When Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, went to the wars, two centuries later, he took with him an immense retinue of servants, and a long procession of carts and carriages, to transport which over two hundred horses were required;[14] while a whole regiment had to be detached for the protection of his precious person. His ancestor must have started on his first campaign in very different fashion; indeed, there was probably little to distinguish him from the crowd of gentlemen volunteers whom the prospect of some hard fighting had drawn across the Alps; and he evidently did not disdain to perform the work of the humblest soldier, since we hear of him toiling for two whole nights at the task of dragging the guns up the steep heights which commanded the Castle of Lantz. At the conclusion of the campaign, in which he had given abundant proof that he possessed all the courage of his race, although his general had found him “a little difficult to manage,” he reappeared for a brief interval at Court, and then, in the spring of 1552, took part in the “Austrasian expedition,” that military promenade through the Rhine country which gave to France, almost without striking a blow, Metz, Toul, and Verdun. In the autumn of the same year, when Charles V., freed from his Germanic embarrassments by the agreement of Passau, laid siege to Metz, Condé and his brother, the second Comte d’Enghien, were among the young nobles who received permission “to take their pleasure at the siege.” The two Bourbon princes were entrusted with the defence of a part of the ramparts, and acquitted themselves with courage and capacity. The summer of 1553 found Condé in Picardy, sharing with the Duc de Nemours the command of the light cavalry. In an engagement with the Imperialist cavalry at Doullens, he brought up four squadrons at a critical moment, and, by a brilliant charge on the enemy’s flank, decided the day. In the following year, he commanded the light cavalry on the Meuse and distinguished himself at the combat at Renty, and in 1555 he returned to the Army of Italy, in which he rendered excellent service on several occasions, notably at the siege of Vulpiano. But the enmity of the Guises barred the way to the royal favour, and when, in 1556, the Truce of Vaucelles put an end to the war, the only recompense he had been able to obtain was the captaincy of a _compagnie d’ordonnance_, the nearest equivalent to a modern regiment.[15]