In expectation of day, the whole army reposed themselves in their arms for some time, and several went to their devotions, for it was looked upon as a very dangerous enterprise. As soon as it was broad day, and the hour had come for the assault (which as I said before was eight in the morning), the duke ordered the signal to be given, and the great guns to be fired successively as was agreed on, to give them notice who were in our vanguard on the other side of the town (at a great distance to go about, though through the town it was but a little way). The vanguard heard the signal, and immediately prepared to storm the town; the duke’s trumpets began to sound, the colours advanced to the walls, and the soldiers marched after in very good order. The king was at that time in the middle of the street, well attended with his 300 men-at-arms, his guards, and some lords and officers of his household. When we came so near that we expected to be immediately at push of pike, we found no resistance at all, and not above two or three men upon the guard; for supposing, because it was Sunday, that we would not have attacked them, they were all gone to dinner, and we found the cloth laid in every house that we entered. A multitude is seldom formidable, unless commanded by some officer whom they hold in reverence and fear; yet there are certain hours and seasons in which their fury is terrible. Before this assault the Liegeois were much fatigued and dispirited, as well for the loss they had sustained in their two sallies (in which all their chief officers were slain), as for the great pains and hard service which they had endured for eight days successively; for nobody was exempted from being upon the guard. They being blocked up on both sides (as I stated before), I suppose they thought that Sunday might have been a day of rest to them (but they were mightily mistaken), for they did not make the least defence, either on our side, or on the other, where the Burgundians of our vanguard made their attack, and entered before us[258]; they killed but few, for the people fled over the Maes into the forest of Ardennes, and from thence into such places of refuge as they thought most proper to secure themselves in. On that side of the town where I was, I saw but three men and one woman dead; and I believe there were not above 200 killed altogether, the rest having all fled, and got into the houses or churches for sanctuary. The king marched at his own leisure (for he saw there was no opposition), and the army (consisting by my computation of about 40,000 men), entered at both ends of the town. The duke, having advanced a good way into the city, turned back to meet the king, conducting him as far as the palace, and then returned to the great church of St. Lambert, into which his soldiers were forcing their way for the sake both of the prisoners and the plunder; for though he had posted a battalion of his guards there to secure the