my and the king
back from Normandy, where they still lingered. The view was so plausible,
indeed, that it was adopted by most of the reformed historians, and, being
indorsed by later writers, has caused the failure to march directly
against the capital to be regarded as a signal error of Conde in this
campaign. But it would certainly appear hazardous to adopt this conclusion
in the face of the most skilful strategists of the age. It has already
been seen that Francois de la Noue, one of the ablest generals of whom the
Huguenots could ever boast, regarded the idea of capturing Paris at the
beginning of the struggle, with the comparatively insignificant forces
which the prince could bring to the undertaking, as the most chimerical
that could be entertained. Was it less absurd now, when, if the Protestant
army had received large accessions, the walls of Paris could certainly be
held by the citizens for a few days, until an army of fully equal size,
under experienced leaders, could be recalled from the lower Seine? Such,
at least, was the conclusion at which Admiral Coligny, the commanding
spirit in the council-chamber and the virtual head of the Huguenot army,
arrived, when he calmly considered the perils of attacking, with twelve or
fifteen thousand men and four pieces of artillery, the largest capital of
continental Europe--a city whose population amounted to several hundred
thousand souls, among whom there was now not a single avowed Protestant,
and whose turbulent citizens were not unaccustomed to the use of arms. He
resolved, therefore, to adopt the more practicable plan of making the city
feel the pressure of the war by cutting off its supplies of provisions and
by ravaging the surrounding country. Thus, Paris--"the bellows by whose
blasts the war was kept in flames," and "the kitchen that fed it"--would
at last become weary of sustaining in idleness an insolent soldiery, and
of seeing its villages given over to destruction, and compel the king's
advisers to offer just terms of peace, or to seek a solution of the
present disputes on the open field.[198]

But, whatever doubt may be entertained respecting the propriety of the
plan of the campaign adopted by the Prince of Conde, there can be none
respecting the error committed in not promptly carrying that plan into
execution. The army loitered about Etampes instead of pressing on and
seizing the bridges across the Seine. Over these it ought to have crossed,
and, enterin