&QO DEFECTION OF THE NETHERLANDS 



Greets in velvet or lilk.* Plenty (fays Comines, ai\ 

 author who travelled through the Netherlands about the? 

 middle of the fifteenth century) was followed by pride 

 and infolence. The magnificence and vanity of drefs 

 was carried by both fexes to the moll enormous ex- 

 pence. The luxury of the table was never purfued to 

 fo high a pitch of profuiiqn by any nation as here. 

 The immoral intercourfe of the two fexes, in bagnios 

 and fimiiar places of lewd refort, had entirely banifhed 

 every veftige of decorum — nor is it to be thought that 

 we here only fpeak of the ufual luxury of the great ; 

 even the females of the loweft claries gave into thefe ex- 

 cefTes without any regard to propriety and modera- 

 tion. 



But how much more cheering is even this extrava- 

 gance to the friend of mankind, than that cold con- 

 tentednefs in penury and want, and the infenfibihiy of 

 barbarian virtue, which at this time prevailed over 



* The wealth of the burgundian nation and its fovereign lay 

 concealed in the fields where the battles of Granfon, Murten, and 

 Nancy had been fought. Here a fwifsioldier drew from the finger 

 of Charles the bold, the famous diamond which was long held to 

 be the largeft in Europe, which fhone the fecond in the crown 

 of France, and which the ignorant finder fold for a gulden. The 

 Swifs exchanged, what filver he found, againft tin, and the gold 

 aga-'ttit cupper, and tore in pieces the fumptuou* tents that were 

 covered with cloth of gold. The value of the booty that was 

 made, in filver, . gold and precious flones, was eftimated at three 

 millions of gold guldens. Charles and his army had not the ap- 

 p°;Tance of foes who came out to the combat, but of conquerors 

 n a n (iceptiy adorned joratdumph. Meaioires dc Phil, de Co-* 

 mines, liv. 1. p. -^3. -259. 265.- 



almoft 



