Henry, master of the field, gave chase for a while to the fugitives, and then returned to Arques to thank God for his victory.

Mayenne struck his camp and took the road towards Amiens, to pick up a Spanish corps which he was expecting from the Low Countries.
[Illustration: Sully----37] For six months, from September, 1589, to March, 1590, the war continued without any striking or important events.

Henry IV.

tried to stop it after his success at Arques; he sent word to the Duke of Mayenne by his prisoner Belin, whom he had sent away free on parole, "that he desired peace, and so earnestly, that, without regarding his dignity or his victory, he made him these advances, not that he had any fear of him, but because of the pity he felt for his kingdom's sufferings." Mayenne, who lay beneath the double yoke of his party's passions and his own ambitious projects, rejected the king's overtures, or allowed them to fall through; and on the 21st of October, 1589, Henry, setting out with his army from Dieppe, moved rapidly on Paris, in order to effect a strategic surprise, whilst Mayenne was rejecting at Amiens his pacific inclinations.

The king gained three marches on the Leaguers, and carried by assault the five faubourgs situated on the left bank of the Seine.