n body, were attacked in their
quarters, by a force under Brissac, which they easily repulsed. D'Acier,
suspecting the design of the enemy, had commanded the Huguenot captains to
make no pursuit, and to await his own arrival. But brave Mouvans was as
impatient of orders as he was courageous in battle. Disregarding the
authority which sat so lightly upon him, he fell into an ambuscade, where
he atoned for his rashness by the loss of his own life and the lives of
more than a thousand of his companions. After this disaster, D'Acier
experienced no further opposition, and, on the first of November, he met
the advancing army of Conde at Aubeterre, on the banks of the Dronne.[611]

With the new accessions to his army, the prince commanded a force very
considerably larger than any he had led in the previous wars. Among the
conflicting statements, we may find it difficult to fix its numbers.
Agrippa d'Aubigne says that, after the losses consequent upon the defeat
of Messignac and those resulting from camp diseases, Conde's army
consisted of only seventeen thousand foot soldiers, and two thousand five
hundred horsemen.[612] A Huguenot bulletin, sent from La Rochelle for the
information of Queen Elizabeth and the Protestants of England, may have
given somewhat too favorable a view of the prince's prospects, but was
certainly nearer the truth, in assigning him twenty-five thousand
arquebusiers and a cavalry force of five or six thousand men.[613] On the
other hand, Henry of Anjou, who had been placed in nominal command of the
Roman Catholic army, had not yet been able to assemble a much superior,
probably not an equal, number of soldiers. The large forces which,
according to his ambassador at the English court, Charles the Ninth could
call out,[614] existed only on paper. The younger Tavannes, whose father
was the true head of the royal army, gives it but about twenty thousand
men.[615]

It was already nearly winter when the armies were collected, and their
operations during the remainder of the campaign were indecisive. In the
numerous skirmishes that occurred the Huguenots usually had the advantage,
and sometimes inflicted considerable damage upon the enemy. But the Duke
of Anjou, or the more experienced leaders commanding in his name,
studiously avoided a general engagement. The instructions from the court
were to wear out the courage and enthusiasm of Conde's adherents by
protracting a tame and monotonous warfare.[616] The prin