CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT-BATTLE OF DREUX.



ties were daily perpetrated by men, who professed to serve under the ban-
ners of religion, and for the honor of the Almighty.
  "Though the Calvinists were formidable by their union and enthusiasm,
they (lid not form more than one hundredth part of the population of France.
Still the prince cherished strong hopes of success. He relied on the resour-
ces of his own courage, on the aid of the German and Scottish Protestants,
and on the promises of Throckmorton. His envoys, the Vidame of Chartres,
and De la Haye, stole over to England, visited Cecil in the darkness of the
night, and solicited from the queen a reinforcement of ten thousand men,
with a loan of three hundred thousand crowns."
  The Huguenot envoys succeeded. A formal treaty was
negotiated with Elizabeth, in which she bound herself to send
men and money to aid her brave allies in their struggle for
the mastery in France; and these agreed to deliver uip to her
the two French harbors of Havre and Dieppe, the former of
which, the key of the French kingdom, she was to retain as a
pledge for the restoration of Calais. This treasonable meas-
ure aroused general indignation throughout France against
the Huguenot leaders, and especially the prince of Cond6,
who had been the principal actor in the infamous negotiation.
All eyes were turned to the duke of Guise, and he was called
on to save the country from foreign invasion in alliance with
domestic treason. " The duke of Guise had expelled the En-
glish from the last strong-hold (Calais) which they possessed
in France; his opponent (Cond6) had recalled them into the
realm, and given them two sea-ports in place of the one which
they had lost."t
  The result was a general burst of patriotic enthusiasm.
Nobles and people flocked with eagerness to the royal stand-
ard; Rouen, the chief strong-hold of the Huguenots, was be-
seiged and taken by assault; two hundred Englishmen who
had hastened to its relief perished in the breach; and in an
important battle fought at Dreux, the Huguenot forces were
routed, and Cond6 himself was made prisoner; though, as an
offset, the Constable Montmorency, and the gallant commander



 Lingard, History of England, vii, 308, seqq.



369



 Ibid., vii, 312.