From 'The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre': Charles Scribner's Sons.
The battle began with a furious cannonade from the King's artillery, so
prompt that nine rounds of shot had been fired before the enemy were
ready to reply, so well directed that great havoc was made in the
opposing lines. Next, the light horse of M. de Rosne, upon the extreme
right of the Leaguers, made a dash upon Marshal d'Aumont, but were
valiantly received. Their example was followed by the German reiters,
who threw themselves upon the defenders of the King's artillery and upon
the light horse of Aumont, who came to their relief; then, after their
customary fashion, wheeled around, expecting to pass easily through the
gaps between the friendly corps of Mayenne and Egmont, and to reload
their firearms at their leisure in the rear, by way of preparation for a
second charge.
Owing to the blunder of Tavannes, however, they met a serried line of
horse where they looked for an open field; and the Walloon cavalry found
themselves compelled to set their lances in threatening position to ward
off the dangerous onset of their retreating allies. Another charge, made
by a squadron of the Walloon lancers themselves, was bravely met by
Baron Biron. His example was imitated by the Duke of Montpensier farther
down the field. Although the one leader was twice wounded, and the other
had his horse killed under him, both ultimately succeeded in repulsing
the enemy.
It was about this time that the main body of Henry's horse became
engaged with the gallant array of cavalry in their front. Mayenne had
placed upon the left of his squadron a body of four hundred mounted
carabineers. These, advancing first, rode rapidly toward the King's
line, took aim, and discharged their weapons with deadly effect within
twenty-five paces. Immediately afterward the main force of eighteen
hundred lancers presented themselves. The King had fastened a great
white plume to his helmet, and had adorned his horse's head with
another, equally conspicuous. "Comrades!" he now exclaimed to those
about him, "Comrades! God is for us! There are his enemies and ours! If
you lose sight of your standards, rally to my white plume; you will find
it on the road to victory and to honor." The Huguenots had knelt after
their fashion; again Gabriel d'Amours had offered for them a prayer to
the God of battles: but no Joyeuse dreamed of suspecting that they were
meditating surrender or flight. The King, with the brave Huguenot
minister's prediction of victory still ringing in his ears, plunged into
the thickest of the fight, two horses' length ahead of his companions.
That moment he forgot that he was King of France and general-in-chief,
both in one, and fought as if he were a private soldier. It was indeed a
bold venture. True, the enemy, partly because of the confusion induced
by the reiters, partly from the rapidity of the King's movements, had
lost in some measure the advantage they should have derived from their
lances, and were compelled to rely mainly upon their swords, as against
the firearms of their opponents. Still, they outnumbered the knights of
the King's squadron more than as two to one. No wonder that some of the
latter flinched and actually turned back; especially when the
standard-bearer of the King, receiving a deadly wound in the face, lost
control of his horse, and went riding aimlessly about the field, still
grasping the banner in grim desperation. But the greater number emulated
the courage of their leader. The white plume kept them in the road to
victory and to honor. Yet even this beacon seemed at one moment to fail
them. Another cavalier, who had ostentatiously decorated his helmet much
after the same fashion as the King, was slain in the hand-to-hand
conflict, and some, both of the Huguenots and of their enemies, for a
time supposed the great Protestant champion himself to have fallen.
But although fiercely contested, the conflict was not long. The troopers
of Mayenne wavered, and finally fled. Henry of Navarre emerged from the
confusion, to the great relief of his anxious followers, safe and sound,
covered with dust and blood not his own. More than once he had been in
great personal peril. On his return from the melée, he halted, with a
handful of companions, under the pear-trees indicated beforehand as a
rallying-point, when he was descried and attacked by three bands of
Walloon horse that had not yet engaged in the fight. Only his own valor
and the timely arrival of some of his troops saved the imprudent monarch
from death or captivity.
The rout of Mayenne's principal corps was quickly followed by the
disintegration of his entire army. The Swiss auxiliaries of the League,
though compelled to surrender their flags, were, as ancient allies of
the crown, admitted to honorable terms of capitulation. To the French,
who fell into the King's hands, he was equally clement. Indeed, he
spared no efforts to save their lives. But it was otherwise with the
German lansquenets. Their treachery at Arques, where they had pretended
to come over to the royal side only to turn upon those who had believed
their protestations and welcomed them to their ranks, was yet fresh in
the memory of all. They received no mercy at the King's hands.
Gathering his available forces together, and strengthened by the
accession of old Marshal Biron, who had been compelled, much against his
will, to remain a passive spectator while others fought, Henry pursued
the remnants of the army of the League many a mile to Mantes and the
banks of the Seine. If their defeat by a greatly inferior force had been
little to the credit of either the generals or the troops of the League,
their precipitate flight was still less decorous. The much-vaunted
Flemish lancers distinguished themselves, it was said, by not pausing
until they found safety beyond the borders of France; and Mayenne, never
renowned for courage, emulated or surpassed them in the eagerness he
displayed, on reaching the little town from which the battle took its
name, to put as many leagues as possible between himself and his
pursuers. "The enemy thus ran away," says the Englishman William Lyly,
who was an eye-witness of the battle; "Mayenne to Ivry, where the
Walloons and reiters followed so fast that there standing, hasting to
draw breath, and not able to speak, he was constrained to draw his sword
to strike the flyers to make place for his own flight."
The battle had been a short one. Between ten and eleven o'clock the
first attack was made; in less than an hour the army of the League was
routed. It had been a glorious action for the King and his old
Huguenots, and not less for the loyal Roman Catholics who clung to him.
None seemed discontented but old Marshal Biron, who, when he met the
King coming out of the fray with battered armor and blunted sword, could
not help contrasting the opportunity his Majesty had enjoyed to
distinguish himself with his own enforced inactivity, and exclaimed,
"Sire, this is not right! You have to-day done what Biron ought to have
done, and he has done what the King should have done." But even Biron
was unable to deny that the success of the royal arms surpassed all
expectation, and deserved to rank among the wonders of history. The
preponderance of the enemy in numbers had been great. There was no
question that the impetuous attacks of their cavalry upon the left wing
of the King were for a time almost successful. The official accounts
might conveniently be silent upon the point, but the truth could not be
disguised that at the moment 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.