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Altogether I think that day after the battle of Arnay-le-Duc was the most wonderful of my life. The defeat of Marshal Cossé was so complete that we met with no further opposition, but pushed on to Chatillon, the sleepy little town which had the honour of being the birth-place of our noble chief.
He now saw military treatises expounded practically by professors, like his uncle Condo, and Admiral Coligny, and Lewis Nassau, in such lecture-rooms as Laudun, and Jarnac, and Montcontour, and never was apter scholar. The peace of Arnay-le-Duc succeeded, and then the fatal Bartholomew marriage with the Messalina of Valois.
Marching slowly, and halting two or three times during the day, as the general wished to husband his men's strength, we arrived early in the evening at a little stream near Arnay-le-Duc, and beheld, on the other side, two or three thousand of the royalist cavalry. There were no guns in sight, and the infantry had been drawn up at some distance in the background.
Having passed our last outpost, where we stayed to chat for a moment with the officer in command, we proceeded at a brisk pace, my comrade feeling assured that we should not meet an enemy during the first six miles. After that distance we went more slowly and with greater caution, for if the marshal was really at Arnay-le-Duc, his patrols were probably scouring the neighbourhood.
We had halted for the night some ten miles or so from Arnay-le-Duc, and I was gossiping with Roger Braund and several of the Englishmen their numbers by this time, alas! had thinned considerably when Felix came up hastily, his eyes shining with keen excitement. "Any fresh news?" asked Roger. "Nothing certain," my comrade answered, "but Cossé is reported to be at or near Arnay-le-Duc.
But for his courage Henry of Bearn would have been left lying on the field at Arnay-le-Duc." She gave me her hand to kiss, and thanked me graciously, saying that while she or her son lived I should not want a true friend. "Madame," I replied, "in taking my sister under your gracious protection you have already shown your kindness." "Your sister!" she said in surprise; "who is your sister?"
On arriving at Arnay-le-Duc, in Burgundy, he found himself confronted by Marshal de Cosse with thirteen thousand men of the king's troops. Coligny had barely half as many; but he did not hesitate to attack, and on the 13th of June, 1570, he was so near victory that the road was left open before him. On the 7th of July he arrived at Charite-sur-Loire. Alarm prevailed at Paris.
Then La Beresina, then Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles of Gelenhausen; then Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the Marne, the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon. At Arnay-Le-Duc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword, and saved, not his general, but his corporal.
He now saw military treatises expounded practically by professors, like his uncle Condo, and Admiral Coligny, and Lewis Nassau, in such lecture-rooms as Laudun, and Jarnac, and Montcontour, and never was apter scholar. The peace of Arnay-le-Duc succeeded, and then the fatal Bartholomew marriage with the Messalina of Valois.
Then a body of horsemen, about fifty or sixty in number, rode out from the camp in the direction of Arnay-le-Duc. After a while the troops fell in, and a number of richly-dressed officers rode along the lines, as if to inspect them. "Jacques," I said softly, for all this time he had remained with the animals, "if you can leave the horses, come here."
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