Hostile operations were renewed soon after the interview at Peronne.  The Duke of Guise, who had procured five thousand cavalry and fourteen thousand infantry in Germany, now, at the desire of the King, undertook an enterprise against Thionville, a city of importance and great strength in Luxemburg, upon the river Moselle.  It was defended by Peter de Quarebbe, a gentleman of Louvain, with a garrison of eighteen hundred men.  On the 5th June, thirty-five pieces of artillery commenced the work; the mining and countermining-continuing seventeen days; on the 22nd the assault was made, and the garrison capitulated immediately afterwards.  It was a siege conducted in a regular and business-like way, but the details possess no interest.  It was, however, signalized by the death of one of the eminent adventurers of the age, Marshal Strozzi.  This brave, but always unlucky soldier was slain by a musket ball while assisting the Duke of Guise—­whose arm was, at that instant, resting upon his shoulder—­to point a gun at the fortress.

After the fall of Thionville, the Due de Guise, for a short time, contemplated the siege of the city of Luxemburg, but contented himself with the reduction of the unimportant places of Vireton and Arlon.  Here he loitered seventeen days, making no exertions to follow up the success which had attended him at the opening of the campaign.  The good fortune of the French was now neutralized by the same languor which had marked the movements of Philip after the victory of Saint Quentin.  The time, which might have been usefully employed in following up his success, was now wasted by the Duke in trivial business, or in absolute torpor.  This may have been the result of a treacherous understanding with Spain, and the first fruits of the interview at Peronne.  Whatever the cause, however, the immediate consequences were disaster to the French nation, and humiliation to the crown.

It had been the plan of the French cabinet that Marshal de Thermes, who, upon the capture of Calais, had been appointed governor of the city, should take advantage of his position as soon as possible.  Having assembled an army of some eight thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse, partly Gascons and partly Germans, he was accordingly directed to ravage the neighboring country, particularly the county of Saint Pol.  In the mean time, the Due de Guise, having reduced the cities on the southern frontier, was to move in a northerly direction, make a junction with the Marshal, and thus extend a barrier along the whole frontier of the Netherlands.

De Therlries set forth from Calais, in the beginning of June, with his newly-organized army.  Passing by Gravelines and Bourbourg, he arrived before Dunkerk on the 2d of July.  The city, which was without a garrison, opened negotiations, during the pendency of which it was taken by assault and pillaged.  The town of Saint Winochsberg shared the same fate.  De Thermes, who was a martyr to the gout, was obliged