Reports of their audience, that had been passed from soldiers and servants within the palace to those without, were already rife among the crowd and eagerly repeated from one to the other.
The Regent had wept when Brederode had made his speech, the tears had run down her face while the famous Compromise was read, and when all the members of the deputation had come forward, one by one, to make the "caroale" before the Duchess as a mark of respect, and she had thus had time to severally note their appointments, their importance, and their number, her agitation had increased so that Barlaymont had tried to reassure her: "What, Madame," he had said, "do you fear these beggars, who do not know enough to manage their own estates and then must needs prate of state affairs? Had I my way they should leave the palace quicker than they came!" This the Cardinalist was reported to have uttered loudly enough to reach the ears of some of the gentlemen, who repeated it among themselves with wrath and indignation.
Rénèe waited until the Prince came from the palace; he rode out of the gates with Egmont, looking unhappy and troubled, at his side. The two grandees were greeted less warmly than the confederates. As neither had openly sided with the people, and as Egmont, at least, was a strict Catholic and something of a persecutor, they were not so popular as they had been in the days when they caused the downfall of Cardinal Granvelle.
Rénèe stood in the roadway, where the passing of the Prince cast dust on her gown; she had one glimpse of his dark ardent face and he was gone.
Suddenly she felt very tired; the strangeness, the unnaturalness of her life, without home or ties, without friends or interests or diversions, and always supervised by a dull and ceaseless tyranny, weighed on her with the horror of tragedy. And this deep concealed passion, this strong faith, this devotion that lit this dreary life like a beacon on a desert was not in the nature of comfort, nay, rather it was a light that lit up dullness, dreariness, and barrenness which darkness would have mercifully concealed.
Had not all the suppressed feeling in her breast turned to this worship, she might have been happier, for she would not have known so keenly what she lacked; as it was she knew not even the peace of apathy.