The King of Navarre was wounded, some days before the attack, with a bullet in the shoulder. I visited him, and helped to dress him, with one of his own surgeons, Master Gilbert, one of the chief men of Montpellier, and others. They could not find the bullet. I searched for it very accurately, and found reason to believe it had entered at the top of the arm, by the head of the bone, and had passed into the hollow part of the bone, which was why they could not find it; and most of them said it had entered his body and was lost in it. M. le Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon, who dearly loved the King of Navarre, drew me aside and asked if the wound were mortal. I told him yes, because all wounds of great joints, and especially contused wounds, were mortal, according to all those who have written about them. He asked the others what they thought of it, and chiefly Master Gilbert, who told him he had great hope his Lord the King would recover; which made the Prince very glad.
Four days later, the King, and the Queen-mother, and M. le Cardinal de Bourbon, his brother, and M. le Prince de la Roche- sur-Yon, and M. de Guise, and other great persons, after we had dressed the King of Navarre, wished us to hold a consultation in their presence, all the physicians and surgeons together. Each of them said what he thought, and there was not one but had good hope, they said, that he would recover. I persisted always in the contrary. M. le Prince, who loved me, drew me aside, and said I was alone against the opinion of all the others, and prayed me not to be obstinate against so many good men. I answered, When I shall see good signs of recovery, I will change my mind. Many consultations were held, and I never changed what I said, and the prognosis I had made at the first dressing, and said always the arm would fall into a gangrene: which it did, for all the care they could give to it; and he rendered his spirit to God the eighteenth day after his wound.
M. le Prince, having heard of it, sent to me his surgeon, and his physician, one Lefevre, now physician-in-ordinary to the King and Queen-mother, to say he wished to have the bullet, and we were to look for it, to see where it was. Then I was very glad, and assured them I should quickly find it; which I did in their presence, with many other gentlemen: it was just in the very middle of the bone. M. le Prince took and showed it to the King and to the Queen, who all said that my prognosis had come true. The body was laid to rest at Chateau Gaillard: and I returned to Paris, where I found many patients, who had been wounded on the breach at Rouen, and chiefly Italians, who were very eager I should dress them: which I did willingly. Many of them recovered: the rest died. Mon petit maistre, I think you were called to dress some, for the great number there was of them.
THE BATTLE OF DREUX. 1562
The day after the battle of Dreux, the King bade me go and dress M. le Comte d'Eu, who had been wounded in the right thigh, near the hip-joint, with a pistol-shot: which had smashed and broken the thigh-bone into many pieces: whereon many accidents supervened, and at last death, to my great grief. The day after I came, I would go to the camp where the battle had been, to see the dead bodies. I saw, for a long league round, the earth all covered: they estimated it at twenty-five thousand men or more; and it was all done in less than two hours. I wish, mon petit maistre, for the love I bear you, you had been there, to tell it to your scholars and your children.
Now while I was at Dreux, I visited and dressed a great number of gentlemen, and poor soldiers, and among the rest many of the Swiss captains. I dressed fourteen all in one room, all wounded with pistol-shots and other diabolical firearms, and not one of the fourteen died. M. le Comte d'Eu being dead, I made no long stay at Dreux. Surgeons came from Paris, who fulfilled their duty to the wounded, as Pigray, Cointeret, Hubert, and others; and I returned to Paris, where I found many wounded gentlemen who had retreated thither after the battle, to have their wounds dressed; and I was not there without seeing many of them.
THE JOURNEY TO HAVRE DE GRACE. 1563
And I will not omit to tell of the camp at Havre de Grace. When our artillery came before the walls of the town, the English within the walls killed some of our men, and several pioneers who were making gabions. And seeing they were so wounded that there was no hope of curing them, their comrades stripped them, and put them still living inside the gabions, which served to fill them up. When the English saw that they could not withstand our attack, because they were hard hit by sickness, and especially by the plague, they surrendered. The King gave them ships to return to England, very glad to be out of this plague-stricken place. The greater part of them died, and they took the plague to England, and they have not got rid of it since. Captain Sarlabous, master of the camp, was left in garrison, with six ensigns of infantry, who had no fear of the plague; and they were very glad to get into the town, hoping to enjoy themselves there, Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, you would have done as they did.
THE JOURNEY TO BAYONNE. 1564
I went with the King on that journey to Bayonne, when we were two years and more making the tour of well-nigh all this kingdom. And in many towns and villages I was called in consultation over sundry diseases, with the late M. Chapelain, chief physician to the King, and M. Castellan, chief physician to the Queen-mother; honorable men and very learned in medicine and surgery. During this journey, I always inquired of the surgeons if they had noted anything rare in their practices, so that I might learn something new. While I was at Bayonne, two things happened worthy of remark by young surgeons. The first is, I dressed a Spanish gentleman, who had a great and enormous swelling of the throat. He had lately been touched by the deceased King Charles for the king's evil. I opened his swelling. … I left him in the hands of a surgeon of the town, to finish his cure. M. de Fontaine, Knight of the Order of the King, had a severe continued pestilent fever, accompanied with many inflammatory swellings in sundry parts of the body. He had bleeding at the nose for two days, without ceasing, nor could we staunch it: and after this haemorrhage the fever ceased, with much sweating, and by and bye the swellings suppurated, and he was dressed by me, and healed by the grace of God.