ting-place in the ancestral tomb at Vendome.[666]

[Sidenote: Exaggerated bulletins.]

Henry of Anjou was not inclined to suffer his victory to pass unnoticed.
Almost as soon as the smoke of battle had cleared away, a careful
description of his exploit was prepared for circulation, and it was no
fault of the compiler if the account he gave was not sufficiently
flattering to the young prince's vanity. Conde's body had not been four
days in the hands of the Roman Catholics, before Anjou wrote to his
brother, the King of France, announcing the fact that he had already
despatched messengers with the precious document to the Pope and the Duke
of Florence, to the Dukes of Savoy, Ferrara, Parma, and Urbino, to the
Republic of Venice and the Duke of Mantua, and to Philip of Spain; while
copies were also under way, intended for the French ambassadors in England
and Switzerland, for the Parliaments of Paris, Bordeaux, and Toulouse, the
"prevot des marchands," and the "echevins" of the capital, and
others.[667]

[Sidenote: The Pope's sanguinary injunctions.]

The exaggerated bulletins of the Duke of Anjou were received with great
demonstrations of joy by all the Roman Catholic allies of France. Pope
Pius the Fifth in particular sent warm congratulations to the "Most
Christian King" and to Catharine de' Medici. But he was very careful to
couple his expressions of thanks with an earnest recommendation to pursue
the work so auspiciously begun, even to the extermination of the detested
heretics. "The more kindly God has dealt with you and us," he promptly
wrote to Charles, "the more vigorously and diligently must you make use of
the present victory to pursue and destroy the remnants of the enemy, and
wholly tear up, not only the roots of an evil so great and which had
gathered to itself such strength, but even _the very fibres_ of the roots.
Unless they be thoroughly extirpated, they will again sprout and grow up
(as we have so often heretofore seen happen), where your Majesty least
expects it." Pius pledged his word that Charles would succeed in his
undertaking, "if no respect for men or for human considerations should be
powerful enough to induce him to spare God's enemies, who had spared
neither God nor him." "In no other way," he added, "will you be able to
appease God, than by avenging the injuries done to God with the utmost
severity, by the merited punishment of most accursed men." And he set as a
warning before the eyes of