The younger, the future Henry IV., stepped forward briskly.

"Your cause," said he, "is mine; your interests are mine; I swear on my soul, honor, and life, to be wholly yours." The young Conde took the same oath.

The two princes were associated in the command, under the authority of Coligny, who was immediately appointed lieutenant-general of the army.

For two years their double signature figured at the bottom of the principal official acts of the Reformed party; and they were called "the admiral's pages." On both of them Jeanne passionately enjoined union between themselves, and equal submission on their part to Coligny, their model and their master in war and in devotion to the common cause.

Queen, princes, admiral, and military leaders of all ranks stripped themselves of all the diamonds, jewels, and precious stones which they possessed, and which Elizabeth, the Queen of England, took in pledge for the twenty thousand pounds sterling she lent him.