Half the French troops actually engaged in the enterprise, lost their lives upon the field.  The remainder of the army was captured or utterly disorganized.  When Nevers reviewed, at Laon, the wreck of the Constable’s whole force, he found some thirteen hundred French and three hundred German cavalry, with four companies of French infantry remaining out of fifteen, and four thousand German foot remaining of twelve thousand.  Of twenty-one or two thousand remarkably fine and well-appointed troops, all but six thousand had been killed or made prisoners within an hour.  The Constable himself, with a wound in the groin, was a captive.  The Duke of Enghien, after behaving with brilliant valor, and many times rallying the troops, was shot through the body, and brought into the enemy’s camp only to expire.  The Due de Montpensier, the Marshal de Saint Andre, the Due de Loggieville, Prince Ludovic of Mantua, the Baron Corton, la Roche du Mayne, the Rhinegrave, the Counts de Rochefoucauld, d’Aubigni, de Rochefort, all were taken.  The Due de Nevers, the Prince of Conde, with a few others, escaped; although so absolute was the conviction that such an escape was impossible, that it was not believed by the victorious army.  When Nevers sent a trumpet, after the battle, to the Duke of Savoy, for the purpose of negotiating concerning the prisoners, the trumpeter was pronounced an impostor, and the Duke’s letter a forgery; nor was it till after the whole field had been diligently searched for his dead body without success, that Nevers could persuade the conquerors that he was still in existence.

Of Philip’s army but fifty lost their lives.  Lewis of Brederode was smothered in his armor; and the two counts Spiegelberg and Count Waldeck were also killed; besides these, no officer of distinction fell.  All the French standards and all their artillery but two pieces were taken, and placed before the King, who the next day came into the camp before Saint Quentin.  The prisoners of distinction were likewise presented to him in long procession.  Rarely had a monarch of Spain enjoyed a more signal triumph than this which Philip now owed to the gallantry and promptness of Count Egmont.

While the King stood reviewing the spoils of victory, a light horseman of Don Henrico Manrique’s regiment approached, and presented him with a sword.  “I am the man, may it please your Majesty,” said the trooper, “who took the Constable; here is his sword; may your Majesty be pleased to give me something to eat in my house.”  “I promise it,” replied Philip; upon which the soldier kissed his Majesty’s hand and retired.  It was the custom universally recognized in that day, that the king was the king’s captive, and the general the general’s, but that the man, whether soldier or officer, who took the commander-in-chief, was entitled to ten thousand ducats.  Upon this occasion the Constable was the prisoner of Philip, supposed to command his own army in person.  A certain Spanish Captain Valenzuela, however, disputed