some assassin. He had uniformly consulted the good of his country in preference to his own particular interests; and in his career, when most triumphant, he had never been wantonly cruel, and had never betrayed haughtiness or insolence of demeanour. His lofty patriotism, therefore, an approving conscience, and, crowning all, well-founded Christian hope, composed his mind in an uncommon degree in the midst of threatened dangers. But the princess, from feminine softness, was more susceptible to alarming impressions, and especially after he had been proscribed by the Spanish monarch. What she dreaded was attempted, and and well nigh with fatal issue, in 1582. 1 Baroness Blaze de Bury's Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, &c., pp. 44, 45. Le., " undisturbed in the midst of the stormy waves."-Maurier, p. 114. In that year John de Jaureguy, a young man aged about twenty years, a Spaniard of Biscay by birth, who served in a bank at Antwerp, was instigated by the master of the bank, Gaspard d'Annastro, also of Spanish birth, to attempt the destruction of the Prince of Orange. Annastro, being on the verge of bankruptcy, hoped, by the large reward offered by the Spanish monarch, to retrieve his ruined fortunes; and to satisfy his conscience as to the lawfulness of the deed, he had, according to his own account, consulted the priests of Spain, who assured him that whoever should assassinate this proscribed heretic would perform a highly meritorious action. Conceiving that it would not be difficult to engage Jaureguy in this desperate enterprise, and judging that, from his gloomy and obstinate temper, if once engaged, he would not shrink from the hazards of its execution, Annastro sent for him, and, in a state of great agita tion, disclosed to him his bloody project. "Did I not know," said Annastro, "your fidelity, your constancy, and your sincere piety, I would not address myself to you in the present unhappy state of the public affairs and of my own. You see my eyes quite red and soaked with weeping, and I believe you are not ignorant of the cause; for it is long since I noticed how sensible you are to the outrages done to our sovereign, and how, though born in Spain as well as I, you do not fail to be touched with the calamities of these provinces, which are to us as an adopted country." Then representing the prince as the cause and author of all these calamities, he comes to the disclosure of his daring purpose. "This man," says he, “we must destroy, if we would discharge our duty to God, to the king, and to the country. The king promises great rewards, but I am less moved by these though they may be useful in the present state of my affairs, and also of yours-than by the duty which conscience imposes upon us." On concluding this speech he burst into tears, and believing that Jaureguy, from his manner and fixed look, cordially entered into the conspiracy, Annastro fell upon the neck of the youth, and warmly embraced him. Jaureguy immediately answered with an intrepid air, "I am quite prepared; I am now confirmed in a design I have long ago meditated. I despise the danger and the conditions; I desire no reward, for I am resolved to die. I only ask of you one favour-to pray God, on my account, to incline the king to be kind to my father, and not to leave the old man to die in misery." Everything being arranged, Jaureguy was to carry his desperate purpose into execution on Sabbath, the 18th of March. On the morning of that day a Dominican monk, named Timmerman, came to confess him in the house of Annastro. The monk, who, like the Spanish priests whom Annastro had consulted, approved of Jaureguy's design, as his motives were not avarice, but the glory of God, the service of the king, and the good of his country, fortified him in his resolution, persuaded him that he should go invisible, for which end he gave him some characters in paper, frogs' bones, and other magical charms, administered to him absolution, and subsequently the mass, as a sure passport to heaven should he lose his life in the enterprise. Jaureguy, besides, "carried about him, in the fashion of an amulet, prayers, in which he invoked the merciful Deity, who appeared to men in the person of Christ, to aid the murder with his favour, promising that Being a part of the booty, as it were, should the deed be successful, viz., for the mother of God of Bayonne a garment, a lamp, and a crown; for the mother of God of Aranzosu a crown; and for the Lord Christ himself a very rich curtain!" Such is Jesuit morality; for Timmerman and Jaureguy acted not merely from the impulse of their own fanatical dispositions, but in conformity with the explicit doctrines of Jesuitism, which, upon the principle that the end sanctifies the means, have baptized murder, when the good of the church may be thereby promoted, as a meritorious action, and taught the murderer to believe, as he passed, his hands reeking with the blood of his victim, into the presence of his judge, that the atrocious deed had merited for him the kingdom of heaven. Protected by so many mysterious charms, and having drunk a 1 Ranke's Hist. of the Popes, book v. glass of foreign wine, Jaureguy went to the castle of Antwerp, the residence of the Prince of Orange, accompanied by Timmerman, who continued to exhort him and to confirm him in his resolution, until they arrived at the foot of the stairs of the prince's court, where the ghostly father, having given him his blessing, left him and went away. The prince had attended sermon at the chapel in the morning, and on returning to the castle had sat down to dinner with the princess, his children, many of the nobility, and persons of quality. Jaureguy, who had succeeded in getting even into the dining chamber, being taken, from his French dress, for the servant of some French nobleman present, repeatedly pressed to get near the person of the prince, but was always repulsed. When, on dinner being ended, the prince, as he was passing, attended by the company, from the hall to his withdrawing chamber, stopped to show the Count of Laval the tapestry, in which were wrought the cruelties practised by the Spaniards in the Netherlands, Jaureguy, who was watching in the hall, now found a more favourable opportunity for executing his purpose. The guards, observing him, would have put him out, but were prevented by the prince, who reprimanded them, saying that it was some citizen who wished to see him; a courtesy which proved nearly fatal to his life. Presenting a pistol above the shoulder of the Count of Laval, the assassin fired upon the prince with effect. The bullet having entered at the throat, under his right ear, passed through the palate, under the upper jaw, and went out by the left cheek, near the nose, breaking one, some say several of his teeth, but leaving the tongue untouched. The prince was stunned with the wound, and thought, as he afterwards declared to Philip Du Plessis Mornay, that the house had fallen, and buried him in its ruins. Immediately after, he became so weak that he would have fallen, had he not been supported. Having recovered from his stupor, he suspected, from the agitation and muttering of those about him, and from observing the hair of his head singed, and his ruffle burned, which had been caused by the fire of the pistol, in consequence of the weapon having been fired so near him, that an attempt had been made on his life. But the generous and noblehearted William begged them to spare the assassin, adding, "I forgive him with all my heart." The ruffian, however, had been already despatched. The noblemen and gentlemen who were in the chamber, and the body-guard, unable to control themselves, had instantly and simultaneously rushed upon him, and put an end to his life by many wounds inflicted with their swords.1 The prince, who was of a robust and healthy constitution, rapidly rallied. The fire of the pistol, from the nearness of the weapon to its victim, having entered with the bullet into the wound, had cauterized the jugular vein, and consequently stanched the blood. But on the tenth day the scar which had formed on the wound fell off, and the blood began to flow anew so abundantly as to threaten immediate dissolution, baffling all the attempts employed to stop it. In this emergency, Leonard Botal, physician of the Duke of Brabant, advised that the bleeding should be stopped by a continued pressure of the thumb on the wound. But this means, notwithstanding its being employed by a succession of attendants for several days, would, without the intervention of an accidental circumstance, have failed to save the prince's life; for though the pressure kept the wound closed on the outside, the bleeding continued to go on internally, and to such an extent that Du Plessis Mornay, as he informs us, one morning saw the prince vomit more than five pounds of blood. The true cause of the preservation of his life was the stoppage of the bleeding by a small portion of lint, softened by a little ointment, which the physicians had inadvertently pushed farther into the wound than they intended, and which they had in vain endeavoured to take out. After some days, nature, with a little assistance, drove it back, when at the end of it was found a little white pus, a proof that the vein was closed.2 This unforeseen attempt on the prince's life gave a severe shock to the sensitive frame of the princess. She rushed to the spot 1 De Thou, tom. vi., liv. lxxv., pp. 178–181.--Grimeston's History of the Netherlands, pp. 676, 677. 2 De Thou, tom. vi., liv. lxxv., pp. 182, 183. |