Few had confidence in their capacity or their purity; but Orange, who knew mankind, recognized in them useful instruments for any hazardous enterprise.

They delighted in stratagems and sudden feats of arms.
Audacious and cruel by temperament, they were ever most happy in becoming a portion of the desolation which popular tumults engender.
There were several excited meetings of the four estates of Flanders immediately after the arrival of the Duke of Aerschot in Ghent.

His coming had been preceded by extensive promises, but it soon became obvious that their fulfilment was to be indefinitely deferred.

There was a stormy session on the 27th of October, many of the clergy and nobility being present, and comparatively few members of the third estate.

Very violent speeches were made, and threats openly uttered, that the privileges, about which so much noise had been heard, would be rather curtailed than enlarged under the new administration.