A Good Cafe And Restaurant
Is In The Centre Of One Of The Sides, And The Buildings On The Quadrangle
Environing The Parc, Which Form The Palace And Other Tenements Are Superb.
The Next Place I Went To See Was The Hotel De Ville And Its Tower Of
Immense Height.
It is a fine Gothic building, but that which should be the
central entrance is not directly in the centre of the edifice, so that one
wing of it appears considerably larger than the other, which gives it an
awkward and irregular appearance.
On the Place or Square as we should call
it, where the Hotel de Ville stands, is held the fruit and vegetable
market, and a finer one or more plentifully supplied I never beheld. This
Place is interesting to the historian as being the spot where Counts
Egmont and Hoorn suffered decapitation in the reign of Philip II of Spain,
by order of the Duke of Alva, who witnessed the execution from a window of
one of the houses. The conduct of these noblemen at the place of execution
was so dignified that even the ferocious duke could not avoid wiping his
eyes, hardened as his heart was by religious and political fanaticism; and
though he held them in abhorrence as rebels and traitors a tear did fall
for them down his iron cheek. How fortunate for the liberties of Holland
that William the Taciturn did not also fall into the claws of that Moloch
Philip! I next visited the museum and picture gallery, where I witnessed
the annual exposition of the modern school of painting.
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