The young soldier—a prince by birth—obeyed, and so effectively that he put the Leaguers to rout, killed three hundred of them, and returned to camp unobstructed. On the succeeding two days similar encounters took place, with like good fortune for Henry's army. Mayenne was annoyed. His prestige was in danger of being lost. He determined to recover it by attacking the intrenchments of the king with his whole army.
The night of the 20th of September came. It was a very dark one. Henry, having reason to expect an attack, kept awake the whole night. In company with a group of his officers, he gazed over the dark valley within which lay Mayenne's army. The silence was profound. Afar off could be seen a long line of lights, so flickering and inconstant that the observers were puzzled to decide if they were men or glow-worms.
At five in the morning, Henry gave orders that every man should be at his post. He had his breakfast brought to him on the field, and ate it with a hearty appetite, seated in a fosse with his officers around him. While there a prisoner was brought in who had been taken during a reconnoissance.
"Good-morning, Belin," said the king, who knew him. "Embrace me for your welcome appearance."
Belin did so, taking the situation philosophically.
"To give you appetite for dinner," he said, "you are about to have work to do with thirty thousand foot and ten thousand horse. Where are your forces?" he continued, looking around curiously.
"You don't see them all, M. de Belin," answered Henry. "You don't reckon the good God and the good right, but they are ever with me."
Belin had told the truth. About ten o'clock Mayenne made his attack. It was a day ill-suited for battle, for there lay upon the field so thick a fog that the advancing lines could not see each other at ten paces apart. Despite this, the battle proceeded briskly, and for nearly three hours the two armies struggled, now one, now the other, in the ascendant.
Henry fought as vigorously as any of his men, all being so confusedly mingled in the fog that there was little distinction between officers and soldiers. At one time he found himself so entangled in a medley of disorganized troopers that he loudly shouted,—
"Courage, gentlemen; pray, courage! Are there not among you fifty gentlemen willing to die with their king?"