But mutiny of the army, and the capture of La Charité, with the prospective union of Coligny and the duke of Deuxponts, was not all that worried the queen and the cardinal. Casimir of the County Palatine was reported to be coming with 6,000 horse and as many foot; moreover, the Emperor was hostile.[1347] The extremity of the government was so great that compromise was necessary, and Catherine had in mind to patch matters up by offering her daughter Marguerite of France in marriage to the young Henry of Navarre—a plan whose consummation three years later precipitated the massacre of St. Bartholomew.[1348] Marshal Damville, the second son of the old constable, whose Politique leanings already had made him conspicuous, was significantly appointed the King’s lieutenant in Languedoc. Toleration was in the air once more. But all of a sudden the Catholic cause revived for an instant.[1349] Coligny fell ill, and the progress of the Huguenot army was thereby impeded. Worse still, the duke of Deuxponts was stricken with a burning fever, so that he died the very day of his arrival in La Marche.[1350] Strozzi with some Italian forces attacked Coligny at La Roche-L’Abeille on June 25, when the rain was pouring in such torrents that the matchlocks of the Italians were useless, so that the soldiers on both sides clubbed their weapons—in the expressive words of D’Aubigné, “rompre croce sur cap”—that is, broke the crosses of their arquebuses over the heads of their antagonists.[1351] In the conflict Strozzi was taken prisoner. From this time forth the army of the King was simply a disorderly mass of men. Famine and fever so reduced it that the duke of Anjou was not able to defend himself, let alone invading the enemy’s territory. To increase his forces, he put arms in the hands of the peasantry of Limousin, with the result that a local _jacquerie_ prevailed in the province. Lansac was repulsed in assaulting La Charité; Châtellerault (July 12) and Lusignan (July 20) were taken by the Huguenots.[1352] The Catholics failed before Niort, to whose relief the brilliant La Noue came after his own seizure of Luçon.[1353]