Heretic Dawn by Robert Merle

called by their Maker, I’m going to provide my readers with the marrow of their contents for their instruction.
    Although he admired Admiral de Coligny, Rouffignac did not hide his belief that the admiral had committed an incredible error on this occasion. When Tavannes (who was the de facto leader of Anjou’s royal army) appeared on the right bank of the Charente river, and the Châteauneuf bridge, Condé was occupying Bassac and Coligny Jarnac. And the admiral, rather than immediately falling back to join Condé’s troops, lost an incredible amount of time calling his scouts back, and when finally he was forced to fight, Tavannes pressed him so hard that he came within a hair’s breadth of being overrun, and appealed to Condé for reinforcements. Rouffignac wrote:
    Destiny would have it that, as the Prince de Condé put foot to stirrup, La Rochefoucauld’s horse stepped on his foot and broke his leg so badly that the bone was sticking through his boot. He nevertheless insisted on joining the battle, and, grimacing terribly, painfully pulled himself into his saddle.
    “Messieurs,” he said to the gentlemen surrounding him (among whom was La Rochefoucauld, who, in tears, was savagely whipping his horse),“see in what state the Prince de Bourbon enters the fight for Christ and country!” This said, he charged with his customary impetuosity an enemy that was ten times greater than his forces.
    We all know what followed. Coligny attempted to bring relief, but before they could reach him, Condé was surrounded by a mass of royal troops, his horse killed beneath him. He leant up against a tree, threw his useless pistols from him, drew sword and dagger and continued to fight tooth and nail. “I recognized him,” wrote d’Argence,
    and ran to his side. “Monseigneur,” I said, as I commanded the soldiers surrounding us to lower their swords, “my name is d’Argence and I’m at your service. May it please your highness to surrender to me. You can no longer fight since your leg bone is sticking out of your boot.” And as he did not answer, I repeated, “For pity’s sake, Monseigneur! Surrender! I swear I will guarantee you safe passage.”
    “Then I am your prisoner,” groaned Condé most bitterly, and threw down his sword and dagger.
    As he said this, I saw the Duc d’Anjou’s guards galloping towards us, all aflame in their bright-red capes.
    “Aha,” said Condé, without batting an eye and despite his terrible pain, “here come the red crows to pick my bones.”
    “Monseigneur,” I said, “now indeed you are in great peril! Hide your face so they won’t recognize you!”
    But he wouldn’t consent to do so, since such a masquerade was beneath his dignity.
    “Ah, d’Argence,” he sighed, “you won’t be able to save me now!”
    And, indeed, no sooner had Montesquiou, the captain of Anjou’s guards, heard the name of the prisoner, he cried, “Kill him, by God! Kill him!”
    I ran to his side as he dismounted and told him that the prince was my prisoner, and that I’d guaranteed him safe passage, but Montesquiou strode over to Condé armed with his pistol and, without a word, stepped behind him and shot him in the head, so that one eye was blown out of its socket by the bullet.
    “Ah, Montesquiou,” I cried, “an unarmed man! A prince by blood! This is villainy!”
    “’Tis villainy indeed,” agreed Montesquiou, and, looking down at the dying prince, tears streaming down his tanned face, he added, “As you know all too well, I’m not the one who ordered this done.”
    I did indeed know that the order to dispatch forthwith all of the captured Huguenot captains—and especially Condé and Coligny—if they fell into our hands, had come directly from the Duc d’Anjou, who had also ordered that the body of Condé be brought to him, not on a horse, as would have befitted his nobility, but—as the ultimate insult and degradation—on an ass, his head and legs dangling on either side—an