rmour, and the whole
of the horses falling into the hands of the victors, who halted at
the village until morning.

"Well, De Brissac," the Count de la Noue said, as they started on
their return, "the times have changed since you and I fought under
your father in Italy; and we little thought, then, that some day we
should be fighting on opposite sides."

"Still less that I should be your prisoner, De la Noue," the other
laughed. "Well, we have made a nice business of this. We thought to
surprise De Laville's chateau, without having to strike a blow; and
that we were going to return to Poitiers with at least a thousand
head of cattle. We were horribly beaten at the chateau, have now
been surprised ourselves, and you are carrying off our horses, to
say nothing of ourselves. We marched out with eighteen hundred men,
horse and foot; and I don't think more than five or six hundred, at
the outside, have got away--and that in the scantiest apparel.

"Anjou will be furious, when he hears the news. When I am
exchanged, I expect I shall be ordered to my estates. Had De
Laville some older heads to assist him?"

"No, he and that young cousin of his, riding next to him, acted
entirely by themselves; and the cousin, who is an English lad, is
the one who invented that barricade of bullocks that stopped you."

"That was a rare device," De Brissac said. "I fought my way to it,
once, but there was no possibility of climbing it. It is rather
mortifying to my pride, to have been so completely beaten by the
device of a lad like that. He ought to make a great soldier, some
day, De la Noue."

Chapter 15: The Battle Of Jarnac.

While the two armies were lying inactive through the winter, the
agents of both were endeavouring to interest other European powers
in the struggle. The pope and Philip of Spain assisted the Guises;
while the Duc de Deux-Ponts was preparing to lead an army to the
assistance of the Huguenots, from the Protestant states of Germany.
The Cardinal Chatillon was in England, eloquently supporting the
letters of the Queen of Navarre to Elizabeth, asking for aid and
munitions of war, men, and money--the latter being required,
especially, to fulfil the engagements made with the German
mercenaries.

Elizabeth listened favourably to these requests while, with her
usual duplicity, she gave the most solemn assurances to the court
of France that, so far from assisting the Huguenots, she held in
horror those who raise