could reach us. We called on our men to stand firm, to fight for the
Admiral, to remember their wives and children--it was all in vain.

We were borne along in one struggling, confused mass, horse and foot,
royalists and Huguenots all mingled together.

"Anjou! Anjou!" shouted the victors in wild exultation, while the cries
of "For the Admiral! For the Faith!" became weaker and weaker. In that
part of the field the battle was lost.

We closed around our chief, perhaps a score of us, some even of that
number already desperately wounded. No one spoke, but we set our teeth
hard, resolving grimly that there should be twenty corpses before
Anjou's victorious troopers reached him.

"We must stop them," said Coligny, speaking in evident pain, "turn them
back, beg them to fight, or the Cause is lost."

Again and again we endeavoured to make a stand; calling on the fugitives
to halt, to remember they were Frenchmen, to look their foes in the
face--it was useless, every little group that formed for a moment being
swept away by the raging, human torrent.

"Some one must find Count Louis of Nassau," said our general, "and say I
trust to him to cover the retreat. We may yet rally the runaways."

We looked at each other in doubt. It was not the fear of death that kept
us tongue-tied, though death lay in our rear, but each man wished to
spend his life for our beloved leader.