After three years’ active service as army-surgeon, Paré returned to Paris with such a reputation that he was at once appointed surgeon in ordinary to the King. When Metz was besieged by the Spanish army, under Charles V., the garrison suffered heavy loss, and the number of wounded was very great. The surgeons were few and incompetent, and probably slew more by their bad treatment than the Spaniards did by the sword. The Duke of Guise, who commanded the garrison, wrote to the King imploring him to send Paré to his help. The courageous surgeon at once set out, and, after braving many dangers (to use his own words, “d’estre pendu, estranglé ou mis en pièces”), he succeeded in passing the enemy’s lines, and entered Metz in safety. The Duke, the generals, and the captains gave him an affectionate welcome; while the soldiers, when they heard of his arrival, cried, “We no longer fear dying of our wounds; our friend is among us.” In the following year Paré was in like manner with the besieged in the town of Hesdin, which shortly fell before the Duke of Savoy, and he was taken prisoner. But having succeeded in curing one of the enemy’s chief officers of a serious wound, he was discharged without ransom, and returned in safety to Paris. The rest of his life was occupied in study, in self-improvement, in piety, and in good deeds. Urged by some of the most learned among his contemporaries, he placed on record the results of his surgical experience, in twenty-eight books, which were published by him at different times. His writings are valuable and remarkable chiefly on account of the great number of facts and cases contained in them, and the care with which he avoids giving any directions resting merely upon theory unsupported by observation. Paré continued, though a Protestant, to hold the office of surgeon in ordinary to the King; and during the Massacre of St. Bartholomew he owed his life to the personal friendship of Charles IX., whom he had on one occasion saved from the dangerous effects of a wound inflicted by a clumsy surgeon in performing the operation of venesection. Brantôme, in his ‘Mémoires,’ thus speaks of the King’s rescue of Paré on the night of Saint Bartholomew—“He sent to fetch him, and to remain during the night in his chamber and wardrobe-room, commanding him not to stir, and saying that it was not reasonable that a man who had preserved the lives of so many people should himself be massacred.” Thus Paré escaped the horrors of that fearful night, which he survived for many years, and was permitted to die in peace, full of age and honours.