introduction of their expected German auxiliaries into central France,
but still more as a refuge for their allies in the neighboring provinces.
The bravery of the besieged made them superior to the forces sent to
dislodge them. They repulsed, with great loss to their enemies, two
successive assaults on different parts of the works, and, at last, gaining
new courage from the advantages they had obtained, assumed the offensive,
and forced Martinengo and the captains by whom he had been reinforced to
retire humiliated from the hopeless undertaking.[645] Meantime, in not
less than three important cities which the Huguenots hoped to gain without
striking a blow, the plans of those who were to have admitted the
Protestants within the walls failed in the execution; and Dieppe, Havre,
and Lusignan remained in the power of the Roman Catholic party.[646]

[Sidenote: Growing superiority of Anjou's forces.]

At the opening of the spring campaign the Prince of Conde found his
position relatively to his opponents by no means so favorable as at the
close of the previous year. His loss by disease equalled, his loss by
desertion exceeded, that of the Duke of Anjou; for it was impossible for
troops serving at their own expense, however zealous they might be for the
common cause, to be kept together, especially during a season of inaction,
so easily as the forces paid out of the royal treasury. Besides this, the
Duke of Anjou had received considerable reinforcements. Two thousand two
hundred German reiters, under the Rhinegrave and Bassompierre, had arrived
in his camp. They were the first division of a force of five thousand six
hundred men who had crossed the Rhine, near the end of December, under
Philibert, Marquis of Baden, and others. The young Count de Tende brought
three thousand foot soldiers from Provence and Dauphiny, and smaller
bodies came in from other parts of France.[647] Conde, on the contrary,
had received scarcely any accessions to his troops. The "viscounts," whose
arrival had turned the scale at the conclusion of the last war, lingered
in Guyenne, with an army of six thousand foot soldiers and a
well-appointed cavalry force, preferring to protect the Protestant
territories about Montauban and Castres, and to ravage the lands of their
enemies, as far as to the gates of Toulouse, rather than leave their homes
unprotected and join Conde. A dispute respecting precedence had not been
without some influence in causing the d