JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES 51 



THE BATTLE OF DREUX. 1562 



THE day after the battle of Dreux, the King bade me go 

 and dress M. le Comte d'Eu, who had been wounded in the 

 right thigh, near the hip-joint, with a pistol-shot: which 

 had smashed and broken the thigh-bone into many pieces: 

 whereon many accidents supervened, and at last death, to 

 my great grief. The day after I came, I would go to the 

 camp where the battle had been, to see the dead bodies. I 

 saw, for a long league round, the earth all covered: they 

 estimated it at twenty-five thousand men or more; and it 

 was all done in less than two hours. I wish, mon petit 

 maistre, for the love I bear you, you had been there, to tell it 

 to your scholars and your children. 



Now while I was at Dreux, I visited and dressed a great 

 number of gentlemen, and poor soldiers, and among the rest 

 many of the Swiss captains. I dressed fourteen all in one 

 room, all wounded with pistol-shots and other diabolical fire- 

 arms, and not one of the fourteen died. M. le Comte d'Eu 

 being dead, I made no long stay at Dreux. Surgeons came 

 from Paris, who fulfilled their duty to the wounded, as 

 Pigray, Cointeret, Hubert, and others; and I returned to 

 Paris, where I found many wounded gentlemen who had re- 

 treated thither after the battle, to have their wounds dressed ; 

 and I was not there without seeing many of them. 



THE JOURNEY TO HAVRE DE GRACE. 1563 



AND I will not omit to tell of the camp at Havre de Grace. 

 When our artillery came before the walls of the town, the 

 English within the walls killed some of our men, and sev- 

 eral pioneers who were making gabions. And seeing they 

 were so wounded that there was no hope of curing them, 

 their comrades stripped them, and put them still living inside 

 the gabions, which served to fill them up. When the English 

 saw that they could not withstand our attack, because they 

 were hard hit by sickness, and especially by the plague, they 

 surrendered. The King gave them ships to return to Eng- 

 land, very glad to be out of this plague-stricken place. The 

 greater part of them died, and they took the plague to Eng- 



