, and the
gleam of the spears and banners of an approaching host was seen on the
distant hills. The joyful tidings spread through the ranks of the
Protestants that the Queen of Navarre, with her son and four thousand
troops, had arrived. At the head of her firm and almost invincible
band she rode, calm and serene, magnificently mounted, with her proud
boy by her side. As the queen and her son entered the plain, an
exultant shout from the whole Protestant host seemed to rend the
skies. These enthusiastic plaudits, loud, long, reiterated, sent
dismay to the hearts of the Catholics.

Jeanne presented her son to the Protestant army, and solemnly
dedicated him to the defense of the Protestant faith. At the same time
she published a declaration to the world that she deplored the horrors
of war; that she was not contending for the oppression of others, but
to secure for herself and her friends the right to worship God
according to the teachings of the Bible. The young prince was placed
under the charge of the most experienced generals, to guard his person
from danger and to instruct him in military science. The Prince of
Conde was his teacher in that terrible accomplishment in which both
master and pupil have obtained such worldwide renown.

Long files of English troops, with trumpet tones, and waving banners,
and heavy artillery, were seen winding their way along the streams of
France, hastening to the scene of conflict. The heavy battalions of
the Pope were marshaling upon all the sunny plains of Italy, and the
banners of the rushing squadrons glittered from the pinnacles of the
Alps, as Europe rose in arms, desolating ten thousand homes with
conflagrations, and blood, and woe. Could the pen record the
smouldering ruins, the desolate hearthstones, the shrieks of mortal
agony, the wailings of the widow, the cry of the orphan, which thus
resulted from man's inhumanity to man, the heart would sicken at the
recital. The summer passed away in marches and counter-marches, in
assassinations, and skirmishes, and battles. The fields of the
husbandmen were trampled under the hoofs of horses. Villages were
burned to the ground, and their wretched inhabitants driven out in
nakedness and starvation to meet the storms of merciless winter. Noble
ladies and refined and beautiful maidens fled shrieking from the
pursuit of brutal and licentious soldiers. Still neither party gained
any decisive victory. The storms of winter came, and beat he