The Huguenot loss at Jarnac was not great numerically--400 men at the utmost; and the various scattered corps were so soon brought together, and presented so bold a front to the enemy, that Anjou did not care to risk his newly-acquired laurels in a second encounter. He appeared to have lost all energy. Tavannes proposed the laying waste of Poitou, “the Huguenot milch cow;” but, instead of following his advice, the young duke seems to have thought that the best means of terminating the war would be to capture Rochelle, the real base of Huguenot operations. And probably victory would have crowned his plans, had he moved rapidly on that city, which was hardly in a condition to withstand a _coup de main_. But the middle course which he adopted served no other purpose than to strengthen his enemies. While he was besieging Cognac, Duke Wolfgang of Deux Ponts, with an auxiliary force of 14,000, succeeded in marching across France, and effecting a junction with the admiral, despite the efforts of Nemours and Aumale to stop him. On other points the royal forces had been equally unsuccessful. Anjou was forced to raise the siege of Cognac, stoutly defended by D’Acier with 1500 men, and lost one of his best officers, Cossé-Brissac, before the walls of a petty fortress in Périgord. Living or dying, Brissac, although rather a favorite of the queen-mother’s, had but little influence on the course of events; but if not naturally cruel, he was a striking illustration of the hardness of heart engendered by civil strife. A contemporary, who knew him well, describes him as “quick to slay, and so fond of killing, that he would attack a person with his dagger, and cut him so that the blood spurted in his face.” More serious were the deaths of Wolfgang and Andelot, both caused by fatigue and anxiety.[435] The former, who did not live to meet Coligny, was succeeded by the Count of Mansfield; the latter by Jacques de Crussol, better known as Jacques d’Acier, the chivalrous leader of the southern Huguenots. The admiral was deeply afflicted by the loss of his brother, whom he describes as “a most faithful servant of God, and most excellent and renowned captain. No one,” he continues in a letter to his own children and to their bereaved cousins, “surpassed him in the profession of arms.... I have never known a juster or more pious man; and I pray God that I may quit this life as piously and happily as he did.... Temper my grief by showing his virtues living again in yourselves.”