elay, and M. de Piles, who had been
twice sent to urge them forward, had only succeeded in bringing a corps
of one thousand two hundred arquebusiers and two hundred horse.[648] It
was now expected, however, that realizing the vital importance of opposing
to Anjou a powerful Protestant army, the viscounts would abandon their
short-sighted policy; and it was the intention of Conde and Coligny, after
effecting a junction, to march with the combined armies to meet the Duke
of Deux-Ponts. Anticipating this plan, the court had despatched the Dukes
of Aumale and of Nemours to guard the entrance into France from the side
of Germany. There seemed to be danger that the precaution would prove
ineffectual through the jealousy existing between the two leaders; but
this danger Catharine attempted to avert by removing the royal court to
Metz, where she could exert her personal influence in reconciling the
ambitious rivals.[649] In order to prevent the threatened union of Conde
and the viscounts, the Duke of Anjou now left his winter quarters upon the
Loire and moved southward. On the other hand, the Prince of Conde left
Niort, and, pursuing a course nearly parallel, passed through St. Jean
d'Angely to Saintes, thence diverging to Cognac, on the Charente.[650]

[Sidenote: The armies meet on the Charente.]

The Charente, although by no means one of the largest rivers of France,
well deserves to be called one of the most capricious. For about a quarter
of its length it runs in a northwesterly direction. At Civray it abruptly
turns southward and flows in a meandering course as far as Angouleme,
receiving on the way the waters of the Tardouere (Tardoire), and with it
almost completely inclosing a considerable tract of land. At Angouleme,
the old whim regaining supremacy, the Charente again bends suddenly
westward, and finally empties into the ocean below Rochefort, through a
narrow arm of the sea known as the Pertuis d'Antioche. The tract of
country included between the river and the shores of the Bay of Biscay,
comprising a large part of the provinces of Aunis and Saintonge, was in
the undisputed possession of the Huguenots. They held the right bank of
the river, and controlled the bridges. Here they intended to await the
arrival of the viscounts. Jarnac, an important town on this side, a few
miles above Cognac, Admiral Coligny with the advance guard of the prince's
army had wrested from the enemy. They had also recovered Chateauneuf, a
s