, outnumbered, were awfully defeated.
Out of twenty-five thousand combatants whom they led into the field,
but eight thousand could be rallied around their retreating banner
after a fight of but three quarters of an hour. All their cannon,
baggage, and munitions of war were lost. No mercy was granted to the
vanquished.

Coligni, at the very commencement of the battle, was struck by a
bullet which shattered his jaw. The gushing blood under his helmet
choked him, and they bore him upon a litter from the field. As they
were carrying the wounded admiral along, they overtook another litter
upon which was stretched L'Estrange, the bosom friend of the admiral,
also desperately wounded. L'Estrange, forgetting himself, gazed for a
moment with tearful eyes upon the noble Coligni, and then gently said,
"It is sweet to trust in God." Coligni, unable to speak, could only
_look_ a reply. Thus the two wounded friends parted. Coligni afterward
remarked that these few words were a cordial to his spirit, inspiring
him with resolution and hope.

Henry of Navarre, and his cousin, Henry of Conde, son of the prince
who fell at the battle of Jarnac, from a neighboring eminence
witnessed this scene of defeat and of awful carnage. The admiral,
unwilling to expose to danger lives so precious to their cause, had
stationed them there with a reserve of four thousand men under the
command of Louis of Nassau. When Henry saw the Protestants giving way,
he implored Louis that they should hasten with the reserve to the
protection of their friends; but Louis, with military rigor, awaited
the commands of the admiral. "We lose our advantage, then," exclaimed
the prince, "and consequently the battle."

The most awful of earthly calamities seemed now to fall like an
avalanche upon Coligni, the noble Huguenot chieftain. His beloved
brother was slain. Bands of wretches had burned down his castle and
laid waste his estates. The Parliament of Paris, composed of zealous
Catholics, had declared him guilty of high treason, and offered fifty
thousand crowns to whoever would deliver him up, dead or alive. The
Pope declared to all Europe that he was a "detestable, infamous,
execrable man, if, indeed, he even merited the name of man." His army
was defeated, his friends cut to pieces, and he himself was grievously
wounded, and was lying upon a couch in great anguish. Under these
circumstances, thirteen days after receiving his wound, he thus wrote
to his children: