arations for the expedition. Even Conde's death did not
discourage him. He came, he said, to fight, not for the prince, but for
"the cause."[687] When about entering his Most Christian Majesty's
dominions, he had published the reasons of his coming to assist the
Huguenots. In this paper he treated as pure calumnies the accusations
brought by their enemies against Conde, Coligny, and their associates, and
proved his position by quoting the king's own express declaration, in the
recent edicts of pacification, "that he recognized everything they had
attempted as undertaken by his orders and for the good of the
kingdom."[688] The point was certainly well taken. Charles's various
declarations were not remarkably consistent. In one, Conde was "his
faithful servant and subject," and his acts were prompted by the purest of
motives. In the next, he and his fellow-Huguenots were incorrigible
rebels, with whom every method of conciliation had signally failed. But
Charles did not trouble himself to attempt to smooth away these
contradictions. He is even said to have replied to the envoy whom Deux
Ponts sent him (April, 1569), demanding the restitution of the Edict of
January and the payment of thirty thousand crowns due to Prince Casimir,
that "Deux Ponts was too insignificant a personage (_trop petit
compagnon_) to undertake to dictate laws to him, and that, as to the
money, he would deliberate about _that_ when the duke had laid down his
arms."[689]

The secret of this arrogant demeanor is found in the fact that the court
believed it impossible for the Germans to join Coligny. Even so late as
the middle of May, when Deux Ponts had penetrated to Autun in Burgundy,
Charles regarded the attempt as well nigh hopeless. The fortunes of the
Huguenots were desperate. "There remains for them as their last resort,"
he wrote to one of his ambassadors, "but the single hope that the Duke of
Deux Ponts will venture so far as to go to find them where they are. But
there is little likelihood that an army of strangers, pursued by another
of about equal strength--an army destitute of cities of its own, without
means of passing the rivers, favored by no one in my kingdom, dying of
hunger, so often harassed and put to inconvenience--should be able to make
so long a journey without being lost and dissipated of itself, even had I
no forces to combat it." "The duke," continued the king, "will soon repent
of his mad project of entering France, and attemp