My senses, until then held in suspense by the very terror of the frightful spectacle, now abandoned me. I completely lost consciousness. The carnage continued.
When I recovered from my swoon, I was lying on the straw in our smithy and lodging at St. Yrieix. The Franc-Taupin and Colonel Plouernel sat beside my couch. From them I learned the issue of the battle of Roche-la-Belle. It was disastrous to the royalists; they were roundly routed. The violent thunder storm, followed by a deluge of rain, did not allow Admiral Coligny to pursue the retreating Catholic army. The victorious Protestants re-entered St. Yrieix. The Franc-Taupin and his Avengers of Israel, happening to pass by the spot where I lay motionless under my horse, not far from my father's corpse, with his throat cut by Fra Hervé, recognized me and laid me upon a wagon used for transporting the munitions of the artillery. The field of battle was ours. With the help of his companions, the Franc-Taupin piously dug a grave in which they buried my father.
Later I learned from the Prince of Gerolstein the sad fate that overtook my sister, and I also found the letter which she wrote to my father. The unfortunate girl, imagining herself despised and forsaken by us, decided, she wrote, to die, and bade us her heartrending adieus. Desirous that my father and his co-religionists be apprized of the dark and bloody schemes of Catherine De Medici, Anna Bell reported in her letter the secret conversation which the Queen had with Father Lefevre on the subject of the reformers—a conversation that she overheard at the Abbey of St. Severin. After having thus attested her attachment to us to the very end, she obtained the consent of the Prince's page she had spoken with, to don the clothes and ride the horse of the lad who was killed at the skirmish of that morning. She looked forward to meeting death beside Franz of Gerolstein. Alas! Her wish was realized. She joined the Prince. As much surprised as alarmed at the girl's purpose, he vainly entreated her to withdraw until after the shock between the two mounted forces. Neither Anna Bell nor Franz of Gerolstein was wounded at the first encounter. But shortly after, as the German horsemen were re-crossing the stream in pursuit of the enemy's cavalry, my sister was struck in the breast by a stray bullet from the fleeing enemy, and fell from her horse into the river, where she was drowned, without Franz, who was carried along by the impetus of his troopers' charge, being able to return in time to save her.
Finally, informed by my account concerning the double encounter of his brother, Count Neroweg, and Odet his son, with my father and myself, Colonel Plouernel learned later that both had perished in the fight, leaving him the head of the house, and sole heir of its vast domains.
Victorious at Roche-la-Belle, the Protestants were destined to suffer a serious defeat in September of the same year. The royal and Protestant armies met in Poitou, near the town of Montcontour. Coligny, much the inferior in numbers, manoeuvred his forces with his customary skill, and entrenched himself behind the River Dive. Sheltered by that almost impregnable position, he wished to wait for the reinforcements promised by Montgomery, who was in almost complete possession of Gascony. But, as had happened so many times before, to the misfortune of the cause, and despite all his firmness, Coligny saw himself constrained to yield to the headlong impatience of his army, the greater part of which consisted of volunteers. The campaign had lasted a long time. Captains and soldiers had left their families, their property, their farms, their fields and their homes to fly to the defense of their religion. They were anxious to return to their hearths. Accordingly, hoping by means of a victory to be able once more to impose peace upon Charles IX and reconquer the free exercise of their religion, they were loud in their demand for battle. Coligny yielded. On September 3, 1569, he delivered battle to an army almost twice the size of his own. Despite the prodigies of bravery displayed by the Huguenots, and although the royalists sustained heavy losses, victory remained with the Catholics. Nevertheless, after Montcontour, as after Jarnac, so far from allowing himself to be disheartened by a reverse that he had foreseen and that he had vainly sought to avoid, Coligny executed so threatening a retreat that the Catholic army dared not pursue him. On the very night after the defeat, the Protestant chieftains, assembled at Parthenay, despatched couriers to Scotland, Germany and Switzerland appealing to their co-religionists for support; collected the shattered fragments of their armies; threw strong garrisons into Niort, St. Jean-d'Angely, Saintes and La Rochelle; crossed the Charente; marched into Gascony to join Montgomery, who was the master of that province; and Coligny renewed hostilities with success, choosing as the basis of his operations the Rivers Tarn and Garonne. Armed bands of intrepid Protestants harassed and tired out the royal forces. Charles IX and his mother took the Huguenots for annihilated after the defeats of Jarnac and Montcontour. It was otherwise. The defeated men reappeared more determined, more numerous, more zealous in the defense of their rights. Catherine De Medici, more and more convinced that peace, and not war, offered the sole means to put an end to the Huguenots, turned her thoughts more resolutely than ever before to the execution of the infernal project that Francis of Guise conceived at the time of the triumvirate, and which she confided to the Jesuit Lefevre. She caused overtures to be made to Coligny looking to a new treaty of peace. The royal advances were met. The Admiral, together with several other Protestant chiefs, deputed as the plenipotentiaries of the Huguenots, held long conferences with the envoys of Charles IX, and finally, on August 10, 1570, a new edict, the most favorable yet granted to the Protestants, was signed at St. Germain.
The document provided in substance:
The memory of all past events is blotted out by both parties. Freedom of conscience is implicitly granted throughout the kingdom. None is henceforth to be constrained to commit any act forbidden by his conscience in religious matters. No distinction exists between Catholics and Protestants in the matter of admission to the colleges, Universities, hospitals, asylums, or any other institution of learning or of public charity. None shall be prosecuted for past actions. Coligny and all other Protestant chiefs are declared good and loyal subjects. Protestants are qualified to hold all royal, seigniorial or municipal offices. All decrees rendered against the Huguenots shall be stricken from the judicial records. Finally, and in order to guarantee the execution of the said edict, Charles IX places, as pledges for the term of two years, the cities of La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and La Charite, in the hands of the Princes of Navarre, of Condé and of twenty other Protestant Princes, the said towns to be places of refuge for all those who might not yet venture to return to their own homes.[73]
Alas! those who, in the language of the edict, might not yet venture to return to their own homes, despite the peace being signed, promulgated and sworn to, justly suspected some new trap concealed under the lying peace. Antonicq Lebrenn did not take his leave of Admiral Coligny and Monsieur Lanoüe until after the close of the war. They were informed by him of the revelations contained in Anna Bell's letter to her father Odelin, the letter wherein the maid of honor of Catherine De Medici reported the conversation which she overheard between the infamous Queen and the Jesuit Lefevre, in the course of which the Queen disclosed to the Jesuit her project of lulling the suspicions of the Huguenots with the false appearance of a peace, to the end of taking them by surprise, unarmed and confiding, and exterminating them on one day throughout the kingdom. The project seemed so monstrous to Coligny that he looked upon it as only a chimera of delirious wickedness, and held it for impracticable, if only on the ground of there not being murderers enough to execute the butchery.
The Admiral deceived himself. There never is a lack of murderers in the Catholic party. These rise by the thousand at the voice of the Roman priests. All priests are potential murderers with a patent from their faith.