ncial governors--an undertaking in which they met with more success
in the districts bordering upon the Mediterranean than in those adjoining
the Bay of Biscay. These events, although in themselves important and
interesting, would usurp a disproportionate place in this history. While
Conde was absent from the vicinity of the capital, however, a body of six
thousand troops, drawn from the army of the _viscounts_, under Mouvans and
other experienced southern leaders, undertook a hazardous march from
Dauphiny, intending to join the prince's army at Orleans.[495] The cities
were in the possession of the enemy, the fords were carefully guarded, the
entire country was hostile. But the perils which might have deterred less
resolute men only enhanced the glory of the success of the gallant
Huguenots. Abandoned by a considerable number of their comrades, who
preferred a life of plunder to a fatiguing journey under arms, they met
(on the eighth of January, 1568) and defeated, with a force consisting
almost exclusively of infantry, the cavalry which the governor of Auvergne
and the local nobility had assembled near the village of Cognac[496] to
dispute their passage. Continuing their march, they reached Orleans in
time to relieve that city, to whose friendly protection against the Roman
Catholic bands of Martinengo and Richelieu that infested its neighborhood
and threatened its capture Conde and the other Huguenot leaders of the
north had entrusted their wives and children.[497]

[Sidenote: Siege of Chartres.]

Having stopped a brief time to rest the soldiers after the protracted
march, the viscounts turned their victorious arms against the city of
Blois. After the surrender of this place, they had proceeded down the
valley of the Loire, and were about to take Montrichard, on the Cher, when
recalled by Conde. The prince had by forced marches anticipated the army
of Anjou, resolving to strike a blow which should be felt at the hostile
capital itself, and had selected Chartres, an important city about fifty
miles in a south-westerly direction from Paris, as the most convenient
place to besiege.[498] Rapid, however, as had been his advance--and a part
of his army had travelled sixty miles in two days--the enemy had
sufficient notice of his intention to throw into the city a small force of
soldiers; and when Conde arrived before the walls (on the twenty-fourth of
February, 1568), he found the place prepared to sustain an attack, in
wh