" Hist. eccles. ii. 144.

[211] It ought perhaps, in justice to the reiters, to be noticed that
Coligny attributes their failure not to cowardice, as in the case of both
the French and the German infantry, but to their not understanding orders,
and to the occasional absence of an interpreter.

[212] La Noue in his commentaries (Ed. Mich., c. x., p. 605 seq.) makes
some interesting observations on the singular incidents of the battle of
Dreux. The author of the Histoire eccles., ii. 140, and De Thou, iii. 367,
criticise both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant generals. They find
the former to blame for not waiting to engage the Huguenots until they had
reached the rougher country they were approaching, where the superiority
of Conde in cavalry would have been of little avail. They censure the
latter for leaving his own infantry unprotected, and for attacking the
enemy's infantry instead of his cavalry. If this had been routed, the
other would have made no further resistance.

[213] He had, according to Beza's letter to Calvin, Dec. 27th (Baum, ii.
Appendix, 202), lost only one hundred and fifty of his horsemen; or,
according to the Histoire eccles. (ii. 146), only twenty-seven.

[214] For details of the battle of Dreux, see Hist. eccles., ii. 140-148;
Mem. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. v.; De Thou, iii. 365, etc.; Pasquier,
Lettres (Ed. Feugere), ii. 251-254; Guise's relation, reprinted in Mem. de
Conde, iv. 685, etc., and letters subsequently written, ibid. iv. 182,
etc.; Coligny's brief account, written just after the battle, ibid. iv.
178-181; the Swiss accounts, Baum, ii. Appendix, 198-202; Vieilleville,
liv. viii., c. xxxvi.; Davila, 81, seq. Cf. letter of Catharine, _ubi
infra_, and two plans of the engagement, in vol. v. of Mem. de Conde. The
Duc d'Aumale gives a good military sketch, i. 189-205.

[215] "Et non sans cause," says Abbe Bruslart; "d'autant que de ceste
bataille despendoit tout l'estat de la religion chrestienne et du
royaume." Mem. de Conde, i. 105. A despatch of Smith to the Privy Council,
St. Denis, Dec. 20, 1562, gives this first and incorrect account. MS.
State Paper Office.

[216] H. Martin, Hist. de France, x. 156. Le Laboureur, ii. 450.
Catharine's own account to her minister at Vienna, it is true, is very
different. "J'en demeuray pres de 24 heures _en une extreme ennuy et
fascherie_, et jusques a ce que le S. de Losses arriva par-devers moy, qui
fut hier sur les neuf heures du matin." L