Catherine de Medicis put forth edicts which annulled that of January; she also forbade the exercise of the pretended Reformed religion under pain of death, and ordered all its ministers to depart from the kingdom in fifteen days. At the same time the duke of Anjou, the next brother of Charles IX., and the favourite son of Catherine, afterwards known as Henry III., was placed at the head of the (Roman) Catholic army; but although he had twenty-four thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry under his command, he dared not offer battle. The very severe winter of 1568 was passed in marches and countermarches, without any decisive event taking place. On the 16th of March following, the two armies met at Jarnac. It was less a battle than a surprise. The different bodies of the Calvinists fell into line successively, and were cut to pieces one after the other. The prince of Condé performed prodigies of valour; but, being thrown from his horse, and carrying his arm in a sling from the beginning of the affair, he surrendered to a (Roman) Catholic gentleman. At the same instant Montesquieu, one of the officers of the duke of Anjou, coming up behind him, fired a pistol at his head. “This action, which might have passed in the affray for a splendid feat of arms,” says Mézeray, “being done in cold blood, appeared to all good men as an execrable parricide.”[52] The duke of Anjou caused the corpse of Condé to be carried upon an ass, whilst he himself joined in the infamous jestings of the soldiers, and wanted to have a triumphal column raised on the spot where the prince had been assassinated. He acted as a worthy son of Catherine. The news of the death of Condé and the victory of Jarnac, raised transports of joy amongst the (Roman) Catholics, and Charles IX. sent to the pope the standards that had been taken from the Huguenots. Michel Ghisleri then occupied the pontifical throne under the name of Pius V. He had entered a convent of Dominicans when only fifteen years of age, and had afterwards been intrusted with the office of Inquisitor-General in the Milanais, whence he had been expelled on account of his implacable severity. He only knew Luther under the name of “the ferocious beast” (_bellua_), and saw in heresy the summary of every crime. His letters were printed at Antwerp in 1640, and are a standing monument of infuriate madness against heretics. Pius V. wrote to Charles IX. to be deaf to every prayer, to stifle every tie of blood or affection, and to extirpate the roots of heresy to the very last fibres. He cited the example of Saul slaying the Amalekites, and represented every feeling of clemency as a snare of the devil. At such moral aberrations it is impossible to feel anger; we are rather moved by a feeling of deep and sad compassion.