A man in the prime of his age, fair-haired, prematurely wrinkled, battered, and hideous of visage, with a hare-lip and a humpback; slovenly of dress, and always wearing an old grey hat without a band to it; audacious, cruel, crafty, and licentious--such was Ernest Mansfeld, whom some of his contemporaries spoke of as Ulysses Germanicus, others as the new Attila, all as a scourge to the human race.

The cockneys of Paris called him "Machefer," and nurses long kept children quiet by threatening them with that word.

He was now enrolled on the Protestant side, although at the moment serving Savoy against Spain in a question purely personal.

His armies, whether in Italy or in Germany, were a miscellaneous collection of adventurers of high and low degree, of all religions, of all countries, unfrocked priests and students, ruined nobles, bankrupt citizens, street vagabonds--earliest type perhaps of the horrible military vermin which were destined to feed so many years long on the unfortunate dismembered carcass of Germany.
Many demands had been made upon the States for assistance to Savoy,--as if they and they alone were to bear the brunt and pay the expense of all the initiatory campaigns against Spain.
"We are much importuned," said the Advocate, "to do something for the help of Savoy.

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