the battle-field or drowned in the swollen river in their retreat. About
one-fourth of that number fell in the army of the king. It is certain
that of the contingent from the obedient Netherlands, two hundred and
seventy, including their distinguished general, lost their lives. The
Bastard of Brunswick, crawling from beneath a heap of slain, escaped with
life. Mayenne lost all his standards and all the baggage of his army,
while the army itself was for a time hopelessly dissolved.

Few cavalry actions have attained a wider celebrity in history than the
fight of Ivry. Yet there have been many hard-fought battles, where the
struggle was fiercer and closer, where the issue was for a longer time
doubtful, where far more lives on either side were lost, where the final
victory was immediately productive of very much greater results, and
which, nevertheless, have sunk into hopeless oblivion. The, personal
details which remain concerning the part enacted by the adventurous king
at this most critical period of his career, the romantic interest which
must always gather about that ready-witted, ready-sworded Gascon, at the
moment when, to contemporaries, the result of all his struggles seemed so
hopeless or at best so doubtful; above all, the numerous royal and
princely names which embellished the roll-call of that famous passage of
arms, and which were supposed, in those days at least, to add such lustre
to a battle-field, as humbler names, however illustrious by valour or
virtue, could never bestow, have made this combat for ever famous.

Yet it is certain that the most healthy moral, in military affairs, to be
derived from the event, is that the importance of a victory depends less
upon itself than on the use to be made of it. Mayenne fled to Mantes,
the Duke of Nemours to Chartres, other leaders of the League in various
directions, Mayenne told every body he met that the Bearnese was killed,
and that although his own army was defeated, he should soon have another