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.] So much generosity and devotion, amongst the humblest as well as the most exalted ranks of the army, deserved not to be useless: but it turned out quite differently. Conde and Coligny led back to Paris their new army, which, it is said, was from eighteen to twenty thousand strong, and seemed to be in a condition either to take Paris itself, or to force the royal army to enter the field and accept a decisive battle. To bring that about, Conde thought the best thing was to besiege Chartres, “the key to the granary of Paris,” as it was called, and “a big thorn,” according to La Noue, “to run into the foot of the Parisians.” But Catherine de’ Medici had quietly entered once more into negotiations with some of the Protestant chiefs, even with Conde himself. Charles IX. published an edict in which he distinguished between heretics and rebels, and assured of his protection all Huguenots who should lay down arms. Chartres seemed to be on the point of capitulating, when news came that peace had just been signed at Longjumeau, on the 23d of March. The king put again in force the edict of Amboise of 1563, suppressing all the restrictions which had been tacked on to it successively. The Prince of Conde and his adherents were reinstated in all their possessions, offices, and honors; and Conde was “held and reputed good relative, faithful subject, and servant of the king.” The Reformers had to disband, restore the new places they had occupied, and send away their German allies, to whom the king undertook to advance the hundred thousand gold crowns which were due to them. He further promised, by a secret article, that he too would at a later date dismiss his foreign troops and a portion of the French.