On the 15th of August, Corbie surrendered to the Spaniards, who crossed the Somme, wasting the country behind them; but already alarm had given place to ardent desire for vengeance; the cardinal had thought of everything and provided for everything:  the bodies corporate, from the Parliament to the trade-syndicates, had offered the king considerable sums; all the gentlemen and soldiers unemployed had been put on the active list of the army; and the burgesses of Paris, mounting in throngs the steps of the Hotel de Ville, went and shook hands with the veteran Marshal La Force, saying, “Marshal, we want to make war with you.”  They were ordered to form the nucleus of the reserve army which was to protect Paris.  The Duke of Orleans took the command of the army assembled at Compiegne, at the head of which the Count of Soissons already was; the two princes advanced slowly; they halted two days to recover the little fortress of Roze; the Imperialists fell back; they retired into Artois; they were not followed, and the French army encamped before Corbie.

Winter was approaching; nobody dared to attack the town; the cardinal had no confidence in either the Duke of Orleans or the Count of Soissons.  He went to Amiens, whilst the king established his headquarters at the castle of Demuin, closer to Corbie.  Richelieu determined to attack the town by assault; the trenches were opened on the 5th of November; on the 10th the garrison parleyed; on the 14th the place was surrendered.  “I am very pleased to send you word that we have recovered Corbie,” wrote Voiture to one of his friends, very hostile to the cardinal [OEuvres de Voiture, p. 175]:  “the news will astonish you, no doubt, as well as all Europe; nevertheless, we are masters of it.  Reflect, I beg you, what has been the end of this expedition which has made so much noise.  Spain and Germany had made for the purpose their supremest efforts.  The emperor had sent his best captains and his best cavalry.  The army of Flanders had given its best troops.  Out of that is formed an army of twenty-five thousand horse, fifteen thousand foot, and forty cannon.  This cloud, big with thunder and lightning, comes bursting over Picardy, which it finds unsheltered, our arms being occupied elsewhere.  They take, first of all, La Capelle and Le Catelet; they attack, and in nine days take, Corbie; and so they are masters of the river; they cross it, and they lay waste all that lies between the Somme and the Oise.  And so long as there is no resistance, they valiantly hold the country, they slay our peasants and burn our villages; but, at the first rumor that reaches them to the effect that Monsieur is advancing with an army, and that the king is following close behind him, they intrench themselves behind Corbie; and, when they learn that there is no halting, and that the march against them is going on merrily, our conquerors abandon their intrenchments.  And these determined gentry, who were to pierce France even to the Pyrenees,