The king, in pursuance of the plan he had marked out for himself, restrained his skirmishing more than was his wont.  Nevertheless he lay close to Yvetot.  His cavalry, swelling and falling as usual like an Alpine torrent, had now filled up its old channels again, for once more the mountain chivalry had poured themselves around their king.  With ten thousand horsemen he was now pressing the Leaguers, from time to time, very hard, and on one occasion the skirmishing became so close and so lively that a general engagement seemed imminent.  Young Ranuccio had a horse shot under him, and his father—­suffering as he was—­had himself dragged out of bed and brought on a litter into the field, where he was set on horseback, trampling on wounds and disease, and, as it were, on death itself, that he might by his own unsurpassed keenness of eye and quickness of resource protect the army which had been entrusted to his care.  The action continued all day; young Bentivoglio, nephew of the famous cardinal, historian and diplomatist, receiving a bad wound in the leg, as he fought gallantly at the side of Ranuccio.  Carlo Coloma also distinguished himself in the engagement.  Night separated the combatants before either side had gained a manifest advantage, and on the morrow it seemed for the interest of neither to resume the struggle.

The field where this campaign was to be fought was a narrow peninsula enclosed between the sea and the rivers Seine and Dieppe.  In this peninsula, called the Land of Caux, it was Henry’s intention to shut up his enemy.  Farnese had finished the work that he had been sent to do, and was anxious, as Henry was aware, to return to the Netherlands.  Rouen was relieved, Caudebec had fallen.  There was not food or forage enough in the little peninsula to feed both the city and the whole army of the League.  Shut up in this narrow area, Alexander must starve or surrender.  His only egress was into Picardy and so home to Artois, through the base of the isosceles triangle between the two rivers and on the borders of Picardy.  On this base Henry had posted his whole army.  Should Farnese assail him, thus provided with a strong position and superiority of force, defeat was certain.  Should he remain where he was, he must inevitably starve.  He had no communications with the outside.  The Hollanders lay with their ships below Caudebec, blockading the river’s mouth and the coast.  His only chance of extrication lay across the Seine.  But Alexander was neither a bird nor a fish, and it was necessary, so Henry thought, to be either the one or the other to cross that broad, deep, and rapid river, where there were no bridges, and where the constant ebb and flow of the tide made transportation almost impossible in face of a powerful army in rear and flank.  Farnese’s situation seemed, desperate; while the shrewd Bearnese sat smiling serenely, carefully watching at the mouth of the trap into which he had at last inveigled his mighty adversary.  Secure of his triumph, he seemed to have changed his nature, and to have become as sedate and wary as, by habit, he was impetuous and hot.