by interest, were changed into
mortal foes. That hour had not yet come. But the heresy that was soon to
shake France to its centre was silently working under ground.

As the admiral was well instructed in military affairs, and was
possessed of an intrepid spirit and great fertility of resource, he was
precisely the person to undertake the difficult office of defending St.
Quentin. As governor of Picardy he felt this to be his duty. Without
loss of time, he put himself at the head of some ten or twelve hundred
men, horse and foot, and used such despatch that he succeeded in
entering the place before it had been entirely invested. He had the
mortification, however, to be followed only by seven hundred of his men,
the remainder having failed through fatigue, or mistaken the path.

The admiral found the place in even worse condition than he had
expected. The fortifications were much dilapidated; and in many parts of
the wall the masonry was of so flimsy a character, that it must have
fallen before the first discharge of the enemy's cannon. The town was
victualled for three weeks, and the magazines were tolerably well
supplied with ammunition. But there were not fifty arquebuses fit for
use.

St. Quentin stands on a gentle eminence, protected on one side by
marshes, or rather a morass of great extent, through which flows the
river Somme, or a branch of it. On the same side of the river with St.
Quentin lay the army of the besiegers, with their glittering lines
extending to the very verge of the morass. A broad ditch defended the
outer wall. But this ditch was commanded by the houses of the suburbs,
which had already been taken possession of by the besiegers. There was,
moreover, a thick plantation of trees close to the town, which would
afford an effectual screen for the approach of an enemy.

One of the admiral's first acts was to cause a sortie to be made. The
ditch was crossed, and some of the houses were burned to the ground. The
trees on the banks were then levelled, and the approach to the town was
laid open. Every preparation was made for a protracted defence. The
exact quantity of provision was ascertained, and the rations were
assigned for each man's daily consumption. As the supplies were
inadequate to support the increased population for any length of time,
Coligni ordered that all except those actively engaged in the defence of
the place should leave it without delay. Many, under one pretext or
another, contr