was fiercer and closer, where the issue was for a longer time
doubtful, where far more lives on either side were lost, where the final
victory was immediately productive of very much greater results, and
which, nevertheless, have sunk into hopeless oblivion. The personal
details which remain concerning the part enacted by the adventurous king
at this most critical period of his career, the romantic interest which
must always gather about that ready-witted, ready-sworded Gascon, at the
moment when, to contemporaries, the result of all his struggles seemed so
hopeless or at best so doubtful; above all, the numerous royal and
princely names which embellished the roll-call of that famous passage of
arms, and which were supposed, in those days at least, to add such lustre
to a battle-field, as humbler names, however illustrious by valour or
virtue, could never bestow, have made this combat for ever famous.

Yet it is certain that the most healthy moral, in military affairs, to be
derived from the event, is that the importance of a victory depends less
upon itself than on the use to be made of it. Mayenne fled to Mantes, the
Duke of Nemours to Chartres, other leaders of the League in various
directions, Mayenne told every body he met that the Bearnese was killed,
and that although his own army was defeated, he should soon have another
one on foot. The same intelligence was communicated to the Duke of Parma,
and by him to Philip. Mendoza and the other Spanish agents went about
Paris spreading the news of Henry's death, but the fact seemed woefully
to lack confirmation, while the proofs of the utter overthrow and
shameful defeat of the Leaguers were visible on every side. The
Parisians--many of whom the year before had in vain hired windows in the
principal streets, in order to witness the promised entrance of the
Bearnese, bound hand and foot, and with a gag in his mouth, to swell the
triumph of Madam League--were incredulous as to the death now reported to
them of this very lively heretic, by those who had fled so ignominiously
from his troopers.

De la None and the other Huguenot chieftains, earnestly urged upon Henry
the importance of advancing upon Paris without an instant's delay, and it
seems at least extremely probable that, had he done so, the capital would
have fallen at once into his hands. It is the concurrent testimony of
contemporaries that the panic, the destitution, the confusion would have
made resistance impos