on a former occasion saved, raised his visor,
made himself known, and surrendered. His captors pledged him their word
that his life should be spared, and respectfully endeavored to raise him
from the ground. Just at that moment another horseman rode up. It was
Montesquiou, captain of Anjou's guards, who came directly from his master,
and was charged--so it was said--with a secret commission. He drew a
pistol as he approached, and, without inquiring into the terms of the
capture, shot Conde in the back. The shot penetrated between the joints of
his armor, and caused almost instantaneous death.

So perished a prince even more illustrious for his courage and intrepidity
than for his exalted rank--a prince who had conscientiously espoused the
reformed faith, and had felt himself constrained by his duty to his God
and to his fellow-believers to assert the rights of the oppressed
Huguenots against illegal persecution. "Our consolation," wrote Jeanne
d'Albret a few weeks later, "is that he died on the true bed of honor,
both for body and soul, for the service of his God and his king, and the
quiet of his fatherland."[654] So magnanimous a hero could not be
insensible to the invasion of his claims as the representative of the
family next in the succession to the Valois; but I cannot agree with those
who believe that, in his assumption of arms in three successive wars, he
was influenced solely, or even principally, by selfish or ambitious
motives. His devotion to the cause which he had espoused was sincere and
whole-souled. If his love of pleasure was a serious blot upon his
character, let charity at least reflect upon the fearful corruption of the
court in which he had been living from his childhood, and remember that if
Conde yielded too readily to its fascinations, and fell into shameful
excesses, he yet bore with meekness the pointed remonstrances of faithful
friends, and in the end shook off the chains with which his enemies had
endeavored to bind him fast.[655] As a soldier, no one could surpass Conde
for bravery.[656] If his abilities as a general were not of the very
first order, he had at least the good sense to adopt the plans of Gaspard
de Coligny, the true hero of the first four civil wars. The relations
between these two men were well deserving of admiration. On the part of
Conde there was an entire absence of jealousy of the resplendent abilities
and well-earned reputation of the admiral. On the part of Coligny there