An awful retribution fell upon him. As soon as a sufficient force could be collected, the admiral commanded the Marquis de Briquemont to attack La Rivière in Jarnac. The town was taken by assault; but, as the inhabitants were our own people, no outrages were committed. The Catholics who surrendered received quarter, and many made their escape; but Lespinette and his band took refuge in the old keep, declaring they would hold it to the last: but, almost at the same moment that they were making this declaration, the lower part took fire. Unable to find any other means of escape, he and two of his companions determined to leap from the loopholes, which were large. But the corbels which hung over impeded them, and, in the effort to force themselves through, their armour was so tightly jammed in the stonework that no human power could remove them, and in this horrible situation they were actually burned to death in their arms. At this period, the situation of the Protestant army became every day more and more critical. The Catholic army, nearly double in force that which we could oppose to it, was now approaching nearer and nearer, and interposing between us and the troops coming from Gascony, with the purpose of forcing us to an immediate battle. The most important points of the Charente were, it is true, in our hands; the admiral and the Prince de Condé were once more at the head of their troops; and, had their tactical skill been as well seconded by the zeal and obedience of the officers under their command, we might have set the enemy at defiance till sufficient re-enforcements had arrived to enable us to fight them. The Duke of Anjou was advancing daily, but still his progress was delayed far more than might otherwise have been the case by the continual skirmishes which D'Andelot and the Prince de Condé contrived to treat him on his advance. Scarcely a day passed without some hundreds, sometimes thousands, of our troops being thrown unexpectedly upon some vulnerable point of the enemy's position; sometimes we advanced absolutely into the quarters of the Duke of Montpensier, and once we were actually in the lodgings of the Duke of Anjou himself. On the latter occasion, under the command of Puiviaud, we encountered close to Auville, where the duke had established his quarters, a body of seventy or eighty gentlemen of the court, and obstinately maintaining our ground for some time till we were re-enforced, large bodies of men began to come up on either side, till it became absolutely necessary for the Protestants to withdraw, lest the skirmish should end in a general battle when neither party was prepared.