s, 1568. Corresp. diplom., i.
242-251.

[643] Despatch of Dec. 5, 1568, Corresp. diplom., i. 32, 33.

[644] In his despatch of March 25, 1569, La Mothe Fenelon admits to
Catharine his great perplexity as to how he should act, so as neither to
show too little spirit nor to provoke Elizabeth to such a declaration as
would compel the king, his master, to declare war at so inopportune a
time. Corresp. diplom., i. 281.

[645] Jean de Serres, iii. 307, 308; De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 169, 170;
Castelnau, liv. vii., c. 3.

[646] De Thou, iv. 171, 172; Castelnau, _ubi supra_.

[647] Jean de Serres, iii. 302, 309; De Thou, iv. 161; Agrippa d'Aubigne,
i. 277.

[648] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlv.) 174, 175.

[649] The Earl of Leicester gives Charles a more direct part in the war.
"The king hathe bene these two monethes about Metz in Lorrayne, to
empeache the entry of the Duke of Bipounte, who is set forward by the
common assent of all the princes Protestants in Germany, with twelve
thousand horsemen, and twenty-five thousand footemen, to assiste the
Protestants in France, and to make some final end of their garboyles."
Letter to Randolph, ambassador to the Emperor of Muscovy, May 1, 1569,
Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 313. The facilities, even for diplomatic
correspondence, with so distant a country as Muscovy, were very scanty.
Leicester's despatch is accordingly an interesting resume of the chief
events that had occurred in Western Europe during the past sixty days.

[650] Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 277; De Thou, iv. 172, etc.

[651] "Ja Dieu ne plaise qu'on die jamais que Bourbon ait fuyt devant ses
ennemis." Lestoile, 21. It is probably to this circumstance that the Earl
of Leicester alludes, when he says that "the Prince of Conde, through his
overmuche hardines and little regard to follow the Admirall's advise had
his arme broken with a courrire shotte," etc. Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i.
313, 314.

[652] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., liv. v., c. 8 (i. 280); De Thou, iv.
175.

[653] D'Aubigne, _ubi supra_. A Huguenot patriarch, named La Vergne, was
noticed by Agrippa himself fighting in the midst of twenty-five of his
nephews and kinsmen. The dead bodies of the old man and of fifteen of his
followers fell almost on a single heap, and nearly all the survivors were
taken prisoners.

[654] Jeanne d'Albret to Marie de Cleves, April, 1569, Rochambeau, Lettres
d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 297.

[655]