The real center of the government’s activity was Metz, which became the basis of operations against Deuxponts and Orange.[1338] Active efforts were made to repair the duke of Anjou’s losses and to strengthen his position.[1339] The offer of Spanish support which Alva had made was now formally accepted, for after the mission of Castelnau to the margrave of Baden to get relief, he was sent into Flanders to solicit the assistance of Alva, since it now had become the common interest of both crowns to crush the Protestants.[1340] The French commanders, the dukes of Nemours and Aumale, had received orders to prevent the approach of Deuxponts at all cost,[1341] but Aumale, partially on account of carelessness, partly because of misinformation, failed in his task, and by clever management Deuxponts at last succeeded in crossing the Saône above Bar into Auxerre and Berry, scaled the walls of Nevers, thereby shortening the road between him and the Huguenot army, and finally captured La Charité upon the Loire on May 20, after ten days of siege, and thus controlled the link which united Huguenots and reiters.[1342] [Illustration: CAMPAIGN OF THE SUMMER & AUTUMN OF 1569 _Methuen & Co._ ] If the Huguenots had been dispirited after Jarnac, they had reason to feel elated after the capture of La Charité. Although the duke of Anjou kept the field in Saintonge, Angoumois, and Limousin, the army was so mutinous for want of pay, so depleted by desertion and disease, that it was far from formidable.[1343] Paris was in consternation after the capture of La Charité and anticipated seeing the high hats and great feathers of the reiters before long.[1344] The _échevins_ of the city were ordered with all speed to make sale of the property of the Protestants to provide means for a new army, which had to be made up of peasant levies, “all their soldiers and men of the greatest value being already abroad.”[1345] The queen mother, having received letters complaining of lack of funds and mutiny in his army, bitterly reproached Aumale for negligence and cowardice in letting the duke of Deuxponts capture La Charité, and hastily started for the army in Saintonge, in company with the cardinals of Lorraine and Bourbon, where she went right among the soldiers with words of encouragement.[1346] [Illustration: BATTLE OF LA ROCHE-L’ABEILLE, JUNE 25, 1569 (Tortorel and Perissin)]