censure cast on both Bouillon and Villars respectively by
the antagonists of each chieftain; and the contest as to the cause of the
defeat was almost as animated as the skirmish itself. Bouillon was
censured for grudging a victory to the Catholics, and thus leaving the
admiral to his fate. Yet it is certain that the Huguenot duke himself
commanded a squadron composed almost entirely of papists. Villars, on the
other hand, was censured for rashness, obstinacy, and greediness for
distinction; yet it is probable that Fuentes might have been defeated had
the charges of Bouillon been as determined and frequent as were those of
his colleague. Savigny de Rosnes, too, the ancient Leaguer, who commanded
under Fuentes, was accused of not having sufficiently followed up the
victory, because unwilling that his Spanish friends should entirely
trample upon his own countrymen. Yet there is no doubt whatever that De
Rosnes was as bitter an enemy to his own country as the most ferocious
Spaniard of them all. It has rarely been found in civil war that the man
who draws his sword against his fatherland, under the banner of the
foreigner, is actuated by any lingering tenderness for the nation he
betrays; and the renegade Frenchman was in truth the animating spirit of
Fuentes during the whole of his brilliant campaign. The Spaniard's
victories were, indeed, mainly attributable to the experience, the
genius, and the rancour of De Rosnes.

But debates over a lost battle are apt to be barren. Meantime Fuentes,
losing no time in controversy, advanced upon the city of Dourlens, was
repulsed twice, and carried it on the third assault, exactly one week
after the action just recounted. The Spaniards and Leaguers, howling
"Remember Ham!" butchered without mercy the garrison and all the
citizens, save a small number of prisoners likely to be lucrative. Six
hundred of the townspeople and two thousand five hundred French soldiers
were killed within a few hours. Well had Fuentes profited by the
relationship and tuition of Alva!

The Count of Dinant and his brother De Ronsoy were both slain, and two or
three hundred thousand florins were paid in ransom by those who escaped
with life. The victims were all buried outside of the town in one vast
trench, and the effluvia bred a fever which carried off most of the
surviving inhabitants. Dourlens became for the time a desert.

Fuentes now received deputies with congratulations from the obedient
provinces, es