With these and other resources at his command, Henry was speedily enabled to subsidize a large body of Swiss and German mercenaries. The native troops serving abroad were ordered home. The veteran Marshal Termes came, with a large corps, from Tuscany, and the duke of Guise returned, with the remnant of his battalions, from Rome. This popular commander was welcomed with enthusiasm. The nation seemed to look to him as to the deliverer of the country. His late campaign in the kingdom of Naples was celebrated as if it had been a brilliant career of victory. He was made lieutenant-general of the army, and the oldest captains were proud to take service under so renowned a chief. The government was not slow to profit by the extraordinary resources thus placed at its disposal. Though in the depth of winter, it was resolved to undertake some enterprise that should retrieve the disasters of the late campaign, and raise the drooping spirits of the nation. The object proposed was the recovery of Calais, that strong place, which for more than two centuries had remained in possession of the English. The French had ever been keenly sensible to the indignity of an enemy thus planting his foot immovably, as it were, on their soil. They had looked to the recovery of Calais with the same feelings with which the Spanish Moslems, when driven into Africa, looked to the recovery of their ancient possessions in Granada. They showed how constantly this was in their thoughts, by a common saying respecting any commander whom they held lightly, that he was "not a man to drive the English out of France."[230] The feelings they entertained, however, were rather those of desire than of expectation. The place was so strong, so well garrisoned, and so accessible to the English, that it seemed impregnable. These same circumstances, and the long possession of the place, had inspired the English, on the other hand, with no less confidence, as was pretty well intimated by an inscription on the bronze gates of the town,--"When the French besiege Calais, lead and iron will swim like cork."[231] This confidence, as it often happens, proved their ruin.