checkmated by Mayenne's manoeuvre, and at having had so much earth
removed to so little profit; but he was a man of resources, confident as
the Gascons are, and with very little of pig-headedness. To change all
his plans was with him the work of an instant. Instead of awaiting the
foe in his intrenchments, he saw that it was for him to go and feel for
them on the other side of the valley, and that, on pain of being
invested, he must not leave the Leaguers any exit but the very road they
had taken to come." Having changed all his plans on this new system,
Henry breathed more freely; but he did not go to sleep for all that: he
was incessantly backwards and forwards from Dieppe to Arques, from Arques
to Dieppe and to the Faubourg du Pollet. Mayenne, on the contrary,
seemed to have fallen into a lethargy; he had not yet been out of his
quarters during the nearly eight and forty hours since he had taken them.
On the 17th of September, 1589, in the morning, however, a few hundred
light-horse were seen putting themselves in motion, scouring the country
and coming to fire their pistols close to the fosses of the royal army.
The skirmish grew warm by degrees. "My son," said Marshal de Biron to
the young count of Auvergne [natural son of Charles IX. and Mary
Touchet], "charge: now is the time." The young prince, without his hat,
and his horsemen charged so vigorously that they put the Leaguers to the
rout, killed three hundred of them, and returned quietly within their
lines, by Biron's orders, without being disturbed in their retreat.
These partial and irregular encounters began again on the 18th and 19th
of September, with the same result. The Duke of Mayenne was nettled and
humiliated; he had his prestige to recover. He decided to concentrate
all his forces right on the king's intrenchments, and attack them in
front with his whole army. The 20th of September passed without a single
skirmish. Henry, having received good information that he would be
attacked the next day, did not go to bed. The night was very dark. He
thought he saw a long way off in the valley a long line of lighted