should make no peace with the
heretical rebels. Indeed, Philip had few men, and no money, to spare. The
French troops were in great straits. The gentlemen, who, in return for
their immunity from all taxation, were bound to serve the monarch in the
field at their own expense, had exhausted their available funds in so long
a contest, and it was impossible to muster them in such numbers as the war
demanded. Charles himself had always been averse to war. His tastes were
pacific. If he ever emulated the martial glory which his brother Anjou had
so easily acquired, the feeling was but of momentary duration, and met
with little encouragement from his mother. He had, undoubtedly, consented
to the initiation of the war only in consequence of the misrepresentations
made by those who surrounded him, respecting its necessity and the ease of
its prosecution. He had now the strongest reasons for desiring the
immediate return of peace. His marriage with the daughter of the emperor
had for some months been arranged, but Maximilian refused to permit
Elizabeth to become the queen of a country rent with civil commotion.
Catharine de' Medici, also, from the advocate of war, had become anxious
for peace--tardily returning to the conviction which she had often
expressed in former years, that the attempt to exterminate the Huguenots
by force of arms was hopeless. After two years she was no nearer her
object than when the Cardinal of Lorraine persuaded her to endeavor to
seize Conde at Noyers. Jarnac had accomplished nothing; Moncontour was
nearly as barren a victory. A great part of what had been so laboriously
effected by Anjou's army in the last months of 1569, La Noue had been
undoing in the first half of 1570.[778] The Protestants, who were, a few
months since, shut up in La Rochelle, had defeated their enemies at Sainte
Gemme, near Lucon, and had retaken Fontenay, Niort, the Isle d'Oleron,
Brouage, and other places. The Baron de la Garde, who had lately, in the
capacity of "general of the galleys," been infesting the seas in the
neighborhood of La Rochelle, was compelled to retire to Bordeaux.[779]
Saintes had been besieged and captured, and the Huguenots were advancing
to the reduction of St. Jean d'Angely, not long since so dearly won by the
Roman Catholics.[780] Montluc had, it is true, met with success in Bearn,
where Rabasteins was taken and its entire garrison massacred.[781] But
what were these advantages at the foot of the Pyrenees