n pleased, that very day, to
take him to Himself; and, what is more, that his death should have
produced no change or commotion in his army."[693]

Duke Wolfgang of Deux Ponts was quietly succeeded in the command of the
German troops by Count Wolrad of Mansfeld. A day later the two armies met
with lively demonstrations of joy. In honor of the alliance thus cemented
a medal was struck, bearing on the one side the names and portraits of
Jeanne and Henry of Navarre, and on the other the significant words,
"_Pax certa, victoria integra, mors honesta_"--the triple object of their
desires.[694]

[Sidenote: Huguenot success at La Roche Abeille.]

The combined army, now numbering about twenty-five thousand men, soon came
to blows with the enemy. The Duke of Anjou, whose forces were somewhat
superior in numbers, had approached within a very short distance of
Coligny, but, unwilling to risk a general engagement, had intrenched
himself in an advantageous position. A part of his army, commanded by
Strozzi, lay at La Roche Abeille, where it was furiously assaulted by the
Huguenots. Over four hundred royalists were left dead upon the field, and
Strozzi himself was taken prisoner. The disaster had nearly proved still
more serious; but a violent rain saved the fugitives by extinguishing the
lighted matches upon which the infantry depended for the discharge of
their arquebuses, and by seriously impeding the pursuit of the
cavalry.[695]

[Sidenote: Furlough of Anjou's troops.]

Although the Duke of Anjou had recently received considerable
reinforcements--about five thousand pontifical troops and twelve hundred
Florentines, under the command of Sforza, Count of Santa Fiore[696]--it
was now determined in a military council to disband the greater part of
the army, giving to the French forces a short furlough, and, for the most
part, trusting to the local garrisons to maintain the royal supremacy in
places now in the possession of the Roman Catholics. In adopting this
paradoxical course, the generals seem to have been influenced partly by a
desire to furnish the "gentilhommes," serving at their own expense, an
opportunity to revisit their homes and replenish their exhausted purses,
and thus diminish the temptation to desertion which had thinned the ranks;
partly, also, by the hope that the new German auxiliaries of the Huguenots
would of themselves melt away in a climate to which they were
unaccustomed.[697]

[Sidenote: Huguenot petit