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]