The king showed great readiness to adopt it.
"I think," said he to the constable, "that I was inspired of God when I created Vieilleville of my council to-day." "I only gave the opinion I did," replied Montmorency, "in order to support the king's sentiments; let your Majesty give what orders you please." The king loudly proclaimed his resolve.

"Then let every one," he said, "be ready at an early date, with equipment according to his ability and means, to follow me; hoping, with God's help, that all will go well for the discomfiture of so pernicious a foe of my kingdom and nation, and one who revels and delights in tormenting all manner of folks, without regard for any." There was a general enthusiasm; the place of meeting for the army was appointed at Chalons-sur-Marne, March 10, 1552; more than a thousand gentlemen flocked thither as volunteers; peasants and mechanics from Champagne and Picardy joined them; the war was popular.

"The majority of the soldiers," says Rabutin, a contemporary chronicler, "were young men whose brains were on fire." Francis de Guise and Gaspard de Coligny were their chief leaders.

The king entered Lorraine from Champagne by Joinville, the ordinary residence of the Dukes of Guise.

He carried Pont-a-Mousson; Toul opened its gates to him on the 13th of April; he occupied Nancy on the 14th, and on the 18th he entered Metz, not without some hesitation amongst a portion of the inhabitants and the necessity of a certain show of military force on the part of the leaders of the royal army.