34 AMBROISE PAR& 



the Spaniard, and Benzo of Milan, and others who have 

 written the history of America and the West Indies: who 

 have had to confess that the cruelty, avarice, blasphemies, 

 and wickedness of the Spaniards have utterly estranged the 

 poor Indians from the religion that these Spaniards pro- 

 fessed. And all write that they are of less worth than the 

 idolatrous Indians, for their cruel treatment of these In- 

 dians. 



And some days later M. de Guise sent a trumpet to 

 Thionville to the enemy, that they could send for their 

 wounded in safety: which they did with carts and waggons, 

 but not enough. M. de Guise gave them carts and carters, 

 to help to take them to Thionville. Our carters, when they 

 returned, told us the roads were all paved with dead bodies, 

 and they never got half the men there, for they died in 

 their carts: and the Spaniards seeing them at the point of 

 death, before they had breathed their last, threw them out 

 of the carts and buried them in the mud and mire, saying 

 they had no orders to bring back dead men. Moreover, our 

 carters said they had found on the roads many carts 

 stuck in the mud, full of baggage, for which the enemy 

 dared not send back, lest we who were within Metz should 

 run out upon them. 



I would return to the reason why so many of them 

 died ; which was mostly starvation, the plague, and cold. For 

 the snow was more than two feet deep upon the ground, and 

 they were lodged in pits below the ground, covered only with 

 a little thatch. Nevertheless, each soldier had his camp-bed, 

 and a coverlet all strewed with stars, glittering and shin- 

 ing brighter than fine gold, and every day they had white 

 sheets, and lodged at the sign of the Moon, and enjoyed 

 themselves if only they had been able, and paid their 

 host so well over night that in the morning they went off 

 quits, shaking their ears : and they had no need of a comb to 

 get the down and feathers out of their beards and hair, 

 and they always found a white table-cloth, and would have 

 enjoyed good meals but for want of food. Also the greater 

 part of them had neither boots, half-boots, slippers, hose, 

 nor shoes: and most of them would rather have none than 

 any, because they were always in the mire up to mid-leg. 



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