urrender of Niort, the
size and advantageous position of which made it a bulwark of La Rochelle
toward the east. Angouleme, Blaye, Cognac, Pons, and Saintes, were still
more valuable acquisitions. In short, within a few weeks, so large a
number of cities in the provinces of Poitou, Angoumois, and Saintonge had
fallen under the power of the Protestants, that they seemed fully to have
retrieved the losses they had experienced through the treacherous peace of
Longjumeau. "In less than two months," writes La Noue of his
fellow-soldiers, "from poor vagabonds that they were, they found in their
hands sufficient means to continue a long war."[607] And the veteran
Admiral Coligny, amazed at the success attending measures principally
planned by himself, was accustomed to repeat with heartfelt thankfulness
the exclamation attributed to Themistocles: "I should be lost, if I had
not been lost!"[608]

[Sidenote: Affairs in Dauphiny, Provence, and Languedoc.]

[Sidenote: Powerful Huguenot army in the south.]

[Sidenote: It effects a junction with Conde's forces.]

Meantime, in the south-eastern part of France, the provinces of Dauphiny,
Provence, and Lower Languedoc, the Huguenots had not been slow in
responding to the call of the Prince of Conde. The difficulty was rather
in assembling their soldiers than in raising them; for there was little
lack of volunteers after the repeal of the royal edicts in favor of the
Protestants. With great trouble the contingents of Dauphiny and Provence
were brought across the Rhone, and at Alais the Baron d'Acier[609]
mustered an army to go to the succor of the Prince of Conde at La
Rochelle. A Roman Catholic historian expresses his profound astonishment
that the Huguenots of this part of the kingdom, when surprised by the
violation of the peace, should so speedily have been able to mass a force
of twenty-five thousand men, well furnished and equipped, and commanded by
the most excellent captains of the age--Montbrun, Mouvans, Pierre-Gourde,
and others.[610] The abbe's wonder was doubtless equalled by the
consternation which the news spread among the enemies of the Huguenots.
The Roman Catholics could bring no army capable of preventing the junction
of D'Acier's troops with those of Conde; but the Duke of Montpensier
succeeded, on the twenty-fifth of October, in inflicting a severe loss
upon one of the divisions at Messignac, near Perigueux. Mouvans and
Pierre-Gourde, who were distant from the mai