Now, as for the capture of Rouen, they killed many of our men
both before and at the attack: and the very next day after we had
entered the town, I trepanned eight or nine of our men, who had
been wounded with stones as they were on the breach. The air was
so malignant, that many died, even of quite small wounds, so that
some thought the bullets had been poisoned; and those within the
town said the like of us; for though they had within the town all
that was needful, yet all the same they died like those outside.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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