Heretic Dawn by Robert Merle Page A

indignity that caused more than one of his royal captains to blame him privately, since Condé had been such a valiant warrior.
    My father was rereading this letter over my shoulder while I was seated at the table in his library, so I said, “Is this not an odious murder?”
    “Odious! And what’s more a huge mistake! For it would have been easier for the king to come to terms with Condé than with Coligny. I don’t remember who it was who said of Condé,
    “This little prince, as handsome as a king
    Would always laugh and always sing.
    “By the belly of St Anthony, that’s him all right! The prince was valiant in combat, decisive, high-handed, scrupulous, quick to anger and, it must be said, perhaps too easy-going. Having a head more passionate than political, he twice signed treaties with the Medicis that were most disadvantageous to our side. But read what Rouffignac said about Coligny.”
    The admiral, I must confess here, was not always wise in his conduct of battles, as we saw at Jarnac. But he was a man of faith and of trust, tenacious, untouched by despair and anchored in the belief that no single battle could lose the war. He was exceptionally crafty in retreat. And in this case, withdrawing his army under the cover of night after the sad day at Jarnac, he was able to save it and find a safe place to encamp. The queen of Navarre joined him there. Oh, my friend, what a fearless and unflinching Huguenot we have there! She introduced to the soldiers Condé, the son of the slain leader, and her own son, Henri de Navarre, who was then just sixteen years old.
    “Ah, Father,” I sighed in envy of the young prince, “isn’t it a pity? Navarre is two years younger than I but has already taken the field of battle!”
    “My son,” replied my father, raising his eyebrows in jest, “what are you telling me? Are you a Bourbon? Are you a blooded prince? Are you in line to inherit the throne of France should the three sons of Catherine de’ Medici die childless? Let Navarre jockey for his own position in history, and as for you, continue your work here. That’s the wisest course.”
    Thus chided and put in my place, but more as a pleasantry than as a corrective, I continued Rouffignac’s letter.
    If the admiral lost the battle of Jarnac because of the error I’ve just described, he lost the battle of Moncontour because of the mistakes of his German reiters. The moment they occupied the strongholds that Coligny had designated for them, our Germans threw down their arms and demanded their pay! “No money,” they shouted in their gibberish, “no combat!” Ah, my friend, what a fix! What a reversal! And what a fatal delay—which was fatal to none more than themselves. For surprised in the flatlands while they were arguing, the Duc d’Anjou’s Swiss guards surrounded them, fell upon them and, due to the longstanding jealousy between these two groups of mercenaries, slaughtered them all down to the last man. And that was the only salary they ever would receive in this life, the poor beggars!
    As for us, after Jarnac, we lost the battle of Moncontour to the greater glory of the Duc d’Anjou (even though he did nothing, for it was Tavannes who did it all), which delighted the old bitch Medici, charmed that her favourite son was carving out a reputation for himself greater than that of his brother the king. But do you think that this reversal brought down Coligny, all wounded as he was, one cheek pierced by a bullet and four teeth broken? Not a bit of it. At Moncontour the remains of our army began a long, unbelievable and twisting march that you’ve probably heard echoes of.
    Listen! From Saintes, to which we’d retreated, we succeeded in getting to Aiguillon, where we took and pillaged the chateau—abandoning along our way the horses we’d exhausted—and from thence to Montauban where we were reunited with the army of the seven vicomtes. Thus fortified and reinforced, we devastated the countryside around