The Ruward would soon be slinking back to his lair, he observed, and leave them all in the fangs of their enemies.

Meantime, it was better to rush into the embrace of a bountiful king, who was still holding forth his arms to them.

They were approaching a precipice, said the Prior; they were entering a labyrinth; and not only was the "sempiternal loss of body and soul impending over them, but their property was to be taken also, and the cat to be thrown against their legs." By this sudden descent into a very common proverbial expression, Sarrasin meant to intimate that they were getting themselves into a difficult position, in which they were sure to reap both danger and responsibility.
The harangue had much effect upon his hearers, who were now more than ever determined to rebel against the government which they had so recently accepted, preferring, in the words of the Prior, "to be maltreated by their prince, rather than to be barbarously tyrannized over by a heretic." So much anger had been excited in celestial minds by a demand of thirty-five hundred florins.
Saint Aldegonde was entertained in the evening at a great banquet, followed by a theological controversy, in which John Sarrasin complained that "he had been attacked upon his own dunghill." Next day the distinguished patriot departed on a canvassing tour among the principal cities; the indefatigable monk employing the interval of his absence in aggravating the hostility of the Artesian orders to the pecuniary demands of the general government.

He was assisted in his task by a peremptory order which came down from Brussels, ordering, in the name of Matthias, a levy upon the ecclesiastical property, "rings, jewels, and reliquaries," unless the clerical contribution should be forthcoming.

The rage of the bench was now intense, and by the time of Saint Aldegonde's return a general opposition had been organized.