Note 1145 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
M. de Gerlache, in a long note to the second edition of his history, enters into a scrutiny of Egmont's conduct as severe as that by the attorney-general himself,—and with much the same result. (Hist. du Royaume des Pays-Bas, tom. I. pp. 99-101.) "Can any one believe," he asks, "that if, instead of having the 'Demon of the South'for his master, it had been Charles the Fifth or Napoleon, Egmont would have been allowed to play the part he did with impunity so long?" This kind of Socratic argument, as far as it goes, proves only that Philip did no worse than Charles or Napoleon would have done. It by no means proves Egmont to have deserved his sentence.