of Arques, standing, since the eleventh century, upon a barren hill;
below, in the burgh of Arques, he sent Biron into cantonments with his
regiment of Swiss and the companies of French infantry; and he lost no
time in having large fosses dug ahead of the burgh, in front of all the
approaches, enclosing within an extensive line of circumvallation both
burgh and castle. All the king's soldiers and the peasants that could
be picked up in the environs worked night and day. Whilst they were at
work, Henry wrote to Countess Corisande de Gramont, his favorite at that
time, "My dear heart, it is a wonder I am alive with such work as I
have. God have pity upon me and show me mercy, blessing my labors, as
He does in spite of a many folks! I am well, and my affairs are going
well. I have taken Eu. The enemy, who are double me just now, thought
to catch me there; but I drew off towards Dieppe, and I await them in a
camp that I am fortifying. Tomorrow will be the day when I shall see
them, and I hope, with God's help, that if they attack me they will find
they have made a bad bargain. The bearer of this goes by sea. The wind
and my duties make me conclude. This 9th of September, in the trenches
at Arques."

All was finished when the scouts of Mayenne appeared. But Mayenne also
was an able soldier: he saw that the position the king had taken and the
works he had caused to be thrown up rendered a direct attack very
difficult. He found means of bearing down upon Dieppe another way, and
of placing himself, says the latest historian of Dieppe, M. Vitet,
between the king and the town, "hoping to cut off the king's
communications with the sea, divide his forces, deprive him of his
re-enforcements from England, and, finally, surround him and capture him,
as he had promised the Leaguers of Paris, who were already talking of the
iron cage in which the Bearnese would be sent to them. "Henry IV.,"
continues M. Vitet, "felt some vexation at seeing his forecasts