of whom excelled
in the art of keeping up the courage of their men. "Where are you taking
us now?" asked an ill-tempered officer one day. "To meet our German
allies," said Conde. "And suppose we don't find them?" "Then we will
breathe on our fingers, for it is mighty cold." They did at last, at
Pont-a-Mousson, meet the German re-enforcements, which were being brought
up by Prince John Casimir, son of the elector-palatine, and which made
Conde's army strong enough for him to continue the war in earnest. But
these new comers declared that they would not march any farther unless
they were paid the hundred thousand crowns due to them. Conde had but
two thousand. "Thereupon," says La Noue, "was there nothing for it but
to make a virtue of necessity; and he as well as the admiral employed all
their art, influence, and eloquence to persuade every man to divest
himself of such means as he possessed for to furnish this contribution,
which was so necessary. They themselves were the first to set an
example, giving up their own silver plate. . . . Half from love and
half from fear, this liberality was so general, that, down to the very
soldiers' varlets, every one gave; so that at last it was considered a
disgrace to have contributed little. When the whole was collected, it
was found to amount, in what was coined as well as in plate and gold
chains, to more than eighty thousand livres, which came in so timely,
that without it there would have been a difficulty in satisfying the
reiters. . . . Was it not a thing worthy of astonishment to see an
army, itself unpaid, despoiling itself of the little means it had of
relieving its own necessities and sparing that little for the
accommodation of others, who, peradventure, scarcely gave them a thankee
for it?" [_Memoires de La Noue, in the Petitot collection,_ 1st Series,
t. xxxiv. p. 207.]

So much generosity and devotion, amongst the humblest as well as the most
exalted ranks of the army, deserved not to be useless: but it turned out
quite differently. Conde and Coligny led back to Paris their new army,
which, it is said, was from eighteen to twenty thousand strong, and
seemed to be in a condition either to take Paris itself, or to force the
royal army to enter the field and accept a decisive battle. To bring
that about, Conde thought the best thing was to besiege Chartres, "the
key to the granary of Paris," as it was called, and "a big thorn,"
according to La Noue,