“Thank you, marshal; that will make all my lieutenants captains.  I lost five of them and three second lieutenants.”

“Then you will require thirteen more officers.”  He looked at a list.  “There are eight belonging to the Ardennes, the rest I will draw from other regiments.  There is little fear of their objecting to the exchange, for your corps won such a reputation that all will be glad to join it; I will send you back to Nancy.  There are barracks there, and no other troops; and as we are not likely to be disturbed until the spring, you will have plenty of time to bring the regiment up to its former mark.”

The winter, indeed, passed quietly.  The officers were all greatly pleased when they heard the arrangements Hector had made, by which most of them obtained a step in rank instead of being, as they had feared, passed over by officers belonging to the Ardennes regiment.  The battle of Freiburg had shown them the great advantage that had been gained by the steadiness and discipline of their men.  They took up the work of drilling again with even more zeal than before, and it was not long before the regiment was restored to its former state of efficiency.  The reason why he had sent the regiment back from the Rhine was explained by Turenne to Hector before he started.

“The orders from court were,” he said, “that I was to retain only the Weimar regiments, and I should have been obliged to send you back with those of Enghien had I not represented to him that it might be of the greatest importance to me to have even one good French regiment within call.  We talked it over at some length, and he finally agreed to take upon himself the responsibility of ordering that your regiment should not go beyond Nancy, upon the ground that there were very few troops in Lorraine; and that peasant risings had taken place there, as in other departments, owing to the terrible distress caused by heavy taxation.  He has handed to me a paper authorizing you to take such steps as you may think fit, as soon as you receive news of such risings, to aid the civil authorities, if they should take place at any point within reasonable reach.  The regiments stationed at Metz will naturally maintain order north of Pont-a-Mousson, while you will send detachments to points south and east of Nancy.  You will understand that you are not to move troops on the strength of mere rumours, but only when requests for aid are sent by local authorities.”

Indeed, during the winter of 1644-45, as in that preceding it, troubles broke out in many parts of France, and in some the risings of “the barefooted ones,” as they were called, became for a time very formidable.  The rage of the unhappy peasantry was principally directed, as during the Jacquerie, against the nobles, and any chateaux were sacked and burned, all within killed, and terrible excesses committed.