Fortunately for the Huguenots, the enemy did not attempt pursuit of them, but instead undertook the siege of St. Jean-d’Angély, which lay directly in the way southward, to the disgust of the liberal marshal Cossé and even Tavannes, who urged that the King, in the light of this great victory, might now make peace with good grace.[1369] Others, considering the strength of St. Jean-d’Angély thought that the war would be protracted into the depth of winter and that the capture of St. Jean-d’Angély would be of small importance while La Rochelle still remained. Instead of accepting the advice, the government hardened its policy. A reward of 50,000 crowns was offered for the head of Coligny,[1370] 600,000 francs were distributed among the soldiers and 300,000 sent into Germany to make a new levy against the spring.[1371] On October 16 Charles IX arrived before St. Jean-d’Angély and beheld the greatest part of the royal troops ranged in order of battle. Anticipating a desperate resistance upon the part of those in the city, the King’s infantry requested to be equipped with the gendarmes’ cuirasses. One incident will illustrate the desperate valor of the besieged. On the night of October 21 they made a sortie, entered the enemy’s trenches, slew twenty men, took two ensigns prisoner, and all the arms they found in the _corps de garde_, and returned into the town. The Protestant garrison was not over 1,500 men, but in spite of the odds against him (he had no artillery except falconets and muskets, while Anjou had eleven guns, great and small), the Huguenot commander, Pilles, refused to surrender. Instead, when the governor of the town urged him to surrender rather than make resistance, the desperate captain had him hanged and his body cast into the river. The attack upon St. Jean-d’Angély opened on October 25, but although the wall was badly battered, no sufficient breach was made for days. The town resisted every attack until December 2, when it at last surrendered.[1372] Yet in spite of the double victory of Moncontour and at St. Jean-d’Angély, hard experience was proving the wisdom of the course advised by Tavannes and Cossé. The King was without money to pay the Swiss and the reiters who threatened to mutiny at any minute. The country round about the army was so denuded that there was great misery for want of food and multitudes of the soldiers fell sick.[1373] Finally, on November 24, in a sitting of the King’s council, Charles IX was formally petitioned by certain of its members to make peace overtures to his revolted subjects,[1374] and expressed his willingness to comply with the request.