y, when he suddenly received
a communication from De Villars, who had thus far most ably and gallantly
conducted the defence of the place, informing him that it was no longer
necessary to make a general attack. On the day before he had made a sally
from the four gates of the city, had fallen upon the besiegers in great
force, had wounded Biron and killed six hundred of his soldiers, had
spiked several pieces of artillery and captured others which he had
successfully brought into the town, and had in short so damaged the
enemy's works and disconcerted him in all his plans, that he was
confident of holding the place longer than the king could afford to stay
in front of him. All he wished was a moderate reinforcement of men and
munitions. Farnese by no means sympathized with the confident tone of
Villars nor approved of his proposition. He had come to relieve Rouen and
to raise the siege, and he preferred to do his work thoroughly. Mayenne
was however most heartily in favour of taking the advice of Villars. He
urged that it was difficult for the Bearnese to keep an army long in the
field, still more so in the trenches. Let them provide for the immediate
wants of the city; then the usual process of decomposition would soon be
witnessed in the ill-paid, ill-fed, desultory forces of the heretic
pretender.

Alexander deferred to the wishes of Mayenne, although against his better
judgment. Eight hundred infantry, were successfully sent into Rouen. The
army of the League then countermarched into Picardy near the confines of
Artois.

They were closely followed by Henry at the head of his cavalry, and
lively skirmishes were of frequent occurrence. In a military point of
view none of these affairs were of consequence, but there was one which
partook at once of the comic and the pathetic. For it chanced that in a
cavalry action of more than common vivacity the Count Chaligny found
himself engaged in a hand to hand conflict with a very dashing swordsman,
who, after dealing and receiving many severe blows, at last succeeded in
disarming the count and taking him prisoner. It was the fortune of war,
and, but a few days before, might have been the fate of the great Henry
himself. But Chaligny's mortification at his captivity became intense
when he discovered that the knight to whom he had surrendered was no
other than the king's jester. That he, a chieftain of the Holy League,
the long-descended scion of the illustrious house of Lorrain