[Illustration: PLAN OF THE FORTRESS OF NAVARRENS MADE BY JUAN MARTINEZ DESCURRA, A SPANISH SPY In Archives nationales, K. 1499, No. 84.] By rapid marching Montgomery reached Navarrens incredibly soon. Terride, his soldiers wearied out by a siege which had endured for three months and a half in midsummer, loaded with spoil, licentious and mutinous to an extent that shamed even the reiters, abandoned the siege and fell back on Orthez. But the city was not proof against the attacks of the viscounts. In broad daylight the walls were carried _par escalade_. On August 13, Terride, who had taken refuge in the castle with so much haste that he was without provisions or munitions, surrendered. He himself was spared by Montgomery for the purpose of being exchanged for the latter’s brother, but died before the transfer was made. His captains, almost to a man, were put to death. Some of these were former officers in the Béarnais army and were legally guilty of treason, but the real motive of Montgomery was reprisal for the ravages done by Terride’s army. At the beginning of the war the queen’s lieutenant, the heroic baron de Larboust, either in the hope of sparing Béarn, or anticipating what would be meted out again, had proposed to neutralize Béarn, putting it into the custody of the count de Grammont, even offering to oppose Montgomery if it were done. Terride refused and paid the price of his wilfulness and bigotry. Béarn was saved by Montgomery, in the most brilliant and most honorable campaign of his checkered career.[1405]