A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times | Page 5

was advancing in pursuit of him with an army of
twenty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse, thought it
imprudent to wait for him and run the risk of being jammed between
forces so considerable and the hostile population of a large city; so he
struck his camp and took the road to Dieppe, in order to be near the
coast and the re-enforcements from Queen Elizabeth. Some persons
even suggested to him that in case of mishap he might go thence and
take refuge in England; but at this prospect Biron answered, "There is
no King of France out of France;" and Henry IV. was of Biron's
opinion. At his arrival before Dieppe, he found as governor there
Aymar de Chastes, a man of wits and honor, a very moderate Catholic,
and very strongly in favor of the party of policists. Under Henry III. he
had expressly refused to enter the League, saying to Villars, who
pressed him to do so, "I am a Frenchman, and you yourself will find out
that the Spaniard is the real head of the League." He had organized at
Dieppe four companies of burgess-guards, consisting of Catholics and
Protestants, and he assembled about him, to consider the affairs of the
town, a small council, in which Protestants had the majority. As soon
as he knew, on the 26th of August, that the king was approaching
Dieppe, he went with the principal inhabitants to meet him, and

presented to him the keys of the place, saying, "I come to salute my
lord and hand over to him the government of this city."
"Ventre-saint-gris!" answered Henry IV., "I know nobody more worthy
of it than you are!" The Dieppese overflowed with felicitations. "No
fuss, my lads," said Henry: "all I want is your affections, good bread,
good wine, and good hospitable faces." When he entered the town, "he
was received," says a contemporary chronicler, "with loud cheers by
the people; and what was curious, but exhilarating, was to see the king
surrounded by close upon six thousand armed men, himself having but
a few officers at his left hand." He received at Dieppe assurance of the
fidelity of La Verune, governor of Caen, whither, in 1589, according to
Henry III.'s order, that portion of the Parliament of Normandy which
would not submit to the yoke of the League at Rouen, had removed.
Caen having set the example, St. Lo, Coutances, and Carentan likewise
sent deputies to Dieppe to recognize the authority of Henry IV. But
Henry had no idea of shutting himself up inside Dieppe: after having
carefully inspected the castle, citadel, harbor, fortifications, and
outskirts of the town, he left there five hundred men in garrison,
supported by twelve or fifteen hundred well-armed burgesses, and went
and established himself personally in the old castle of Arques, standing,
since the eleventh century, upon a barren hill; below, in the burgh of
Arques, he sent Biron into cantonments with his regiment of Swiss and
the companies of French infantry; and he lost no time in having large
fosses dug ahead of the burgh, in front of all the approaches, enclosing
within an extensive line of circumvallation both burgh and castle. All
the king's soldiers and the peasants that could be picked up in the
environs worked night and day. Whilst they were at work, Henry wrote
to Countess Corisande de Gramont, his favorite at that time, "My dear
heart, it is a wonder I am alive with such work as I have. God have pity
upon me and show me mercy, blessing my labors, as He does in spite
of a many folks! I am well, and my affairs are going well. I have taken
Eu. The enemy, who are double me just now, thought to catch me there;
but I drew off towards Dieppe, and I await them in a camp that I am
fortifying. Tomorrow will be the day when I shall see them, and I hope,
with God's help, that if they attack me they will find they have made a
bad bargain. The bearer of this goes by sea. The wind and my duties
make me conclude. This 9th of September, in the trenches at Arques."

All was finished when the scouts of Mayenne appeared. But Mayenne
also was an able soldier: he saw that the position the king had taken and
the works he had caused to be thrown up rendered a direct attack very
difficult. He found means of bearing down upon Dieppe another way,
and of placing himself, says the latest historian of Dieppe, M. Vitet,
between the king and the town, "hoping to cut off the king's
communications with the sea, divide his forces, deprive him of his
re-enforcements from England, and, finally, surround him and capture
him, as he