Winter was now coming on: the nights were growing cold, and the rains had set in. The pope and the King of Spain had recalled their troops, and Anjou was sick. As there was nothing more to be done until spring, Charles, dismissing a large portion of his army, retired to Angers. This town had been recovered some time before by “that savage butcher,” the Duke of Montpensier. The Catholic historian of the city enumerates fifty-two persons who suffered a violent death, ten of them being murdered by the mob. The whole province now submitted, with the exception of a rough old soldier named Desmarais, who held out in the ruined castle of Rochefort. Here he was besieged in form, and for a time he kept off the enemy by means of frequent sorties. Suffering from want of men, food, and gunpowder, he crossed the hostile lines and reached Saumur, where his friends would have detained him, as his defeat was certain. “I promised to go back and die with them,” he said, and prepared to return with thirty men, who all deserted him through fear. After a bombardment, in which every man of the garrison was wounded, a traitor opened the gate and all were murdered, except Desmarais, whose life was promised him. Montpensier, however, declaring that no faith was to be kept with heretics, dragged him to Angers. There his limbs were broken on a cross, after which he was fastened to a wheel, and for twelve hours the old Puritan fought against death, amid the insults and jeers of a cruel and cowardly mob. Immediately after the disaster at Moncontour, the Queen of Navarre, and the chiefs of the Huguenot party had written to their friends in England, Germany, and Switzerland, representing the defeat as far less decisive than it really was, and asking for more help, on the ground that their destruction would be the ruin of all the countries that had embraced the Reformed religion. The position was indeed desperate. Their army had been so cut up that it was alike impossible to make any resistance in the open field, or reorganize it in the presence of the enemy. It was therefore determined to retire from the open country and take shelter behind the walls of Niort, Angoulême, St. Jean d’Angely, and La Rochelle, while Coligny moved southward in quest of recruits, hoping at the same time to draw a portion of the royal army after him, and thus relieve the pressure upon the troops left in garrison behind him. And now began that celebrated march through France, almost unexampled in modern history. His aim was to reach the mountains of Upper Languedoc, where he could winter unmolested by the royal army, and recruit his forces.