ll content with their
enterprise, I prayed them, I say, that if they did not acquiesce in my
counsel, they would, at the very least, some time after they had glutted
and satiated their hearts and their thirst with the blood of their
subjects, embrace the first opportunity that offered itself for making
peace, before that things were reduced to utter ruin; for, whatever there
might be at the bottom of this war, it could not but be very pernicious
to the king and the kingdom." During the two years that it lasted, from
August, 1568, to August, 1570, the third religious war under Charles IX.
entailed two important battles and many deadly faction-fights, which
spread and inflamed to the highest pitch the passions of the two parties.
On the 13th of March, 1569, the two armies, both about twenty thousand
strong, and appearing both of them anxious to come to blows, met near
Jarnac, on the banks of the Charente; the royal army had for its chief
Catherine de' Medici's third son, Henry, Duke of Anjou, advised by the
veteran warrior Gaspard de Tavannes, and supported by the young Duke
Henry of Guise, who had his father to avenge and his own spurs to win.

[Illustration: HENRY OF LORRAINE (DUKE OF GUISE)----332]

The Prince of Conde, with Admiral de Coligny for second, commanded the
Protestant army. We make no pretension to explain and discuss here the
military movements of that day, and the merits or demerits of the two
generals confronted; the Duke of Aumale has given an account of them and
criticised them in his _Histoire des Princes de Conde,_ with a complete
knowledge of the facts and with the authority that belongs to him. "The
encounter on the 13th of March, 1569, scarcely deserves," he says, "to be
called a battle; it was nothing but a series of fights, maintained by
troops separated and surprised, against an enemy which, more numerous to
begin with, was attacking with its whole force united.". A tragic
incident at the same time gave this encounter an importance which it has
preserved in history. Admiral de Coligny, forced to make a retrograde
movement, had sent to ask the Prince of Conde for aid; by a second
message he urged the prince not to make a fruitless effort, and to fall
back himself in all haste. "God forbid," answered Conde, "that Louis de
Bourbon should turn his back to the enemy!" and he continued his march,
saying to his brother-in-law, Francis de la Rochefoucauld, who was
marching beside him, "My uncle