enote: Alva's view of accommodations with heretics.]

Meantime Catharine was not idle in soliciting foreign aid. The Duke
d'Aumale--who had also marched to Lorraine, in order to meet the Germans
coming to the assistance of the Roman Catholics, under command of the
Marquis of Baden--not being strong enough to block the passage of Conde's
troops, Catharine wrote to Alva, begging him to send to the duke, in this
emergency, two thousand arquebusiers. She warned him that if, through the
failure to procure them, the German reiters of John Casimir should be
permitted to enter the kingdom, she would hold herself exonerated, in the
sight of God and of all Christian princes, from the blame that might
otherwise attach to her for the peace which she would be compelled to
make with the heretics.[476] Alva, in reply, declined to send the Spanish
arquebusiers, who, he said, were needed by him, and could do little good
in France; but he added that, if Aumale, who was a soldier, would
guarantee with this accession to stop the reiters, he would let them go,
useful as they were in the Netherlands. As to the accommodation with the
Huguenots, which Catharine suggested, he viewed it as a frightful evil,
and exclaimed "that it was better to have a kingdom ruined in preserving
it for God and the king, than to retain it whole, but without religion,
for the advantage of the devil and his partisans, the heretics."[477]

[Sidenote: Conde and John Casimir meet in Lorraine.]

[Sidenote: Generosity of the Huguenot troops.]

About the beginning of the new year the foot-sore Huguenot army, after
nearly two months of tedious marches through a hostile country, and no
less tedious negotiations, reached Lorraine, only to find that their
German allies had not yet arrived. Sick at heart, with a powerful enemy
hanging on their rear, and seeking only an opportunity to make a sudden
descent upon them, many of the Huguenots were disposed to take advantage
of the proximity of the German cities to disperse and find a refuge there.
But Conde, with his never-failing vivacity and cheerfulness, and Coligny,
with his "grave words," succeeded in checking their despondency until the
welcome news of John Casimir's approach was announced. He brought six
thousand five hundred horse, three thousand foot, and four cannon of
moderate size. His arrival did not, however, prove an occasion of
unmingled satisfaction. The reiters, serving from purely mercenary
motives, demanded t