Sainte Aldegonde especially was much pleased with the long interview which he had with me, alone, and which lasted more than three hours.

I told him, as well as my weakness and suffering from the tertian fever permitted, all that God inspired me to say on our behalf." Nevertheless, if Sainte Aldegonde and his colleagues went away thoroughly satisfied, they had reason, soon after their return, to become thoroughly dejected.

The magistrates and burghers would not listen to a proposition to abandon the three points, however strongly urged to do so by arguments drawn from the necessity of the situation, and by representations of Parma's benignity.

As for the burgomaster, he became the target for calumny, so soon as his three hours' private interview became known; and the citizens loudly declared that his head ought to be cut off, and sent in a bag, as a present, to Philip, in order that the traitor might meet the sovereign with whom he sought a reconciliation, face to face, as soon as possible.
The deputies, immediately after their return, made their report to the magistrates, as likewise to the colonels and captains, and to the deans of guilds.

Next day, although it was Sunday, there was a session of the broad council, and Sainte Aldegonde made a long address, in which--as he stated in a letter to Richardot--he related everything that had passed in his private conversation with Alexander.