5]

The death of the constable, who survived his wound only a single day, and
the subsequent divisions of the court, furnished the Prince of Conde with
an immunity from attack, of which, in view of his great inferiority in
number of troops, he deemed it most prudent to take advantage by promptly
retiring from his exposed position. Besides this, he had now an imperative
summons to the eastern frontier of the kingdom.

[Sidenote: The Protestant princes of Germany determine to aid the
Huguenots.]

At the very commencement of the war the Protestants had sent a deputation
to the German princes to solicit their support in a struggle in which the
adherents of the Augsburg Confession were no less vitally interested than
the reformed. But Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, the envoy of Charles the
Ninth, had so skilfully misrepresented the true character of the contest,
that the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg,
persuaded that political motives, rather than zeal for religion, were the
occasion of the revolt, had refused to assist the Huguenots, while
permitting William of Saxony and the Marquis of Baden to levy troops for
the king. To the Elector Palatine, Frederick the Third, surnamed "the
Pious," who from a Lutheran had become a Calvinist, a special ambassador
was despatched in the person of M. de Lansac. This gentleman, by more than
usually reckless misstatements, sought to persuade the elector to abandon
the enterprise of assistance which he had intended to intrust to his
second son, John Casimir. But his falsehoods were refuted by the
straightforward expose of the prince's agents,[466] and Lansac was only so
far successful that the elector consented to delay the departure of the
troops until he had sent a messenger to France to acquaint himself with
the true state of the case. It needed no more than this to determine him;
for the minister whom the elector had intrusted with the commission, after
visiting successively the court of the king and the camp of the prince of
Conde, returned with certain proofs that the representations of Bochetel
and of Lansac were altogether false.[467] Consequently the army which John
Casimir had gathered was speedily despatched to furnish Conde the support
the Huguenots so much needed.

In the letter which the elector palatine sent about the same time to the
King of France, the motives of this apparently inimical action are vividly
set forth. His envoy, the Councillor