The constable breathed his last the following day. Although he had now no direct personal foes, the Comte de Montgommery did not lessen the force of his blows. He seemed invincible and immortal. When Catherine de Médicis asked who had compelled Béarn to submit to the King of Navarre, and had caused the Prince of Béarn to be recognized as general-in-chief of the Huguenots, the answer was--Montgommery. When, on the day following the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), the queen-mother, in her thirst for vengeance, inquired, not as to those who had perished, but as to those who had escaped, the first name mentioned was--Montgommery. Montgommery threw himself into Rochelle with Lanoue. The town sustained nine fierce assaults, and cost the royal army forty thousand men. In the capitulation which ensued, it retained its freedom; and Gabriel was allowed to depart, safe and sound. He then made his way into Sancerre, which was besieged by the governor of Berri. He was well skilled, our readers will remember, in the defence of beleaguered towns. A handful of Sancerrois, with no other arms than iron-shod clubs, held out for four months against a body of six thousand soldiers. When at last they capitulated, they obtained the same terms granted at Rochelle,--liberty of conscience and immunity of person. Catherine de Médicis viewed with ever-growing fury the continual escapes of her old unconquerable foe. Montgommery left Poitou, which was in a blaze, and returned to Normandy to rekindle the flames which were subsiding there. Setting out from St. Lo, within three days he had taken Carentan and despoiled Valognes of all her supplies. All the Norman nobility ranged themselves under his standard. Catherine de Médicis and the king at once put three armies in the field, and proclaimed the ban and the _arrière-ban_ in Mans and in Perche. The royal forces were led by the Duc de Matignon. This time Montgommery no longer fought individually. Lost in the ranks of the Reformers, he devoted himself to thwarting Charles IX., and had his army, as the king had his. He formed an admirable plan, which bade fair to assure him a brilliant victory. He left Matignon besieging St. Lô with his whole force, secretly quitted the town, and made his way to Domfront. There François du Hallot was to join him with all the cavalry of Bretagne, Anjou, and the Caux country. With these forces he proposed to fall unexpectedly upon the royal army before St. Lô, which, being thus caught between two fires, would be annihilated. But treachery conquered the unconquerable. An ensign warned Matignon of Montgommery's secret departure for Domfront, whither he was accompanied by only forty horsemen. Matignon cared much less about reducing St. Lô than about capturing Montgommery; so he left the siege in charge of one of his inferior officers, and hastened to Domfront with two regiments of foot, six hundred horse, and a strong artillery force.