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Coligni's brother, the gallant Dandelot, was mortally wounded in this disastrous field; many of his stanchest friends had fallen; many abandoned him; and he found himself a fugitive, with only a few bands of mutineers around him, the wreck of the gallant army that he had lately led. But it was in this depth of gloom that the true heroic lustre of his soul was seen.
When it was known that Coligni's banner still was flying, the Protestants of France and Eastern Germany, who at first had been stunned by the report of Moncontour, thronged to him as to a strong tower in the midst of trouble.
In spite of the mutinous murmurings of the German reisters, in spite of the attempts which the Roman Catholic commanders made to intercept him, Coligni executed his daring scheme. Havre was reached. The English subsidies were secured, and the rich and powerful city of Caen voluntarily placed itself in Coligni's power.
At the court itself the nobles feasted ostentatiously on the fast days of the Church and flocked to the Protestant preachings. The clergy themselves seemed shaken. Bishops openly abjured the older faith. Coligni's brother, the Cardinal of Châtillon, celebrated the communion instead of mass in his own episcopal church at Beauvais, and married a wife.
Arnay le Duc, a town situated on commanding ground, where we slept, boasts of an earlier celebrity, having been the scene of one of Admiral de Coligni's victories. It possesses several convents, now private property, and one or two fragments of building of a peculiarly antiquated style.
Coligni led the remains of the Protestant army back to Orleans; whither the Duke of Guise, at the head of a largely recruited army, flushed by their recent victory, soon advanced, with the intention of crushing insurrection and Protestantism, by the capture of their stronghold. Coligni's situation now seemed desperate.
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