The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-01-26

moat He had provided himself with bladders,
having pipes attached, so that he could blow
them full of air and they would help him IN
swimming across the moat where he had a horse
in waiting. But inst as the ramparts were close
before him, he stumbled over o heap OF ru bbish.
The msstep was fatal. A number of pages and
halberdiers had given chase when he ran, and
as he struggled to his knees after falling, they
seized him and returned with him to the house.
He did not deny the deed, but gloried in It, The
city magistrates Immediately convened o court
in the Princes house, and held preliminary
examination of the prisoner, after which he was
heavily ironed and thrown into dungeon.
The popular grief at the death of this man,
and the popular rage against the ianatical assas-
sin, may be appreciated more fully by us Ame-
ricans than by any other people of the present
day; for like griet prevailed among MS, with
like occasion, but recently; and il is doubtless
true that our first fury OF Indignation against
Booth was equal TO that which the Meth erlanders
felt against Gerard. But the tortures our anger
would have led us to infict upon Booth would
been captured alive, for our civilization
would have revolted at it, as it now ie-
volts at the suflerings OF Balthazar Gerard
William of Orange had saved from tor
with the same deadly intent, and he would have
done ae much for Gerard; but the Prince was
gone, and there was no man in the Netherlands
who could or would intercede for his assassin.
He was put upon the rack, and from day to day
endured the most frighttul pains with compo-
sure so astounding that his Judges believed he
was protected by witchcratt In the intervals
OF repose IN the torture, he conversed calmly
and intelhgently and avowed that the PROS
pect of dying a thousand deaths would
not deter him from again attempting the
CRIME, If he were free and William hv-
ing. A shirt from the body of a hospital
patient, supposed to be sorcerer, was put upon
Gerard but, as may be supposed, it had no effect
in breaking up his wonderful composure and
fortitude; lie, would, raise, his bloody head from
the bench and cry, blasphemously the words
Christ uttered on the Cross, 'Ecce h0nlOW ('Be-
hold the manl") To the judges, in return for
the food they gave him in prison, he said that
he would serve as their advocate in the courts of
heaven. He wrote deliberately full account of
the motives that had impelled him to the COM
mission OF the crime, and the means by which
he had succeeded in bringing IL to pass; but he
took care in what he said, to avoid duplicating
the Duke of Parma.
Tie trightful sentence which was finally passed
upon the assassin was carried out to the letter,
with a cruelty so fierce that the gentle spirit OF
the assassinated Prince might almost have been
expected to rise gfrom the grave to protest
against it. 1t was on the 14th of July that the
horrible spectacle took place, in the presence oil
a ieering crowd of spectators. His Joints had
been already put out ard in place by the rack,
and his body was SCARED and roasted 10y the
flames of previous torture, but he mounted the
scatfold with calm and unshrinSng nerves. The
pistol which had sent the fatal ball into the
Princes body was broken in pieces by the nam
mer of one of the eXecutloners as the first step
in the ceremony. In doing this, the eXecu-
tioner was hit upon the ear and hurt, by
the flying off OF the head OF the hammer. The
crowd laughed over this mishap, and the culpr.t
Joined in the laugh. Gerard's right hand, which
had pointed the fatal weapon, was burned off
with a red-hot iron, and even this eXcruclaung
torture wrung no Cry from The man. His flesh
was then torn from his body with plncers, in six
different places. His legs and arms were then
chopped Off close to his body, and his bowels
| torn out by cutting open the abdomen. Still
| Gerard lived. 1t was not until his heart was cut
out and thrown in his face that his lips ceased
| their motion. His head was then chopped off (;
| and the sentence was executed!
Thus was the crime of the fanatic avenged
for fanatic he was. While animated to some de-
gree by the reward offered by the Ban, it is true
| that Baltnazar Gerard believed himself serving
| the cause OF his king and his God, by ridding the
| earth of an enemy of religion and humanity.
| For himself, he was upheld in his suferings on
the scaffold by a firm belief that he should reign
| with the saints and martyrs in Paradise. The
| reward promised TO the assassin was paid to his
| father and mother, for what Parma termed ''the
| laudable and generous deedn their son had per-
| formed. They were made mobiles of the land,
and received the three seignOries of Livremont,
| Hostal, and DampmaItin tin-formerly the property
of William OF Orange, At later day. on the
| union of Franche Comte with France, the
| patents of nobility the Gerards held were torn
in pieces and trampled under foot by the French
Governor.
The Prince was laid in the tomb, amid the
| tears of weeping people, on the Sd of August,
| 1884. But he had lived long enough to establish
| the emanclpated commonwealth on secure
foundation, and TO give existence to an independ-
| ent country, liberated forever from Spanish ty-
ranny. His death, however, prevented the union
| of all the Netherlands into one republic, pur-
pose which would doubtless have been accom-.
plished had his life been spared. That life stands
| to all coming time as its own noblest testmo
nial. He accomplished a great and glorious
work, and enshrined himself forever in the affec'
tions of his people. 'As hong as he lived" says
Motley, she was the guiding-star of whole
brave nation, and when he died the little
children cried in the streets" Beddie's Monthly.