Charles's force consisted of a strange mixture of Scotchmen, Italians, and Frenchmen, who were all continually giving way to their national prejudices, and quarrelling in broken French, broken Italian, or broken Scotch,--which is a dialect something between a sneeze, a snore, and a howl, spiced with a dash of gutturalism, and mixed together in a whine of surpassing mournfulness. The French declared the Scotch were mercenaries, who had an "itching palm;" but the Scotch savagely replied, that "they came to the scratch with a true itch for glory." While the three parties were engaged in a vigorous self-assertion, and were loud in praise of their own valour, they caught a glimpse of the English force--and, halting in dismay, retreated without drawing a sword. The garrison of Ivry, which had been waiting the approach of its friends, who were to do such wonders, and had been watching the scene with intense anxiety from the battlements, could only murmur out the words "pitiful humbugs," and surrender at discretion. By some lucky chance--or, as other historians have it, by the revolt of the inhabitants--Charles and his mongrel army had got possession of the town of Vemeuil, which was a very strong position. They had scarcely got snugly in, when the Duke of Bedford presented himself before the walls, and a council was instantly held, to consider how they should get out again. Everybody talked at once, and a mixed jargon of Scotch and French, flavoured occasionally with a little Italian sauce, was the only result of the deliberation of the gallant army. At length, by common consent, they ran away, preferring to fight in an open field, if they must fight at all--for there would then be more margin for escape, or latitude for bolting, in the event of their getting the worst of it. So rapid was their desertion of the town, that they left behind them all their luggage, which was perhaps a wise precaution, for they were thus enabled to run the faster, in case of having to execute a retreat, which was one of the military manouvres in which they had had the most experience.