e possession of which would open to the Spaniards the road to Paris,
advanced with all the force {p.291} which he could collect, not
meaning to risk a battle, but to throw provisions and further supplies
of men into St. Quentin. Montmorency had but 20,000 men with him. His
levies consisted of the reserved force of the kingdom--princes, peers,
knights, gentlemen, with their personal retinues, the best blood in
France. It was such an army as that which lost Agincourt, and a fate
not very different was prepared for it.

On the 10th of August, the constable was forced by accident into an
engagement, in which he had the disadvantage of position as well as of
numbers. Mistaken movements caused a panic in the opening of the
battle, and the almost instant result was a confused and hopeless
rout. The Duke d'Enghien fell on the field with four thousand men; the
constable himself, the Duke de Montpensier, the Duke de Longueville,
the Marshal St. Andre, three hundred gentlemen, and several thousand
common soldiers, were taken; the defeat was irretrievably complete,
and to the victors almost bloodless. The English did not share in the
glory of the battle, for they were not present; but they arrived two
days after to take part in the storming of St. Quentin, and to share,
to their shame, in the sack and spoiling of the town. They gained no
honour; but they were on the winning side. The victory was credited to
the queen as a success, and was celebrated in London with processions,
bonfires, and _Te Deums_.

Nor was the defeat at St. Quentin the only disaster which the French
arms experienced. Henry sent in haste to Italy for the Duke of Guise
to defend Paris, where Philibert was daily expected. Guise was already
returning after a failure less conspicuous, but not less complete,
than that of the constable. The pope had received him on his arrival
with enthusiasm, but the promised papal contingent for the campaign
had not been provided; the pope was contented to be the soul of the
enterprise of which France was to furnish the body. Guise advanced
alone for the conquest of Naples, and he found himself, like De
Lautrec in 1528, baffled by an enemy who would not meet him in the
field, and obliged to waste his time and the health of his army in a
series of unsuccessful sieges, till in a few months the climate had
done Alva's work. The French troops perished in thousands, and Guise
at last drew off his thinned ranks and fell back on Rome. He