leisure, with a complete army, came to his assistance, and formed the siege of Montserrat.

For as the Spaniards pushed the Duke of Mantua, so the French by way of diversion lay hard upon the Duke of Savoy; they had seized Montserrat, and held it for the Duke of Mantua, and had a strong French garrison under Thoiras, a brave and experienced commander; and thus affairs stood when we came into the French army.

I had no business there as a soldier, but having passed as a Scotch gentleman with the mob at Lyons, and after with her majesty, the queen-mother, when we obtained the guard of her dragoons; we had also her majesty's pass, with which we came and went where we pleased; and the cardinal, who was then not on very good terms with the queen, but willing to keep smooth water there, when two or three times our passes came to be examined, showed a more than ordinary respect to us on that very account, our passes being from the queen.

Casal being besieged, as I have observed, began to be in danger; for the cardinal, who it was thought had formed a design to ruin Savoy, was more intent upon that than upon the succour of the Duke of Mantua; but necessity calling upon him to deliver so great a captain as Thoiras, and not to let such a place as Casal fall into the hands of the enemy, the king, or cardinal rather, ordered the Duke of Momorency, and the Mareschal D'Effiat, with ten thousand foot and two thousand horse, to march and join the Mareschals de la Force and Schomberg, who lay already with an army on the frontiers of Genoa, but to weak to attempt the raising the siege of Casal.

As all men thought there would be a battle between the French and the Spaniards, I could not prevail with myself to lose the opportunity, and therefore, by the help of the passes above mentioned, I came to the French army under the Duke of Momorency. We marched through the enemy's country with great boldness and no small hazard, for the Duke of Savoy appeared frequently with great bodies of horse on the rear of the army, and frequently skirmished with our troops, in one of which I had the folly, I can call it no better, for I had no business there, to go out and see the sport, as the French gentlemen called it. I was but a raw soldier, and did not like the sport at all, for this party was surrounded

GREAT DANGER IN ACTION.

17

oy the Duke of Savoy, and almost all killed, for as to quarter, they neither asked nor gave. I ran away very fairly one of the first, and my companion with me, and by the goodness of our horses got out of the fray, and beiug not much known in the army, we came into the camp an hour or two after, as if we had been only riding abroad for the air.

This little rout made the general very cautious, for the Savoyards were stronger in horse by three or four thousand, and the army always marched in a body, and kept their parties in or very near hand.

I escaped another rub in this French army about five days after, which had liked to have made me pay dear for my curiosity.

The Duke de Momorency, and the Mareschal Schomberg joined their army about four or five days after, and immediately, according to the cardinal's instructions, put themselves on the march for the relief of Casal.

The army had marched over a great plain, with some marshy grounds on the right, and the Po on the left, and as the country was so well discovered that it was thought impossible any mischief should happen, the generals observed the less caution. At the end of this plain was a long wood, and a lane or narrow defile through the middle of it.

Through this pass the army was to march, and the van began to file through it about four o'clock; by three hours' time all the army was got through, or into the pass, and the artillery was just entered, when the Duke of Savoy, with four thousand horse, and fifteen hundred dragoons, with every horseman a footman behind him, whether he had swam the Po, or passed it above at a bridge, and made a long march after was not examined, but he came boldly up the plain, and charged our rear with a great deal of fury.

Our artillery was in the lane, and as it was impossible to turn them about, and make way for the army, so the rear was obliged to support themselves, and maintain the fight for above an hour and a half.

In this time we lost abundance of men, and if it had not been for two accidents, all that line had been cut off; one was, that the wood was so near that those regiments which were disordered presently sheltered themselves in the wood; the other was, that by this time the Mareschal Schomberg, with the horse of the van, began to get back through the lane,

VOL. II.

C

and to make good the ground from whence the other had been beaten, till at last by this means it came to almost a pitched battle.

There were two regiments of French dragoons who did excellent service in this action, and maintained their ground till they were almost all killed.

Had the Duke of Savoy contented himself with the defeat of five regiments on the right, which he quite broke and drove into the wood, and with the slaughter and havoc which he had made among the rest, he had come off with honour, and might have called it a victory; but endeavouring to break the whole party, and carry off some cannon, the obstinate resistance of these few dragoons lost him his advantages, and held him in play till so many fresh troops got through the pass again, as made us too strong for him; and had not night parted them he had been entirely defeated.

At last, finding our troops increase and spread themselves on his flank, he retired and gave over. We had no great stomach to pursue him neither, though some horse were ordered to follow a little way.

The duke lost above a thousand men, and we almost twice as many, and but for those dragoons, had lost the whole rearguard and half our cannon. I was in a very sorry case in this action too. I was with the rear in the regiment of horse of Perigoort, with a captain of which regiment I had contracted some acquaintance. I would have rid off at first, as the captain desired me, but there was no doing it, for the cannon was in the lane, and the horse and dragoons of the van eagerly pressing back through the lane, must have run me down, or carried me with them. As for the wood, it was a good shelter to save one's life, but was so thick there was no passing it on horseback.

Our regiment was one of the first that was broke, and being all in confusion, with the Duke of Savoy's men at our heels, away we ran into the wood. Never was there so much disorder among a parcel of runaways as when we came to this wood; it was so exceeding bushy and thick at the bottom there was no entering it, and a volley of small shot from a regiment of Savoy's dragoons, poured in upon us at our breaking into the wood, made terrible work among our horses.

For my part I was got into the wood, but was forced to quit my horse, and by that means with a great deal of diffi

MARCH TO SALUCES, WHICH SURRENDERS.

19

culty got a little farther in, where there was a little open place, and being quite spent with labouring among the bushes, I sat down resolving to take my fate there, let it be what it would, for I was not able to go any farther. I had twenty or thirty more in the same condition came to me in less than half an hour, and here we waited very securely the success of the battle, which was as before.

It was no small relief to those with me to hear the Savoyards were beaten, for otherwise they had all been lost; as for me, I confess, I was glad as it was, because of the danger, but otherwise I cared not much which had the better, for I designed no service among them.

One kindness it did me, that I began to consider what I had to do here, and as I could give but a very slender account of myself, for what it was I run all these risks, so I resolved they should fight it among themselves, for I would come among them no more.

The captain with whom, as I noted above, I had contracted some acquaintance in this regiment, was killed in this action, and the French had really a great blow here, though they took care to conceal it all they could; and I cannot, without smiling, read some of the histories and memoirs of this action, which they are not ashamed to call a victory.

We marched on to Saluces, and the next day the Duke of Savoy presented himself in battalia, on the other side of a small river; giving us a fair challenge to pass and engage him. We always said in our camp that the orders were to fight the Duke of Savoy wherever we met him; but though he braved us in our view, we did not care to engage him, but we brought Saluces to surrender upon articles, which the duke could not relieve without attacking our camp, which he did not care to do.

The next morning we had news of the surrender of Mantua to the imperial army; we heard of it first from the Duke of Savoy's cannon, which he fired by way of rejoicing, and which seemed to make him amends for the loss of Saluces.

As this was a mortification to the French, so it quite damped the success of the campaign, for the Duke de Momorency imagining that the imperial general would send immediate assistance to the Marquis Spinola, who besieged Casal, they called frequent counsels of war what course to take, and at last resolved to halt in Piedmont.

A few days after, their resolutions were changed again, by the news of the death of the Duke of Savoy, Charles Emanuel, who died, as some say, agitated with the extremes of joy and grief.

This put our generals upon considering again, whether they should march to the relief of Casal, but the chimera of the Germans put them by, and so they took up quarters in Piedmont; they took several small places from the Duke of Savoy, making advantage of the consternation the duke's subjects were in on the death of their prince, and spread themselves from the sea-side to the banks of the Po.

But here an enemy did that for them which the Savoyards could not, for the plague got into their quarters and destroyed abundance of people, both of the army and of the country.

I thought then it was time for me to be gone, for I had no manner of courage for that risk; and I think verily I was more afraid of being taken sick in a strange country, than ever I was of being killed in battle. Upon this resolution I procured a pass to go to Genoa, and accordingly began my journey, but was arrested at Villa Franca by a slow lingering fever, which held me about five days, and then turned to a burning malignancy, and at last to the plague. My friend, the captain, never left me night nor day; and though for four days more I knew nobody, nor was capable of so much as thinking of myself, yet it pleased God that the distemper gathered in my neck, swelled and broke; during the swelling I was raging mad with the violence of pain, which being so near my head, swelled that also in proportion, that my eyes were swelled up, and for twenty-four hours my tongue and mouth; then, as my servant told me, all the physicians gave me over, as past all remedy, but by the good providence of God the swelling broke.

The prodigious collection of matter which this swelling discharged, gave me immediate relief, and I became sensible in less than an hour's time; and in two hours, or thereabouts, fell into a little slumber, which recovered my spirits, and sensibly revived me. Here I lay by it till the middle of September: my captain fell sick after me, but recovered quickly; his man had the plague, and died in two days; my man held it out well.

About the middle of September, we heard of a truce concluded between all parties, and being unwilling to winter as