In this remarkable skirmish of Aumale the opposite qualities of Alexander and of Henry were signally illustrated.  The king, by his constitutional temerity, by his almost puerile love of confronting danger for the danger’s sake, was on the verge of sacrificing himself with all the hopes of his house and of the nobler portion of his people for an absolute nothing; while the duke, out of his superabundant caution, peremptorily refused to stretch out his hand and seize the person of his great enemy when directly within his, grasp.  Dead or alive, the Bearnese was unquestionably on that day in the power of Farnese, and with him the whole issue of the campaign and of the war.  Never were the narrow limits that separate valour on the one side and discretion on the other from unpardonable lunacy more nearly effaced than on that occasion.’

When would such an opportunity occur again?

The king’s wound proved not very dangerous, although for many days troublesome, and it required, on account of his general state of health, a thorough cure.  Meantime the royalists fell back from Aumale and Neufchatel, both of which places were at once occupied by the Leaguers:  In pursuance of his original plan, the Duke of Parma advanced with his customary steadiness and deliberation towards Rouen.  It was his intention to assault the king’s army in its entrenchments in combination with a determined sortie to be made by the besieged garrison.  His preparations for the attack were ready on the 26th February, when he suddenly received a communication from De Villars, who had thus far most ably and gallantly conducted the defence of the place, informing him that it was no longer necessary to make a general attack.  On the day before he had made a sally from the four gates of the city, had fallen upon the besiegers in great force, had wounded Biron and killed six hundred of his soldiers, had spiked several pieces of artillery and captured others which he had successfully brought into the town, and had in short so damaged the enemy’s works and disconcerted him in all his plans, that he was confident of holding the place longer than the king could afford to stay in front of him.  All he wished was a moderate reinforcement of men and munitions.  Farnese by no means sympathized with the confident tone of Villars nor approved of his proposition.  He had come to relieve Rouen and to raise the siege, and he preferred to do his work thoroughly.  Mayenne was however most heartily in favour of taking the advice of Villars.  He urged that it was difficult for the Bearnese to keep an army long in the field, still more so in the trenches.  Let them provide for the immediate wants of the city; then the usual process of decomposition would soon be witnessed in the ill-paid, ill-fed, desultory forces of the heretic pretender.

Alexander deferred to the wishes of Mayenne, although against his better judgment.  Eight hundred infantry, were successfully sent into Rouen.  The army of the League then countermarched into Picardy near the confines of Artois.