Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: August 1, 2024
The stragglers and wounded on Farnese's march were killed by the country people in considerable numbers, and it was a pure impossibility for him longer to delay his return to the provinces which so much against his will he had deserted. He marched back by way of Champagne rather than by that of Picardy, in order to deceive the king.
The march was very slow, a Farnese's uniform practice to guard himself scrupulously against any possibility of surprise and to entrench himself thoroughly at nightfall. By the middle of February they reached the vicinity of Aumale in Picardy.
He was foiled of his combat; and he had lost the prize. Never was blow more successfully parried, a counter-stroke more ingeniously planted. The bridges of Charenton and St. Maur now fell into Farnese's hands without a contest. In an incredibly short space of time provisions and munitions were poured into the starving city; two thousand boat-loads arriving in a single day. Paris was relieved.
It would be a gallant achievement could the prince vanquish this bulwark, this stronghold of the foe; which was three times greater in size, strength, and number of its crew, than Farnese's vessel. What did he care, what recked he of the shower of bullets and tar-hoops that awaited him? Up and at them. Doria made warning signals, but the prince paid no heed, he would neither see nor hear them.
Thus it was from him that I learnt certain unsuspected things concerning Pier Luigi Farnese, who, it was said, was coming to be our Duke, and on whose behalf the Emperor was being importuned to invest him in the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. One day as we walked together in the garden my Lord Gambara and I I asked him plainly what was Messer Farnese's claim.
For Elizabeth, desirous of peace as she was, and trusting to Farnese's sincerity as she was disposed to do, was more sensitive than ever as to her dignity. "We charge you all," she wrote with her own hand to the commissioners, "that no word he overslipt by them, that may, touch our honour and greatness, that be not answered with good sharp words.
These acts of piety performed, the triumphal procession returned to the camp, where, soon afterwards, the joyful news of Alexander Farnese's entire convalescence was proclaimed. The Prince of Orange, as usual, was blamed for the tragical termination to this long drama. All that one man could do, he had done to awaken his countrymen to the importance of the siege.
Farnese's bold assault was kindly rebuked by the commander-in-chief, and when the former praised Navarrete's heroic aid before Don Juan, the general gave the bold warrior and gallant trooper, the honorable commission of bearing tidings of the victory to tile king.
The rapid success obtained by Farnese's policy, and the fact that his successors had no need to have recourse to violent measures, shows that Protestantism was not deeply rooted in the South and that the people would have been only too pleased to agree to its exclusion if they had obtained in exchange peace and independence.
The king had been besieging, since autumn, the town of La Fere, an important military and strategic position, which had been Farnese's basis of operations during his memorable campaigns in France, and which had ever since remained in the hands of the League.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking