me they were inclined, I elected to remain my cousin's guest for
fifteen days. And whilst I was there we had news of trouble in
the South and of a rising in Languedoc under the Duc de Montmorency.
Thus was it that when I came to take my leave of Amaral, he,
knowing that Languedoc was my destination, sought ardently to keep
me with him until we should learn that peace and order were
restored in the province. But I held the trouble lightly, and
insisted upon going.

Resolutely, then, if by slow stages, we pursued our journey, and
came at last to Montauban. There we lay a night at the Auberge de
Navarre, intending to push on to Lavedan upon the morrow. My
father had been on more than friendly terms with the Vicomte de
Lavedan, and upon this I built my hopes of a cordial welcome and
an invitation to delay for a few days the journey to Toulouse,
upon which I should represent myself as bound.

Thus, then, stood my plans. And they remained unaltered for all
that upon the morrow there were wild rumours in the air of Montauban.
There were tellings of a battle fought the day before at
Castelnaudary, of the defeat of Monsieur's partisans, of the utter
rout of Gonzalo de Cordova's Spanish tatterdemalions, and of the
capture of Montmorency, who was sorely wounded - some said with
twenty and some with thirty wounds - and little like to live.
Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in Languedoc that day, for
they believed that it was against the Cardinal, who sought to strip
them of so many privileges, that Gaston d'Orleans had set up his
standard.

That those rumours of battle and defeat were true we had ample