Their troubles, however, were not yet over, for meantime the enemy had made a sally in another quarter. Bassompierre and his noblesse again went to the rescue, and taking the assailants in the rear, obliged them to retreat, leaving several prisoners behind them.[174]
Bassompierre was certainly a person of extraordinary energy, for after this strenuous day he volunteered to take command of the force which was detached each evening to watch for the approach of the enemy’s reinforcements from Saint-Antonin, in place of Praslin, who was suffering from the effects of a slight wound, and spent the whole night in the saddle.
“Next morning,” he says, “as I was returning with my thousand men to camp, the King sent for me to come to him at Picqueos. I did not alight from my horse, and, in the dirty and disordered condition in which I was, after having been on the watch all night, and with the clotted blood from the wound on my head spread all over my face and round my eyes, I was unrecognisable. On my arrival, the King and the Constable told me that M. de Luxembourg,[175] who had command of 600 horse who went out every night to watch for the arrival of the reinforcements, had fallen ill, and that I must take charge of them, until the reinforcements had either made their way into the town or had been defeated. This I accepted willingly. While I was talking to them, the Queen arrived from Moissac.[176] The King sent the Constable to receive her and remained talking to me. As she entered, she asked who was that frightful man talking to the King. He told her that it was a nobleman of that part of the country called the Comte de Curton. ‘Jesus!’ she exclaimed, ‘how ugly he is!’ The Constable said to the King as he approached the Queen: ‘Sire, present M. de Bassompierre to the Queen, and tell her that he is the Comte de Curton.’ And this the King did. I kissed the hem of her gown, after which the Constable presented me to the Princesse de Conti, Mlle. de Vendôme, Madame de Montmorency and Madame la Connétable, his wife. I saluted them and heard them say: ‘This is a strange-looking man, and very dirty; he does well to stay in the country.’ Then I began to laugh, and, from my laugh and my teeth, they knew me, and had great pity upon me, and still more after dinner, when, on an alarm being raised that the enemy’s reinforcements were coming, we went out to fight.”
The alarm proved to be a false one; but in the night of September 26-27, just as Bassompierre was looking forward to the enjoyment of the first night’s rest he had had for more than a week, his equerry Le Manny came in with the news that the reinforcements from Saint-Antonin were approaching. There could be no doubt about the matter this time; the officer who had arrived with the news had seen them marching through the forest.
Bassompierre awoke the Duc de Retz and Créquy’s son Canaples, who slept in his room, and told them that the enemy were at hand; “but they thought he was playing a jest on them, as they had been up ten successive nights watching and waiting.” And they positively refused to accompany him. Leaving them, he went into a gallery near his room, where some thirty gentlemen slept, but could only persuade two of them to go with him. “The cry of ‘Wolf!’ had been raised so often without any justification that they vowed they would answer it no more.” But the wolf from the Cévennes was really coming this time, and a very fierce wolf he proved to be.
Hurriedly getting together some 1,200 men, of whom 200 were Swiss, Bassompierre marched away and took up his position in a sunken road intersecting the plain of Ramiers, which lies between the Forest of Gréseigne and Montauban, where it had been decided to await the enemy. Learning that they were approaching in three bodies, he detached the Baron d’Estissac with 400 men to his right; the Comte d’Ayen, who was in command of the cavalry that night, was already in position on his left.
It was a very dark night, and when presently the forms of men began to loom out of the blackness ahead, he was uncertain whether they were the enemy or a party of the Royal troops. But he shouted, “Vive le Roi!” and the answering cry of “Vive Rohan!” settled the question.
His position was protected by a barricade, but the agile mountaineers quickly swarmed over it and jumped down into the road, where a furious struggle began. So intense was the darkness there that it was often impossible to tell friend from foe, and not a few must have died by the weapons of their comrades. Bassompierre, lunging with a halberd at one of the enemy, stumbled and fell; the Huguenot, killed by the Swiss, fell on top of him, as did two other men who had shared his fate; and he was pinned down and unable to rise. At length, Le Manny and one of his servants, hearing his cries for help, came and extricated him; but scarcely was he on his feet again, than he narrowly escaped being run through the body by a Swiss, who mistook him for an enemy. The mêlée continued for some time, but at length numbers prevailed, and practically all the brave mountaineers were either killed or made prisoners. The dead had not died in vain, however, for, though their comrades on the right had been routed by d’Ayen, those on the left, to the number of some 600 men, had contrived in the darkness to elude d’Estissac, and throw themselves into Montauban.
Among the prisoners taken by Bassompierre[177] was the Sieur de Beaufort, the commander of the Cévennais. He was treated as a prisoner of war and imprisoned in the Bastille, from which he was released on the conclusion of peace. His humble comrades, however, were less fortunate, and those who recovered from their wounds were sent to the galleys.
END OF VOL. I.
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