Some three or four days after the Duke of Orleans had left the town, it was agreed on both sides that the whole garrison should march out; and the Marquis of Mantua, and the Lord Galeas di San Severino, (who commanded both the Venetians and the Duke of Milan’s army,) had orders to see them safely conducted away; which was performed, and the town left in the hands of the inhabitants, under an oath not to deliver it either to the French or the Italians till the conclusion of a general peace. Only thirty men were put into the castle, who were supplied with provisions by the Duke of Milan, for money, and they were never to have more provision at a time than was sufficient for one single day. No man that did not see it, can conceive the poverty of the garrison that marched out. They had few or no horses left, for most of them were eaten; and of the five thousand men that marched out, scarcely six hundred were able to defend themselves; they fell down frequently in the road as they marched along, and the enemy were forced to help them up again. I know I saved fifty of them, at the cost of a crown, not far from the little castle called Cameri, which was in the enemy’s possession, by lodging them in a garden, and giving them warm broth, so that but one of them died. Upon the way (it being ten miles between Novara and Vercelli) four more of them died. The king (as a token of his compassion) caused eight hundred francs to be distributed amongst those who came to Vercelli, as a benevolence in addition to their pay, which was paid to a farthing, both to the living and the dead, and particularly to the Swiss, of whom there were near four hundred dead; yet, notwithstanding all the care that could be taken of them, about thirty of them died in Vercelli, some with eating too much, others by diseases, and some on the dunghills of the town.