onely of Amiens could I meet with any antient Character which also was but a Gothish Dutch Letter and expressed nothing but the name and vertue of a Bishop of the Church in whose time it was So little also did I perceive them to be inclining to be Antiquaries that both neglects considered si Verbis audaciadetur I dare confidently averre that one Cotton for the Treasury and one Selden now Mr. Camden is dead for the study of Antiquities are worth all the French As for these five peices in La salle des Antiques they are I confess worthy our observation and respect also if they be such as our trudgeman informed us At the further end of it the Statua of Diana the same as it is said which was worshipped in the renowned Temple of Ephesus and of which Demetrius the Silver-smith and his fellow Artists cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Of a large and manly proportion she seemeth to be Quantum quale latus quam juvenile femur As Ovid of his Mistriss She is all naked save her feet which are buskin'd and yet she hath a scarfe or linnen roul which coming over her left shoulder and meeting about her middle hung down with both ends of it a little lower In the first place towards the right hand as we descended towards the door was the Statua of one of the Gods of Aethiopia as black as any of his people and one that had nothing about him to express his particular being Next unto him the Effigies of Mercury naked all except his feet and with a pipe in his mouth as when he inchanted Argos Nam que reperta Fistula nuper erat Saith the Metamorphosis Next unto him the portraiture of Venus quite naked and most immodestly apparreld in her hand her little Son Cupid as well arrayed as his Mother sitting on a Dolphin Last of all Apollo also in the same naked truth but that he had shooes on He was portrayed as lately returned from a Combat perhaps that against the Serpent Python Quem Deus arcitenens nunquam talibus armis Ante nisi in damis caprisque fugacibus usus Mille gravem telis exhausta pane pharetra Perdidit effuso per vulnera nigra veneno The Archer-God who e're that present tide Ne're us'e those arms but ' gainst the Roes and Deer With thousand shafts the earth made to be dy'de With Serpents bloud his quiver emptied cleer That I was in the right conjecture I had these reasons to perswade me the Quiver on the Gods right shoulder almost emptied his warlike belt hanging about his neck his garments loosly tumbling upon his left arm and the slain Monster being a water-serpent as Pithon is fained to be by the Poets All of these were in the same side of the wall the other being altogether destitute of ornament and are confidently said to be the statues of those Gods in the same forms that they were worshipped in and taken from their several Temples They were bestowed on the King by his Holiness of Rome and I cannot blame him for it It was worthy but little thanks to give unto him the Idols of the Heathen who for his Holiness satisfaction had given himself to the Idols of the Romans I beleive that upon the same terms the King of Enggland should have all the Reliques and ruines of Antiquity which can be found in Rome Without this room the Salle des Antiques and somewhat on the other side of the Louure is the House of Burbon and old decayed fabrick in which was nothing observable but the Omen For being built by Lewis of Burbon the third Duke of that branch he caused this Motto ESPERANCE to be engraven in Capital Letters over the door signifying his hopes that from his loyns should proceed a King which should joyn both the Houses and the Families and it is accordingly happened For the Tuilleries I have nothing to say of them but that they were built by Catherine de Medices in the year 1564 and that they took name from the lime-kils and tile-pits there being before the foundation of the house and the garden the word Tuillerie importing as much in the French language I was not so happy as to see them and will not be indebted to any for the relation CHAP. X. The person age and marraige of King Lewis Conjectural reasons of his being issueless Jaqueline Countess of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all married and his alliances by them His natural Brethren and their preferment His lawful Brother the title of Monsieur in France Monsieur as yet unmarried not like to marry Mont-Peusiers Daughter That Lady a fit Wife for the Earl of Soisons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the Line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a Child may be born in the eleventh moneth King Henry the fourth a great Lover of fair Ladies Monsieur Barrados the Kings Favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinal of Richilieu The Queen Mother a wise and prudent Woman THe King is the soul of the Court without his presence it is but a Carcass a thing without life and honour I dare not so farre wrong the Louure as to make it but a common house and rob it of the fruition of its Prince and therefore will treat of him here though during my aboad in France he lay all the while in Fountain Bleau For person he is of the middle stature and rather well proportioned than large His face knoweth little yet of a beard but that which is is black and swarthy his complexion also much of the same heiw carrying in it a certain boysterousness and that in a further measure than what a graceful Majesty can admit of So that one can hardly say of him without a spice of Courtship what Paterculus did of Tiberius Quod visus praetulerit principem that his countenance proclaimed him a King But questionless his greatest defect is want of utterance which is very unpleasing by reason of a desperate and uncurable stammering which defect is likely more and more to grow upon him At this time he is aged twenty four years and as much as since the 27 day of September last which was his birth day an age which he beareth not very plausibly want of beard and the swarthiness of his complexion making him seem elder At the age of eleven years he was affianced to the Lady Anna Infanta of Spain by whom as yet he hath no children It is thought by many and covertly spoken by divers in France that the principal cause of the Queens bartenness proceedeth from Spain that people being loath to fall under the French obedience which may very well happen she being the elder Sister of the King For this cause in the seventh article of marriage there is a clause that
in these later they onely consummate strength so say the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquid ad perfectionem partium sed ad perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this Profession is the eleventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth of Papyrius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confest him to be born in the thirteenth month And Avicen a Moor of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a Child born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of Women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernatural causes Vt extra ordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the furthest understand ten moneths compleat the Child is born And Vlpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a Child born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of its pretended Father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived taking it in the most favourable construction after the conception of the Mother and by no meanes after the death of the Father and so can it no way if I were first President advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extreamly sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken Anno 1552. to be little prone to Women in the general They therefore that would seem to know more than the vulgar reckon him as one of the by-blows of Henry the fourth but this under the Rose yet by way of conjecture we may argue thus First from the Kings care of his education assigning him for his Tutor Nicholas de Februe whom he also designed for his Son King Lewis Secondly from his care to work the Prince then young Mollis aptus agi to become a Catholike Thirdly the age of the old Henry of Conde and the privacy of this King with his Lady being then King of Navarre in the prime of his strength and in discontent with the Lady Margaret of Valoys his first Wife Adde to this that Kings love to fair Ladies in the general and we may see this probability to be no miracle For besides the Dutchess of Beaufort the Marchioness of Verneville and the Countess of Morret already mentioned he is beleived to have been the Father of Mr. Luines the great Favorite of King Lewis And certain it is that the very year before his death when he was even in the winter of his dayes he took such an amorous liking to the Prince of Conde s Wife a very beautiful Lady and Daughter to the Constable Duke of Montmorencie that the Prince to save his honour was compelled to flie together with his Princess into the Arch-Dukes Country whence he returned not till long after the death of King Henry If Marie de Medices in her Husbands life time paid his debts for him which I cannot say she onely made good that of vindicate· And yet perhaps a consciousness of some injuries not onely moved her to back the Count of Soison's and his faction against the Prince and his but also to resolve upon him for the Husband of her Daughter From the Princes of the bloud descend we to the Princes of the Court and therein the first place we meet with Mr. Barradas the Kings present Favourite a young Gentleman of a fresh and lively hew little bearded and one whom the people as yet cannot accuse for any oppression or misgovernment Honours the King hath conferred none upon him but onely Pensions and Offices He is the Governour of the Kings Children of Honour Pages we call them in England a place of more trouble than wealth or credit He is also the Master of the Horse or le grand Escuire the esteem of which place recompenceth the emptiness of the other for by vertue of this Office he carryeth the Kings Sword sheathed before him at his entrance into Paris the Cloth of Estate carryed over the King by the Provosts and Eschevins is his Fee No man can be the Kings Spur maker his Smith or have any place in the Kings Stables but from him and the like This place to note so much by the way was taken out of the Constables Office Comes stabuli is the true name to whom it properly belonged in the time of Charles the seventh Besides this he hath a pension of 500000. Crowns yearly and had an Office given him which he sold for 100000. Crownes in ready money A good fortune for one who the other day was but the Kings Page And to say truth he is as yet but a little better being onely removed from his Servant to his play-fellow with the affairs of State he intermeddleth not if he should he might expect the Queene Mother should say to him what Apollo in Ovid did to Cupid Tibi quia cum fortibus armis Mi puer ista decent humeros gestamina nostros For indeed first during her Sons minority and after since her redentigration with him she hath made her self so absolute a Mistress of her mind that he hath entrusted to her the entire conduct of all his most weighty affairs for her Assistant in the managing of her greatest business she hath pieced her self to the strongest side of the State the Church having principally since the death of the Marshall D' Anere Joneane assumed to her Counsails the Cardinal of Richileiu a man of no great birth were Nobility the greatest Parentage but otherwise to be ranked among the Noblest Of a sound reach he is and of a close brain one exceedingly well mixt of a Lay Vnderstanding and a Church Habit one that is compleatly skilled in the art of men and a perfect Master of his own mind and affections Him the Queene useth as her Counseller to keep out frailty and the Kings name as her countenance to keep off envy She is of a Florentine wit and hath in her all the vertues of Katherine de Medices her Ancestor in the Regencie and some also of her vices only her designes tend not to the ruine of her Kingdome and her Children John de Seirres telleth us in his Inventaire of France how the Queene Katherine suffered her Son Henry the third a devout and simple Prince to spend his most dangerous times even uncontrolled upon his Beades whiles in the meantime she usurped the Government of the Realm Like it is that Queene Mary hath
apparent being the Kings eldest Son living This limited to the Heir apparent being the Kings eldest Brother surviving if there be neither Son nor Brother then the next Heir apparent is stiled onely Le primier Prince du sang The first Prince of the bloud This title of Monsieur answereth to that of the Despote in the Greek Empire and in imitation of that it is thought to have been instituted Others of the French Princes are called Monsieurs also but with some addition of place or honour the Kings eldest Brother onely is called Monsieur sans quene as the French use to say that is simply Monsieur This young Prince is as yet unmarried but destinate to the bed of the young Dutchess of Mont-pensier whose Father died in the time of Henry the fourth Had the Duke of Orleance lived he had espoused her long ere this but it is generally beleived that this Prince is so affected He seeth his elder Brother as yet childless himself the next Heir to the Crown and it is likely he will look on a while and expect the issue of his fortune Some that speak of the affairs of the Court hold her to be a fit match for the young Count of Soisons a Prince of the bloud and a Gentleman of a fine temper The Lady her self is said not to be averse from the Match neither will the King not be inclinable unto him as hoping therein to give him some satisfaction for not performing a Court promise made unto him about marrying him to the young Madame now Queen of England As for the Count it cannot but be advantagious to him divers wayes partly to joyn together the two Families of Mont pensier and Soisons both issuing from the house of Burbon partly to enrich himself by adding unto his inheritance so fair an estate and partly by gaining all the Freinds and Allies of the Ladies kinred unto him the better to enable his opposition against the Prince of Conde The difference between them standeth thus Lewis the first Prince of Conde had by two Wives amongst other Children two Sons by his first Wife Henry Prince of Conde by the second Charles Count of Soisons Henry Prince of Conde had to his first Wife Mary of Cleve Daughter to the Duke of Nevers by whom he had no Children to his second Wife he took the Lady Katherine of Tremoville Sister to the Duke of Thovars Anno 1586. two years after his marriage he died of an old greif took from a poysoned cup which was given him Anno 1552. and partly from a blow given him with a Lance at the battel of Contras Anno 1587. In the eleventh moneth after his decease his young Princess was brought to bed of a young Son which is now Prince of Conde Charles Count of Soisons in the raign of Henry the fourth began to question the Princes legitimation whereupon the King dealt with the Parliament of Paris to declare the place of the first Prince of the bloud to belong to the Prince of Conde And for the clearer and more evident proof of the title twenty four physitians of good faith and skill made an open protestation of oath in the Coutt that it was not onely possible but common for Women to be delivered in the eleventh moneth On this it was awarded to the Prince This decree of Parliament notwithstanding if ever the King and his Brother should die childless it is said that the young Count of Soisons his Father died Anno 1614. will not so give over his title He is Steward of the Kings House as his Father also was before him a place of good credit and in which he hath demeaned himself very plausibly In case it should come to a tryal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which God forbid he is like to make a great party both within the Realm and without it without it by means of the House of Savoy having married his eldest Sister unto Don Thomazo the second Son of that Dukedom now living A brave man at armes and indeed the fairest fruit that ever grew on that tree next Heir of his Father after the death of Don Amadeo yet childless within the Realm the Lords have already declared themselves which happened on this occasion In the year 1620. the moneth of March the King being to wash the Prince of Conde laid hold on the towel chalenging that honour as first Prince of the bloud and on the other side the Count of Soisons seized on it as appertaining to his office of Steward and Prince of the bloud also The King to decide the controversie for the present commanded it to be given to Monsieur his Brother yet did not this satisfie For in the morning the Friends of both Princes came to offer their service in the cause To the Count came in general all the opposites of the Prince of Conde and of the Duke of Luines and Guise in particular the Duke of Maien the Duke of Vendosme the Dukes of Longueville Espernon Nemours the Grand Prior the Dukes of Thovars Retz and Rohan the Viscount of Aubetene c. who all withdrew themselves from the Court made themselves Masters of the best places in their Governments and were united presently into an open faction of which the Queen Mother declared her self head As for the Commons without whom the Nobility may well quarrel but not fight they are more zealous in behalf of the Count as being brought up alwayes a Papist and born of a Catholike kinred whereas the Prince though at this instant he be a Catholike yet non fuit sic ab initio he was born they say and brought up an Hugonot and perchance the alteration is but dissembled Concerning the Prince of Conde he hath a sentence of Parliament on his side and a verdict of Physitians both weak helps to a soveraignty unless well backed by the Sword And for the verdict of the Physitians thus the case is stated by the Doctors of that faculty Laurentius a Professor of Mâ—nt-pellier in Languedoc in his excellent Treatise of Anatomy maketh three terms of a Womans delivery Primus intermedius ultimus The first the seventh and eighth moneth after conception in each of which the Child is vital and may live if it be born To this also consenteth the Dr. of their Chair Hippocrates saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a Child born in the seventh moneth if it be well looked to may live We read also how in Spain the Women are oftentimes lightned in the end of the seventh moneth and commonly in the end of the eighth and further that Sempronius and Corbula both Roman Consuls were born in the seventh moneth Plinie in his natural History reporteth it as a truth though perhaps the Women that told him either misreckoned their time or else dissembled it to conceal their honesties The middle time terminus intermedius is the ninth and tenth moneths at which time Children do seldom miscarry In the former two moneths they had gathered life
honourable reconcilement they will please to put themselves again into his obedience Henry the fourth was a Prince of as undanted and uncontroulable a spirit as ever any of his Predecessors and one that loved to be obeyed yet was he also very frequently baffled by these Roytelets and at the last died in an affront The Prince of Conde perceiving the Kings affection to his new Lady began to grow jealous of him for which reason he retired unto Bruxels The King offended at this retreat sent after him and commanded him home The Prince returned answer that he was the Kings most humble Subject and Servant but into France he would not come unless he might have a Town for his assurance withal he protected in publike writing a Nullity of any thing that should be done to his prejudice in his absence A stomackful resolution and somewhat misbecoming a Subject yet in this opposition he persisted his humour of disobedience out-living the King whom he had thus affronted But these tricks are ordinary here otherwise a man might have construed this action by the term of rebellion The chief meanes whereby these Princes become so head-strong is an immunity given them by their Kings and a liberty which they have taken to themselves By their Kings they have been absolutely exempted from all tributes tolles taxes customs impositions and subsidies by them they have been alwayes estated in whole entire Provinces with a power of Hante and many justice as the Lawyers term it passed over unto them the Kings having scarce an homage or acknowledgement of them To this they have added much to their strength and security by the insconcing and fortifying their houses which both often moveth afterwards enableth thē to contemn his Majesty An example we have of this in the Castle of Rochforte belonging to the Duke of Tremoville which in the long Civil Wars endured a shelf of five thousand shot and yet was not taken A very impolitick course in my conceit in the French to bestow honours and immunities upon those Qui as the Historian saith ea suo arbitrio aut reposcituri aut retenturem videantur quique modum habent in sua voluntate For upon a knowledge of this strength in themselves the Princes have been alwayes prone to civil Warrs as having sufficient means for safety and resistance On this ground all they write the Kings authority and disobey his justice Insomuch that the greatest sort of Nobles in this Kingdom can seldom be arraigned or executed in person and therefore the Laws condemn them in their images and hang them in their pictures A pretty device to work justice If by chance or some handsome sleight any of them be apprehended they are put under a sure guard and not doomed to death without great fear of tumult and unquietness Neither is it Vnus alter onely some two or three that thus stand upon their distance with the King but even all the Nobility of the Realm A rout so disordered unconfined and numberless that even Fabius himself would be out of breath in making the reckoning I speak not here of those that are stiled La Noblesse but of Titulados men onely of titular Nobility of the degree of Baron and above of these there is in this Country a number almost innumerable quot Coelum stellas take quantity for quantity and I dare be of the opinion that Heaven hath not more Stars than France Nobles you shall meet with them so thick in the Kings Court especially that you would think it almost impossible the Country should bear any other fruit This I think I may safely affirm and without Hyperbole that they have there as many Princes as we in England have Dukes as many Dukes as we Earls as many Earls as we Barons as many Barons as we Knights A jolly company and such as know their own strength too I cannot but as much marvel that those Kings should be so prodigal in conferring honours considering this that every Nobleman he createth is so great a weakening to his power On the other side I cannot but as much wonder at some of our Nation who have murmured against our late Soveraign and accused him of an unpardonable unthriftiness in bestowing the dignities of his Realm with so full and liberal an hand Certainly could there any danger have risen by it unto the State I could have been as impatient of it as another But with us titles and ennobling in this kind are onely either the Kings favour or the parties merit maketh whomsoever he be that receiveth them rather reverenced than powerful Raro eorum honoribus invidetur quorum vis non timetur was a good Aphorism in the dayes of Paterculus and may for ought I know be as good still Why should I envy any man that honour which taketh not from my safety or repine at my Soveraign for raising any of his Servants into an higher degree of eminency when that favour cannot make them exorbitant Besides it concerneth the improvement of the Exchequer at the occasions of Subsidies and the glory of the Kingdom when the Prince is not attended by men meerly of the Vulgar Add to this the few Noble men of any title which he found at his happy coming in amongst us and the additions of power which his coming brought unto us and we shall find it proportionable that he should enlarge our Nobility with our Country Neither yet have we indeed a number to be talked of comparing us with our neighbour Nations We may see all of the three first rank in the books of Miles Brook and Vincent and we are promised also a Catalogue of the creations and successions of all our Barons then we should see that as yet we have not surfeited Were this care taken by the Heralds in France perhaps the Nobility there would not seem so numberless sure I am not so confused but this is the main vice of that Profession of six Heralds which they have amongst them Viz Mountjoy Normandy Guyenns Valoys Britain and Burgoyne not one of them is reported to be a Genealogist Neither were their Predecessors better affected to this study Peradine the onely man that ever was amongst them hath drawn down the Genealogies of twenty four of the cheif Families all eminent and of the bloud in which he hath excellently well discharged himself but what a small pittance is that compared to the present multitude The Nobles being so populous it cannot be but the Nobless as they call them that is the Gentry must needs be thick set and onely not innumerable Of these Nobless there be some that hold their estates immediately of the Crown and they have the like immunity with the Princes Some hold their feifes or seuda of some other of the Lords and he hath onely Basse justice permitted to him as to mulct and amerce his Tennants to imprison them or to give them any other correction under death All of them have power to
so I leave the Constable to take a veiw of his Province A man at this time beloved of neither parties hated by the Protestants as an Apostata and suspected by the Papists not to be entire To proceed July the twenty eighth we came unto Clermont the first Town of any note that we met with in Picardy A pretty nea Town and finely seated on the rising of an hill For the defence of it it hath on the upper side of it an indifferent large Castle and such as were the scituations of it somewhat helped by the strengths of Art might be brought to good service Towards the Town it is of an easie access to the fieldward more difficult as being built on the pendicular fall of a Rock In the year 1615. it was made good by Mr. Haroncourt with the Regiment of eight Companies who kept it in the name of the Prince of Conde and the rest of that Confederacy but it held not long For at the Marshal d' Ancres coming before it with his Army and artillery it was presently yeilded This warr which was the second Civil warr that had happened in the reign of King Lewis was undertaken by the Princes chiefly to thwart the designes of the Queen Mother and to crush the powerableness of her grand favourite the Marshall The pretence as in such cases commonly is was the good of the Common-wealth the occasion the cross Marriages then consummated by the Marshal between the Kings of France and Spain For by those marriages they seemed to fear the augmentation of the Spaniards greatness the alienation of the affections of their ancient Allies and by consequence the ruine of the French Empire But it was not the fate of D' Ancre to perish two years more of Command and insolencies his destinies allowed and then he tumbled This opportunity of his death ending the third Civil war each of which his faulty greatness had occasioned What the ambition of his designs did tend to I dare not absolutely determine though like enough it is that they aimed further than at a private or personal potency for having under the favour and countenance of the Queen Mother made himself Master of the Kings ear and of his counsels he made a shift to get into his own hands an authority almost as unlimitted as that of the old Mayre of the Palace for he had suppressed the liberty of the general Estates and of the Soveraign Court removed all the Officers and Counsellors of the last King ravished one of the Presidents of the great Chamber by name Mr. Le Jay out of the Parliament into the Prison and planted Garrisons of his own in most of the good Towns of Normandy of which Province he was Governour Add to this that he had caused the Prince of Conde being acknowledged the first Prince of the bloud to be imprisoned in the Bastile and had searched into the continuance of the lives of the King and his Brother by the help of sorcery and witchcraft Besides he was suspected to have had secret intelligence with some forrain Princes ill-willers to the State and had disgraced some and neglected others of the Kings Confederates And certainly those actions seem to import some project beyond a private and obedient greatness though I can hardly beleive that he durst be ambitious of the Crown for being a fellow of a low birth his heart could not but be too narrow for such an hope and having no party amongst the Nobility and being less gratious among the people he was altogether destitute of means to compass it I therefore am of opinion that the Spanish gold had corrupted him to some project concerning the enlargement of that Empire upon the French dominions which the cross Marriages whereof he was the contriver and which seemed so full of danger to all the best Patriots of France may seem to demonstrate And again at that time when he had put the Realm into this third combustion the King of Spain had an Army on foot against the Duke of Savoy and another in the Countries of Cleive and Juliers which had not the timely fall of this Monsieur and the peace ensuing prevented it might both perhaps have met together in the midst of France but this is onely conjectural CHAP. II. The fair City of Amiens and greatness of it The English feasted within it and the error of that action The Town how built seated and fortified The Cittadel of it thought to be impregnable not permitted to be veiwed The over-much openness of the English in discovering their strengths The watch and form of government in the Town Amiens a Visedamate and to whom it pertaineth What that honour is in France and how many there enjoy it c. THat night we went from Clermont to a Town called Bâ—etaul where we were harboured being from Clermont six French Leagues and from Paris twenty Our entertainment there such as in other places as sluttish and as inconvenient The next day being the twenty ninth about ten of the clock we had a sight of the goodly and fair City of Amiens A City of some English miles circuit within the wals which is all the greatness of it for without the wals it hath houses few or none A City very capacious and for that cause hath been many times honoured with the persons and trains of many great Princes Besides that once it entertained almost a whole Army of the English For King Lewis the eleventh having made an advantagious peace with our Edward and perceiving how ingrateful it was amongst the military men he intended also to give them some manner of satisfaction he sent therefore unto them three hundred Carts laden with the best Wines and seeing how acceptable a present that had proved he intended also to feast them in Amiens within half a league of which their Camp was lodged This entertainment lasted four dayes each street having in it two long tables and each table being furnished with very plentiful provision Neither were they denied entrance into any of the Taverns or Victualling-houses or therein stinted either in meats or drinks whatsoever was called for was defraied by King Lewis An action wherein if my opinion might carry it there was little of the Politician for there were permitted to enter into the Town so many of the English-men at once that had they been but so minded they might easily have made themselves as well Masters of the place as of the Kings person nine thousand are reckoned by Comminees to have been within together and most of them armed so that they might very easily have surprised the Gates and let in the rest of the Army Those of the French Kings Council feared it much and therefore informed both Princes the one of his Town the other of his honour But this jealousie was but a French distrust and might well have been spared the English being of that Generals mind that scorned to steal a Victory and of that generous