He was of great use to me in enlisting the company. He scoured the country daily, and brought me recruits. When the roll was complete, I was ordered to remain at Nerac for a time. Subsequently, I was sent to garrison different towns, one after another, not only in Gascony and parts of Guienne but also in Henri's principality of Bearn and his little kingdom of Navarre. I am proud to have had a share in the constant efforts made by Henri of Navarre, while the world thought him given over entirely to gallantry at his small but agreeable court, to increase his territory and his resources against the time when he was to strike the great blows that no one yet dreamed he was meditating. Thanks to the unwillingness, or inability, of the King of France to put him in actual possession of his governorship of Guienne, we had the pleasant task, now and then, of wresting some town from the troops of the League or of Henri III. Our Henri had to take by force the places ceded to him by the King of France as Marguerite's dower, but still withheld from him. One of these was Cahors, in the taking of which I fought for days in the streets, always near our Henri, where the heart of the fighting was. It was there that Blaise Tripault covered himself with glory and the blood of the enemy, and was openly praised by the King. But my life in the south had other pleasures besides those of fighting. As Henri's was a miniature kingdom, so was his court, at cheerful Nerac or sombre Pau, a miniature court; yet it had its pretty women and gallant gentlemen. Gaiety visited us, too, from the greater world. When the King of France and the Queen-mother thought it to their interest to seem friendly to our Henri, they ordered Marguerite to Nerac. Catherine herself came with her, bringing the Flying Squadron, that Henri and his Huguenots might be seduced into the onesided treaties desired by her. Catherine was one of the few, I think, who foresaw Henri's possible future. Her astrologer, Cosmo Ruggieri, had predicted that he would succeed her three sons to the throne of France, and I suppose she could not endure the thought of this. Better a Guise than a Bourbon, the son of Jeanne d'Albret. But our Henri might be useful to her as an instrument to check the Duke of Guise in any attempted usurpation during the life of her son. Therefore, Henri was to be cajoled while he was being restrained. But he was not fooled into disadvantageous compacts or concessions. All that he lost was a single town, which Catherine caused to be attacked while he was at a fete; but he learned of this at the fete, and retaliated by taking a town of the French King's on the same night.