It may well be conceived that the first few miles of my return were travelled without any particular observation on my part of the objects around me. Moric Endem was not with me to call my attention to this thing or that, and to inspire me with the same remarking and commenting spirit as himself; and, busy with the thoughts and feelings of my own bosom, I rode on, seeing, perhaps, the things that I passed with the mere corporeal eye, but with the communication between the organ of sight and the reasoning brain altogether cut off for the time.
I had gone on thus for about five miles, when the distant sound of a trumpet caught my ear, and caused me to make an effort to shake off selfish sorrow, and turn to the business of life again. The spot at which I had then arrived was so enclosed with trees, though close to the edge of a high hill, commanding a view over a wide plain below, that I could not see any object at a distance, and, riding quickly forward to the point where the road left the wood and opened upon the bare slope, I gazed down into the plain.
My surprise was not small at seeing a very considerable body of men, perhaps three or four thousand, winding along at the distance of fully four miles. They were marching in a line rather to the left of that which the Protestant camp occupied, and seemed to me to be bending their way rapidly towards the Charente. They were easily to be distinguished from the Protestants, whose white cassocks always afforded a distinguishing mark at a great distance; and I would instantly have endeavoured to cut off some stragglers from their rear, in order to ascertain what was their object and destination, had I not been shackled by a flag of truce, and felt myself bound to return to our camp before I made any attack upon the enemy.
I rode on, therefore, as fast as possible, trusting that, as night was not far distant, the party I had seen would lodge itself in some of the neighbouring villages. As soon as I had arrived at my own quarters, I made some inquiries in regard to any movements that had taken place, and found indications of the army marching by detachments towards the Loire. Montgomery I could not find, though I sent messengers seeking for him in different directions; and I consequently made up my mind to let my men take some repose, to mount them upon fresh horses, of which my little band had now a plenty, and if there was a possibility of seeing our way after nightfall, to beat up the enemy's quarters and endeavour to gain some information.
Giving orders to this effect, I sat down to my solitary supper, and had very nearly concluded the meal when Montgomery himself entered, saying, "I have come to sup with you, De Cerons. They tell me you have been sending all over the place for me; so I suppose you have some news."
I gave him the best cheer I could, and, while we sat together, told him what I had seen and what I proposed to do.
"They are on foot again, are they?" he said, after thinking over the whole for a few minutes. "They must have got information that De Pile is moving up from Guyenne with our re-enforcements, and wish to cut him off. Yet what can be done? The orders we have received to-night are distinct, to march upon the Loire; and if we do not do so, and do so quickly, we shall never be able to effect our junction with the Germans and the Duc de Deux Ponts, or Zweibrucken, as his own people call him, and that were worse than missing be Pile. However, the only thing that can be done is what you propose yourself, to gain any intelligence that we can, to show these gentlemen that they are discovered, and to send instant information to the prince and the admiral. But, to make your reconnoissance anything at all effectual, you must have more men, De Cerons. What will you have?"
Of course I was glad to take as large a force as could easily be managed in the darkness of the night; and as the arquebusiers had proved of great use to me on my former expedition, I required their presence, together with some ten more spears, which Montgomery readily granted. From him I gained a more thorough knowledge, too, than I had hitherto acquired, of all the existing plans and circumstances of the Protestant leaders. Their forces had been so greatly weakened by the sickness which prevailed in Loudun, that re-enforcements were absolutely necessary for them to keep the field against the Catholics. De Pile had been sent some time before to gather together all the troops that he could in Gascony, and a large body of reiters, under the Duke of Dupont, was marching rapidly towards the Loire, in order to join the Protestant army.
In the mean time, the Catholics had been re-enforced by bodies of troops from every part of France, and were eager to fight the Protestants before either De Pile or the duke could come up. The task, therefore, of the Protestant leaders was a difficult one, namely, to avoid a battle in the presence of a superior army; to guard the line of the Charente, where all the bridges were in their own hands; and to aid the junction of the Gascon forces from the south, at the same time that they extended their line of operations to facilitate the junction of the Germans.
"I trust," said Montgomery, "That the princes will decide upon maintaining the Charente in preference to anything else. De Pile is not one to suffer himself easily to be outwitted, and Stuart, who is with him, will cut his way through a wall of solid iron, if need be. Once having joined the Gascons, we shall be able to detach troops to the Loire, without losing our command of the rivers, and, when the Germans have joined, we can fight the enemy with the advantage of a just cause, and no great disadvantage in point of numbers."
"Depend upon it," I said, after hearing this explanation, "since such is our situation and that of the enemy, the Catholics I have seen are thrown forward to gain possession of some place in the heart of our position. But I will soon bring you farther intelligence if possible; and, in the mean time, were it not better to send off at once a messenger to the prince and the admiral, to inform them of what has been already observed, and of the direction which the Catholics are taking?"
Montgomery agreed immediately to do so, and in less than an hour after I was once more in the saddle, and advancing with a force sufficient for all that I proposed towards the villages in which I calculated the enemy would lodge that night. I need not enter into all the particulars of my expedition: suffice it to say, that about one o'clock in the morning I found forty or fifty poor peasants in a barn not far from the village, who had been driven out of their habitations by the enemy, on account of adhering to the Protestant faith, and who thought themselves not a little fortunate to have escaped with only a few strokes from the staff of a lance to make them give up their dwellings more quickly to the royal troops. I learned little from them, however, except that the commander of the Catholics lodged in one of the houses at the end of the village; and thinking that it would be an excellent consummation if I could carry him off, I bent my way thither, guided by one of the young labourers.
Before we came near, however, I caused my men either to strip off their white cassocks altogether, or, when they were lined with any other colour, to turn them inside out, in order, as far as possible, to escape attention. I did not succeed, however, so well this time as I had done before. There were men on watch at both sides of the house; and though we approached somewhat near without being seen, we were at length challenged in a loud voice. The sentry would not let the false word I gave pass current, but instantly fired his arquebus; and, as had been arranged before, while my arquebusiers remained drawn up in a line to support us, I dismounted with my men-at-arms, and rushed forward to attack the house. Moric Endem shot the unfortunate sentry through the head with a pistol; the door and one of the windows were burst open in a moment, and we poured into the lower rooms, in which we found ten or twelve men who had been sleeping in their arms, on the floor. Taken by surprise, and in confusion, their resistance was not very great, but it was sufficient to give time for the commander himself to make his escape out of one of the back windows in his shirt.
We did not, however, discover this till afterward; for, by the following circumstance, I was mistakenly led to imagine, for more than an hour, that he had fallen into our hands. I had just cut down one fellow who opposed my progress up the stairs, and had nearly reached the top, when out of a room on the right hand rushed a gay-looking youth, in a furred dressing-gown embroidered with gold. He bore a taper in one hand and a sword in the other: but a pistol at his head, with an order to surrender, rescue or no rescue, soon brought his weapon into my hand; and, passing him down the stairs to those who came behind, I entered the different rooms above, and, with Moric Endem and two or three others, swept the table that I found there of a number of papers and parchments, with cases for writing and other things, which I doubted not would give us full information respecting the object of the enemy's movement.
As I was looking at the title of one of these papers, a sharp fire opened by the arquebusiers, whom I had left without, announced that the enemy were prepared to make us pay for our intrusion; and, clearing the house as fast as possible, I effected my retreat, though I found the garden half full of Catholic troopers on foot. It was now, however, that the stratagem of making my men quit or turn their cassocks procured us great advantages which I had not foreseen. In issuing forth form the house in some disarray, the enemy could not tell whether each man was of their own party or not; and in the confusion that followed--we being very certain of what we were to do, and they quite uncertain--we forced our way through and regained our horses, carrying with us the gentleman in the furred dressing-gown and three other prisoners.
Of the men who accompanied me, two only were missing; one of my own band, whom I had seen fall by a pistol shot in the head, and one of the men-at-arms that Montgomery had given me, who, not so well accustomed to such expeditions as we were, lingered behind and was taken prisoner.
We now made the best of our way over the hill, the enemy mounting as fast as horses could be brought out, and pursuing us; but I had ridden over the ground several times before, and knew every inch of it, so that they gained little but their labour, till at length I reached the spot whence I had first discovered them on the preceding morning, when, seeing by a strong glare in the sky, the cause of which I did not at the moment discover, that I was followed by some thirty or forty horse, I ordered my men-at-arms to wheel about and give them a taste of our spear points. As there was no one to support them, they did not make any great resistance, but were driven down the hill in a very short space of time.
I pursued them no farther than the shoulder of the heights, whence I could see the village which we had attacked, and, to my surprise, beheld it all in flames. How it happened I do not know; our people were inclined to believe that the Catholics themselves had set it on fire, in their indignation at the peasants for having guided us thither; but this opinion was evidently founded upon party animosity; and I am inclined to believe that, in the confusion attending our attack upon the farmhouse, some light must accidentally have dropped and set fire to the building.
Hurrying on as fast as possible, we reached my quarters about five in the morning, and then, for the first time, I had an opportunity of speaking with, and showing some civility to my principal prisoner. He was conducted up stairs to my own apartments by two of the soldiers, while I remained for a minute or two below, to see my men properly disposed of. On entering my room, I found him standing shivering by the fire, and approached him, saying, "I fear, sir, you have had a very cold ride?"
"I never had so cold or so disagreeable a one in my life," he replied.
"I was sure that such must be the case," I answered. "But we must try to make you more comfortable as soon as possible.
"Pray, sir," he said, gazing at me somewhat superciliously from head to foot, and sticking out from under his furred dressing-gown a bare leg and a foot only covered with a slipper, "can you procure me such a thing in your camp as a wooden leg? for I am quite sure that this thing, which used to help me through the world, must be frozen of by this time."
"No," I answered, "I do not know that we can do that; but, at all events, I think we can bring some life into the one that you have; and, if you will take my advice, you will get into a warm bed again as fast as possible, drink as large a portion as you can swallow of hot wine, and keep yourself warm for half an hour or so, by telling me who you are, and what is the object of the expedition, whereof you were, I suppose, the commander."
"Sir, you do me a great deal too much honour," said the young gentleman. "However, as you are a very civil person, I will first take possession of the bed you talk of, if you will show me where it is; I will then drink the wine, if anybody will bring it to me; and, having done that, hold myself bound to reply to any questions that you think right to ask, that are not wrong for me to answer."
Calling to Andriot, I caused my prisoner to be placed in the room which had been occupied by good La Tour, and the warm wine to be procured for him, together with some spices and comfits; and, having thus made him as comfortable as I could, I questioned him as to his rank, station, &c. To my mortification, I now found that he was not the commander; that the expedition was destined to attack Jarnac, and was led by the celebrated Count de la Rivière Puitaillé. The young gentleman whom I had taken proved to be one of the gay gallants of the court, called Gersay, and my only consolation for having missed the commander was the prospect of a large ransom for his friend and companion. My men were more satisfied, indeed, than I was; for Moric and the rest had stumbled upon various articles of value, and a considerable sum of money, so that the prize to be divided was considerable. Gersay's ransom was soon arranged and soon paid, and I once more found my military chest overflowing.
In the mean time, the absence of the princes at Niort, though absolutely necessary, in order to obtain money and to treat with the Queen of England; was sadly detrimental to our military prospects.
Before full information of all that I had discovered could be conveyed to the Prince de Condé, before the troops could be recalled from their movements towards the Loire, or others marched to defend Jarnac, La Rivière had made himself master of that place, thus occupying an important point on the Charente, and breathing nothing but vengeance for the attack upon the village, in retaliation for which he made desperate excursions on every side.
The burning of the village, indeed, which must have been purely accidental, led to consequences of a very terrible kind. The house occupied by a Captain Lespinette had been the second or third which took fire, and some of his effects had been burned therein; and, on the first expedition which La Rivière intrusted to him, he vowed he would retaliate upon the Protestants.
He accordingly attacked a village, swept away all that it contained, and some women and children having taken refuge in one of the houses, while their husbands and fathers escaped into the fields, he brutally, we were assured, set fire to the place, and burned them to death therein.
An awful retribution fell upon him. As soon as a sufficient force could be collected, the admiral commanded the Marquis de Briquemont to attack La Rivière in Jarnac. The town was taken by assault; but, as the inhabitants were our own people, no outrages were committed. The Catholics who surrendered received quarter, and many made their escape; but Lespinette and his band took refuge in the old keep, declaring they would hold it to the last: but, almost at the same moment that they were making this declaration, the lower part took fire. Unable to find any other means of escape, he and two of his companions determined to leap from the loopholes, which were large. But the corbels which hung over impeded them, and, in the effort to force themselves through, their armour was so tightly jammed in the stonework that no human power could remove them, and in this horrible situation they were actually burned to death in their arms.
At this period, the situation of the Protestant army became every day more and more critical. The Catholic army, nearly double in force that which we could oppose to it, was now approaching nearer and nearer, and interposing between us and the troops coming from Gascony, with the purpose of forcing us to an immediate battle. The most important points of the Charente were, it is true, in our hands; the admiral and the Prince de Condé were once more at the head of their troops; and, had their tactical skill been as well seconded by the zeal and obedience of the officers under their command, we might have set the enemy at defiance till sufficient re-enforcements had arrived to enable us to fight them.
The Duke of Anjou was advancing daily, but still his progress was delayed far more than might otherwise have been the case by the continual skirmishes which D'Andelot and the Prince de Condé contrived to treat him on his advance. Scarcely a day passed without some hundreds, sometimes thousands, of our troops being thrown unexpectedly upon some vulnerable point of the enemy's position; sometimes we advanced absolutely into the quarters of the Duke of Montpensier, and once we were actually in the lodgings of the Duke of Anjou himself.
On the latter occasion, under the command of Puiviaud, we encountered close to Auville, where the duke had established his quarters, a body of seventy or eighty gentlemen of the court, and obstinately maintaining our ground for some time till we were re-enforced, large bodies of men began to come up on either side, till it became absolutely necessary for the Protestants to withdraw, lest the skirmish should end in a general battle when neither party was prepared.
Nothing, however, could stop the progress of the enemy; and, early in March, the Duke of Anjou made himself master of Chateauneuf on the Charente. The bridge, however, was in our possession, and we had various small cars pushed across the river in different directions, in order to guard against surprise. I myself, no longer acting as a mere partisan, but attending implicitly to the orders I received as a soldier, was stationed some little way in advance of Cognac, with orders to obtain every information that I could regarding the enemy's movements, and communicate them immediately to the admiral or the Prince de Condé; and at three o'clock on the very day of my arrival, I perceived a large body of the enemy marching down towards me. The continual noise they made, the sounding of trumpets and beating of drums, made me suspect at once that their appearance was a mere feint; and, having ridden to a rising ground, which gave me a view over the country beyond, I clearly perceived that they were followed by no sufficient force to attempt the passage of the river at that point, and sent immediate intelligence of what I had observed to the admiral, in order to make sure that he was not deceived by any stratagem of the enemy. Coligny sent me down thanks in return, telling me that he was not deceived, and that, after maintaining my ground as well as I could, I might come round to join the Count de Montgomery at the village of Triac. The affair at Cognac lasted scarcely half an hour; but it was past midnight before I could bring my men, fatigued with a long march, to the quarters appointed me.
The house seemed pretty comfortable, and the stables for the horses good, with room in a granary above for the greater part of the men, and plenty of room in the house for the rest. Not a truss of straw, however, was to be found; no forage of any kind; and while I was endeavouring to obtain some in the village by sending hither and thither, I saw a head put out from one of the up-stairs windows of the house, and heard a voice call me by name. "Monsieur de Cerons, Monsieur de Cerons," said the voice, "I give you good-evening; it is long since we met."
The tones were not unfamiliar to my ear, but yet I could not recollect where I had heard them; and I merely replied, "I will come up in a minute, when I have seen the horses fed."
"Morbleu!" said Moric Endem, "you may think yourself lucky if you get a straw a horse, seigneur. These are one of the nights, I take it, which teach cavalry horses to be crib-biters, seeing that they can get nothing else to bite."
"Moric," I said, "as we passed the day before yesterday, there was a large farm I saw about a quarter of a mile out there to the right. The man would neither say whether he was Catholic or Protestant, Chemille told me. But I must have forage, whichever he is. The admiral says we must have no plunder; so take ten men with you, go to his house, and with your sword in one hand and this purse in the other, tell him you come from the Seigneur de Cerons for the forage he wants for his horses. Give him his choice of the gold or the steel, and bring back the forage at all events."
"Bravo! bravo!" cried the voice from the window above, though I certainly did not know I had been listened to; "justice and equity both together Monsieur de Cerons;" and, leaving Moric to fulfil his orders, which he did with pre-eminent success, I entered the house and mounted the creaking staircase, which seemed as if two men at a time would have brought it to the ground.
There were lights and a blazing fire on the right hand, and I entered that room, when I saw before me a tall, powerful man sitting in the window-seat, with a page busily taking off the various pieces of his armour. He turned round his head as I entered, though bestowing no very soft benediction on the page for pinching his leg with thegenouillère, and exclaimed, "Welcome, welcome, De Cerons; so I find you, as I hoped to find you, changed from little David the shepherd's boy into a mighty man of war. And who shall say what will come of it next?"
The face that was turned towards me was that of my first military friend and counsellor, Stuart; and with equal joy and gratitude I grasped his hand, and welcomed him to the army.
"I have expected to see you long," I said, "but certainly did not expect to see you this night, and in my own quarters."
"Why, it so happens," replied Stuart, "That they are mine too; for the house, and yard, and stables were to be shared between us. Heaven knows how we should have managed if I had brought on my band. But I left the greater number of them some way back, for men and horses were absolutely exhausted by hard riding and starvation. Though the prince would very willingly have kept me at Jarnac, to sup with him to-night and dine with him to-morrow, yet I came on with two or three of my servants only, to see what was doing out here at the advance guard; for I have a strange notion that we sha'n't be four-and-twenty hours without a battle. I wanted to see you, too, and have got a good supper ready for you, as there wants no food for men's mouths here, though all the forage I could get was a bushel of oats and a handful of straw for six horses."
I followed Stuart's example as soon as possible in disencumbering myself of my armour, for I never had the casque off my head for more than twenty hours, nor had anything passed my lips but a cup of cold water during the whole of that time; so that the sight of a huge piece of roasted pork, and a dish of pig's ears and feet strewed with crayfish, was, I must acknowledge, one of the pleasantest prospects that my eyes had lighted upon for some time. For my poor men's sakes, too, I was glad to hear that provisions were to be had in abundance, and, before I ate myself, I took care to send out the means to purchase everything that was necessary, although my expeditions had been so successful as to leave the purses of my troop better stored than those of any other in the army.
During supper, Stuart and I talked over all that had happened to us both since we parted in Bordeaux; and, although my first intercourse with him had been but of a few hours' duration, yet, when we met, we felt as if we had been old and intimate friends for many years. He told me all that had befallen him to delay his journey to join the army, the difficulty in getting his Scotch companions over from his native country, or raising others fitted for his band: the necessity which then presented itself of joining his forces to those of De Pile, and of labouring with that commander to induce the Protestant noblemen of Higher and Lower Gascony to come forward in arms, and risk something for the common cause; then the obstacles which the Catholics had thrown in his way, to prevent his junction with the Protestant army; and he ended by telling me that he had at length been obliged to leave De Pile behind with the greater part of the troops, and, with only sixty helmets, to make his way on to join the Prince de Condé, having a sort of presentiment in his mind, which, he said, had never failed him hitherto, that a battle was on the eve of taking place between the two contending parties.
To me he put a thousand questions concerning my state and prospects, although it was evident enough that he had heard news of me from time to time, and was not a little proud of his military neophyte. I told him all the military part of my history, as I have told it here, and met his approbation of all my proceedings.
In pursuing these subjects, however, the conversation naturally turned to good Martin Vern, his journey to Bordeaux, and the redemption of my dagger; and, as soon as the subject was mentioned, he exclaimed, "Oh! by-the-way, it is true I did what was, perhaps, not very justifiable on my part, and made good Solomon Ahar do what was not quite right upon his. But, having seen how much you regretted the loss of your weapon; and also having received an unexpected sum, which gave me a few crowns to spare, I went and insisted upon redeeming it, thinking that in a day or two I should join you. I have been forced to wander far enough since," he continued, "but your dagger is quite safe, and with my baggage at Jarnac. One thing, however, I must tell you of, which happened in the redemption of it, and which made me very glad that I had got it out of the Jew's hands, who has now moved from Bordeaux to Paris, as I dare say you have heard."
"No," I replied, "I did not hear of his removal. But I can easily conceive that he was not much to your taste. Yet tell me, what was this circumstance which made you glad?"
"Doubtless you know the fact yourself already," replied Stuart, "but I discovered it from the Jew. When, much against his will, I had driven him to give it up, good Solomon said, 'Ha! do you know it is hollow, Seigneur Stuart?' And he then showed me, by weighing it against another dagger, with a smaller hilt than it had, that the haft is hollow, and, through a hole where one of the old jewels had fallen out, we clearly saw some folded parchment within. It may be a matter of some consequence, or of none to you, for aught I know. Were you aware of the fact?"
I replied in the negative; and, after some farther conversation on the subject, it was determined that, if military operations did not prevent us, we should ride together to Jarnac on the following morning, where I should redeem my dagger, and ascertain what the hilt contained.
After that we separated, Stuart retiring to his bed and I to mine; and though for the last five or six days I had borne up with scarcely any rest or repose, I now fell into a profound and heavy slumber, still, motionless, dreamless, more like death itself than sleep.
The day had not far advanced, when some one, shaking me by the arm, roused me from my sleep, and, looking up, I found Stuart already up and fully armed.
"Come," he said, "De Cerons, come, you will be called a sluggard. I have just had a message from the admiral, who is at Bassac, and my people have come on there with the baggage. The same messenger brings a message to you, begging you to come and report more fully what took place yesterday at Cognac. It would seem that intelligence has been received from that side which leads to some apprehension."
I shook my head. "They will make no attempt there," I replied. "However, I will be up and out in a moment."
"I will see your horses ready," replied Stuart; and, ere they were well prepared, I was myself down in the courtyard.
Leaving some brief orders for Moric Endem, who did not appear, I rode away with my companion, followed by his attendants and some four or five of my own men. The light was still gray in the dull March morning, but everything was quite quiet and still, and nothing, as we passed along, would have given to any eye the slightest indication of warring armies in the immediate neighbourhood, or of the approach of a speedy and sanguinary conflict. We went on, talking of the position and situation of the armies, and Stuart seemed perfectly confident, from what he had heard the night before, that any attempt of the enemy to pass the Charente at Chateauneuf would be frustrated in a moment.
"There is Soubise," he said, "and Montgomery, and La Loue, with plenty of forces to guard the passage, at all events, till the rest of the army could come up; and they dare not attempt it before the force which the admiral can bring into the field."
Scarcely, however, were the words out of his mouth, when a trooper at full gallop overtook us. It proved to be one of my own people, who came on waving his hand for us to stop, and exclaimed, the moment that he came up, "In God's name, return, seigneur! The enemy have passed the river by the bridge and a bridge of boats. I have myself seen ten or twelve cornets of horse, with the great blue standard among them. The whole vanguard has passed already, I am sure; and there is a bridge of boats built just below the other bridge."
"I fear this is Some negligence on La Loue's part," I said, turning to Stuart; "I have always remarked that he is the most negligent of commanders. I will go back, but I fear we shall have to fight, and we are in no condition to do it. For Heaven's sake, Stuart, ride on, and let the admiral know."
These were all the words that were spoken; and Stuart, waving his hand, galloped off, while I hurried back as fast as possible to the village. Half a dozen messengers, going at full speed towards the quarters of the admiral and the Prince de Condé, met me before I reached Triac, but passed without speaking; and just before my quarters I found Moric Endem, with my own troop and the horse arquebusiers, drawn up in order to march. Without a moment's delay we hurried out from the village, and the next moment the whole scene of the commencing battle was beneath our eyes.
The beautiful meadows, which there sweep down to the bank of the river, were now filled with the royal troops in all the splendid array of war: cornets, and standards, and waving plumes, and gay-coloured cassocks lined the whole side of the river, while over the bridge of Chateauneuf, and over a bridge of boats constructed during the night, the rear guard of the Catholic army was passing, with cymbal, and trumpet, and drum, the clang of which, borne by the wind, reached the hill where I stood.
Some half a mile before the great body of the Catholics were a number of squadrons of horse, charging, with levelled lances, two or three small bands of Huguenots, who, though contending with them gallantly, were evidently contending in vain. We could see the lances shivered and the horses go over, but still the Protestant cavalry was driven back towards a large pond confined within some raised causeways, and a rivulet which meandered in silver brightness through the meadows at the foot of the hill. Other small bodies of Protestant horse were seen coming up at full speed to the aid of their companions; but more effectual assistance appeared at that moment; for, drawing out from between the walls of a little hamlet, I perceived four or five companies of infantry, which I immediately knew to be that gallant and determined body, Puyviault's arquebusiers, who advanced rapidly towards the causeway of the tank, and opened a sharp fire upon the advancing squadrons of the Catholic cavalry.
This was all seen as we rode on down the hill; but, the moment after, the sound of a trumpet on the right called my attention in that direction, and I saw a small party of our own horse, perhaps consisting of a hundred and fifty or two hundred men, galloping down in the same direction as myself. Recognising at their head one whose skill and talents were already remarkable, now celebrated as La Noue, together with Asier and La Loue, whose vigour and determination, in all moments of actual conflict, seldom failed to inspire their soldiers to the greatest efforts, I made what speed I could to join them, and was hailed gladly, though there was no pausing to speak or to draw a rein.
On we galloped, four a breast, down the road till we had passed some hedges that intersected the slope of the hill, and then, spreading out, charged the enemy's cavalry just as they were passing the causeway on the right of the tank. Puyviault at the same moment renewed his fire upon the enemy, and we drove them back in great confusion for two or three hundred yards.
As all that we could hope to do, however, was so long to delay the enemy in the meadows by the river as to enable the admiral and the Prince de Condé to gain a good position on the heights, La Noue gave the order to wheel, and keep upon the same line with the infantry; but, on looking round, we saw that Puyviault, attacked on the left hand, had been forced to retreat, and that Martigue, with his fire-eating cavalry, had passed round on the other side of the tank, and was already on our flank.
We had no time for preparation; the Catholics were upon us with a rapidity and an energy worthy of admiration; Martigue was within ten paces of me when I turned my horse; and, calling out, "Ha, the cornet! the cornet!à moi, à moi, Monsieur de Cerons!" he spurred on upon me.
I met him as best I might, but our little band was broken by their impetuous charge in every direction: La Noue and the rest were making the best of their way back towards the infantry of Puyviault, and the men following by twos and threes, as they could disentangle themselves; and, after several sharp blows, I found that I must either get away from Martigue or suffer myself to be taken, and therefore, drawing a pistol from the holster, I shot his horse in the throat, and the animal went down at once.
"That is not fair!" he cried, as the horse fell with him.
"I had no other resource," shouted I, as I galloped on. "You see I am left alone."
Thus saying, I made my way back to the rest as fast as I could, and found our little cavalry once more rallied and supporting Puyviault, who, with admirable skill and determination, was keeping the enemy at bay as long as possible, maintaining every little hedge and every little wall with his arquebusiers, taking advantage of each little rise and fall of the ground, and fighting every step as he slowly retreated towards the village where I had slept the preceding night. To him, I cannot help saying, more than to any one else, is to be attributed that the battle did not prove more disastrous to the Protestants than it ultimately did.
In the mean time La Noue exclaimed to me, "Retreat into the village, De Cerons, as fast as possible, and maintain yourself in it as long as you can, for there is Martigue dashing up towards it on the right, and will cut us off if he is not prevented."
Taking the shorter road, I was there before the Catholic leader, and received him at the entrance of the principal road or street, if I may so call it, with a charge which, though it could not be long sustained, drove him back for some way, and enabled La Noue and the rest to retire in good order.
Asier came to my assistance in a moment or two after, exclaiming in a gay tone, "Now, Fortune's favourite, let us see how long you and I, De Cerons, can keep out the enemy!"
"Not long, Asier," I replied, "I fear; both your numbers and mine are somewhat thinned since the beginning of this morning; and see, there are six more cornets coming up the hill to join Martigue. Ha, Moric!" I continued, as I turned round to look at the numbers of my men, "I thought you were gone, my poor fellow. Are there any more coming up?"
"Two will be here in a minute, seigneur," replied Moric; "I sent them to see the valets, and horse-boys, and baggage out at the other end of the town. Ah, Master Martigue," he exclaimed, seeing that the enemy had paused for a single instant, and ridden round a little to the right, "I've stopped that gap for you. There's a road between two houses there," he said, "but I have upset a wagon across it."
Good Moric's precaution, however, did not avail us for long. Martigue himself again charged us in front; and though the narrowness of the road enabled us to stand against him firmly, yet we saw that a party of his men were busy in removing the wagon which had been overturned; and, after protracting the resistance as long as possible, we effected our retreat only just as the enemy were pouring in upon our flank. Puyviault, however, was by this time safe; and as we issued forth from the other side of the village and mingled with the foremost of the enemy, the glad sight appeared of D'Andelot coming up at the head of a considerable body of horse, while a long hedge of spears was seen rising over the slope, and giving notice that the admiral or the Prince de Condé would be in the field in a few minutes.
The enemy perceived this at the same moment that we did, and pursued no farther; Martigue hastening to strengthen himself in the village, in order to maintain it, if possible, till the royal troops came up. D'Andelot halted his men for a moment, in order not to charge friends and enemies together, and welcomed us, as we rode up, with nothing but courage and confidence in his tone, exclaiming, "Ah, brave Asier! ah, De Cerons! Gallantly done, gentlemen; gallantly done! Rally your men, and let us at them again! Now each man do as he sees me do!" And, as soon as we were in line, he spurred on again upon the village.
Martigue, confident in his numbers and his courage, had by this time drawn out a part of his cavalry beyond the houses, and we spurred forward upon them with a determination equal to their own. I was at the distance of about twenty paces from D'Andelot, who had no lance; but I saw him gallop up to a gay-looking cavalier opposite to him, armed from head to foot; and, putting past his spear, he struck him under the visor with the gauntlet of his left hand, which at the same time held his reins, and at that single blow dashed up the covering of his enemy's face; at the very same moment, with his right, he pointed a pistol under his opponent's helmet and fired. The man fell dead from his horse, and D'Andelot passed on at once through the line.[3]
Though we certainly did not follow D'Andelot's order in doing as he did, yet we did our best. Martigue's troops were driven again into the village, the streets of which became a terrible slaughter-house. In a few minutes the admiral himself, with a large body of cavalry, came up to support us, and the Catholics were driven out at the other side, and over the hill for nearly half a mile.
Their operations had all been well-arranged, however. By the time we had proceeded thus far, we were suddenly assailed by a tremendous discharge of firearms; and Martigue, finding himself supported by the Count de Brissac, with a fresh body of cavalry and sixteen hundred arquebusiers, horse and foot, resumed the offensive, while we were driven back in considerable confusion, from the incessant and well-directed fire kept up upon us by what were called the old bands of Brissac.
The position that we had attained, however, though we had gained it but for a moment, showed us the whole Royalist army on this side of the river, the Duc de Montpensier advancing up the slope with at least ten thousand men, and the division of the Duke of Anjou following in fine order towards the tank which I have before mentioned.
After retreating for about three or four hundred yards, the troops got into somewhat better order, and the admiral took care to seize the opportunity of restoring confidence by wheeling with a small force as if to charge Martigue. He did not do so, however; but, after looking round him for a moment, seeking, it would seem, some one he could trust, he beckoned me up to him, and said in a low tone, "Monsieur de Cerons, you fear nothing, I think."
"I trust not, sir," I replied.
"The battle must be general, I imagine," he said; "there is no avoiding it. I wish some one to ride towards Jarnac to the Prince de Condé, without the loss of a moment or a step of ground, to tell him to bring up the main body of the troops, and charge in order to extricate his vanguard. We will maintain the ground till he comes. The straight road runs along the whole line of those arquebusiers; whoever undertakes the task must endure their fire. Will you go? Take three men with you if you do."
I merely bowed my head in reply, spoke a word or two to Moric Endem, leaving him in the command of my surviving men, and, accompanied by Andriot and two troopers, galloped off as hard as I could go towards Jarnac. Either the arquebusiers for some time did not see me, or mistook me for some of their own people as I came galloping rapidly towards them, for they suffered me to pass half along the line without firing a shot at me. There, however, they seemed to discover their mistake, and, at the distance of not more than a hundred yards, opened upon me one of the most tremendous fires that I ever remember to have seen. Poor Andriot was down in a moment; but there was no possibility of stopping, and on I went at the full gallop.
About thirty or forty yards farther, a ball struck my cuirass, but glanced off without entering, and a second passed through the crest of my casque. Two or three went through the cassock I wore above my arms, and one ball just grazed the lower part of my bridle-hand sufficiently to deluge my glove in blood. It then struck the pommel of the saddle and bounded off. I was now within twenty yards of the end of the line; but, ere I reached it, another of my men was knocked off his horse; and if the arquebusiers had been wise enough to fire at the chargers instead of the riders, not one of us would have escaped to bear the admiral's message to the Prince de Condé. The last shot that was received was in my left shoulder; but it was of no importance, and did not even disable my arm.
I now continued my course in safety, but without relaxing my speed, and opened the visor of my casque both to get some air and to see more distinctly whether we were followed. Such was not the case, however; and at the top of the hill I saw the squadrons of the admiral, and could perceive the group in which he stood watching my course, perhaps with some anxiety. At the distance of about two miles I heard the sound of some trumpets behind a little wood in advance, and going on at the same quick pace, I came, in a moment after, upon some thirty or forty horsemen, covered with white cassocks, and bearing the cornet of the Prince de Soubise.
"Where is the Prince de Condé?" I demanded "Where is the prince? I bear him a message from the admiral."
"He is coming up that narrow road," replied one of the gentlemen. "Having heard firing, we supposed that some affair was taking place, and are now marching up towards Triac."
"The whole van are engaged," I replied; and, without more words, rode on and met the prince at the head of three or four hundred horse, almost all gentlemen of high quality, and distinguished in arms. The prince was speaking gayly; and, the moment he saw me, he exclaimed, "Ah, De Cerons! what news do you bear? So the enemy has crossed the river, we hear. But, good heavens, your surcoat is pierced in twenty places, and you are bleeding from the hand and shoulder."
"That is nothing, my lord," I replied. "The enemy have passed the river, the vanguard has been engaged these two hours, and the admiral has sent me to say to your highness that a general battle is inevitable, and to beg you to charge in order to disentangle the advance."
"Instantly," replied the prince, his bright eye flashing with a light which I never saw anywhere but in them. "Martinet, you ride back instantly, and hurry the advance of the main battle. Chouppes, ride on with Languilliers to Soubise, and you three, with your men, gallop as fast as you can towards Triac, to clear the ground a little while we come up. De Cerons, you stay with me, as you have seen all that is passing, and can guide us well. Now on, my men!" And, putting the whole troop into a quicker pace, he led the way, till we came out half way down the hill up which the Royalist army had been advancing when I left the field.
The aspect of everything, however, was now very much changed; the admiral had retreated beyond Triac; Brissac occupied the village; Martigue had taken ground to the right thereof; the Duke of Montpensier was at the top of the rise, and the main body of the Catholics, under the Duke of Anjou, occupied the rest of the ground towards Chateauneuf.
The gallant Puyviault, however, and his men, stretching out and menacing the flank of Martigue's troops, afforded us the means of joining our line to that of the admiral; and had the whole of the Prince de Condé's division been upon the field, we might still, perhaps, have gained the day. Such not being the case, and, by one accident or another, the prince having received but tardy information of what was taking place, the situation of the admiral seemed to all of us who were on the lower ground more perilous than it really was.
Condé halted for a moment, as if to consider and to communicate with the admiral; and, had it not been for the arrival at that instant of a small body of German Protestants who were with the army, in all probability such counsels would have been held as would have prevented the fatal results of that day's field. Condé, however, saw our auxiliaries arrive with joy and satisfaction; not that he hoped to save the battle by the rash, and desperate conduct he was prepared to pursue, but he thought that, at all events, he should be enabled to disentangle the troops of the admiral by a strong diversion in his favour; and, the moment that the arrival of the Germans was known, I heard him call loudly for his casque.
At this time, though we were within shot of the arquebusiers, and a ball or two fell every now and then among us, he had nothing on his head but a small cap of crimson velvet. The page who bore his helmet, however, came but slowly; the different officers who were round about pressed up eagerly towards the prince; the horses were furious and eager to proceed; and Condé himself, having one arm in a sling, from an accident he had met with, restrained his own charger with difficulty from dashing forward into the midst of the enemy's ranks.
At length the page brought up the casque, and one or two persons were assisting him to place it on his head: his standard had been carried forward, bearing, written in letters of gold, "Doux le peril pour Christ et le pais!" the Count of Rochefoucault was mounting a fresh horse, to accompany him into themêlée; and, turning round towards me, the prince was asking, "Know you, De Cerons, whose cornets of horse those are upon the hill?" when, in a moment, I saw the charger that La Rochefoucault was about to mount lash out with both his feet towards the prince, whose horse seemed to stagger with the blow it received.
The velvet cap he had in his hand dropped to the ground, but that was the only expression (if it may be so called) of pain which escaped him. To my horror and astonishment, however, on approaching, I saw that the horse had broken his leg, and that the bone was absolutely protruding through the thick leather boot.
Exclamations of grief and distress burst from the lips of all around: but the prince waved his hand, exclaiming, "Silence!" And, a moment after, he added, "Behold, you true nobles of France, that which has occurred! Follow me to finish well what our brave friends have already so well begun! and remember this day, as you fight, in what state Louis of Bourbon leads you to the charge, 'for Christ and for his country!'"
As he spoke he pulled down the visor of his helmet, bent his head over his saddle-bow, gave the rein to his horse, and dashed like fury upon the flank of the Duke of Anjou's division. There was an immense body of men-at-arms before us, amounting, it is said, in all, to two thousand men; and the moment we began the charge, two regiments of reiters, amounting to two thousand five hundred men, and eight hundred lancers, with a small body of horse arquebusiers, swept round and hemmed us in; and yet it is extraordinary what that charge of the Prince de Condé did. There was not one man of us that hour who then spurred on his horse, and did not believe that his life was at a close, and he must sell the remnant dearly.
The light-horse which were in front gave way before us in a moment; the Duke of Guise and his men-at-arms were driven back upon La Valette; the regiments, of Chravigny and Nevers were cast into confusion; and, to use the words of another eyewitness, "In brief, the prince and his troop seemed like a thunderbolt."
But all that we could do was over in ten minutes. The regiment of the young Prince d'Auvergne came forward to support the rest, and in a gallant charge separated our small troop into parties: his father, the Duke of Montpensier, wheeled two regiments upon us to support his son; Martigue came down from the hill to have a share in our destruction, and, separated one from the other, we each fought with desperation against that party of the adversary which happened to be nearest to us. I was cutting my way on, attending to little else, and dealing the best blows I could with my heavy sword, when I suddenly received a pistol-ball in my right arm, which made it drop powerless by my side. An instant after, before any one could take advantage of my situation, my horse was killed under me, and fell at once to the ground, jamming firmly my right leg between the saddle and the earth, so that it was impossible for me to extricate myself.
The Catholic men-at-arms who were nearest to me, apparently conceived that I was myself killed, and one of them passed over me; but I was not only uninjured, except from the wounds I have mentioned, but was also painfully sensible of all the horrors that were passing around me. It is utterly impossible to give anything like the slightest idea of the scene that took place before my eyes. Sometimes I was left almost totally alone, beholding nothing but clouds of dust, and dim, uncertain figures whirling hither and thither; in another instant, one, two, three, perhaps fifty or sixty of the combatants, were close about me, and their horses nearly treading upon me at every instant. Thrice, indeed, they did strike me with their hoofs, but my armour luckily protected me.
At length I saw a charger all bloody, mounted by one whose aspect I knew full well. He was then at about twenty yards from me, and was riding rapidly up the hill where the ground was somewhat more clear. But at that very instant, two cavaliers, bearing red crosses on their shoulders, galloped fiercely forward upon him; and I saw that, though the horse exerted his utmost force to obey his rider's will, and though the rider urged him still on with eager speed, yet the gallant beast, bleeding from more than one wound, wavered as it struggled on, and the rider, with his head bent low, could scarcely keep himself in the saddle.
The other two, fresh and apparently unhurt, were up with him in a moment; and seeing that it was in vain to contend, with not a friend near him, without power to resist, without strength either in himself or in his horse to fly, Condé gave his left-hand gauntlet to one of those who approached him, and at the very same moment his horse stumbled and fell beneath him. As he lay, I saw him raise the visor of his helmet, and show his face to the gentleman to whom he had surrendered, whose name I afterward found was Argence.
The moment he saw the face of the prince, Argence sprang from his horse and attempted to aid Condé in rising; but then, seeing the state of his leg, he bore rather than assisted him to the foot of a small hawthorn-tree, and placed his back against the bank that supported it.
This was nearer to me than before, and the next instant two or three other gentlemen came up, and dismounting beside the captive prince, were talking to him in a quiet tone, when Montesquieu, whom I had seen several times before, and knew for his brutality, rode slowly up, and looked down upon me as I lay. My visor being down, he could not see whether I was dead or alive; and I remained quite still, though I held tight the pistol which I had drawn from my saddle-bow, determined not to surrender to him, but to shoot him with my left hand if he molested me. I believe he was looking for some unarmed point to stab me with his sword, in order to ascertain whether I was living or dead; but, not finding any, he had taken his pistol in his hand, as if to shoot me, in order to make all sure.
At that very instant, however, one of the others rode up from the hawthorn-tree, saying, "They have taken the Prince de Condé, there, Montesquieu."
"Taken!" exclaimed the brute, in a furious tone. "Kill him! kill him!--Mortbleu!" and, dashing forward, he levelled his pistol at the head of the unfortunate prince, and fired. Condé's head first fell back up against the bank, and then, rolling over with a convulsive motion, he fell dead at the feet of Argence, who turned angrily upon Montesquieu, and seemed to reproach him with what he had done.
After that I saw no more of them, for a company of horse came sweeping along between me and the spot at a somewhat slow pace, though Martigue was at their head. I knew his character well; though fierce, bold, and courageous as a lion, he was noble and generous-minded too; and as he passed within about ten paces of me, I called loudly upon his name. He did not hear me himself, but a young officer who was behind exclaimed, looking round, "Who calls Monsieur de Martigue?"
"It is I," I cried, lifting up my left hand, "I, a gentleman and a knight, wish to speak with him."
The young officer called his commander's attention, who turned his horse and rode up to me. "Who are you, and what do you want?" he said, looking down upon me without dismounting.
"I am De Cerons," I replied; "and, of all men in the army, wish to surrender to you;" and at the same time I raised my visor.
"Ah, you young tiger!" he cried, "have I got you. If I did right, I believe I should drop a lance into you. But, however, I suppose that must not be, and so I will give you some supper instead; for you have lost the day, young man, as I suppose you know."
"But too well," I replied, sadly; and Martigue, turning to some of those who followed, said, "There, help him up, and take care of him. Look to his wounds, too; for it is a pity that any one who has gone through a day like this should die at the end of it."
Thus saying, he rode on and left me.