So Guyard was buried.  And those of Danvilliers, when they saw the breach large enough for us to enter, and our soldiers ready to assault them, surrendered themselves to the mercy of the King.  Their leaders were taken prisoners, and their Soldiers were sent away without arms.

The camp being dispersed, I returned to Paris with my gentleman whose leg I had cut off; I dressed him, and God healed him.  I sent him to his house merry with a wooden leg; and he was content saying he had got off cheap, not to have been miserably burned to stop the blood, as you write in your book, won petit matetre,

THE JOURNEY TO CHATEAU LE COMTE. 1552

Some time after.  King Henry raised an army of thirty thousand men, to go and lay waste the country about Hesdin.  The King of Navarre, who was then called M. de Vendosme, was chief of the army, and the King’s Lieutenant.  Being at St. Denis, in France, waiting while the companies passed by, he sent to Paris for me to speak with him.  When I came he begged me (and his request was a command) to follow him on this journey; and I, wishing to make my excuses, saying my wife was sick in bed, he made answer there were physicians in Pairs to cure her, and he, too, had left his wife, who was of as good a house as mine, and he said he would use me well, and forthwith ordered I should be attached to his household.  Seeing this great desire he had to take me with him, I dared not refuse him.

I went after him to Chateau le Comte, within three or four leagues of Hesdin.  The Emperor’s soldiers were in garrison there, with a number of peasants from the country road.  M. de Vendosme called on them to surrender; they made answer that he should never take them, unless it were piecemeal; let him do his worst, and they would do their best to defend themselves.  They trusted in their moats, which were full of water; but in two hours, with plenty of faggots and casks, we made a way for our infantry to pass over, when they had to advance to the assault; and the place was attacked with five cannons, and a breach was made large enough for our men to enter; where those within received the attack very valiantly, and killed and wounded a great number of our men with arquebuses, pikes, and stones.  In the end, when they saw themselves overpowered, they set fire to their powder and ammunition, whereby many of our men were burned, and some of their own.  And they were almost all put to the sword; but some of our soldiers had taken twenty or thirty, hoping to have ransom for them:  and so soon as this was known, orders were given to proclaim by trumpet through the camp, that all soldiers who had Spaniards for prisoners must kill them, on pain of being themselves hanged and strangled:  which was done in cold blood.