It may have been that Damville had friends at court and Montluc none; it may have been that the marshal’s pride of long descent made him indifferent or even contemptuous of Montluc in some degree. But if we look closely at things it is evident that the spirit of provincial separation was the fundamental source of the difficulty between them. This spirit penetrated to the very bottom. Both Montluc and Damville were making war with men levied from the country in which they were—with militia instead of regular troops. The consequence of this was that every man in the host had an eye to the welfare of his family or his friends instead of to the King’s business; moreover, many had relatives or friends with the enemy, which made them fight reluctantly; finally, they were ill-paid and had to subsist on plunder, which debauched discipline. The true remedy would have been for Charles IX to have raised the useless siege of St. Jean-d’Angély and to have come in person into the southland, where the authority of the King might have overcome the local forces of separation; and where the regulars would have plied war as a trade, as the circumstances demanded. The Catholics of the south had an example before their eyes in the reiters with the admiral, of the efficiency of regular troops over local forces. Coligny owed his future to them and Montgomery. The way the reiters made war excited the admiration of trained soldiers like Montluc. They so barricaded the villages in which they quartered themselves that nothing was to be got by assault and in the open country they were always mounted at the least alarm. It was very hard to surprise them. They were careful of their horses and arms and so terrible in action “that a man could see nothing but fire and steel.” The very grooms fought.[1416]