[577] Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, II, 345, and note. His title was “conservateur de la Guyenne” (O’Reilly, Histoire de Bordeaux, 221).
[578] Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, II, 357.
[579] Ibid., 416, 421.
[580] “The French spared the women there, but the Spaniards killed them, saying they were Lutherans disguised. These ruffians slew some 300 prisoners in cold blood—not a man escaped saving two that I saved.”—Montluc, II, 457, 458. When these Spaniards later mutinied and deserted in the summer of 1563, not even the Catholics regretted their departure (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 144, 152). For the terms on which they came, see Montluc, IV, 452, 453; D’Aubigné, II, 91, n. 2; 94, n. 4.
[581] See Commentaires et lettres de Montluc, III, 37 ff.; De Thou, Book XXXIII; D’Aubigné, II, 95; Bull. de la Soc. de l’hist., du prot. franç., II (1854), 230; C. S. P. For., 837 and 415, §12 (1562). I have purposely built this account upon Montluc’s narration in Book V of his Commentaires. An additional source for Lectoure and the battle of Vergt is his long letter to Philip II, published in L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 84-86; add also De Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d’Albret, 244-56.
[582] Mém. de Condé, III, 756: “Fragment d’une lettre de l’ambassadeur du duc de Savoye, à la Cour de France. De Paris du dernier de juillet, 1562;” cf. Nég. Tosc., III, 492, 493.
[583] See an article by De Crue, “Un emprunt des Huguenots français en Allemagne et en Suisse (1562). Pleins pouvoirs données à M. d’Andelot par le prince de Condé—Orleans, 7 juillet, 1562,” Rev. d’hist. dip., 1889, 195.
[584] L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 77; C. S. P. For., 884, October 9, 1562. His instructions are in Mém. de Condé, III, 630. See a letter of Hotman, July 27, 1562, to the elector palatine, Mém. de l’Acad. des inscrip. et belles-lettres, CIV, 668. The original is in the archives at Stuttgart. This letter was communicated to the duke of Württemberg by the count palatine and was sufficient temptation to lead the first of the famous hordes of German reiters across the border into France.
[585] Claude Haton, 267. See in the Mém. de Condé, III, some letters relating to the coming of the reiters in this year.
[586] “Ceux-ci [reiters] sont toujours prêts à se battre, mais en tout le reste, ils n’obéissent à personne et montrent la plus grande cruauté. Ils pillent tout, et cela ne leur suffit pas. Ils dévastent tout et détruisent les vins et les récoltes.”—Letter of Hotman in Rev. hist., XCVII, March-April, 1908, 311.