The whole population was awake, and swarming through the streets.
Such a tumult had not for years been witnessed in Brussels, and the rumour flew about and was generally believed that the King of France at the head of an army was at the gates of the city determined to carry off the Princess by force.

But although the superfluous and very scandalous explosion might have been prevented, there could be no doubt that the stratagem had been defeated.
Nevertheless, the effrontery and ingenuity of de Coeuvres became now sublime.

Accompanied by his colleague, the resident minister, de Berny, who was sure not to betray the secret because he had never known it--his wife alone having been in the confidence of the Princess--he proceeded straightway to the Archduke's palace, and, late in the night as it was, insisted on an audience.
Here putting on his boldest face when admitted to the presence, he complained loudly of the plot, of which he had just become aware, contrived by the Prince of Conde to carry off his wife to Spain against her will, by main force, and by assistance of Flemish nobles, archiducal body-guard, and burgher militia.
It was all a plot of Conde, he said, to palliate still more his flight from France.

Every one knew that the Princess could not fly back to Paris through the air.

To take her out of a house filled with people, to pierce or scale the walls of the city, to arrange her journey by ordinary means, and to protect the whole route by stations of cavalry, reaching from Brussels to the frontier, and to do all this in profound secrecy, was equally impossible.