l, and the Catholic troops
pursued their foes, now flying in every direction. The Protestants
retreated across a river, blew up the bridge, and protected themselves
from farther assault. The next day the Duke of Anjou, the younger
brother of Charles IX., and who afterward became Henry III., who was
one of the leaders of the Catholic army, rode over the field of
battle, to find, if possible, the body of his illustrious enemy.

"We had not rode far," says one who accompanied him, "when we
perceived a great number of the dead bodies piled up in a heap, which
led us to judge that this was the spot where the body of the prince
was to be found: in fact, we found it there. Baron de Magnac took the
corpse by the hair to lift up the face, which was turned toward the
ground, and asked me if I recognized him; but, as one eye was torn
out, and his face was covered with blood and dirt, I could only reply
that it was certainly his height and his complexion, but farther I
could not say."

They washed the bloody and mangled face, and found that it was indeed
the prince. His body was carried, with infamous ribaldry, on an ass to
the castle of Jarnac, and thrown contemptuously upon the ground.
Several illustrious prisoners were brought to the spot and butchered
in cold blood, and their corpses thrown upon that of the prince, while
the soldiers passed a night of drunkenness and revelry, exulting over
the remains of their dead enemies.

Such was the terrible battle of Jarnac, the first conflict which Henry
witnessed. The tidings of this great victory and of the death of the
illustrious Conde excited transports of joy among the Catholics.
Charles IX. sent to Pope Pius V. the standards taken from the
Protestants. The Pope, who affirmed that Luther was a ravenous beast,
and that his doctrines were the sum of all crimes, wrote to the king
a letter of congratulation. He urged him to extirpate every fibre
of heresy, regardless of all entreaty, and of every tie of blood
and affection. To encourage him, he cited the example of Saul
exterminating the Amalekites, and assured him that all tendency to
clemency was a snare of the devil.

The Catholics now considered the condition of the Protestants as
desperate. The pulpits resounded with imprecations and anathemas. The
Catholic priests earnestly advocated the sentiment that no faith was
to be kept with heretics; that to massacre them was an action
essential to the safety of the state, and which w