tant leader not less remarkable for
generalship than for literary ability, of whose "Political and Military
Discourses," written during a later captivity, it has been said with
justice that, in perspicuity, force, and good judgment, they are not
inferior to the most celebrated commentaries of antiquity.[1267] La Noue
was with Louis of Nassau in the city of Mons when the news of Admiral
Coligny's murder, and of the consequent failure of the promised support of
France, reached him. Mons soon after surrendered to the Duke of Alva, and
La Noue scarcely knew whither to turn for refuge, when he received from
his old friend, the Duke of Longueville, Governor of Picardy, a cordial
invitation to return to France. Not without many misgivings, he visited
Paris, where, contrary to his expectations, Charles greeted him very
graciously, and even restored to him the confiscated property of his
wife's murdered brother, Teligny. Taking advantage of the moment, the
king now requested La Noue to undertake the task of mediating between the
government and La Rochelle, and thus preventing the outbreak of a new
civil war and the effusion of more blood. At first La Noue positively
declined the appointment; but the king was urgent, and the arguments which
he adduced coincided with the Huguenot's own impressions of the
hopelessness of a struggle undertaken by a single city against the united
forces of the most powerful kingdom of Christendom. It was only after the
most solemn protestations of Charles, that he would not make use of him as
an instrument to deceive and ruin his Protestant brethren, that La Noue
reluctantly consented to accept a commission from which he was more likely
to reap embarrassment than glory.

[Sidenote: He is badly received by the Rochellois.]

And certainly his first reception by the Rochellois was far from
flattering. In a conference with the deputies of the city, in the suburban
village of Tadon[1268]--for La Noue was not permitted to enter the
walls--the burghers clearly revealed the suspicion with which they viewed
him. They bluntly told him, after listening to the propositions he brought
from the king, "that they had come to confer with M. de la Noue, but that
they did not recognize him in the person before them. The brave warrior so
closely bound to them in former years, and who had lost an arm in their
defence, had a different heart, never came to them with vain hopes, nor,
under the guise of friendship, invited t