When he was a quarter of a league from Metz, he was seized with a panic lest our cavalry should fall upon his tail; so he set fire to his store of powder, and left behind him some pieces of artillery, and a quantity of baggage, which he could not take along with him, because their vanguard and their great cannons had broken and torn tip the roads.  Our cavalry were longing with all their hearts to issue from the town and attack him behind; but M. de Guise never let them, saying on the contrary we had better make their way smooth for them, and build them gold and silver bridges to let them go; like the good pastor and shepherd, who will not lose one of his sheep.

That is how our dear and well-beloved Imperials went away from Metz, which was the day after Christmas Day, to the great content of those within the walls, and the praise of the princes, seigneurs, captains, and soldiers, who had endured the travail of this siege for more than two months.  Nevertheless, they did not all go:  there wanted more than twenty thousand of them, who were dead, from our artillery and the fighting, or from plague, cold, and starvation (and from spite and rage that they could not get into the town to cut our throats and plunder us):  and many of their horses also died, the greater part whereof they had eaten instead of beef and bacon.  We went where their camp had been, where we found many dead bodies not yet buried, and the earth all worked up, as one sees in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents during some time of many deaths.  In their tents, pavilions, and lodgings were many sick people.  Also cannon-shot, weapons, carts, waggons, and other baggage, with a great quantity of soldier’s bread, spoiled and rotted by the snows and rains (yet the soldiers had it but by weight and measure).  Also they left a good store of wood, all that remained of the houses they had demolished and broken down in the villages for two or three leagues around; also many other pleasure-houses, that had belonged to our citizens, with gardens and fine orchards full of diverse fruit-trees.  And without all this, they would have been benumbed and dead of the cold, and forced to raise the siege sooner than they did.

M. de Guise had their dead buried, and their sick people treated.  Also the enemy left behind them in the Abbey of Saint Arnoul many of their wounded soldiers, whom they could not possibly take with them.  M. de Guise sent them all victuals enough, and ordered me and the other surgeons to go dress and physick them, which we did with good will; and I think they would not have done the like for our men.  For the Spaniard is very cruel, treacherous, and inhuman, and so far enemy of all nations:  which is proved by Lopez the Spaniard, and Benzo of Milan, and others who have written the history of America and the West Indies:  who have had to confess that the cruelty, avarice, blasphemies, and wickedness of the Spaniards have utterly estranged the poor Indians from the religion that these Spaniards professed.  And all write that they are of less worth than the idolatrous Indians, for their cruel treatment of these Indians.