midnight
Consequently , at every village there were accessions of force awaiting the seneschal , and parties of from ten to a hundred rode up and joined them on the march . After marching twenty miles , they halted at the foot of a chain of hills , their numbers having been increased during the day to over twelve hundred men . The queen and her son found rough accommodation in a small village , the rest bivouacked round it . At midnight three hundred cavalry and two hundred footmen started across the hills , so as to come down upon Bergerac and seize the bridge across the Dordogne ; then at daylight the rest of the force marched . On reaching the river they found that the bridge had been seized without resistance . Three hundred gentlemen and their retainers , of the province of Perigord , had assembled within half a mile of the other side of the bridge , and had joined the party as they came down . A Catholic force of two hundred men , in the town , had been taken by surprise and captured , for the most part in their beds .