Several great convoys of provision, both of corn and meal, were sent into Novara; but they always lost half by the way; and once a small force of sixty men-at-arms, under the command of Chastillon, a young gentleman belonging to the court, was quite routed; some were taken, some few entered, and others with great difficulty escaped; so that it is not possible to imagine the extremity the garrison was reduced to. Every day some were starved to death; two parts out of three were afflicted with distempers of which we had pitiful and continual accounts, both in cipher and otherwise, which came to us with very great difficulty. We constantly gave them fair promises, and as constantly deceived them; those who had the sole administration of affairs were very inclinable to fight, but they did not consider that nobody desired it beside themselves; for the great officers, as for instance the Prince of Orange (whom, upon his late arrival, the king often consulted in military affairs), and all the other officers of the army, desired things might be composed and adjusted by a peace, because winter was approaching, money wanting, the army but weak and sickly, and soldiers deserting daily, whilst others were dismissed by the king. Yet all the wise men in the camp were not able to persuade the Archbishop of Rouen from encouraging the Duke of Orleans not to leave Novara; by which advice they brought him into a great deal of danger; but this advice proceeded from an expectation of great recruits out of Switzerland, which the bailiff of Dijon had assured them he could raise. Some of our courtiers wrote to him to bring as many troops as he could assemble; thus our councils were divided, and every man wrote and said what he pleased. Those who were averse to an accommodation, or to any meeting about it, pretended the enemy ought to make overtures first, and that it did not consist with the king’s honour to begin; and the enemy being equally haughty on their side, the poor garrison in Novara suffered incredibly, and their letters were full of nothing but relations of their miseries, assuring us, first, that they could not hold out above ten days, then eight, and at last three; but they exceeded the time which they had mentioned. To be brief, such necessities had not been known in our time, nor did ever men suffer so great a famine in a hundred years before.