On the 19th of December the battle of Dreux was fought. The Calvinist army consisted of four thousand cavalry and five thousand infantry; the (Roman) Catholic army of sixteen thousand foot and two thousand horse. These forces were but small for an encounter, which might produce most important results; but, even of these, the foreign mercenaries of the triumvirs amounted to two-thirds, and to one-half in those of the Huguenots. But the war was at that time carried on from one end of France to the other; every province, every town, and, in some sort, every hamlet, had its soldiers; so that the troops encamped near Dreux formed but the smallest number of the combatants. For more than two hours, the armies gazed at each other in sullen stillness. “Each one thought within himself,” as relates the honest Lanoue, “that he had relations, friends, and comrades before him.” At length the battle began, and was kept up for seven hours with excessive ferocity. Eight thousand dead bodies encumbered the plain at the end of day. The Calvinists had at first the advantage, and some runaways having carried the news to Paris, Catherine de Medicis coolly replied: “Well, we must pray to God in French.” But the duke of Guise, having charged with the reserve, changed the face of the combat. Coligny tried in vain to bring his men back to the attack; all he could effect, was to retreat in good order. The chiefs of the two armies, the prince of Condé and the Constable de Montmorency, were taken prisoners. The Marshal de Saint André, one of the triumvirate, fell upon the field. “Die, traitor,” said a Calvinist officer, in discharging a pistol at his head, “die by the hand of one whom thou hast despoiled.” The winter did not suspend hostilities. Coligny again took the field in Upper and Lower Normandy. The duke of Guise went to besiege Orleans, the principal place, and the centre of the war-operations of the Calvinists. “Once take the burrow, when the foxes have retreated,” said he, “and we will chase them all over France.” Already, in spite of the heroic defence of D’Andelot and the citizens, two suburbs had been taken, and the tower of the bridge had been carried, when the duke of Guise was wounded on the evening of the 18th of February, 1563, by Jean Poltrot de Méré, who fired a pistol close to his breast. He died six days after, bitterly regretted by the (Roman) Catholic party. They gave him at Paris the funeral of a king, and Catherine de Medicis assumed great grief, which she did not feel.