"Had it been my brother's son," exclaimed Cardinal de Bourbon, weeping and wailing, "how much better it would have been." It was not easy to slay the champion of French Protestantism; yet, to one less buoyant, the game, even after the brilliant but fruitless victory of Contras, might have seemed desperate.

Beggared and outcast, with literally scarce a shirt to his back, without money to pay a corporal's guard, how was he to maintain an army?
But 'Mucio' was more successful than Joyeuse had been, and the German and Swiss mercenaries who had come across the border to assist the Bearnese, were adroitly handled by Philip's great stipendiary.

Henry of Valois, whose troops had just been defeated at Contras, was now compelled to participate in a more fatal series of triumphs.

For alas, the victim had tied himself to the apron-string of "Madam League," and was paraded by her, in triumph, before the eyes of his own subjects and of the world.
The passage of the Loire by the auxiliaries was resisted; a series of petty victories was gained by Guise, and, at last, after it was obvious that the leaders of the legions had been corrupted with Spanish ducats, Henry allowed them to depart, rather than give the Balafre opportunity for still farther successes.
Then came the triumph in Paris--hosannahs in the churches, huzzas in the public places--not for the King, but for Guise.

Paris, more madly in love with her champion than ever, prostrated herself at his feet.