to recover it,
provided the English would support him with a sufficient fleet. This
also, perhaps from the same feeling of distrust, though on the plea of
inability to meet the expense, was declined, and the opportunity for the
recovery of Calais was lost for ever.[233]

Yet, in truth, it was no great loss to the nation. Like more than one,
probably, of the colonial possessions of England at the present day,
Calais cost every year more than it was worth. Its chief value was the
facility it afforded for the invasion of France. Yet such a facility for
war with their neighbors, always too popular with the English before the
time of Philip the Second, was of questionable value. The real injury
from the loss of Calais was the wound which it inflicted on the national
honor.

The exultation of the French was boundless. It could not well have been
greater, if the duke of Guise had crossed the Channel and taken London
itself. The brilliant and rapid manner in which the exploit had been
performed, the gallantry with which the young general had exposed his
own person in the assault, the generosity with which he had divided his
share of the booty among the soldiers, all struck the lively imagination
of the French; and he became more than ever the idol of the people.

Yet, during the remainder of the campaign, his arms were not crowned
with such distinguished success. In May he marched against the strong
town of Thionville, in Luxemburg. After a siege of twenty days, the
place surrendered. Having taken one or two other towns of less
importance, the French army wasted nearly three weeks in a state of
inaction, unless, indeed, we take into account the activity caused by
intestine troubles of the army itself. It is difficult to criticize
fairly the conduct of a commander of that age, when his levies were made
up so largely of foreign mercenaries, who felt so little attachment to
the service in which they were engaged, that they were ready to quarrel
with it on the slightest occasion. Among these the German
_schwarzreiters_ were the most conspicuous, manifesting too often a
degree of insolence and insubordination that made them hardly less
dangerous as friends than as enemies. The importance they attached to
their own services made them exorbitant in their demands of pay. When
this, as was too frequently the case, was in arrears, they took the
matter into their own hands, by pillaging the friendly country in which
they were quartere