As one after another of the cities helplessly fell, someone asked why Louis came himself--why he did not send his valet?
Louis insolently demanded as the price of peace the surrender of all their fortified cities, the payment of twenty million francs, and the renunciation of the Protestant faith.
The answer of William of Nassau was an unexpected one.

The history of modern times has nothing more heroic than this little mercantile state defying the greatest potentate in Europe.

William of Nassau knew perfectly well that every battle meant defeat.

The thing to do was to make battles impossible by inundating their fertile fields.

When he saw the destruction of life and property in one scale and political slavery in the other, he did not hesitate.