VII.
In the civil wars of France, on account of religious disputes, when the Catholics besieged Rouen, in 1562, Francis Civile, one of the most intrepid gentlemen of the Calvinist party, received a wound which made him fall senseless from the rampart into the town. Some soldiers, who supposed him dead, stripped and buried him, with the usual negligence on those occasions. A trusty and affectionate person he had retained in his service, desirous of procuring for his master a more honourable burial, went with design to find his body. His search being fruitless amongst several dead bodies which were quite disfigured, he covered them again with earth, but so as that the hand of one of them remained uncovered. As he was returning, he looked behind him, and perceived that hand above the ground, and the apprehension he was under, that such an object might excite the dogs to unearth the dead body for devouring it, induced him to come back in order to cover it. The moment he was going to exercise this pious office, a gleam of light from the moon, just coming from under a cloud, made him perceive a diamond ring Civile wore on his finger. Without loss of time he takes up his master, who had still breath in him, and carries him to the hospital for the wounded, but the surgeon, who had been quite fatigued with labour, and who considered him as on the point of death, would take no trouble about dressing his wounds. The servant then found himself obliged to convey him to his own inn, where he languished four days without any help. At the end of this time two physicians were found who had the humanity to visit him. They cleansed his wounds, and by their care and attention put him in a way to live, and at length, to the astonishment of every one, he finally recovered.
But the misfortunes of this hero had not yet ended. The town having been taken by assault, the conquerors were so barbarous as to throw him out of a window. He fortunately fell on a heap of dung, where, abandoned by every one, he passed three days, until his relation Ducroiset had him carried off privately in the night, and sent to a house up the country, where his wounds were dressed as opportunity offered. There, after so many disasters, he recovered so perfect a state of health, that he survived forty years after all these accidents. That particular providence, which had saved this man from so many perils, also presided over his birth. His mother dying with child, during the absence of her husband, had been buried without any one thinking to extract the child, by the Cæsarian operation, when fortunately the day after she was interred, the husband arrived, and learnt with surprise the death of his wife, and the little attention that was paid to the fruit of her womb. He instantly required her grave to be dug up, and having had his unfortunate wife opened, Civile was extracted while living.