They were within an ace of surprising the king at Monceaux, and he never forgot, says Montluc, that “the Protestants had made him do the stretch from Meaux to Paris at something more than a walk.”  It was around Paris that Conde concentrated all the efforts of the campaign.  He had posted himself at St. Denis with a small army of four thousand foot and two thousand horse.  The Constable de Montmorency commanded the royal army, having a strength of sixteen thousand foot and three thousand horse.  Attempts were made to open negotiations; but the constable broke them off brusquely, roaring out that the king would never tolerate two religions.  On the 10th of November, 1567, the battle began at St. Denis, and was fought with alternations of partial success and reverse, which spread joy and sadness through the two hosts in turn; but in resisting a charge of cavalry, led to victory by Conde, the constable fell with and under his horse; a Scot called out to him to surrender; for sole response, the aged warrior, “abandoned by his men, but not by his manhood,” says D’Aubigne, smashed the Scot’s jaw with the pommel of his broken sword; and at the same moment he fell mortally wounded by a shot through the body.  His death left the victory uncertain and the royal army disorganized.  The campaign lasted still four months, thanks to the energetic perseverance of Coligny and the inexhaustible spirits of Conde, both of whom excelled in the art of keeping up the courage of their men.  “Where are you taking us now?” asked an ill-tempered officer one day.  “To meet our German allies,” said Conde.  “And suppose we don’t find them?” “Then we will breathe on our fingers, for it is mighty cold.”  They did at last, at Pont-a-Mousson, meet the German re-enforcements, which were being brought up by Prince John Casimir, son of the elector-palatine, and which made Conde’s army strong enough for him to continue the war in earnest.  But these new comers declared that they would not march any farther unless they were paid the hundred thousand crowns due to them.  Conde had but two thousand.  “Thereupon,” says La Noue, “was there nothing for it but to make a virtue of necessity; and he as well as the admiral employed all their art, influence, and eloquence to persuade every man to divest himself of such means as he possessed for to furnish this contribution, which was so necessary.  They themselves were the first to set an example, giving up their own silver plate. . . .  Half from love and half from fear, this liberality was so general, that, down to the very soldiers’ varlets, every one gave; so that at last it was considered a disgrace to have contributed little.  When the whole was collected, it was found to amount, in what was coined as well as in plate and gold chains, to more than eighty thousand livres, which came in so timely, that without it there would have been a difficulty in satisfying the reiters. . . .  Was it not a thing worthy of astonishment to see an army, itself unpaid, despoiling itself of the little means it had of relieving its own necessities and sparing that little for the accommodation of others, who, peradventure, scarcely gave them a thankee for it?” [Memoires de La Noue, in the Petitot collection, 1st Series, t. xxxiv. p. 207.]