We entered pell-mell into the city, and passed over the dead bodies, and some not yet dead, hearing them cry under our horses’ feet; and they made my heart ache to hear them.  And truly I repented I had left Paris to see such a pitiful spectacle.  Being come into the city, I entered into a stable, thinking to lodge my own and my man’s horse, and found four dead soldiers, and three propped against the wall, their features all changed, and they neither saw, heard, nor spake, and their clothes were still smouldering where the gunpowder had burned them.  As I was looking at them with pity, there came an old soldier who asked me if there were any way to cure them; I said no.  And then he went up to them and cut their throats, gently, and without ill will toward them.  Seeing this great cruelty, I told him he was a villain:  he answered he prayed God, when he should be in such a plight, he might find someone to do the same for him; that he should not linger in misery.

To come back to my story, the enemy were called on to surrender, which they did, and left the city with only their lives saved, and the white stick in their hands; and most of them went off to the Chateau de Villane, where about two hundred Spaniards were stationed.  M. the Constable would not leave these behind him, wishing to clear the road for our own men.  The castle is seated on a small hill; which gave great confidence to those within, that we could not bring our artillery to bear upon them.  They were summoned to surrender, or they would be cut in pieces:  they answered that they would not, saying they were as good and faithful servants of the Emperor, as M. the Constable could be of the King his master.  Thereupon our men by night hoisted up two great cannons, with the help of the Swiss soldiers and the lansquenets; but as ill luck would have it, when the cannons were in position, a gunner stupidly set fire to a bag full of gunpowder, whereby he was burned, with ten or twelve soldiers; and the flame of the powder discovered our artillery, so that all night long those within the castle fired their arquebuses at the place where they had caught sight of the cannons, and many of our men were killed and wounded.  Next day, early in the morning, the attack was begun, and we soon made a breach in their wall.  Then they demanded a parley; but it was too late, for meanwhile our French infantry, seeing them taken by surprise, mounted the breach, and cut them all in pieces, save one very fair young girl of Piedmont, whom a great seigneur would have. ...  The captain and the ensign were taken alive, but soon afterward hanged and strangled on the battlements of the gate of the city, to give example and fear to the Emperor’s soldiers, not to be so rash and mad as to wish to hold such places against so great an army.