Henry plunged into battle a part of his line was grievously shaken, a part was in full retreat, and the prospect was dark enough.  Some of his immediate followers, indeed, at this time turned countenance and were disposed to flee, whereupon he recalled them to their duty with the words, “Look this way, in order that if you will not fight, at least you may see me die.”  But the steady and determined courage of the King, well seconded by soldiers not less brave, turned the tide of battle.  “The enemy took flight,” says the devout Duplessis Mornay, “terrified rather by God than by men; for it is certain that the one side was not less shaken than the other.”  And with the flight of the cavalry, Mayenne’s infantry, constituting, as has been seen, three-fourths of his entire army, gave up the day as lost, without striking a blow for the cause they had come to support.  How many men the army of the League lost in killed and wounded it is difficult to say.  The Prince of Parma reported to his master the loss of two hundred and seventy of the Flemish lancers, together with their commander, the Count of Egmont.  The historian De Thou estimates the entire number of deaths on the side of the League, including the combatants that fell in the battle and the fugitives drowned at the crossing of the river Eure, by Ivry, at eight hundred.  The official account, on the other hand, agrees with Marshal Biron, in stating that of the cavalry alone more than fifteen hundred died, and adds that four hundred were taken prisoners; while Davila swells the total of the slain to the incredible sum of upward of six thousand men.

SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER

(1821-1893)

The Northwest Passage, the Pole itself, and the sources of the Nile—­how many have struggled through ice and snow, or burned themselves with tropic heat, in the effort to penetrate these secrets of the earth!  And how many have left their bones to whiten on the desert or lie hidden beneath icebergs at the end of the search!

Of the fortunate ones who escaped after many perils, Baker was one of the most fortunate.  He explored the Blue and the White Nile, discovered at least one of the reservoirs from which flows the great river of Egypt, and lived to tell the tale and to receive due honor, being knighted by the Queen therefor, feted by learned societies, and sent subsequently by the Khedive at the head of a large force with commission to destroy the slave trade.  In this he appears to have been successful for a time, but for a time only.

[Illustration:  SIR SAMUEL BAKER]