Warned by him, and stationed at windows, out of reach of danger, whence they looked out upon the plain, they had the pastime, and were able to recompense, by their applause and cries of joy, the courage of the troops whom their presence animated." But such partial successes, however glorious to him by whom they were achieved, were all insufficient to turn the tide of disaster that had set in against the French arms. The defeat of Bonnivet, the invasion of Provence by the Constable, were succeeded by that terrible day before the walls of Pavia, when Francis I., vanquished, wounded, made prisoner by a rebellious subject, beheld his army destroyed, and the battle-field strewn with the bodies of his best generals, whilst, bleeding at his feet, slain in his defence, lay Francis of Lorraine, a younger brother of the Count of Guise, the second of that brave brotherhood who had fallen in arms under the _fleur-de-lis_.[2] When the brave but most imprudent monarch was carried into captivity, his mother, regent in his absence, placed her chief trust and dependence in Guise. Of these he proved himself worthy. He checked the ambition of the Duke of Vendôme, who, as first prince of the blood, showed a disposition to seize upon the regency; he advised the ransoming of the French prisoners taken at Pavia, and exercised altogether a most salutary influence upon the circumstances of that critical time. His good sword, as well as his precocious wisdom, was soon in request. A large body of German fanatics, proclaiming the doctrine of absolute equality, and the abolition of all human superiority, had swept over Suabia, Wurtemberg, and Franconia, burning churches and slaying priests, and threatened to carry the like excesses into Lorraine and Burgundy. By aid of his brothers, at much expense and with great difficulty, Guise got together ten thousand men, four thousand of whom were cavalry. The double cross was the rallying sign of this little army. The time was come for Guise to perform his promise to Pope Leo, to fight stoutly in defence of the Church. And truly his hand was heavy upon the unfortunate and half frantic Lutherans, although to a certain extent he tempered its weight with mercy. Besieged in Saverne, the fanatics put to death the herald who summoned them to surrender. Learning that reinforcements from Germany were at hand, Guise hurried to meet them with three thousand men, and encountered them at the village of Lupstein, into which the Germans retreated, after a terrible conflict outside the place, and threw up a barricade as best they could, of carts, casks, and gabions. From the cover of these, and of the adjacent hedges, they kept up so obstinate a defence, that Guise, whose men fell fast, caused fire to be applied to the houses. But hardly had the flames begun their ravages, when the Count, seized with compassion, threw himself from his horse to assist in extinguishing them, and succeeded, at