scene of action but did their work on foot, were called at that day--now
dismounted and threw themselves between Henry and his pursuers. Nearly
every man of them laid down his life, but they saved the king's. Their
vigorous hand to hand fighting kept off the assailants until Nevers and
Longueville received the king at the gates of Aumale with a force before
which the Leaguers were fain to retreat as rapidly as they had come.

In this remarkable skirmish of Aumale the opposite qualities of Alexander
and of Henry were signally illustrated. The king, by his constitutional
temerity, by his almost puerile love of confronting danger for the
danger's sake, was on the verge of sacrificing himself with all the hopes
of his house and of the nobler portion of his people for an absolute
nothing; while the duke, out of his superabundant caution, peremptorily
refused to stretch out his hand and seize the person of his great enemy
when directly within his, grasp. Dead or alive, the Bearnese was
unquestionably on that day in the power of Farnese, and with him the
whole issue of the campaign and of the war. Never were the narrow limits
that separate valour on the one side and discretion on the other from
unpardonable lunacy more nearly effaced than on that occasion.'

When would such an opportunity occur again?

The king's wound proved not very dangerous, although for many days
troublesome, and it required, on account of his general state of health,
a thorough cure. Meantime the royalists fell back from Aumale and
Neufchatel, both of which places were at once occupied by the Leaguers:
In pursuance of his original plan, the Duke of Parma advanced with his
customary steadiness and deliberation towards Rouen. It was his intention
to assault the king's army in its entrenchments in combination with a
determined sortie to be made by the besieged garrison. His preparations
for the attack were ready on the 26th February, when he suddenly received
a communication from De Villars, who had thus far most ably and gallantly
conducted the defence of the place, informing him that it was no longer
necessary to make a general attack. On the day before he had made a sally
from the four gates of the city, had fallen upon the besiegers in great
force, had wounded Biron and killed six hundred of his soldiers, had
spiked several pieces of artillery and captured others which he had
successfully brought into the town, and had in short so damaged the
enemy's