The French, starting with the Huguenot rebels, rapidly replaced the heavy gendarme lance with two pistols, and the armour of the gendarme rapidly lightened to give the horseman more mobility (and to cut the extreme cost of fielding such troops). The tremendous victories won by Henry IV in such battles as Ivry, Arques and Coutras, largely won by his pistolier cavalry against the traditionally-equipped royalist gendarmes, led to the complete conversion of the gendarme into the use of firearms by the end of the 16th century. Such changes were also happening in other Western European nations, with the Dutch under Maurice of Nassau discarding the lance in 1597.