le more than fifteen, and his cousin was not much older.
Nothing could for the present be expected from such striplings; and the
public, ever ready to look upon the comical side of even the most serious
matters, was not slow in nicknaming them the "admiral's two pages."[684]
Coligny, however, was not crushed by the new responsibility which devolved
upon him. No longer hampered by the authority of one whose counsels often
verged on foolhardiness, he soon exhibited his consummate abilities so
clearly, that even his enemies were forced to acknowledge that they had
never given him the credit he deserved. "It was soon perceived," observes
an author by no means friendly to the Huguenots, "that the accident (of
Conde's death) had happened only in order to reveal in all its splendor
the merits of the Admiral de Chatillon. The admiral had had during his
entire life very difficult and complicated matters to unravel, and,
nevertheless, he had never had any that were not far below his abilities,
and in which, consequently, he had no need of exerting his full capacity.
Thus those qualities that were rarest, and that exalted him most above
others, remained hidden, through lack of opportunity, and would apparently
have remained always concealed during the lifetime of the Prince of Conde,
because the world would have attributed to the prince all those results to
whose accomplishment it could not learn that the admiral had contributed
more than had the former. But, after the battle of Jarnac had permitted
the admiral to exhibit himself fully on the most famous theatre of Europe,
the Calvinists perceived that they were not so unhappy as they thought,
since they still had a leader who would prevent them from noticing the
loss they had experienced, so many singular qualities had he to repair
it."[685]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Deux Ponts comes with German auxiliaries.]

Wolfgang, Duke of Deux Ponts, had at length entered France, and was
bringing to the Huguenots their long-expected succor. He had seven
thousand five hundred reiters from lower Germany, six thousand lansquenets
from upper Germany, and a body of French and Flemish gentlemen, under
William of Orange and his brother, Mouy, Esternay and others, which may
have swelled his army to about seventeen thousand men in all.[686] In
vain did his cousin, the Duke of Lorraine, attempt to dissuade him,
offering to reimburse him the one hundred thousand crowns he had already
spent upon the prep