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206, hardly recovered from the massacre it had suffered three years before. It was defended by about one thousand soldiers, by bodies of trained burghers, and some thousands of peasants who had taken refuge there. Parma invested it with a veteran army of 20,000 men, to which he received reinforcements of about 10,000 more. He built bridges across the Meuse, above and below the doomed city, and fortified a complete line of circumvallation with ramparts and towers. All that was heroic and horrible in the sieges and defence of Haarlem and of Leyden was repeated at Maestricht. Alexander led his men to the storm again and again, and left them repulsed and crushed under the walls. Mines, explosions, cannonades, hand-to-hand conflicts went on night and day—men, women, and children joining in the fight. For four months the townsmen held out, and slew a large part of Parma's force. At last, the weak garrison, worn out by toil, hunger, wounds, and slaughter, were overpowered in a furious night assault, and the city was given over to indiscriminate massacre. Butchery, pillage, and outrage lasted for three days; the population was exterminated; and Maestricht was reduced to a deserted ruin.

The fall of Maestricht inflicted an almost irreparable blow on the patriot cause and on the influence of the Prince. He had laboured throughout the siege to rouse the States to the defence; and for the most part he laboured in vain, for the incurable divisions of party and of provinces made them slow to succour a town in Limburg, far to the east. By desperate efforts he had raised 7000 men, whom he sent under John and Count Hohenlohe to raise the siege; but, when they reached