As all men thought there would be a battle between the French and the Spaniards, I could not prevail with myself to lose the opportunity, and therefore by the help of the passes above mentioned, I came to the French army under the Duke of Montmorency.  We marched through the enemy’s country with great boldness and no small hazard, for the Duke of Savoy appeared frequently with great bodies of horse on the rear of the army, and frequently skirmished with our troops, in one of which I had the folly—­I can call it no better, for I had no business there—­to go out and see the sport, as the French gentlemen called it.  I was but a raw soldier, and did not like the sport at all, for this party was surrounded by the Duke of Savoy, and almost all killed, for as to quarter they neither asked nor gave.  I ran away very fairly, one of the first, and my companion with me, and by the goodness of our horses got out of the fray, and being not much known in the army, we came into the camp an hour or two after, as if we had been only riding abroad for the air.

This little rout made the general very cautious, for the Savoyards were stronger in horse by three or four thousand, and the army always marched in a body, and kept their parties in or very near hand.

I escaped another rub in this French army about five days after, which had like to have made me pay dear for my curiosity.

The Duke de Montmorency and the Marechal Schomberg joined their army about four or five days after, and immediately, according to the cardinal’s instructions, put themselves on the march for the relief of Casale.

The army had marched over a great plain, with some marshy grounds on the right and the Po on the left, and as the country was so well discovered that ’twas thought impossible any mischief should happen, the generals observed the less caution.  At the end of this plain was a long wood and a lane or narrow defile through the middle of it.

Through this pass the army was to march, and the van began to file through it about four o’clock.  By three hours’ time all the army was got through, or into the pass, and the artillery was just entered when the Duke of Savoy with 4000 horse and 1500 dragoons with every horseman a footman behind him, whether he had swam the Po or passed it above at a bridge, and made a long march after, was not examined, but he came boldly up the plain and charged our rear with a great deal of fury.

Our artillery was in the lane, and as it was impossible to turn them about and make way for the army, so the rear was obliged to support themselves and maintain the fight for above an hour and a half.

In this time we lost abundance of men, and if it had not been for two accidents all that line had been cut off.  One was, that the wood was so near that those regiments which were disordered presently sheltered themselves in the wood; the other was, that by this time the Marechal Schomberg, with the horse of the van, began to get back through the lane, and to make good the ground from whence the other had been beaten, till at last by this means it came to almost a pitched battle.