Fontenay, the town about which I wrote lately, fell at the third assault. There was great slaughter both of besiegers and besieged. People think Lusignan will be attacked next. It is a fortress of considerable strength, five miles from Poitiers, and being built on a rock is not easily accessible.[16] The siege of Lusignan will give Montpensier’s army occupation for some time, and though less important places like these may be easily recovered by the King, at any rate the reduction of Montauban, Nismes, Rochelle, and other towns, which still hold out, will prove a more difficult task. But who can say what may happen in the meanwhile? Time brings about many a surprise, and the result may turn out far other than what it is expected to be. The King thinks differently; under his mother’s influence, as it is supposed, he is entering on the war with a light heart. Within the last few days an Edict[17] was published, by which all who had fled the country are invited to return home within six months, under promise of an amnesty; if they do not avail themselves of this act of indemnity within that time, they are to be considered outlaws and public enemies. This proclamation, it is feared, will be the signal for those who distrust the King’s word to take the field—it is the trumpet calling them to battle. To people’s astonishment some noble families, as, for instance, those of Rambouillet and d’Estrées,[18] have been ordered to leave the Court and retire to their homes. At his parting from the Duke of Savoy, the King is said to have made him a present of two towns which are still held by his garrisons—namely, Savigliano and Pignerolo, if I remember the names rightly. This arrangement, however, has been interfered with by the Duke’s wife having died, unfortunately for him, before it was completed, an event which may possibly make the King change his intentions.[19]