JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES # 



had not been touched. I asked M. le Marechal to let me 

 have some of the drugs which were in them, which he 

 did; and I was given the half only at one time, and five 

 or six days later I had to take the rest; and yet it was not 

 half enough to dress the great number of wounded. And 

 to correct and stop the corruption, and kill the worms in 

 their wounds, I washed them with ^Egyptiacum dissolved 

 in wine and eau-de-vie, and did all I could for them; but 

 in spite of all my care many of them died. 



There were at La Fere some gentlemen charged to find 

 the dead body of M. de Bois-Dauphin the elder, who had 

 been killed in the battle; they asked me to go with them to 

 the camp, to pick him out, if we could, among the dead; 

 but it was not possible to recognize him, the bodies being 

 all far gone in corruption, and their faces changed. We 

 saw more than half a league round us the earth all covered 

 with the dead; and hardly stopped there, because of the 

 stench of the dead men and their horses; and so many 

 blue and green flies rose from them, bred of the moisture 

 of the bodies and the heat of the sun, that when they 

 were up in the air they hid the sun. It was wonderful 

 to hear them buzzing; and where they settled, there they 

 infected the air, and brought the plague with them. Mon 

 petit maistre, I wish you had been there with me, to ex- 

 perience the smells, and make report thereof to them that 

 were not there. 



I was very weary of the place; I prayed M. le Marechal 

 to let me leave it, and feared I should be ill there; for 

 the wounded men stank past all bearing, and they died 

 nearly all, in spite of everything we did. He got surgeons 

 to finish the treatment of them, and sent me away with his 

 good favour. He wrote to the King of the diligence I 

 had shown toward the poor wounded. Then I returned 

 to Paris, where I found many more gentlemen, who had 

 been wounded and gone thither after the battle. 



THE JOURNEY TO THE CAMP AT AMIENS. 1558 



THE King sent me to Dourlan, under conduct of Captain 

 Gouast; with fifty men-at-arms, for fear I should be taken 



