hern boundary and invaded Philip's
Netherland provinces. He had, however, been driven back into France. As he
was believed to have acted under Conde's instructions, that prince was
requested by Charles to inform him whether Cocqueville were in his
service. When Conde disavowed him, and declined all responsibility for
the movement, Marshal Cosse was directed to march against Cocqueville,
and, on the eighteenth of July, the Huguenot chieftain was captured at the
town of Saint Valery, in Picardy, where he had taken refuge. Of
twenty-five hundred followers, barely three hundred are said to have been
spared. In order to please Alva, the Flemings received no quarter. The
leaders, Cocqueville, Vaillant, and Saint Amand, were brought to Paris and
gibbeted on the Place de Greve.[524]

[Sidenote: Attitude of the government suspicious.]

[Sidenote: Garrisons and interpretative ordinances.]

The central government itself gave the gravest grounds for fear and
suspicion. The Huguenots had promptly disbanded. They had lost no time in
dismissing their German allies, who, retiring with well-filled pockets to
the other side of the Rhine, seemed alone to have profited by the
intestine commotions of France.[525] On the contrary, the Roman Catholic
forces showed no disposition to disarm. It is true that, in the first
fervor of the ascendancy of the peace party, Catharine countermanded a
levy of five thousand Saxons, much to the annoyance of Castelnau, who had
by his unwearied diligence brought them in hot haste to Rethel on the
Aisne, only to learn that the preliminaries of peace were on the point of
being concluded, and that the troopers were expected to retrace their
steps to Saxony.[526] But the Swiss and Italian soldiers, as well as the
French gens-d'armes, were for the most part retained. To Humieres, who
commanded for the king in Peronne, Charles wrote an explanation of his
course: "Inasmuch as there are sometimes turbulent spirits so constituted
that they neither can nor desire to accommodate themselves so soon to
quiet, it has appeared to me extremely necessary to anticipate this
difficulty, and act in such a manner that, force and authority remaining
on my side, I may be able to keep in check those who might so far forget
themselves as to set on foot new disturbances and be the cause of
seditious uprising."[527] Large garrisons were thus provided for those
towns which had rendered themselves conspicuous in the defence of the
Hugu