considered to be still in the
prime of life, but Alexander, who was turned of forty-five, was already
broken in health, while the vigorous Henry was eight years younger, and
of an iron constitution. Both had passed then lives in the field, but the
king, from nature, education, and the force of circumstances, preferred
pitched battles to scientific combinations, while the duke, having
studied and practised his art in the great Spanish and Italian schools of
warfare, was rather a profound strategist than a professional fighter,
although capable of great promptness and intense personal energy when his
judgment dictated a battle. Both were born with that invaluable gift
which no human being can acquire, authority, and both were adored and
willingly obeyed by their soldiers, so long as those soldiers were paid
and fed.

The prize now to be contended for was a high one. Alexander's complete
success would tear from Henry's grasp the first city of Christendom, now
sinking exhausted into his hands, and would place France in the power of
the Holy League and at the feet of Philip. Another Ivry would shatter the
confederacy, and carry the king in triumph to his capital and his
ancestral throne. On the approach of the combined armies under Parma and
Mayenne, the king had found himself most reluctantly compelled to suspend
the siege of Paris. His army, which consisted of sixteen thousand foot
and five thousand horse, was not sufficiently numerous to confront at the
same time the relieving force and to continue the operations before the
city. So long, however, as he held the towns and bridges on the great
rivers, and especially those keys to the Seine and Marne, Corbeil and
Lagny, he still controlled the life-blood of the capital, which indeed
had almost ceased to flow.

On the 31st August he advanced towards the enemy. Sir Edward Stafford,
Queen Elizabeth's ambassador, arrived at St. Denis in the night of the
30th August. At a very early hour next morning he heard a shout under his
window, and looking down beheld King Henry at the head of his troops,
cheerfully calling out to his English friend as he passed his door.
"Welcoming us after his familiar manner," said Stafford, "he desired us,
in respect of the battle every hour expected, to come as his friends to
see and help him, and not to treat of anything which afore, we meant,
seeing the present state to require it, and the enemy so near that we
might well have been interrupted in