[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
A good fellow, no doubt, but a devil of a good fellow; we French are fond of such; they are likable, but sometimes deserve hanging. These had prudence into the bargain, and were made to be officers of fortune. "Gassion,” says Tallemant des Reaux, “was the fourth of five sons. When he had finished his studies, he was sent to the war; but otherwise he was but poorly furnished. For his sole horse his father gave him a docked pony, that might have been thirty years old; its like was not in all Bearn, and it was called, as a rarity, Gassion’s Bob-tail. Apparently the young man was scarcely better provided with money than with horses. This pretty courser left him four or five leagues from Pau, but that did not prevent him from going into Savoy, where he entered the troops of the duke, for there was then no war in France. But the late king having broken with this prince, all Frenchmen had orders to quit his service; this forced our adventurer to return to the service of the king.
“At the taking of the pass of Suze, he did so well, although only a simple cavalier, that he was made cornet; but the company in which he was cornet was broken, and he came to Paris and asked for the mantle of a musketeer. He was refused on account of his religion. Out of spite, with several other Frenchmen he went over to Germany, and, although in his troop there were men of higher position than he, knowing how to talk in Latin, he was everywhere received for the chief of the band. One of these made the advances for a company of light-horse that they were going to raise in France for the king of Sweden; he was lieutenant of it; his captain was killed, and now he is himself a captain. He soon made himself known as a man of spirit, so that he obtained from the king of Sweden the privilege of receiving orders only from His Majesty in person; this was on condition of marching always at the head of the army and of filling in a measure the position of forlorn hope. While thus employed, he received a frightful pistol-shot in the right side, the wound of which has since opened several times, now to the peril of his life, and now the opening answering as a crisis in other illnesses.”
