full description of the bridge.
Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying that the bridge was not yet
completed (Geschichte des Prot. in Frank., ii. 377). It had been
completed, and two days had been spent in taking over the German cavalry
("opere effecto, biduoque in traducendis Germanis equitibus consumpto")
when the disaster occurred.

[756] Languet, Letter of January 3, 1570, Epist. secretae, i. 133.

[757] Gasparis Colinii Vita (1576), 91; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686),
378, where the account of the expedition, however, is full of blunders.
Mr. Browning, following this untrustworthy authority, makes Admiral
Coligny cross the Garonne and pass through Bearn, on his way from Saintes
to Montauban! A glance at the map of France will show that this would have
required a much greater bend to the right than he in reality made to the
left, since Bearn lay entirely south of the river Adour. To reach Bearn by
land _before_ crossing the Garonne, as the "Vie" evidently imagines he
did, would almost have required Aladdin's lamp. In fact, the entire
passage is a jumble of the exploits of Montgomery and Coligny.

[758] La Popeliniere, _apud_ Soldan, ii. 378.

[759] De Thou, iv. (liv. xlvii.) 303-306; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c.
20 (i. 319, 320); Davila, bk. v., p. 168; Raoul de Cazenove,
"Rapin-Thoyras, sa famille," etc., 49, 50.

[760] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 81.

[761] "L'imprudence des Catholiques, lesquels laissant rouler, sans nul
empeschement, ceste petite pelote de neige, en peu de temps elle _se fit
grosse comme une maison_." Mem. de la Noue, c. xxix.

[762] Of course, Davila (bk. v., p. 167, 168), who rarely rejects a good
story of intrigue, especially if there be a dainty bit of treachery
connected with it, adopts unhesitatingly the popular rumor of Marshal
Damville's infidelity to his trust.

[763] St. Etienne possessed already, at the time the "Vie de Coligny" was
written, that branch of industry which still constitutes one of its chief
sources of wealth. It was described as a "petite ville fameuse par la
quantite d'armes qui s'y fait, et qui se transportent dans les pais
etrangers, en sorte que c'est ce qui nourrit presque toute la province."
P. 381.

[764] Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. v., c. 21 (i. 322).

[765] Gasparis Colinii Vita, 97, 98.

[766] Arnay-le-Duc, or Rene-le-Duc, as the place was indifferently called,
is situated about thirty miles south-west of Dijon, on the road to Autun.

[767] De Thou, iv.