JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES 23 



they made answer that he should never take them, unless it 

 were piecemeal; let him do his worst, and they would do 

 their best to defend themselves. They trusted in their moats, 

 which were full of water; but in two hours, with plenty of 

 faggots and casks, we made a way for our infantry to pass 

 over, when they had to advance to the assault ; and the place 

 was attacked with five cannons, and a breach was made 

 large enough for our men to enter; where those within 

 received the attack very valiantly, and killed and wounded a 

 great number of our men with arquebuses, pikes, and stones. 

 In the end, when they saw themselves overpowered, they 

 set fire to their powder and ammunition, whereby many of 

 our men were burned, and some of their own. And they 

 were almost all put to the sword; but some of our soldiers 

 had taken twenty or thirty, hoping to have ransom for 

 them: and so soon as this was known, orders were given to 

 proclaim by trumpet through the camp, that all soldiers who 

 had Spaniards for prisoners must kill them, on pain of 

 being themselves hanged and strangled: which was done in 

 cold blood 



Thence we went and burned several villages; and the 

 barns were all full of grain, to my very great regret. We 

 came as far as Tournahan, where there was a large tower, 

 whither the enemy withdrew, but we found the place empty: 

 our men sacked it, and blew up the tower with a mine of 

 gunpowder, which turned it upside down. After that, the 

 camp was dispersed, and I returned to Paris. And the day 

 after Chateau le Comte was taken, M. de Vendosme sent a 

 gentleman under orders to the King, to report to him all 

 that had happened, and among other things he told the 

 King I had done very good work dressing the wounded, and 

 had showed him eighteen bullets that I had taken out of 

 their bodies, and there were many more that I had not been 

 able to find or take out; and he spoke more good of me 

 than there was by half. Then the King said he would take 

 me into his service, and commnaded M. de ,Goguier, his 

 first physician, to write me down in the King's service as 

 one of his surgeons-in-ordinary, and I was to meet him at 

 Rheims within ten or twelve days: which I did. And the 

 King did me the honour to command me to live near him, 



