His lips were seen to move up to the moment when his heart was
thrown in his face. "Then," said a looker-on, "he gave up the ghost."
The reward promised by Philip to the man who should murder Orange was
paid to the heirs of Gerard. Parma informed his sovereign that the "poor
man" had been executed, but that his father and mother were still
living, to whom he recommended the payment of that "merced" which "the
laudable and generous deed had so well deserved." This was accordingly
done, and the excellent parents, ennobled and enriched by the crime of
their son, received, instead of the twenty-five thousand crowns promised
in the Ban, the three seigniories of Livermont, Hostal, and Dampmartin,
in the Franche Comte, and took their place at once among the landed
aristocracy. Thus the bounty of the Prince had furnished the weapon by
which his life was destroyed, and his estates supplied the fund out of
which the assassin's family received the price of blood. At a later day,
when the unfortunate eldest son of Orange returned from Spain after
twenty-seven years' absence, a changeling and a Spaniard, the
restoration of those very estates was offered to him by Philip II
provided he would continue to pay a fixed proportion of their rents to
the family of his father's murderer. The education which Philip William
had received, under the King's auspices, had, however, not entirely
destroyed all his human feelings and he rejected the proposal with
scorn.
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