years afterwards, although their deaths have been duly recorded in
chronicle from that day to our own times.

But Villars and Sanseval were certainly slain, and Fuentes sent their
bodies, with a courteous letter, to the Duke of Nevers, at Amiens, who
honoured them with a stately funeral.

There was much censure cast on both Bouillon and Villars respectively
by the antagonists of each chieftain; and the contest as to the cause of
the defeat was almost as animated as the skirmish itself. Bouillon was
censured for grudging a victory to the Catholics, and thus leaving the
admiral to his fate. Yet it is certain that the Huguenot duke himself
commanded a squadron composed almost entirely of papists. Villars, on
the other hand, was censured for rashness, obstinacy, and greediness for
distinction; yet it is probable that Fuentes might have been defeated had
the charges of Bouillon been as determined and frequent as were those of
his colleague. Savigny de Rosnes, too, the ancient Leaguer, who
commanded under Fuentes, was accused of not having sufficiently followed
up the victory, because unwilling that his Spanish friends should
entirely trample upon his own countrymen. Yet there is no doubt whatever
that De Rosnes was as bitter an enemy to his own country as the most
ferocious Spaniard of them all. It has rarely been found in civil war
that the man who draws his sword against his fatherland, under the banner
of the foreigner, is actuated by any lingering tenderness for the nation
he betrays; and the renegade Frenchman was in truth the animating spirit
of Fuentes during the whole of his brilliant campaign. The Spaniard's
victories were, indeed, mainly attributable to the experience, the
genius, and the rancour of De Rosnes.

But debates over a lost battle are apt to be barren. Meantime Fuentes,