The emulation that had characterized the Huguenot nobility in the last war now served Condé well. The provinces were alive with activity during this autumn. The young prince of Navarre, the future Henry IV, was to win eminence in the coming struggle, and at this time was at Bergerac where forces were assembled to assist Condé.[1289] The Catholic and governmental forces were no less alert. The King’s captains were employed in all parts of the realm to levy men. Montluc, discovering a plot in Bordeaux to deliver the town to those of the Reformed religion, executed the greater part of those so accused. At Toulouse, Auxerre, and Lyons all men were constrained to go to mass. In Provence and Languedoc the peasantry even rose against the Protestants. To crown all both sides levied reiters in Germany.[1290]
The lower course of the Loire was the fighting-line, for command of which both sides aimed.[1291] The tactics of Anjou were to avoid an engagement, if possible, and to prevent Condé’s forces from crossing, which he succeeded in doing through a stratagem.[1292] The passage of the Loire being stopped, and the river towns being all garrisoned, especially Saumur, the prince of Condé, after taking the castle of Champigny which belonged to the duke de Montpensier, fell back on Loudun. The country was so wet that neither horse nor foot could do much. The prince excelled in cavalry, the Catholic army in infantry.[1293] In the provinces the Catholic preponderance was marked. The duke of Aumale in Champagne had 18 companies of men-at-arms and 25 ensigns of footmen, awaiting the coming of the reiters; Marshal Cossé was in Picardy with 15 companies of men-at-arms and 2,000 footmen. The reason for the presence of so many troops so far from the actual seat of the war is to be found in the fact that the movements of the prince of Orange, who had entered France in December,[1294] gave great anxiety to the government. The prince was now on the borders of Picardy, but his horsemen rode as far as Compiègne and Rheims, to the amazement of the court and the consternation of the Guises, who dispatched the cardinal of Guise to Madrid for the help of Philip II.[1295] If the two princes could have effected a junction in the meantime, Paris would have been between hammer and anvil. As it was, the danger was so great that the King hastily began to raise an additional army in December, calling out ban and arrière-ban, and in order that the capital might be able to withstand a siege, if worst came to worst, drew all the provisions of the country roundabout Paris for a space of ten miles into the city.
The position of the various armies was an interesting one. In east France the reiters of the duke of Deuxponts were endeavoring to join Orange who delayed his movement to await their coming,[1296] while Alva dogged his steps.[1297] In the west Condé was vainly striving to cross the Loire in order to join Orange and the Protestant reiters, while the duke of Anjou was straining every nerve to keep him back. In the midst of all, Paris lay calm but tense[1298]—the undisturbed center of the cyclone of war. Both armies suffered from the terrible weather of December. The soldiers of each side were dying of famine and privation.[1299]
The hope long deferred that Condé had cherished of Orange joining him made him heartsick at last; the latter could not come, for Alva, the duke of Aumale, and the Catholic reiters under a German colonel named Schomberg—a name destined to become illustrious—were too closely watching his movements.[1300] Even had these impediments been removed, the Seine and the Loire would have had to be crossed—an impossible feat.
The winter of 1568-69 was occupied with Huguenot and Catholic negotiations for foreign support and with preparations for a renewal of the war when the spring came. Meanwhile the delay of France to pay its debts in Switzerland had gradually provoked a change of public sentiment in the forest cantons, which pushed them a few years later into espousal of Spain. The loss of its ascendency in Switzerland was a particularly hard blow to France. For the policy of Spain had been to rouse a religious war in the Alpine lands, so that her intervention would find easy entrance. The five cantons of the center were the fulcrum of Spain’s diplomatic efforts. Day by day the tension became greater, the five cantons inclining more to Spain, their neighbors leaning to France, while between the two groups Bern and Zurich continued neutral, refusing to aid the prince of Condé with either men or money.[1301]
Military events were insignificant. Anjou remained with his army in Limousin, and the prince of Condé in Périgord. On December 23, 1568, there was a skirmish near Loudun. In January Condé marched to the relief of Sancerre. The town was of very strong situation and Brocbart, the Huguenot commandant, filled a great number of wine-vats with sand and earth and used them for gabions, and so managed to hold out against five assaults,[1302] although the place was so invested by the Catholic army that the prince could do nothing to relieve it. Failing this, he marched upon Saumur in the vain hope of forcing a crossing of the Loire at some point, on the way putting the garrison of 150 men in the abbey of St. Florens at Pont-de-Cé to the sword. Both armies suffered terribly from the weather and the condition of the country.[1303]
In the King’s council the Politique party still labored for peace, and in the interim made an unsuccessful effort to restore the Edict of Toleration.[1304] The cessation of hostilities, however, was complete enough to alarm the Pope, who feared another truce would be made and used exhortation and promise in order to prevent any compromise with heresy.[1305]