M. de Guise played a trick upon them:  he sent a peasant, who was none of the wisest, with two letters to the King, and gave him ten crowns, and promised the King would give him an hundred if he got the letters to him.  In the one letter M. de Guise told the King that the enemy shewed no of retreating, and had put forth all their strength made a great breach, which he hoped to defend, even at the cost of his own life and of all who were in the town; and that the enemy had planted their artillery so well in a certain place (which he named) that it was with great difficulty he could keep them from entering the town, seeing it was the weakest place in the town; but soon he hoped to rebuild it well, so that they should not be able to enter.  This letter was sewed in the lining of the man’s doublet, and he was told to be very careful not to speak of it to any person.  And the other letter was given to him, wherein M. de Guise told the King that he and all those besieged with him hoped to guard the town well; and other matters which I leave untold here.  He sent out the man at night, and he was taken by the enemy’s guard and brought to the Duke of Alva, that the Duke might hear what was doing in the town; and the peasant was asked if he had any letters.  He said “Yes,” and gave them the one; and they having seen it asked him if he had not another.  He said “No.”  Then he was searched, and they found on him that which was sewed in his doubtlet; and the poor messenger was handed and strangled.

The letters were taken to the Emperor, who called his council, where it was resolved, since they had been unable to do anything at the first breach, the artillery should forthwith be set against the place which they thought weakest, where they put forth all their strength to make a fresh breach; and they sapped and mined the wall, and tried hard to make a way into the Hell Tower, but dared not assault it openly.

The Duke of Alva represented to the Emperor that every day their soldiers were dying, to the number of more than two hundred, and there was so little hope of entering the town, seeing the time of year and the great number of our soldiers who were in it.  The Emperor asked what men they were who were dying, and whether they were gentlemen and men of mark; answer was made to him “They were all poor soldiers.”  Then said he, “It was no great loss if they died,” comparing them to caterpillars, grasshoppers, and cockchafers, which eat up the buds and other good things of the earth; and if they were men of any worth they would not be in his camp at six livres the month, and therefore it was no great harm if they died.  Moreover, he said he would never depart from the town till he had taken it by force or by famine, though he should lose all his army; because of the great number of princes who were shut up in it, with the greater part of the nobility of France, who he hoped would pay his expenses four times over; and he would go yet again to Paris, to see the Parisians, and to make himself King of all the kingdom of France.