place only to the Prince of Navarre, the royal governor of the
province of Guyenne, at whose hands he had received it. Yet the position
of the Protestants was growing extremely perilous. During one of the
assaults upon the wall, De Piles himself became so thoroughly convinced
that Saint Jean would be carried, that he caused a breach to be made in
the fortifications in his rear, in order to facilitate the withdrawal of
his troops. Happily, he had no need of this mode of escape on the present
occasion. Meanwhile the most honorable terms were offered him. These he
refused to accept; but, finding his stock of ammunition rapidly becoming
exhausted, he agreed to a truce of ten days, that he might have time to
send a messenger to the princes to obtain their orders; promising, in case
he received no succor in the interval, to surrender the city on condition
that the garrison should be permitted to retire with their horses, arms
and personal effects, and that religious liberty should be granted to all
the residents. But, before the armistice had quite expired, Saint Surin,
and forty other brave horsemen from Angouleme, succeeded in piercing the
enemy's lines, and relieved De Piles from an engagement into which he had
entered with great reluctance. The hostages on both sides were given up,
and the siege was renewed with greater fury than ever. In the end, seeing
no prospect of sufficient reinforcement to enable him to maintain his
position, De Piles capitulated (on the second of December) on similar
terms to those that he had before declined, and the garrison marched out
with flying banners. Seven weeks had they detained the entire army of the
victors of Moncontour before an ill-fortified place. More than six
thousand men had died under its walls, by the casualties of war and by the
scarcely less destructive diseases that raged in the camp.[738] One of the
ablest and most enterprising of the royal generals--Sebastian of
Luxemburg, Viscount of Martigues and governor of Brittany--had been
killed.[739] Of the Protestants, only about a hundred and eighty persons
perished, nearly the half of them inhabitants of the town; for the men of
Saint Jean d'Angely, and even the women and children, had labored
industriously in defending their firesides.

It was a part of the compact, that, while neither De Piles nor his
soldiers should serve on the Huguenot side for four months, they should be
safely conducted without the Roman Catholic lines. Th