THE JOURNEY TO PERPIGNAN. 1543
Some while after, M. de Rohan took me with him posting to the camp at Perpignan. While we were there, the enemy sallied out, and surrounded three pieces of our artillery before they were beaten back to the gates of the city. Which was not done without many killed and wounded, among the others M. de Brissac, who was then grand master of the artillery, with an arquebus-shot in the shoulder. When he retired to his tent, all the wounded followed him, hoping to be dressed by the surgeons who were to dress him. Being come to his tent and laid on his bed, the bullet was searched for by three or four of the best surgeons in the army, who could not find it, but said it had entered into his body.
At last he called for me, to see if I could be more skilful than they, because he had known me in Piedmont. Then I made him rise from his bed, and told him to put himself in the same posture that he had when he was wounded, which he did, taking a javelin in his hand just as he had held his pike to fight. I put my hand around the wound, and found the bullet. ... Having found it, I showed them the place where it was, and it was taken out by M. Nicole Lavernot, surgeon of M. the Dauphin, who was the King’s Lieutenant in that army; all the same, the honour of finding it belonged to me.
I saw one very strange thing, which was this: a soldier in my presence gave one of his fellows a blow on the head with a halbard, penetrating to the left ventricle of the brain; yet the man did not fall to the ground. He that struck him said he heard that he had cheated at dice, and he had drawn a large sum of money from him, and was accustomed to cheat. They called me to dress him; which I did, as it were for the last time, knowing that he would die soon. When I had dressed him, he returned all alone to his