At these words, which reminded him of his sister's fate, the butcher, instead of breaking forth anew with violent imprecations, covered his face in both his hands and began to weep. The sight of this rough and rude man's tender sorrow produced a deep impression upon the crowd. The frightful ferment of a revengeful, inexorable and blind hatred caused even the coldest hearts to boil with indignation. The goldsmith finished his letter amid a mass of humanity that was panting for revenge, and impatient to slake its ire upon the partisans of the French:
"Greed, besides cruelty, animated both the French captain and his soldiers. They hanged men by the feet in the chimneys of their own houses, and lighted a fire under them in order that, suffocated and singed by the clouds of smoke that rose upward and the flames that licked their faces, they be driven to disclose where they had hidden their money and valuables. Often the victims possessed none of these, and they perished, the prey to barbarous greed. Other soldiers stripped the last shred of clothing from the women and girls whom they outraged, and drove them naked into the fields where they were left to die of hunger and cold. One officer (in justice to him be it said) finding two young ladies of the upper class in this condition, took pity upon them, gave them his cloak and some linen that he had with him, and, before returning to his post, recommended the unfortunate girls to the care of another officer. The latter, however, violated both the girls, and thereupon turned them over to his soldiers, who, after subjecting them to further and extreme outrage, mutilated them frightfully.[4] Their shapeless corpses were found day before yesterday near the dike that leads from Bodegrave to Woerden.
"From Nymwegen I learn that one of those butchers, who do not deserve the name of soldiers, and who was wicked enough to cut off the breasts of a lying-in mother and to sprinkle gunpowder upon her wounds, died yesterday in the agonies of a frightful delirium, caused by remorse for his crime. He believed he saw the distracted woman pursuing him, and heard her cries of pain. A boatman, the brother of my father's tenant farmer, was nailed by both his hands to the mainmast of his barge, while, under the very eyes of the poor fellow, the soldiers indulged their depravity upon his daughter. Not even the dead are respected. Two funerals were stopped on the way to the graveyard, the corpses were stripped of their shrouds by the soldiers of Louis XIV, and then thrown into the canal."
The recital of such sacrilegious profanation—doubly abominable in the eyes of a Protestant people, who religiously guard their dead—caused the popular fury to boil over. It wanted instant victims to slake its thirst for revenge and for reprisals. Such victims were at hand—the brothers De Witt and the other chiefs of the French party, considered either the dupes or the accomplices of Louis XIV, as the mob declared with pitiless logic. The popular rage reached its highest pitch. An ear-rending cry went up from all throats—"Death to De Witt! To the prison! To the prison!"
By a spontaneous movement the whole mass of enraged humanity rolled against the prison, the approaches to which Tilly and his troopers had up to that moment managed to keep clear. So spontaneous was the rush against the prison, and so resolutely was it executed, that Tilly's horsemen, finding themselves assailed by a shower of stones, were constrained in self-defense to draw their sabers. They were on the point of falling upon their assailants when, with drums beating and amid the glad acclaims of the multitude, an infantry company of The Hague militia, known by the name of the "Blue Flag," and consisting exclusively of Orangemen, debouched upon the square. The captain of this militia corps informed Monsieur Tilly that, in order to avoid an effusion of blood in a conflict with the populace, the Council of State had ordered the company of the Blue Flag to mount guard at the castle, and relieve the cavalry posted there. Monsieur Tilly had no choice but to obey and yield the place to his substitutes, although he had no doubt that the prison would now be speedily invaded by the delirious mob. The cavalry, its retreat covered by the infantry corps, withdrew from the square amidst the hootings, the vociferations and even the threats of the mob which now had reached a pitch of delirious paroxysm.
"After De Witt, to the others, and Tilly shall have his turn. We know where he lives!" yelled a bitter Orangeman. "He has taken a lot of French people into his house. Some of them are grand dames! I saw them yesterday on the balcony."
"Massacre and death! May lightning strike me if I do not take revenge for my sister upon those French women!" bellowed the butcher. "But forward, now! First bleed the De Witts. The prison is ours!"
The butcher's threats, directly alluding to Mademoiselle Plouernel and her aunt, were heard by Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and his son, who, having returned to the square, and being driven by the current of the mass, found themselves pushed in the direction of the prison. Vainly had they sought to keep their promise to Monsieur Tilly of protecting the life of John De Witt. When the venerable man left his house under the guidance of the jail grenadier, Serdan and his friends requested him to allow them to escort him. He consented. Together they crossed several narrow and quiet streets and presently an almost deserted lane. When, at the end of the same, they arrived before a gate that barred further passage and opened upon a corridor leading into the castle, the grenadier declared to the companions of John De Witt that they could go no further, his orders being to allow admission only to the Grand Pensionary of Holland. John De Witt urged his friends to withdraw, clasped their hands, and entered alone, the door being unlocked, then closed and re-locked after him by the grenadier who was furnished with a key. John De Witt was taken without delay to his brother, and there discovered the trap that was laid for him. His brother had not sent for him, and was greatly alarmed at what he considered a most inopportune visit, in view of the general popular excitement, and the riot at the prison gate. A heartrending scene took place between the two brothers. John sought to induce his brother to leave the prison, the doors of which, he argued, had to be opened to him, seeing he was sentenced to banishment. Cornelius declined, on the ground that he had appealed from the decree of proscription. He insisted that the judges pronounce him either innocent or guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. To quit the prison would be to accept the sentence which put a blot upon his name, and against which he protested. Unable to induce his brother to flee, John De Witt declared he would not leave him, and would share his fate. While this debate, a struggle of fraternal generosity, was proceeding in the prison of Cornelius, two officers and four militiamen of the Blue Flag company forced themselves into the chamber in which the two brothers were conversing, and assailed them with violent threats.
Alas! son of Joel; I shall let an eye-witness of that lamentable event narrate it in his own words, and let us transmit the report to our descendants:
"The officers and the militiamen found Cornelius De Witt lying on his couch in a morning gown, and his brother seated near the head of the bed reading to him out of the Bible. The Grand Pensionary sought to awaken some sense of humanity in the maddened men who entered the room. They only redoubled their threats, and compelled the two brothers to rise and leave the room, saying they were to be taken to the place where criminals are executed. The De Witts embraced each other tenderly at the head of the stairs which led out of the castle, and bade each other their last adieus. Cornelius De Witt, who, in consequence of the torture, was very weak, descended leaning upon his brother's arm. The latter, preserving a most heroic calmness in sight of so imminent a danger, exhorted in kind language those who led him and his brother not to commit so great an iniquity as they threatened to be guilty of. 'My friends,' he said to them as he continued to descend the stairs, sustaining his brother, 'we are innocent, we are not traitors to the Republic; take us wherever you please, but take us to judges.' 'March! March!' the officers answered, brutally pushing him forward and causing him to trip and stumble over the lowest steps of the staircase; 'You will soon know where you are taken to, traitors!'"