enemy, thought differently.[293] The latter, speaking of a meeting at La Cerisaye, which had been attacked, says: “There were some who would have rather been beaten than draw their swords, but I was not of their opinion.”[294] It may indeed be urged that the differences between the Romanists and Huguenots were not important enough to justify armed resistance; but the alternative appeal is to the conscience; and if men and women, young and old, rich and poor, through a long series of years, held their faith as dearer than their life, we must infer that the differences to them were vital. There is, however, a potent element of evil in armed resistance. When Christians unite into armies, they are too apt to become a political party, and losing sight of the motives and principles which first banded them together, to contend for mere temporal objects like any other body of men. It was perhaps a misfortune that the Reformed were so numerous in France; had they been a small, insignificant body, they would hardly have created such malignant animosity, and might have escaped being mixed up in the civil war, which was sooner or later inevitable between the political parties. Both armies now began to prepare for the coming struggle. Never before in all history, and only once since, has any thing been seen like the discipline at first maintained among the Huguenots. A form of prayer, drawn up by Beza, was repeated every night and morning; and the troops were “to beware of oppressing the poor commons.” As they marched over the open country, “they neither spoiled nor misused their hosts, but were content with a little.... Most of them paid honestly for all things.” La Noue aptly describes it as a “well-ordered disorder.” Speaking of the discipline of the army while it lay for a fortnight in the camp at Vassadonne near Orleans, he says: “Among all this great troop, ye should never hear God’s name blasphemed. There was not a pair of dice or cards, the fountains of many brawls and thefts, walking in any quarter.... Truly, many wondered to see them so well-disposed, and my late brother the Lord of Teligny and myself, discoursing thereof with the Lord Admiral, did greatly commend it. Whereupon he said unto us: ‘It is indeed a goodly matter if it would continue; but I fear this people will pour forth all their goodness at once, so as within these two months they will have nothing but malice left. I have a great while governed the footmen, and do know them. They will fulfill the proverb: A young saint, an old devil. If this fail, we may make a cross upon the chimney.’ We smiled, but took no farther heed thereof, until experience taught us that herein he was a prophet.” The admiral had not long to wait for the fulfillment of his prophecy. At Beaugency, the Huguenot force treated with more cruelty the Protestants who had been unable to escape than they did the Catholic soldiers who had held the town against them.