On 3 October 1569, at Moncontour, the royal army of King Charles IX under his brother, the Duke of Anjou, routed the Huguenot army of Admiral Coligny and the young princes of Navarre and Condé. A pay mutiny had delayed the Huguenots that morning. Coligny was wounded early, and the king’s Swiss cut down the landsknechts whom the Huguenot cavalry left behind. La Noue, a Huguenot captain taken prisoner that day, wrote that the fight lasted a little more than half an hour. D’Aubigné and the Tavannes memoirs have the victors pursue for only a league and a half or two leagues; La Noue and the memoirs say the royal army then spent two months besieging Saint-Jean-d’Angély.
Battle of Moncontour
3 October 1569 · 457 years ago
Three weeks after Châtellerault
La Noue, a Huguenot captain, writes that his side lifted its siege of Poitiers when the army of the king’s brother, the Duke of Anjou, attacked Châtellerault, and that the same army beat them three weeks later. Charles IX’s letter of 4 October also mentions the raising of the siege of Poitiers. With Admiral Coligny rode the young princes of Navarre and Condé.1
D’Aubigné dates the armies’ first clash, near Saint-Clair, to the last day of September, and a relation of the battle dated 6 October, printed by Teulet from the Simancas papers, says three cornets of the Admiral’s reiters were destroyed in a skirmish that Friday. La Noue writes that Biron’s charge broke the Huguenot rearguard under Mouy, and that only a passage too narrow for more than twenty horsemen abreast, which held up the Catholics, saved the whole army from rout.2
White shirts and a mutiny
La Noue writes that two Catholic gentlemen spoke across some ditches to a few Huguenots to warn Coligny not to fight, because the royal army was very strong and its nobility would stay only a month; most Huguenot leaders took it for a trick. The Tavannes memoirs give the royal army 8,000 horse, 16,000 foot and 15 guns, and the Huguenots 7,000 horse, 16,000 foot and 11 guns.3
A council chose to leave at dawn rather than march by night, La Noue and the Tavannes memoirs agree. At daybreak the Huguenots put on white shirts, La Noue and the Tavannes memoirs both write. La Noue says it was so that they could recognize one another if they had to fight. Then, La Noue writes, the landsknechts refused to march unless paid, five cornets of reiters followed, and more than an hour and a half passed before it was settled, so the army could not reach a strong position that had been reconnoitered near Airvault. The Tavannes memoirs and d’Aubigné also tell of troops demanding money.4
On the royal side, the Tavannes memoirs have Tavannes ride forward on a Spanish horse to look at the enemy, judge them afraid, whether he truly saw it or feigned it, and return to Anjou with the words: "Monsieur, avec l’ayde de Dieu ils sont à vous, je les ay recogneuz estonnez; je ne porteray jamais armes si vous ne les combattez et vainquez aujourd’huy; marchons au nom de Dieu" ("Monsieur, with God’s help they are yours; I have seen that they are shaken; I will never bear arms again if you do not fight and beat them today; let us march in God’s name"; our translation).5
A little more than half an hour
When the royal vanguard moved against him, La Noue writes, Coligny asked Count Louis of Nassau, who commanded the Huguenot main body, for three cornets of reiters; Louis brought them himself, and the main body was left without a leader. D’Aubigné also has the count bring the reiters himself instead of sending them. The Tavannes memoirs say Coligny drew Louis to the vanguard at the moment of battle and left the main body without a leader. D’Aubigné has him meet the elder of the two Rhinegraves serving the king, each thirty paces ahead of his squadron: "Le Rhingrave porte son pistolet dans les dents de ce chef, l’autre le tue du contre coup du sien" ("The Rhinegrave fires his pistol into this chief’s teeth; the other kills him with the return shot of his own"; our translation). La Noue also writes that Coligny was wounded at the start.6
Then the Swiss came up. The Huguenot cavalry drew together and retired in order, three thousand horse in one body by La Noue’s count, four thousand by the Tavannes memoirs’, leaving the landsknechts behind. Of these d’Aubigné writes: "ils eurent recours à jeter les armes et à crier merci, à quoi les Suisses furent sourds" ("they threw down their arms and cried for mercy, to which the Swiss were deaf"; our translation). The Tavannes memoirs also say the Swiss finished them off.7
La Noue, who fought there, sums it up: "Le combat dura vn peu plus de demi-heure, & fut toute l’armee huguenotte mise à vau de route" ("The fight lasted a little more than half an hour, and the whole Huguenot army was routed"; our translation). He, d’Aubigné and Charles IX’s letter of 4 October all name him among the prisoners. He writes that several prisoners were put to death in revenge, and that he would have gone the same way "sans l’humanité de Monseigneur" ("but for the humanity of Monseigneur [Anjou]"; our translation).8
Counting the dead
The day after the battle Charles IX told La Mailleraye that the rebels had lost "de dix à douze mil hommes qui sont demeurez morts dessus la place" ("ten to twelve thousand men who remained dead on the field"; our translation), his own army very few, and in a postscript that twelve guns were taken. In the relation of 6 October the Count of Retz assures the court that fifteen thousand enemy infantry had been left on the field, with eleven guns. D’Aubigné puts the Huguenot loss at 2,500 French foot, 250 horse and nearly 4,000 landsknechts, and the victors’ at fewer than two hundred foot and more than four hundred horse. La Noue writes only that almost all the Huguenot infantry was cut to pieces.9
Among the royal dead was the Marquis of Baden.10
Charles IX wrote, on La Noue’s word, that Coligny had been shot through the body and might not live another half hour; the relation added that he had been taken, which a note on the document corrects: "ne fut poinct prisonnier". The Tavannes memoirs place Coligny’s wound in his face. The king’s letter also has both Rhinegraves "bien peu blessés" ("very slightly wounded"; our translation), and the relation a young Rhinegrave wounded by an arquebus shot; d’Aubigné counts the elder among the dead.11
Two leagues, then two months
D’Aubigné writes that Anjou followed the victory a league and a half toward Saint-Généroux, and the Tavannes memoirs two leagues. La Noue says Count Louis was followed about a league.12
The memoirs say Tavannes then urged following Coligny and his reiters across France, but others preferred taking towns, and the king told his brother to stand fast. Brantôme, who says he had it from a good source, tells it differently: having seen "leur beau combat et leur belle retraicte" ("their fine fight and their fine retreat"; our translation), Tavannes judged the Huguenots very hard to defeat by arms, said one had to go "par la voye de renard" ("the fox’s way"; our translation), and advised Anjou to make peace.13
La Noue and the Tavannes memoirs write that several Huguenot towns were abandoned or yielded to the victors, that the royal army then besieged Saint-Jean-d’Angély, and that the siege took two months. La Noue adds that the town finally surrendered on terms.14
On 5 August 1570, according to the record printed by La Ferrière, the articles of peace agreed with the princes’ deputies were read in the king’s presence at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.15
Battle of Greenbrier River, 1861: the attack on Camp Bartow
3 October 1861 · 165 years ago
In western Virginia, Union troops under Joseph Reynolds attacked the Confederate position at Camp Bartow on the Greenbrier River in the Civil War. The attacks were beaten back and Reynolds pulled out, yet the result was inconclusive and the Confederates left the camp weeks later.
Read the full story of Battle of Greenbrier River, 1861: the attack on Camp Bartow ›Also on this day
1862: at Corinth, Mississippi, Earl Van Dorn’s Confederates attacked the Union army of William S. Rosecrans on 3 October. Rosecrans reported to Grant that day: "Our men did not act or fight well. I think we shall handle them". Van Dorn wrote of that evening: "One hour more of daylight and victory would have soothed our grief for the loss of the gallant dead". On 4 October, Rosecrans reported, the enemy penetrated the town and were repulsed; Grant writes that some of Van Dorn’s troops broke through the Union lines before being driven back. In Grant’s judgement Rosecrans then "failed to follow up the victory" despite orders to pursue.16
The Union return counts 2,520 killed, wounded and captured or missing at Corinth on 3 and 4 October, figures that Battles and Leaders repeats. Van Dorn gave his loss "in the several conflicts with the enemy and on the march to and from Corinth" as 594 killed, 2,162 wounded and 2,102 prisoners and missing. Battles and Leaders gives the Confederate loss as 4,838, including the fight at Hatchie Bridge on 5 October.17
