Now that the massacre to be averted was accomplished, men were loud in reproof, who had been silent, and passive while there was yet time to speak and to work.

It was the Prince, they said, who had delivered so many thousands of his fellow-countrymen to, butchery.

To save himself, they insinuated he was now plotting to deliver the land into the power of the treacherous Frenchman, and he alone, they asserted, was the insuperable obstacle to an honorable peace with Spain.
A letter, brought by an unknown messenger, was laid before the states' assembly, in full session, and sent to the clerk's table, to be read aloud.

After the first few sentences, that functionary faltered in his recital.

Several members also peremptorily ordered him to stop; for the letter proved to be a violent and calumnious libel upon Orange, together with a strong appeal in favor of the peace propositions then under debate at Cologne.