important fortress, which was erected, as its position most plainly
manifested, not to protect, but to control the commercial capital of the
provinces. It stood at the edge of the city, only separated from its
walls by an open esplanade. It was the most perfect pentagon in Europe,
having one of its sides resting on the Scheld, two turned towards the
city, and two towards the open country. Five bastions, with walls of
hammered stone, connected by curtains of turf and masonry, surrounded by
walls measuring a league in circumference, and by an outer moat fed by
the Scheld, enclosed a spacious enceinte, where a little church with many
small lodging-houses, shaded by trees and shrubbery, nestled among the
bristling artillery, as if to mimic the appearance of a peaceful and
pastoral village. To four of the five bastions, the Captain-General,
with characteristic ostentation, gave his own names and titles. One was
called the Duke, the second Ferdinando, a third Toledo, a fourth Alva,
while the fifth was baptized with the name of the ill-fated engineer,
Pacheco. The Watergate was decorated with the escutcheon of Alva,
surrounded by his Golden Fleece collar, with its pendant lamb of God; a
symbol of blasphemous irony, which still remains upon the fortress, to
recal the image of the tyrant and murderer. Each bastion was honeycombed
with casemates and subterranean storehouses, and capable of containing
within its bowels a vast supply of provisions, munitions, and soldiers.
Such was the celebrated citadel built to tame the turbulent spirit of
Antwerp, at the cost of those whom it was to terrify and to insult.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Conde and Coligny
Furnished, in addition, with a force of two thousand prostitutes
He came as a conqueror not as a mediator
Hope deferred, suddenly changing to despair
Meantime the second civil war in France had broken out
Spendthrift of time, he was an economist of blood
The greatest crime, however, was to be rich
Time and myself are two