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AMBROISE PARE 
 
 AND HIS TIMES 
 
 1510-1590 
 
 J 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN PAGET 
 
 " Doncques je vous prie humblemcnt prendre en gre ce petit labeur r 
 lequel si je cognois vous estre agreable, m' esforcerai faire aultre 
 chose, selon que mon petit esprit pourra comprendre . " — A. P. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 Cbe Unicfterbocfter press 
 
 1897 
 
-yj<j?;?5'^ 
 
 
 Copyright 1897 
 
 BY 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 Ube iknickerbocfcec press, flew ISorft 
 
To 
 
 SIR THOMAS SMITH 
 
 SURGEON EXTRAORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN 
 SENIOR SURGEON TO ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL 
 
 I Dedicate in Gratitude 
 
 This Story of the Life of Another 
 
 Great Surgeon 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 EVEN though a book goes over old ground, it 
 may yet be welcome ; and Ambroise Fare's 
 life was so full of good works, adventure, and ro- 
 mance, that it ought to be known and honoured in 
 other countries besides France. Therefore I have 
 put these notes together, conveying into them the 
 facts that have been established by Malgaigne, 
 Le Paulmier, and other authors. We seldom hear 
 his name in England : save that it is sometimes 
 said he invented the ligature of arteries, which he 
 did not; or he is mentioned in a First of October 
 address to medical students; as was the fate of 
 Hannibal in Juvenal's time — " Ut pueris placeas et 
 declam.atio fias. " Such an address, perfect of its 
 kind, given in 1889 by Mr. Godlee at University 
 College Hospital, set me to work on this present 
 venture. 
 
 To Malgaigne, who edited Park's works in 1840, 
 and to MM. Le Paulmier, B6gin, and Turner we 
 owe our knowledge of the details of his life. Dr. 
 
vi Preface 
 
 Le Paulmier, himself descended from that Julien 
 Le Paulmier who had a controversy with Pare about 
 gunshot wounds, has published a whole host of valu- 
 able documents; parish registers, law reports, trans- 
 fers of property, minutes of meetings, lists of the 
 Royal household, and the like. From these, and 
 from his own writings, we may almost know Am- 
 broise Pare as if he were living now. 
 
 By help of text-books of history, and the memoirs 
 of Pierre de L'Estoile, I have made a sort of back- 
 ground of the times in which his fourscore years 
 were spent, I had intended to set the Journeys in 
 Diverse Places at the beginning of this book, making 
 the rest of it a commentary upon them ; but it 
 seemed better, after all, to give them their proper 
 place in the story of his life. Yet they, of course, 
 are the one thing here to be read again and again. 
 
 Mr. Pater's Gaston de Latour contains many ex- 
 quisite pictures of France and of Paris, as Ambroise 
 Pare saw his country. But Gaston himself, while 
 he recalls Ambroise's patient, the Marquis D'Auret, 
 is no more like Pare than my sentences are like the 
 beauty of Mr. Pater's work. 
 
 By the kindness of Dr. Le Paulmier, I am allowed 
 to reproduce the portrait and the autograph signa- 
 ture from his delightful book. The portrait, in 
 the possession of Mme. La Marquise Le Charron, 
 
Preface 
 
 Vll 
 
 a descendant of one of Fare's daughters, was painted 
 when he was sixty-five : the signature was written 
 on a receipt for some money, a year later. The 
 other illustrations are from Fare's books, from old 
 prints in the British Museum, and from M. Martial's 
 Ancie7i Paris. I hope that Mr. G. H. Futnam is 
 right in his generous belief that what I have written 
 is worthy of so many pictures. 
 London, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction . ' 
 
 I. — Boyhood and Early Life. 1510-1541 , 
 
 II. — " Journeys in Diverse Places." 1537- 
 1569 
 
 III. — Notes to the " Journeys in Diverse 
 Places "....., 
 
 IV. — Paris. 1541-1572 . . , . . 
 
 v.— Paris. 1573-1590 
 
 VI. — Opera Omnia ...... 
 
 VII. — Some Aspects of Pare's Life 
 
 VIII, — Pare's Account of the Plague 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 30 
 118 
 
 248 
 265 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Portrait of Ambroise Pare 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Reproduced, with the permission of the author, from Dr. Le Paulmier's 
 " Life of Pare." 
 
 Le Tour du Temple ...... vi 
 
 Constructed in 1200 ; destroyed in 1811. 
 
 Le Boulevart du Temple, in 1630 , . . i 
 * Pont Neuf ........ 12 
 
 " Various Cauteries . . . . . .26 
 
 ^ Instruments of General Surgery ... 36 
 "^ Amputating Instruments ..... 48 
 
 ' Portrait, Franqois Due de Guise ... 60 
 
 From a print by Theret. 
 
 "^ Various Arrows and Detachable Arrow- 
 heads. 74 
 
 ^ Instruments for Extracting Arrow-heads 
 
 OR Links of Chain-armour ... 92 
 
 ^ Instruments for Extracting Bullets . . 100 
 
 ° Battle of Saint Denis, 1567 .... 102 
 
 ^ Battle of Moncontour, October 3, 1569 . . 106 
 
 ' Pont, Quai, et Place du Pont Saint Michel, 158 
 
 ' From Martial's " Ancien Paris." 
 
 ^ From Fare's Works. 
 
 ' From an engraving in the Print-Room, British Museum, 
 
Xll 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 Ancien Pont Saint Michel 
 Bird's-eye View of Paris Early in the 
 XVIIth Century 
 
 Showing Fare's houses. 
 
 Portrait of Henri II . . . 
 
 Portrait of Catherine de Medici . 
 
 Portrait OF CoLiGNY .... 
 
 Le Petit Chatelet .... 
 
 Portrait of Charles IX . 
 
 Hotel des Ursins, 1670 
 
 Cage d'Escalier du XVI'^^ Siecle : Rue 
 
 Chanoinesse .... 
 Portrait of Henri III 
 Siege of Paris, 1590 .... 
 College de Cluny : Rue de Cluny . 
 Reducing a Dislocation of the Elbow 
 Portrait of Ambroise Par^ at 75 '. 
 
 From a print by Horbeck. 
 
 ' From Martial's " Ancien Paris." 
 
 * From Fare's Works, 
 
 ^ From an engraving in the Print-Room, British Museum. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i66 
 
 174 
 
 182 
 186 
 188 
 192 
 196 
 208 
 
 214 
 
 224 
 226 
 248 
 262 
 266 
 
LIST OF CHIEF REFERENCES. 
 
 CEuvres completes d' Ambroise Par^ : revues ct colla- 
 tionnes siir toiites les Editions. J. F. Malgaigne, 
 Paris, 1840. Three vols., with a critical and 
 historical introduction by Malgaigne. 351 pp. 
 
 The Workes of that Famous Chiritrgion A. Parey, 
 trans, out of Latin and compared with the 
 French. T. Johnson, London, 1665. Folio. 
 
 Ambroise Par^ d'apres de Nouveaux Documents. 
 Le Paulmier, Paris, 1884. 
 
 Ambroise Pare. Emile Begin, Gaz. Hebd. de Me'de- 
 cine. Paris, Oct., 1878-Jan., 1879. XV., 629, 
 645, 725. 
 
 Ambroise ParL E. Turner, Gaz. Hebd. de MMecine, 
 May, 1879. XVI., 309, 399. 
 
 Discourse upon the Life of Ambroise Par^. S. D. 
 Gross, Philadelphia, 1873. 
 
 Ambroise Par^, est-il mort Catholique ? T. Tr6v6dy, 
 1890. (British Museum.) 
 
 Extrait de F Lnd^pendant de V Quest (Laval). 
 
 Mhnoires pour servir a Vhistoire de France, etc. 
 Pierre de L'Estoile, Paris. Edition of 1819. 
 
xiv List of Chief References 
 
 La France Protestante. Eugene and Emile Haag, 
 Paris, 1846-59. 
 
 Hist oir e de France. Michelet, Paris, 1876-78. 
 
 Histoire de France. Guizot, Paris, 1870-76. 
 
 Abr^g^ de V Histoire de France. Duruy, Paris, 1851. 
 
 Me'moires de Francois de la None. 
 
 Memoires de Marguerite de Valois. 
 
 Ancien Paris. A. P. Martial, Paris, 1866. 
 
 Archives Curieiises de V Histoire de France, depuis 
 Louis XLjusqiCa Louis XVHL L. Cimber and 
 F. Danjou. Paris, 1835. Series I., vol. 5. 
 
 Horribles Cruaut^s des Huguenots en France. Extrait 
 d'un volume, intitule "Theatre des Cruautes 
 des H6retiques de nostre temps." Anvers, 
 chez Adrien Hubert, 1588. (British Museum.) 
 
 Etudes sur Ambroise Pare. These de Montpellier. 
 C. M. A. Senelle, Montpellier. J. M. Aine, 1863. 
 (British Museum.) 
 
AMBROISE PARE 
 
hi s 
 
AMBROISE PAR6 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Thundering and bursting 
 In torrents, in waves — 
 Carolling and shouting 
 
 Over tombs, amid graves — 
 See ! on the cumber'd plain 
 
 Clearing a stage, 
 Scattering the past about, 
 Comes the new age." 
 
 Matthew Arnold, 
 
 MALGAIGNE, in his long and learned introduc- 
 tion to the works of Ambroise Par6, has said 
 that the way was cleared for his coming, and all 
 Europe seemed waiting and watching for him. But 
 a man like Pare is welcome whenever he comes ; nor 
 are we here concerned with the history of surgery 
 before he put his hand to it. From the time of 
 Celsus, it was for the most part a history of decline 
 and fall : the Arabian schools had set tradition and 
 authority above observation and experiment ; and so 
 
 I 
 
2 Ambroise Pare 
 
 long as the Church forbade the shedding of blood to 
 the physicians, surgery was kept at the level of a 
 low unorganised trade. Those who did great things 
 in the ^Middle Ages for the practice of surgery may 
 be counted on one hand : Constantine of Salerno, 
 Guillaume de Salicetis, Lanfranc, Guy de Chauliac; 
 and perhaps, for England, John of Gaddesden and 
 John Ardern. And Guy de Chauliac — whose writ- 
 ings were expounded to Pare during his apprentice- 
 shio — was a man after Fare's own heart: — 
 
 " Let the surgeon be well educated, skilful, ready, and 
 ■courteous. Let him be bold in those things that are 
 safe, fearful in those that are dangerous ; avoiding all 
 evil methods and practices. Let him be tender with the 
 sick, honourable to men of his profession, wise in his 
 predictions ; chaste, sober, pitiful, merciful ; not covet- 
 ous or extortionate ; but rather let him take his wages 
 in moderation, according to his work, and the wealth of 
 his patient, and the issue of the disease, and his own 
 worth." * 
 
 The service that these few great men did for 
 surgery was twofold : they made a stand against 
 the Arabian school, against Averroes and Avicenna, 
 and they mostly wrote or translated in their mother- 
 tongue, endeavouring to return past tradition to the 
 pure teaching of Hippocrates. Malgaigne has been 
 
 * From the Grande Chirurgie of Guy de Chauliac, written in 1363, 
 when he was physician to Pope Urban V. at Avignon. 
 
Introduction 3 
 
 careful to show how their work, long after they were 
 dead, was brought to life again by the invention of 
 printing, the discovery of the New World, and the 
 return of the Renaissance to Greek art and manu- 
 scripts : — 
 
 " The hunt for Greek manuscripts was started on 
 behalf of literature and theology : afterward came the 
 turn of the sciences. A copy of Celsus was found in 
 1443 at Milan ; Paulus ^gineta also was discovered 
 about the same time ; finally, several Greek manuscripts 
 of Hippocrates and of Galen were unearthed. Men 
 could now set the writings themselves against the trans- 
 lations and commentaries of the Arabians : Aristotle 
 against Averroes, Galen against Avicenna. The com- 
 mentator was often far gone from the sense and spirit of 
 the original, and a choice must be made between them ; 
 and since the only ruling philosophy was still faith in 
 authority, the oldest authority was judged to be the best : 
 men left the Arabian standard and rallied round Hippo- 
 crates and Galen, This might seem only a change of 
 masters, but it was not to be done without revolt. Soon 
 they began to mistrust even their new masters : Aris- 
 totle did not always agree with Plato, nor Galen always 
 with himself," 
 
 The great iconoclast was still to come : and this 
 was Paracelsus. Born in 1493, more than a century 
 after the death of Guy de Chauliac, and neither 
 courteous, pitiful, nor sober, he yet had the strength 
 for the work that must be done. He is the very 
 
4 Ambroise Pare 
 
 incarnation of the spirit of free thought in medicine, 
 the man above all others who broke the Arabian 
 schools, and struck at the solemn rubbish taught at 
 the Universities. He had the courage to begin his 
 lectures at Basel (1526) by lighting some sulphur in 
 a brasier, and casting into it the books of Galen, 
 Averroes, and Avicenna. " Sic vos ardebitis in 
 Gehenna" was his judgment on them; and he went 
 on with his lecture part in Latin part in German. 
 This was six years after Luther had burned the 
 Pope's Bull, and the volumes of the canon law, at 
 Wittenberg; and four years after his translation of 
 the Bible. The same spirit moved two men so un- 
 like : and it would be pleasant to write an essay on 
 the hundred best books that have been burned. 
 
 When Paracelsus began lecturing, Ambroise Par^ 
 was sixteen years old. He was not much concerned 
 at any time of his life with art, or literature, or logic, 
 or philosophy. He was fond of animals, and had 
 something of an ear for music, and a taste for 
 poetry; but he learned no Greek or Latin in his 
 boyhood, was not a student at any University, and 
 cared for no country in the world save France. He 
 thought for himself in surgery, but was no rebel 
 against authority like that fallen angel Paracelsus: 
 nor is there anything to show that he ever used his in- 
 fluence at the Court to help or hinder a political in- 
 
Introduction 5 
 
 trigue. Yet that his life may stand in proper relief, 
 here must be noted some of the great changes that 
 were at work on the nations while he lived. 
 
 In the year of his birth, 1 5 10, Louis XII. was King 
 of France, Maximilian was Emperor, Henry VIII. 
 was King of England. During his life, the crown of 
 France passed from Louis XII. to Francois I., then 
 to Henri II., then to his three sons in succession, 
 Frangois II., Charles IX., and Henri III., and then 
 to Henri IV. In England, Edward VI. succeeded 
 to his father's throne, then Mary, then Elizabeth. 
 The Empire passed from Maximilian to Charles V., 
 and afterward to Philip of Spain. If we would 
 measure Fare's life by English history, he was born 
 three years before the battle of Flodden Field, and 
 died a year and four months after the destruction of 
 the Armada. When Luther burned the Pope's Bull, 
 and Raphael died at Rome, and the Kings of France 
 and England met on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 
 Ambroise was a boy ten years old. At the death of 
 Bayard, fourteen ; at the fall of Wolsey, twenty. 
 When Calais was taken from England he was forty- 
 eight ; and following the fortunes of war, he served 
 against the English in Brittany in 1543, at Boulogne 
 in 1545, and at Havre in 1563: — perhaps the only 
 army surgeon who has twice seen discretion outweigh 
 valour with English soldiers. 
 
6 Ambroise Pare 
 
 But the fighting between France and England was 
 nothing to him in comparison with the wars against 
 Germany, Italy, and Spain. Other nations were 
 involved in them — Switzerland and the Netherlands ; 
 the King of Catholic France made secret advances 
 in 1535 toward the German Protestants, and openly 
 allied himself in 1543 with the Sultan Suleiman; the 
 favour of the Pope was now to the one side, now to 
 the other; Italy was invaded again and again. 
 From 1537 to 1558, the one great enemy against 
 whom he served was the Emperor Charles V., or 
 at the last his son, Philip of Spain, with their Ger- 
 man and Spanish armies, and their Italian and 
 English auxiliary forces; then, at the siege of 
 Rouen in 1562, he first saw civil war, his country 
 divided against herself, Catholic against Huguenot. 
 
 Before he died, the wlieel had come full circle. 
 From Louis XII. to Henri IV., from the battle of 
 Spurs to the battle of Ivry, from Flodden Field to 
 the Armada — whichever way his fourscore years are 
 measured, they were long enough for a whole cycle 
 of changes ; and the great events through which he 
 lived mark alike the length of his days, and the 
 opportune moment of his death. As he grevv^ older, 
 the times got worse. All his life he had been in the 
 midst of wars; but at first France was fighting a 
 foreign enemy, Germany, Spain, or England ; later, 
 
Introduction 
 
 came civil war, the wars of religion, and the massacres 
 of the Huguenots; finally, the long death-struggle 
 between Henri HI. and the Guises, and the siege 
 of Paris by Henri IV. All his life he had been 
 under a despotism ; but the Kings moved on a down- 
 ward grade, with the influence of the Queen-Mother 
 heavy on all three of her sons. All his life, he had 
 a great love of the poor ; but their misery reached 
 its zenith in 1590, when during the siege they died, 
 thousands of them, from starvation. 
 
 If Ambroise Par^ had come to his end three years 
 sooner than he did, he would have gone without 
 hope for France. Between 1587 and 1590, the 
 whole scene changed. In March, 1587, came the 
 news of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots; in 
 August, 1588, the Armada was destroyed; in De- 
 cember of the same year came the murder of the 
 Guises. In January, 1589, the Queen-Mother died; 
 in August the King was assassinated. The battle 
 of Ivry was fought on March 14, 1590, and Paris 
 was besieged by Henri IV. that same summer. 
 And then, at the last, only four months before his 
 death, in the eightieth year of his life, we read in the 
 memoirs of Pierre de L'Estoile the exquisite story 
 how Par^ spoke his mind to the great Archbishop 
 of Lyon, the chief leader of the League, the sworn 
 enemy of the Huguenots. The two men met just 
 
8 Ambroise Pare 
 
 outside Park's house; and at the sight of him, Pare 
 broke down, not with rage, but with the misery of 
 standing in his old age among the dead and dying, 
 face to face with a priest who was furious against 
 peace : — 
 
 " I remember about eight or ten days at most before 
 the siege was raised, Monseigneur the Archbishop, going 
 over the end of the Pont Saint Michel, when he found 
 his way blocked by a crowd of those who were dying of 
 hunger, they cried out to him begging for bread or else 
 for death ; he not knowing what to say to them, Master 
 Ambroise Pare meets him, and says to him in a loud 
 voice, ' Monseigneur, this poor people that you see here 
 round you are dying of the cruel pains of famine, and 
 they ask pity of you. For God's sake. Monsieur, have 
 pity on them, if you want God to have pity on you ; 
 think a little of the high place to which God has called 
 you, and how the cry of these poor men and women goes 
 up to Heaven, and is a warning sent you by God, to re- 
 mind you of the duties of your office, for which you have 
 to answer to Him. Therefore, by that office and by the 
 power that we all know you have, bring about peace for 
 us, and give us a way of living, for the poor can no 
 longer help themselves. Do you not see that all Paris is 
 dying, because of the villains who wish to prevent peace, 
 which is the special work of God ? Set your whole 
 strength against them, Monsieur ; take in hand the 
 cause of this poor afflicted people, and God will bless 
 you and repay you.' ISIonseigneur the Archbishop said 
 nothing, or next to nothing ; only he was patient to 
 hear him out and not interrupt him, which was not his 
 
Introduction 9 
 
 usual way ; and he said afterward the good man had 
 fairly astonished him ; and again, this was not the sort 
 of politics he was wont to hear talked ; and Master Pare 
 had waked him up, and made him think of many things," 
 
 The siege was raised on the 29th of August : Am- 
 broise Pare died before the end of the year: — 
 
 " On Thursday, December the twentieth, the eve of 
 Saint Thomas, at Paris in his own house, died Master 
 Ambroise Pare, the King's surgeon, eighty years old, a 
 learned man, and the chief of all surgeons ; who, even 
 against the times, all his life talked and spoke openly for 
 peace and for the people ; which made him as much 
 beloved by the good as he was begrudged and hated by 
 the wicked." 
 
 He lived into the beginning of better things for 
 France. It was a long life, from Louis XII. to 
 Henri IV., from Maximilian to Philip of Spain, 
 from Henry VIII. to Elizabeth. Among his co- 
 temporaries ^ were Ignatius Loyola and Saint 
 Theresa, Luther and Erasmus, Calvin and Knox, 
 Shakespeare and Rabelais, Raphael and Titian, 
 Paracelsus, Servetus, Sylvius, and Vesalius. He 
 
 * Bernard Palissy, the potter, was born the same year as Ambroise ; 
 and the two old men were together in Paris so late as 1589, Pare in 
 his home, Palissy in the Bastille. In Lent, 1575, Bernard Palissy 
 gave three lectures in Paris, " On Springs, Stones, Metals, and 
 Other Natures." (There is something in the title of these lectures 
 that suggests a likeness between Palissy and Mr. Ruskin.) The price 
 of admission was a crown ; and Pare's name is on the subscribers' list. 
 
lo Ambroise Pare 
 
 followed the wars, off and on, for thirty-two years; 
 he practised in Paris for more than half a century, 
 and was surgeon to four kings ; and even against 
 the times he kept his hands clean, and his heart full 
 of sympathy. He has been called the John Baptist 
 of surgery, in the sense that he prepared the way 
 for surgeons after him ; but it would be hard to find 
 a worse mistake than this. He never dreamed of 
 modern surgery ; he made no final change in the 
 principles of his art, he only cared to practise it. 
 Yet he has a right to the name ; for he stood for the 
 truth at the court of more than one Herod, and ever 
 looked to see the deliverance of his countiy. 
 
 
I. 
 
 BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE. 
 
 1510-1541. 
 
 " Between two worlds, one dead, 
 The other powerless to be born." 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 AMBROISE PAR£ was born in the little village 
 of Bourg-Hersent, close to Laval, in Maine; 
 the village has now become part of Laval. The 
 year of his birth has been much disputed, and many 
 different dates have been given for it ; but nothing 
 has been brought forward to set aside L'Estoile's 
 evidence in favour of the year 15 10. His father, ac- 
 cording to one account, was " coffretier," a maker of 
 wooden chests ; according to another, he was valet- 
 de-chambre and barber to the Seigneur de Laval. 
 Ambroise had a sister, Catherine, who married 
 Gaspard Martin, a master barber-surgeon of Paris: 
 a brother, Jehan, who was a master barber-surgeon 
 in practice at Vitre in Brittany ; and another, also 
 
12 Ambroise Pare 
 
 called Jehan, who followed the father's trade, and 
 was a chest-maker in Paris. 
 
 Of Gaspard Martin, we know that he became 
 Ambroise's patient, and died after amputation of 
 the leg, with the new method of ligature. Long 
 afterward, only five years before Pare died, a pam- 
 phlet was published against him, by one Comperat, 
 of Carcasonne, recalling the death of his brother-in- 
 laAV under his hands. 
 
 The brother at Vitr^ is twice quoted by Ambroise, 
 for his skill in detecting the sham diseases of pro- 
 fessional beggars. His wife's name was Charlotte 
 David ; and he had a son, Bertrand, of whom we 
 shall hear again. He died some time before 1549. 
 
 The brother in Paris lived in the Rue de La 
 Huchette. He married Marie Perier, and after her 
 death Marie de Neufville. There is reason to be- 
 lieve his business did not prosper. He died before 
 1560, leaving a daughter of his second wife. Her 
 name was Jehanne, and of her, too, we shall hear 
 more. 
 
 Of the boyhood of Ambroise Pare at Bourg- 
 Hersent there are told two or three stories, which 
 have no great authority. It is said he went to the 
 village school; afterward his father put him to 
 learn Latin with one M. d'Orsoy, chaplain in the 
 house of a great gentleman near the villagfe. The 
 
PONT NEUF. 
 FROM Martial's "ancien paris.'' 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 13 
 
 chaplain, being ill-paid for this service, set him to 
 weed the garden and look after the mule. Then 
 Laurence Colot came down from Paris to perform 
 an operation on one of the chaplain's friends; Am- 
 broise assisted him, and was fired to try his fortune 
 in Paris. What we know for certain is that he never 
 learned Greek or Latin, and that he was at Angers 
 when he was fifteen years old : — 
 
 " I desire not to arrogate to myself that I have read 
 Galen either in Greek or in Latin ; for it did not please 
 God to be so gracious to my youth that it should be 
 instructed either in the one tongue or in the other." 
 
 (1550)- 
 
 "Anno Domini, 1525, when I was at Angers, I re- 
 member a rogue had cut off the arm of a hanged man, 
 still foul and tainted, which he had attached to his 
 doublet, fixing it with a fork against his side, and hid 
 his own arm behind his back, under his cloak, that all 
 might think the hanged man's arm was his own ; and he 
 kept begging alms at the door of the Temple,* for Saint 
 Anthony's sake. One Good Friday, everyone was giving 
 him alms, seeing the rotten limb, thinking he spoke 
 truth. The rogue having little by little loosed the arm, 
 at last it came away, and fell to the ground ; and he go- 
 ing quick to pick it up, was seen by the people to have 
 two good arms, beside that of the hanged man. Then he 
 was taken and ordered to be whipped, by decision of the 
 
 * The Temple here is the chapel of the Huguenots ; and this 
 chance familiar reference to it has been taken as evidence that 
 Ambroise was brought up as a Huguenot. 
 
14 Ambroise Pare 
 
 magistrate, with the rotten arm hanged round his neck, 
 in front of his stomach : and banished for ever out of the 
 country." (Book xix., ch. 21.) 
 
 Since his brother was in the profession, and his 
 sister had married into it, Ambroise set himself to 
 surgery. Where he served his apprenticeship, who 
 was the master barber-surgeon who taught him, he 
 does not say. There is a tradition that it was a 
 barber-surgeon of Laval, named Vialot ; or he may 
 have gone to his brother at Vitre, or to someone at 
 Angers; and it is possible that he served part at 
 least of his apprenticeship in Paris. By 1533, he 
 was at Paris : but the year of his going there is not 
 known. Long after his death, there was published * 
 in Paris a skit on the treatment of these apprentices 
 by their masters : it throws back some light over 
 these lean years of Park's life: — 
 
 " The cock has scarce done crowing, when the appren- 
 tice must rise to sweep and throw open the shop, lest he 
 lose the least payment that the tricks of the trade may 
 bring him — some early beard to be shaved. From this 
 time on to two o'clock, there are fifty customers ; he 
 must comb the wigs, hang about the parlour or the stair- 
 case selling his stock, put folks' hair in curl papers, cut 
 it, or singe it. Toward evening, if the young man wishes 
 to improve his mind, he will take a book ; but the dul- 
 
 * Le chirurgien mSdecin, 011 Lettre au sujet des chirurgiens qui 
 exercent la m^dectJie. Paris, 1726. Quoted by Malgaigne. 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 15 
 
 ness and weariness of learning, which come of his not 
 being used to it, soon bring him a sound sleep, with 
 interruptions from the doorbell, warning him some rustic 
 wants his hair cut. Never did anyone ask so much of a 
 servant, never in The Islands did a white man seek so 
 greedily to get profit out of a black one, as a master 
 barber-surgeon tries to make gain out of the bread and 
 water he gives his apprentices. If it is not their after- 
 noon out, he will not let them leave the shop, not even 
 to go to Lecture, for fear of losing the worth of some 
 beard which perhaps will not come after all. That is 
 why the professors, out of kindness, give their Lectures 
 to these unhappy young men at four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 These lectures, given in Paris and other University 
 tou'ns to the apprentices of the surgeons and barber- 
 surgeons, were not such as to stand the test of being 
 delivered at four in the morning. There is a good 
 account of them in Malgaigne. They were of course 
 given by physicians, or by University professors, not 
 by surgeons ; " probably the lecturer limited himself 
 to expounding those portions of Guy de Chauliac 
 which treated of wounds, tumours, and ulcers, adding 
 a few general remarks on fractures and dislocations." 
 The honour of the University forbade the professor 
 to speak French, and the apprentices did not under- 
 stand Latin. At Montpellier, a compromise was 
 made: the professor read out his authority in Latin, 
 and then commented on him in a mixed eloquence 
 
1 6 Ambroise Pare 
 
 
 half Latin, half French, We have the lectures given 
 at Lyon by Jehan Falcon in 1520, and published by 
 his widow in 1559. He begins with a careful study 
 of the title of the book he is reading to his audience ; 
 observing that the word title is derived either from 
 the Latin tueri, because it protects the author's 
 work, or from the Greek Titan, which means the 
 sun, and as the sun throws light on the world, so the 
 title throws light on the book. Then, warming to 
 his subject, he goes on to consider (i) To what part 
 of philosophy does surgery belong? (2) What is 
 the order of this book in regard to other books on 
 surgery ? (3) What is the subject chiefly treated in 
 this book? (4) How many causes has this book? 
 
 " I find it has four causes : efficient, formal, final, and 
 material. The efficient cause is twofold ; universal, and 
 particular. The universal cause is God, who is the cause 
 of all things in this world. The particular cause is the 
 doctor Guido (Guy de Chauliac), who was a very excel- 
 lent man in medicine and in surgery, as he teaches you 
 by his book. The material cause of this book is the 
 human body, potent alike for health and for sickness, 
 determined to manual operations, with which difference 
 it is the subject of this book. And here we take 
 material cause for matter, wherewith science is con- 
 cerned." 
 
 These lectures of Jehan Falcon extend over 610 
 pages quarto ; we can only hope that Ambroise 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 17 
 
 served his apprenticeship in some small country- 
 town, far from physicians and professors. 
 
 He was at Paris in 1533, twenty-three years old, 
 and the plague was raging there. The Paris of those 
 days, growing under the hand of Francois I., was a 
 walled city of some 1 50,000 inhabitants. The Louvre, 
 the old Hotel de Ville, and the great church of St. 
 Eustache, were just beginning to be built ; the Hotel 
 Cluny was about thirty years old ; Notre Dame, 
 Saint Germain I'Auxerrois, the Sainte Chapelle, the 
 Hotel Dieu, and the fortress of Le Grand Chatelet, 
 were the great landmarks of the life of the city. 
 There was no bridge across the whole width of the 
 river, only bridges of wood or stone connecting La 
 Cit6 with either bank of the Seine. The number of 
 beggars, thieves, cut-throats, and paupers herded in 
 Paris was frightful ; an estimate of them, made in 
 Pare's lifetime, puts the criminal classes at 6000 or 
 7000, the paupers at 8000 or 9000. And he who 
 would know what the streets were like, and what 
 sights were to be seen in them, must read the de- 
 lightful memoirs of L'Estoile. 
 
 Three things Pare must obtain : board and lodg- 
 ing, plenty of practical work, and the diploma of the 
 Barber-Surgeons. There was given to him, while 
 yet unqualified, that which all students most desire, 
 a resident appointment. He was made *' compagnon 
 
1 8 Ambroise Pare 
 
 chirurgien" at the Hotel Dieu, holding there the 
 office of a House Surgeon or Resident Medical 
 Officer. For three years he lived within the walls of 
 the Hospital ; in one place in his books he says it was 
 four years. Sylvius (Dubois) was one of his teach- 
 ers ; Andreas Vesalius just missed, by a year or two, 
 the happiness of being his friend.* 
 
 The Hotel Dieu was founded by Saint Landry, 
 Bishop of. Paris, about the year 660, and was en- 
 larged in the thirteenth century by Saint Louis. It 
 was served by a brotherhood and sisterhood, vowed 
 to the work, but not attached to any great monastic 
 order. In the time of Saint Louis it had thirty 
 brethren, twenty-five sisters, four priests, and four 
 clerks in holy orders. The chapter of Notre Dame 
 had authority over it, and appointed two of their 
 own number as overseers ; they also chose one of 
 the brethren to be Master of the Hospital. In 
 1327, Charles IV. appointed two of the surgeons of 
 Le Chatelet to visit it. The sisters appear to have 
 done a good deal of the work ; one of them im- 
 
 * Vesalius was born at Brussels, and had been educated at the 
 University of Brussels before he came to Paris to study medicine. 
 He was about three years older than Pare ; they both had Sylvius 
 for their teacher. The story that they were opposed in the wars, 
 Pare with the King's army, Vesalius with the Emperor, is not proba- 
 ble. Pare's first sight of war was in 1537, and in that year Vesalius 
 was already professor of anatomy at Padua. Probably they met 
 over the death-bed of Henri II., in 1559. 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 19 
 
 parted to Ambroise her prescription for an oint- 
 ment, and they attended some of the patients at 
 their own homes: but this good custom was stopped 
 in 1535, at the very time when he was resident at 
 the Hospital. We know there were students at the 
 Hotel Dieu in his time, for in 1505 a Commission 
 of eight citizens of Paris had been appointed to 
 take charge of the temporal service of the Hospi- 
 tal, because of the disorder and neglect of the pa- 
 tients : the reforms ordered by the Commission 
 were opposed by the brethren and sisters, and in 
 1537, at or just after the end of Park's term of 
 office, things came to a crisis and a riot occurred ; 
 certain students took the side of the sisters, and 
 were sent to prison for their pains. (Malgaigne.) 
 
 It is certain that he got plenty of work out of 
 the Hospital. He had the charge of patients, the 
 privilege of making dissections and post-mortem ex- 
 aminations, the chance of teaching the students. 
 In one winter he operated on four cases of loss of 
 the nose from frost-bite ; he saw the terrors of the 
 plague, the whole practice, — out-patient and in- 
 patient, — of the Hospital, He loved the work, and 
 looked back to it with pride. To any present or future 
 House Surgeon who may read this book, I would 
 suggest that Par^ seems to have worked well with 
 everybody in the Hospital, and that his departure 
 
20 Ambroise Pare 
 
 ■^ 
 
 from it was followed by a regular riot of the stu- 
 dents within its walls ; as though he had done good 
 work under a bad set of rules. 
 
 Having left his beloved Hospital, he was not the 
 man to hang about it unemployed, or to put his 
 whole life into a barber-surgeon's shop and wait for 
 work to come. Practice, and plenty of it, he must 
 have at once, and a livelihood ; practice anywhere, 
 and at any cost. Here, then, the river of his life 
 divides into two streams, which flowed side by side 
 for more than thirty years, before they joined again, 
 in Paris in 1569, and ran to the sea. He would live 
 a double life, — with the army In times of war, at 
 Paris in the intervals of peace. He took a foothold 
 in Paris, and went off to the wars with Colonel 
 Montejan. For more than thirty years he stood 
 the strain of this twofold work ; and toward the 
 end of that time it was no longer the Emperor 
 against whom he served, but his own countrymen. 
 
 There was in his time no organised army medical 
 service. The King took with him his own physi- 
 cians, who were priests. The Seigneurs had their 
 own physicians, priests or clerks in holy orders, who 
 also served as chaplains to the army. A host of 
 barber-surgeons, irregular practitioners, and quacks, 
 followed the troops with drugs and ointments ; 
 women skilled to suck and dress wounds went in 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 21 
 
 and out of the camp ; the soldiers had their own 
 rough and ready remedies for gunshot wounds ; 
 Par6 notes one, which was a drink of gunpowder 
 stirred in water. When Saint Louis (i 226-1 270) 
 went on the Crusades he had with him Jehan 
 Pitard, his chief surgeon, and others to work under 
 him ; the Seigneurs brought their own physicians 
 and surgeons, just as they brought their own follow- 
 ing of soldiers. Toward the end of the thirteenth 
 century came the invention of gunpowder: with 
 the use of powder and shot came the belief that 
 gunshot wounds had a special virulence : and the 
 treatment with boiling oil was practised by general 
 consent long after Pare, within forty-eight hours of 
 his first sight of fighting, had discovered the folly 
 of it. 
 
 He had no recognised position in the army, no 
 rank in the camp ; he was paid by the job. He 
 attached himself first to one great man, then to 
 another, till in 1552 he /was made one of the King's 
 surgeons-in-ordinary ./YPigray, one of his pupils, who 
 afterward, on Park's recommendation, was made 
 surgeon to the King, did the same : there was no 
 organisation of this branch of the service. It is 
 true that Francois I., about 1538, sent Park's friend 
 and fellow-worker, Theodoric de H6ry, to the French 
 troops in Italy, but this was a special mission. 
 
22 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Some attempt to organise a medical service for 
 his own army was made by Charles the Bold, Duke 
 of Burgundy, in the time of Louis XI. (1461-1483). 
 He attached a surgeon to each company of eight 
 hundred men ; and of course he and his officers had 
 also their own physicians and surgeons with them : — 
 
 " The Duke himself has four surgeons, for his own 
 person and for those immediately around him ; and cer- 
 tainly they are not the least occupied of his attendants : 
 for the Duke is a Prince of such chivalry and martial ex- 
 ercises, that by wounds of all kinds there are often so 
 many to be dressed, in his own house or elsewhere, that 
 fifty surgeons hard at work would have enough to do for 
 their proper cure. These four surgeons of the Duke 
 take nothing from the poor, nor from the foreign sol- 
 diers in the Duke's pay ; they duly attend him with their 
 drugs and ointments, and have access to his bedchamber 
 at all hours, just like the physicians. . . . He has 
 six physicians ; and these, when he is at table, sit behind 
 the bench, and counsel him with their advice what viands 
 are most profitable to him."* 
 
 When Pare joined the army, he went simply as a 
 follower of Colonel Montejan, having neither rank, 
 recognition, nor regular payment. His fees make 
 up in romance for their irregularity : a cask of wine, 
 fifty double ducats and a horse, a diamond, a collec- 
 tion of crowns and half-crowns from the ranks, other 
 
 * Ollivier de La Marche ; quoted by Malgaigne, from whom the 
 above facts are taken. 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 23 
 
 " honourable presents and of great value " ; from the 
 King himself, three hundred crowns, and a promise 
 he would never let him be in want ; another dia- 
 mond, this time from the finger of a duchess : and 
 a soldier once offered a bag of gold to him. 
 
 He qualified as a master barber-surgeon in 154I)* 
 being at that time thirty-one years old. The corpo- 
 ration of barber-surgeons was a body of some an- 
 tiquity ; they are mentioned so far back as the year 
 1301, and new rules were made for them in 1371. 
 The King's chief barber was their head ; the church 
 of Saint Sepulchre, in the rue Saint-Denis, was their 
 centre ; Saint Cosmo and Saint Damien were their 
 patron saints. In 1572, they prescribed a four years' 
 course of study to their apprentices ; the examina- 
 tion-fees were a crown to each examiner ; and to 
 obtain the title of Master it was necessary to pay a 
 further fee to the Faculty of Medicine, to undertake 
 the dissections in the schools, and to take an oath, 
 renewed every Saint Luke's Day. They were jeal- 
 ously restricted in the amount of surgery they might 
 practise ; fighting their way up into the territory of 
 the surgeons, just as the surgeons were fighting 
 against the supremacy of the physicians. 
 
 There were two examinations, a year apart : and 
 Ambroise and his friend Th^odoric de H6ry got 
 ♦Trevedy is wrong in giving " about 1536" as the date. 
 
24 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 through them side by side. Here is the entry of 
 payment of their fees for the Mastership * : 
 
 A Razoribus de novo examinatis : 
 
 A duobus rasoribus qui anno praeterito examinati 
 fuerant, videlicet, ab 
 
 \ Ambrosio Parre 72 sols 6 deniers parisis. 
 
 I Theodorico de Heri 72 sols 6 deniers parisis. 
 
 Or it may be that Par6 and de Hery were exam- 
 ined a second time because things did not go well 
 with them on the first occasion. 
 
 Time has spared and Malgaigne has given to us 
 the record of a batch of candidates who passed their 
 examination about this time. There were fifteen of 
 them ; we are not told of those who failed to satisfy 
 the examiners of this Conjoint Board. We shall hear 
 of Dr. Flesselles again. 
 
 " Nous Philippes Flesselles, docteur regent en la Faculte 
 de medecine, et medecin jure du roy nostre sire audit 
 Chastelet de Paris, et Jean Maillard, docteur regent en 
 ladite Faculte, substitut en 1' absence dudit de Flesselles, 
 et Pascal Bazin, chirurgien jure du roy nostre sire audit 
 Chastelet, et Sebastien Danisy, prevost desdits chirurgiens 
 a Paris, et Frangois Bourlon, chirurgiens jures a Paris ; 
 et ledit Bourlon commis par Guillaume Roger, chirurgien 
 jure du roy nostre sire audit Chastelet, parceque ledit 
 Roger estoit detenu au lict malade d' une fi6vre tierce : 
 
 * From Le Paulmier's most admirable work Ambroise ParS d'aprls 
 de Nouveaux Douiments. Paris: Charavay Freres, 1884. 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 25 
 
 Certifions qu' en vertu de certaine' ordonnance donnee 
 en la chambre de la police, dat^e du sixiesme jour 
 d'aoList, et signee Valet, nous avons precede a 1' audition, 
 examen, et experience des dessous nommes sur le fait de 
 la cognition et curation des clouds, bosses, antrax, et 
 charbons, tant sur les differences d' iceux que sur les 
 phlebotomies et saignees, diversions qui en tels cas con- 
 vient et se devoient faire et aussi pour la parfaite curation 
 d' icelles : et tout veu et considere, les responces des 
 dessous nommes, tant en Theorique que Pratique, les 
 disons estre idoines et suffisans pour guerir lesdits clouds, 
 antrax, bosses, et charbons : le tout certifions estre vray : 
 tesmoins nos seings manuels icy mis le vingt sixiesme 
 jour du mois d' aoust 1' an mil cinq cens quarante cinq." 
 
 Then follow the names of the successful candidates. 
 
 Here, with his admission to the Barber-Surgeons, 
 ends the first chapter of Ambroise Fare's life. Next 
 come the Journeys in Diverse Places, written in 
 Paris, long after the events, and published in 1585, 
 in the fourth edition of his collected works, when 
 he was midway between the threescore years and 
 ten and the fourscore years. 
 
 He wrote them in answer to an attack made upon 
 him in 1580 by Etienne Gourmelen, Dean of the 
 Faculty of Medicine. This Gourmelen published in 
 1580 a book on surgery, in which he asserted that 
 Park's use of the ligature after an amputation was 
 vastly inferior to the old estabhshed use of the cau- 
 tery. The book was an idiotic appeal to authority 
 
26 Ambroise Pare 
 
 and tradition ; the very thing that Paracelsus would 
 have loved to burn. But it has an everlasting merit, 
 inasmuch as it drew from Pare his Apologie et Traicte 
 conte7ia7it les Voyages faicts en divers Lieiilx : par 
 A mbroise Pari, de Laval, Conseiller et Premier Chirur- 
 gien dii Roy. 
 
 He begins with a furious rejoinder to his adversary. 
 Gourmelen had appealed to authority ; Pare takes 
 him to authority, and shows him that the use of the 
 ligature is no new thing. Then comes a long list of 
 cases where he had used it with success after amputa- 
 tion. Finally, the appeal to experience. The whole 
 argument runs thus : (i) It is nothing new to stop a 
 vessel, bleeding in a wound, with the ligature. (2) I 
 am the first surgeon who has ever used the ligature 
 to stop the bleeding of the wounds made by ampu- 
 tations. (3) I have had good results by this method. 
 (4) ]\Iy discovery was made not by sitting in a chair 
 and thinking, but by years of hard practical work in 
 Paris and with the army. 
 
 From the whole of his life, he takes that great 
 part of it which was spent with the army, and leaves 
 his practice in Paris out of the question. Once 
 started on the story of the wars, he tells it to the 
 end, to a time many years later than the great dis- 
 covery ; not from vanity, but from love of good 
 stories, and vehement determination to force on 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 27 
 
 Gourmelen the unwelcome fact that his hfe, in com- 
 parison with Park's, has been a failure : theory against 
 fact, books against patients, talk against work. 
 
 " Moreover, you say you will teach me my lesson in 
 the operations of Surgery : which I think you cannot do : 
 for I did not learn them in my study, or by hearing for 
 many years the lectures of Physicians : but I was Resi- 
 dent three years in the Hospital of Paris, where I was 
 able to see and learn much of the works of Surgery upon 
 an infinity of sick folk, with Anatomy on a quantity of 
 dead bodies : as I have often given good proof in public 
 at the Schools of Medicine in Paris. And my good luck 
 has made me see much more than this. For being 
 called to the service of the Kings of France (four of 
 whom I have served) I have been in company at Battles, 
 Skirmishes, Assaults, and Besiegings of Towns and Fort- 
 resses : as also I have been shut up in Towns with the 
 Besieged, having charge to dress the Wounded. Also, I 
 have dwelt many years in this great and famous City of 
 Paris, where thanks be to God I have always lived in 
 very good reputation with all men, and have not held 
 the lowest rank among those of my Estate ; seeing there 
 has not been found a cure, were it never so great and 
 difficult, that my hand and judgment have not been re- 
 quired. Now will you dare to say you will teach me to 
 perform the works of Surgery, you who have never yet 
 come out of your study ?• . . . I believe you have 
 never come out of your study, save to teach Theorick (if 
 you have been able to do even that). But the operations 
 of Surgery are learned by the eye, and by the hand. 
 
 " Let me say you are like a young lad, of Low Brittany, 
 who asked leave of his father to come to Paris. When he 
 
28 Ambroise Pare 
 
 had come, the Organist of the Church of Our Lady found 
 him at the Palace gate : who took him to blow the or- 
 gans, and there he was three years. He sees he can 
 speak a little French, and goes home to his father, and 
 tells him he speaks good French, and moreover knows 
 how to play well on the organs : his father received him 
 very joyfully, that he was so clever in a short time. He 
 went to the Organist of their great church there, and 
 prayed him to let his son play on the organs, so that 
 he might know whether he were a skilful master as he 
 said : which the Master Organist granted willingly. 
 Being entered into the organs, he cast himself with a 
 great leap at the Bellows : the Master Organist bids him 
 play, and he himself would blow the Bellows. Then the 
 young man tells him, / knoiv nothing else but only how to 
 play 071 the Bellows. You too, ?non petit Maistre, I think 
 you know nothing else but how to chatter in a Chair • 
 but as for me, I will play upon the keys, and make the 
 organs sound. 
 
 " See now, inon petit Maistre, my answer to your Calum- 
 nies : and I pray you, if you have a good mind to the 
 Publick, to review and correct your Book so soon as you 
 can, not to keep young Surgeons in error by reading 
 therein, where you teach them to use hot Irons after the 
 amputation of Limbs to staunch the Blood, seeing there is 
 another way not so cruel, and more sure and easy. 
 Moreover if to-day after some Assault on a City, where 
 diverse Soldiers have had legs and arms broken and 
 carried off by Cannon-shots, or Cutlasses or other Instru- 
 ments of War, if you should use hot Irons to stay the flow 
 of Blood, you would need a Furnace, and much charcoal 
 to heat them : and the Soldiers would have you in such 
 horror for your cruelty, they would kill you like a 
 Calf. . . ." 
 
Boyhood and Early Life 
 
 29 
 
 The rest of the answer to Gourmelen is no less 
 emphatic, showing the wonderful vigour and spirit 
 of Ambroise Fare's old age. He appeals, once and 
 forever, from tradition to experience ; he will show 
 this " petit maistre," this ass, what it really means, to 
 be a surgeon. 
 
 Room then for Pare himself : hear him tell in his 
 own last words the wonderful romance of his thirty 
 years' service in the army : surely one of the most 
 delightful set of stories in the world. I put such 
 notes as may be useful well out of the way, that 
 nothing may interrupt him. 
 
II. 
 
 ''JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES." 
 
 1537-1569- 
 
 A Soldier. " We know enough, if we know we are the King's 
 subjects : if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the 
 crime of it out of us." 
 
 King Henry. "Every subject's duty is the King's — but every 
 subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars 
 do as every sick man in his bed — wash every mote out of his con- 
 science." 
 
 Shakespeare, King Henry V. 
 
 The Journey to Turin. 1537. 
 
 I WILL here shew my readers the towns and places 
 where I found a way to learn the art of surgery: 
 for the better instruction of the young surgeon. 
 
 And first, in the year 1536, the great King Francis 
 sent a large army to Turin, to recover the towns and 
 castles that had been taken by the Marquis du Guast, 
 Lieutenant-General of the Emperor. M. the Con- 
 stable, then Grand Master, was Lieutenant-General 
 of the army, and M. de Montejan was Colonel-Gen- 
 eral of the infantry, whose surgeon I was at this 
 
 30 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 31 
 
 time. A great part of the army being come to the 
 Pass of Suze, we found the enemy occupying it ; and 
 they had made forts and trenches, so that we had to 
 fight to dislodge them and drive them out. And 
 there were many killed and wounded on both sides, — 
 but the enemy were forced to give way and retreat 
 into the castle, which was captured, part of it, by 
 Captain Le Rat, who was posted on a little hill with 
 some of his soldiers, whence they fired straight on the 
 enemy. He received an arquebus-shot in his right 
 ankle, and fell to ground at once, and then said, 
 " Now they have got the Rat." I dressed him, and 
 God healed him. 
 
 We entered pell-mell into the city, and passed 
 over the dead bodies, and some not yet dead, hear- 
 ing them cry under our horses' feet ; and they made 
 my heart ache to hear them. And truly I repented 
 I had left Paris to see such a pitiful spectacle. Being 
 come into the city, I entered into a stable, thinking 
 to lodge my own and my man's horse, and found 
 four dead soldiers, and three propped against the 
 wall, their features all changed, and they neither 
 saw, heard, nor spake, and their clothes were still 
 smouldering where the gunpowder had burned them. 
 As I was looking at them with pity, there came an 
 old soldier who asked me if there were any way to 
 cure them. I said no. And then he went up to them 
 
32 Ambrolse Par^ 
 
 and cut their throats, gently, and without ill will to- 
 ward them. Seeing this great cruelty, I told him he 
 was a villain : he answered he prayed God, when he 
 should be in such a plight, he might find someone to 
 do the same for him, that he should not linger in 
 misery. 
 
 To come back to my story, the enemy were called 
 on to surrender, which they did, and left the city 
 with only their lives saved, and the white stick in 
 their hands ; and most of them went off to the 
 Chateau de Villane, where about two hundred Span- 
 iards were stationed. M. the Constable would not 
 leave these behind him, wishing to clear the road 
 for our own men. The castle is seated on a small 
 hill ; which gave great confidence to those within, 
 that we could not bring our artillery to bear upon 
 them. They were summoned to surrender, or they 
 v/ould be cut in pieces : they answered that they 
 would not, saying they were as good and faithful 
 servants of the Emperor, as M. the Constable could 
 be of the King his master.* Thereupon our men by 
 night hoisted up two great cannons, with the help of 
 the Swiss soldiers and the lansquenets ; but as ill 
 luck would have it, when the cannons were in 
 position, a gunner stupidly set fire to a bag full of 
 gunpowder, whereby he was burned, with ten or 
 * Brave response de soldats. — A. P. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 
 
 twelve soldiers ; and the flame of the powder dis- 
 covered our artillery, so that all night long those 
 within the castle fired their arquebuses at the place 
 where they had caught sight of the cannons, and 
 many of our men were killed and wounded. Next 
 day, early in the morning, the attack was begun, and 
 we soon made a breach in their wall. Then they de- 
 manded a parley : but it was too late, for meanwhile 
 our French infantry, seeing them taken by surprise, 
 mounted the breach, and cut them all in pieces, save 
 one very fair young girl of Piedmont, whom a great 
 seigneur would have. . . . The captain and the 
 ensign were taken alive, but soon afterward hanged 
 and strangled on the battlements of the gate of the 
 city, to give example and fear to the Emperor's sol- 
 diers, not to be so rash and mad as to wish to hold 
 such places against so great an army. * 
 
 The soldiers within the castle, seeing our men 
 come on them with great fury, did all they could to 
 defend themselves, and killed and wounded many of 
 our soldiers with pikes, arquebuses, and stones, 
 whereby the surgeons had all their work cut out for 
 them. Now I was at this time a fresh-water soldier ; 
 I had not yet seen v/ounds made by gunshot at the 
 first dressing. It is true I had read in John de Vigo, 
 first book, Of Wounds in General, eighth chapter, 
 
 *Punition exemplaire. — A. P, 
 
34 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 that wounds made by firearms partake of venenosity, 
 by reason of the powder ; and for their cure he bids 
 you cauterise them with oil of elders scalding hot, 
 mixed with a little treacle. And to make no mis- 
 take, before I would use the said oil, knowing this 
 was to bring great pain to the patient, I asked first 
 before I applied it, what the other surgeons did for 
 the first dressing ; which was to put the said oil, 
 boiling well, into the wounds, with tents and setons ; 
 wherefore I took courage to do as they did. * At 
 last my oil ran short, and I was forced instead thereof 
 to apply a digestive made of the yolks of eggs, oil of 
 roses, and turpentine. In the night I could not sleep 
 in quiet, fearing some default in not cauterising, that 
 I should find the wounded to whom I had not used 
 the said oil dead from the poison of their wounds ; 
 which made me rise very early to visit them, where 
 beyond my expectation I found that those to whom 
 I had applied my digestive medicament had but 
 little pain, and their wounds without inflammation 
 or swelling, having rested fairly well that night ; the 
 others, to whom the boiling oil was used, I found 
 feverish, with great pain and swelling about the 
 edges of their wounds. Then I resolved never more 
 to burn thus cruelly poor men with gunshot wounds. 
 While I was at Turin, I found a surgeon famed 
 ♦Experience rend I'homine hardy. — A. P. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 35 
 
 above all others for his treatment of gunshot wounds ; 
 into whose favour I found means to insinuate my- 
 self, to have the recipe of his balm, as he called it, 
 wherewith he dressed gunshot wounds. And he 
 made me pay my court to him for two years, before 
 I could possibly draw the recipe from him. In the 
 end, thanks to my gifts and presents, he gave it to 
 me ; which was to boil, in oil of lilies, young whelps 
 just born, and earth-worms prepared with Venetian 
 turpentine. Then I was joyful, and my heart made 
 glad, that I had understood his remedy, which was 
 like that which I had obtained by chance. 
 
 See how I learned to treat gunshot wounds ; not 
 by books. 
 
 My Lord Marshal Montejan remained Lieutenant- 
 General for the King in Piedmont, having ten or 
 twelve thousand men in garrison in the different 
 cities and castles, who were often fighting among 
 themselves with swords and other weapons, even 
 with arquebuses. And if there were four wounded, I 
 always had three of them ; and if there were ques- 
 tion of cutting off an arm or a leg, or of trepanning, 
 or of reducing a fracture or a dislocation, I accom- 
 plished it all. The Lord Marshal sent me now here 
 now there to dress the soldiers committed to me who 
 were wounded in other cities beside Turin, so that I 
 was always in the country, one way or the other. 
 
36 Ambroise Pare 
 
 M. the Marshal sent to Milan, to a physician 
 of no less reputation than the late M. le Grand 
 for his success in practice, to treat him for an hepa- 
 tic flux, whereof in the end he died. This physi- 
 cian was some while at Turin to treat him, and 
 was often called to visit the wounded, where always 
 he found me ; and I was used to consult with him, 
 and with some other surgeons ; and when we had 
 resolved to do any serious work of surgery, it was 
 Ambroise Pare that put his hand thereto, which I 
 would do promptly and skilfully, and with great 
 assurance, insomuch that the physician wondered at 
 me, to be so ready in the operations of surgery, and 
 I so young. One day, discoursing with the Lord 
 Marshal, he said to him * : 
 
 " Signor, tu hai un Chirurgico giovane di anni, ma 
 egli e vecchio di sapere e di esperientia : Guardato 
 bene, perche egli ti fara servicio et honore." That is 
 to say, " Thou hast a surgeon young in age, but he is 
 old in knowledge and experience : take good care of 
 him, for he will do thee service and honour." But 
 the good man did not know I had lived three years 
 at the Hotel Dieu in Paris, with the patients there. 
 
 In the end, M. the Marshal died of his hepatic 
 flux. He being dead, the King sent M. the Marshal 
 dAnnebaut to be in his place: who did me the 
 
 * Tesmoignage de la dexterite de 1' Autheur. — A. P. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 37 
 
 honour to ask me to live with him, and he would 
 treat me as well or better than M. the Marshal de 
 Montejan. Which I would not do, for grief at the 
 loss of my master, who loved me dearly ; so I re- 
 turned to Paris. 
 
 The Journey to Marolle and Low Brittany. 
 
 1543- 
 
 I went to the Camp of Marolle, with the late M. 
 de Rohan, as surgeon of his company ; where was 
 the King himself. M. d'Estampes, Governor of 
 Brittany, had told the King how the English had 
 hoist sail to land in Low Brittany ; and had prayed 
 him to send, to help him, MM. de Rohan and de 
 Laval, because they were the seigneurs of that 
 country, and by their help the country people would 
 beat back the enemy, and keep them from landing. 
 Having heard this, the King sent these seigneurs to 
 go in haste to the help of their country ; and to each 
 was given as much power as to the Governor, so that 
 they were all three the King's Lieutenants. They 
 willingly took this charge upon them, and went off 
 posting with good speed, and took me with them as 
 far as Landreneau. There we found every one in 
 arms, the tocsin sounding on every side, for a good 
 five or six leagues round the harbours, Brest, Cou- 
 quet, Crozon, le Fou, Doulac, Laudanec ; each well 
 
38 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 furnished with artillery, as cannons, demi-cannons, 
 culverins, muskets, falcons, arquebuses ; in brief, all 
 who came together were well equipped with all sorts 
 and kinds of artillery, and with many soldiers, both 
 Breton and French, to hinder the English from 
 landing as they had resolved at their parting from 
 England. 
 
 The enemy's army came right under our cannons : 
 and when we perceived them desiring to land, we 
 saluted them with cannon-shot, and unmasked our 
 forces and our artillery. They fled to sea again. 
 I was right glad to see their ships set sail, which 
 were in good number and good order, and seemed 
 to be a forest moving upon the sea. I saw a thing 
 also whereat I marvelled much, which was, that the 
 balls of the great cannons made long rebounds, and 
 grazed over the water as they do over the earth. 
 Now to make the matter short, our English did us 
 no harm, and returned safe and sound into England. 
 And they leaving us in peace, we stayed in that 
 country in garrison until we were assured that their 
 army was dispersed. 
 
 Now our soldiers used often to exercise them- 
 selves with running at the ring, or with fencing, so 
 that there was always some one in trouble, and I had 
 always something to employ me. M. d'Estampes, to 
 make pastime and pleasure for the Seigneurs de 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 39 
 
 Rohan and de Laval, and other gentlemen, got a 
 number of village girls to come to the sports, to sing 
 songs in the tongue of Low Brittany : wherein their 
 harmony was like the croaking of frogs when they 
 are in love. Moreover, he made them dance the 
 Brittany triori, without moving feet or hips : he made 
 the gentlemen see and hear many good things. 
 
 At other times they made the wrestlers of the 
 towns and villages come, where there was a prize 
 for the best : and the sport was not ended but that 
 one or other had a leg or arm broken, or the shoulder 
 or hip dislocated. 
 
 There was a little man of Low Brittany, of a square 
 body and well set, who long held the credit of the 
 field, and by his skill and strength threw five or six 
 to the ground. There came against him a big man, 
 one Dativo, a pedagogue, who was said to be one of 
 the best wrestlers in all Brittany : he entered into 
 the lists, having thrown off his long jacket, in hose and 
 doublet : when he was near the little man, it looked 
 as though the little man had been tied to his girdle. 
 Nevertheless, when they gripped each other round 
 the neck, they were a long time without doing any- 
 thing, and we thought they would remain equal in 
 force and skill : but the little man suddenly leaped 
 beneath this big Dativo, and took him on his shoul- 
 der, and threw him to earth on his back all 
 
40 Ambrolse Fare 
 
 spread out like a frog ; and all the company 
 laughed at the skill and strength of the little fellow. 
 The great Dativo was furious to have been thus 
 thrown to earth by so small a man: he rose again 
 in a rage, and would have his revenge. They took 
 hold again round the neck, and were again a good 
 while at their hold without falling to the ground : but 
 at last the big man let himself fall upon the little, 
 and in falling put his elbow upon the pit of his 
 stomach, and burst his heart, and killed him stark 
 dead. And knowing he had given him his death's 
 blow, took again his long cassock, and went away 
 with his tail between his legs, and eclipsed himself. 
 Seeing the little man came not again to himself, 
 either for wine, vinegar, or any other thing presented 
 to him, I drew near to him and felt his pulse, which 
 did not beat at all : then I said he was dead. Then 
 the Bretons, who were assisting at the wrestling, said 
 aloud in their jargon, " Andraze meuraquet enes rac 
 un bloa so abeuduex henelep e barz an gouremon 
 enel ma hoa engoustun." That is to say, " This is 
 not in the sport." And someone said that this great 
 Dativo was accustomed to do so, and but a year past 
 he had done the same at a wrestling. I must needs 
 open the body to know the cause of this sudden 
 death. I found much blood in the thorax . . . 
 I tried to find some internal opening whence it might 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 41 
 
 have come, which I could not, for all the diligence 
 that I could use. * . . , The poor little wrestler 
 was buried. I took leave of MM. de Rohan, de 
 Laval, and d'Estampes. M. de Rohan made me a 
 present of fifty double ducats and a horse, M. de 
 Laval gave me a nag for my man, and M. d'Estampes 
 gave me a diamond worth thirty crowns : and I 
 returned to my house in Paris. 
 
 The Journey to Perpignan. 1543. 
 
 Some while after, M. de Rohan took me with him 
 posting to the camp at Perpignan. While we were 
 there, the enemy sallied out, and surrounded three 
 pieces of our artillery before they were beaten back 
 to the gates of the city. Which was not done with- 
 out many killed and wounded, among the others M. 
 de Brissac, who was then grand master of the artil- 
 lery, with an arquebus-shot in the shoulder. When 
 he retired to his tent, all the wounded followed him, 
 hoping to be dressed by the surgeons who were to 
 dress him. Being come to his tent and laid on his 
 bed, the bullet was searched for by three or four 
 of the best surgeons in the army, who could not 
 find it, but said it had entered into his body. 
 
 At last he called for me, to see if I could be 
 
 * J'eusse bien voulu, mon petit maistre, vous voir pour s9avoir 
 trouver I'ouverture. — A. P. 
 
42 Ambroise Pare 
 
 more skilful than they, because he had known me in 
 Piedmont. Then I made him rise from his bed, and 
 told him to put himself in the same posture that he 
 had when he was wounded,* which he did, taking a 
 javelin in his hand just as he had held his pike to 
 fight. I put my hand around the wound, and found 
 the bullet. . . . Having found it, I showed them 
 the place where it was, and it was taken out by M. 
 Nicole Lavernot, surgeon of M. the Dauphin, who 
 was the King's Lieutenant in that army ; all the same, 
 the honour of finding it belonged to me. 
 
 I saw one very strange thing, which was this : a 
 soldier in my presence gave one of his fellows a blow 
 on the head with a halbard, penetrating to the left 
 ventricle of the brain ; yet the man did not fall to 
 the ground. He that struck him said he heard that 
 he had cheated at dice, and he had drawn a large sum 
 of money from him, and was accustomed to cheat. 
 They called me to dress him ; which I did, as it were 
 for the last time, knowing that he would die soon. 
 When I had dressed him, he returned all alone to his 
 quarters, which were at the least two hundred paces 
 away. I bade one of his companions send for a priest 
 to dispose the affairs of his soul ; he got one for him, 
 who stayed with him to his last breath. The next day, 
 the patient sent for me by his girl, dressed in boy's 
 * Addresse de rAutheur. — A. P. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 43 
 
 apparel, to come and dress him ; which I v/ould not, 
 fearing he would die under my hands ; and to be rid 
 of the matter I told her the dressing must not be re- 
 moved before the third day. But in truth he was sure 
 to die, though he were never touched again. The third 
 day, he came staggering to find me in my tent, and 
 the girl ^vith him, and prayed me most affectionately 
 to dress him, and showed me a purse wherein might 
 be an hundred or sixscore pieces of gold, and said 
 he would give me my heart's desire ; nevertheless, 
 for all that, I put off the removal of the dressing, 
 fearing lest he should die then and there. Certain 
 gentlemen desired me to go and dress him ; which I 
 did at their request ; but in dressing him he died 
 under my hands in a convulsion. The priest stayed 
 with him till death, and seized his purse, for fear an- 
 other man should take it, saying he would say masses 
 for his poor soul, x^lso he took his clothes, and 
 even,'thing else. 
 
 I have told this case for the wonder of it, that the 
 soldier, having received this great blow, did not fall 
 down, and kept his reason to the end. 
 
 Not long afterward, the camp was broken up from 
 diverse causes : one, because we were told that four 
 companies of Spaniards were entered into Perpignan : 
 the other, that the plague was spreading through the 
 camp. ^Moreover, the country folk warned us there 
 
44 Ambroise Pare 
 
 would soon be a great overflowing of the sea, which 
 might drown us all. And the presage which they 
 had, was a very great wind from sea, which rose so 
 high that there remained not a single tent but was 
 broken and thrown down, for all the care and dili- 
 gence we could give ; and the kitchens being all un- 
 covered, the wind raised the dust and sand, which 
 salted and powdered our meats in such fashion that 
 we could not eat them ; and we had to cook them in 
 pots and other covered vessels. Nor was the camp 
 so quickly moved but that many carts and carters, 
 mules and mule drivers, were drowned in the sea, 
 with great loss of baggage. 
 
 When the camp was moved I returned to Paris. 
 
 The Journey to Landresy. 1544. 
 
 The King raised a great army to victual Landresy. 
 Against him the Emperor had no fewer men, but 
 many more, to wit, eighteen thousand Germans, ten 
 thousand Spaniards, six thousand Walloons, ten thou- 
 sand English, and from thirteen to fourteen thou- 
 sand horse. I saw the two armies near each other, 
 within cannon-shot ; and we thought they could not 
 withdraw without giving battle. There were some 
 foolish gentlemen who must needs approach the ene- 
 my's camp ; the enemy fired on them with light field 
 pieces; some died then and there, others had their 
 
" Journeys In Diverse Places " 45 
 
 arms or legs carried away. The King having done 
 what he wished, which was to victual Landresy, with- 
 drew his army to Guise, which was the day after All 
 Saints, 1544; and from there I returned to Paris. 
 
 The Journey to Boulogne. 1545. 
 
 A little while after, we went to Boulogne ; where 
 the EngHsh, seeing our army, left the forts which 
 they were holding, Moulambert, le petit Paradis, 
 Monplaisir, the fort of Chastillon, le Portet, the fort 
 of Dardelot. One day, as I was going through the 
 camp to dress my wounded men, the enemy who 
 were in the Tour d' Ordre fired a cannon against us, 
 thinking to kill two men-at-arms who had stopped to 
 talk together. It happened that the ball passed 
 quite close to one of them, which threw him to the 
 ground, and it was thought the ball had touched 
 him, which it did not ; but only the wind of the ball 
 full against his corselet, with such force that all the 
 outer part of his thigh became livid and black, and 
 he could hardly stand. I dressed him, and made 
 diverse scarifications to let out the bruised blood 
 made by the wind of the ball ; and by the rebounds 
 that it made on the ground it killed four soldiers, 
 who remained dead where they fell. 
 
 I was not far from this shot, so that I could just 
 feel the moved air, without its doing me any harm 
 
46 Ambroise Pare 
 
 save a fright, which made me duck my head low 
 enough ; but the bail was already far away. The 
 soldiers laughed at me, to be afraid of a ball which 
 had already passed. Moji petit fnaistre, I think if 
 you had been there, I should not have been afraid 
 all alone, and you would have had your share of it. 
 Monseigneur the Due de Guise, Frangois de Lor- 
 raine, was wounded before Boulogne with a thrust 
 of a lance, which entered above the right eye, toward 
 the nose, and passed out on the other side between 
 the ear and the back of the neck, with so great vio- 
 lence that the head of the lance, with a piece of the 
 wood, was broken and remained fast ; so that it 
 could not be drawn out save with extreme force, 
 with smith's pincers. Yet notwithstanding the 
 great violence of the blow, which was not without 
 fracture of bones, nerves, veins, and arteries, and 
 other parts torn and broken, my lord, by the grace 
 of God, was healed. He was used to go into battle 
 always with his vizard raised : that is why the lance 
 passed right out on the other side. 
 
 The Journey to Germany. 1552. 
 
 I went to Germany, in the year 1552, with M. de 
 Rohan, captain of fifty men-at-arms, where I was 
 surgeon of his company, as I have said before. On 
 this expedition, M. the Constable was general of the 
 
** Journeys in Diverse Places" 47 
 
 army ; M. de Chastillon, afterward the Admiral, was 
 chief colonel of the infantry, with four regiments of 
 lansquenets under Captains Recrod and Ringrave, 
 two under each ; and every regiment was of ten en- 
 signs, and every ensign of five hundred men. And 
 beside these were Captain Chartel, who led the 
 troops that the Protestant princes had sent to the 
 King (this infantry was very fine, and was accom- 
 panied by fifteen hundred men-at-arms, with a fol- 
 lowing of two archers apiece, which would make four 
 thousand five hundred horse) ; and two thousand 
 light horse, and as many mounted arquebusiers, 
 of whom M. d'Aumalle was general ; and a great 
 number of the nobility, who were come there for 
 their pleasure. Moreover, the King was accom- 
 panied by two hundred gentlemen of his household, 
 under the command of the Seigneurs de Boisy and 
 de Canappe, and by many other princes. For his 
 following, to escort him, there were the French and 
 Scotch and Swiss guards, amounting to six hundred 
 foot soldiers; and the companies of MM. the Dauphin, 
 de Guise, d'Aumalle, and Marshal Saint Andre, 
 amounting to four hundred lances ; which was a 
 marvellous thing, to see such a multitude ; and with 
 this equipage the King entered into Toul and Metz. 
 I must not omit to say that the companies of MM. 
 de Rohan, the Comte de Sancerre, and de Jarnac, 
 
48 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 which were each of them of fifty horse, went upon 
 the wings of the camp. And God knows how scarce 
 we were of victuals, and I protest before Him that 
 at three diverse times I thought to die of hunger ; 
 and it was not for want of money, for I had enough 
 of it ; but we could not get victuals save by force, 
 because the country people collected them all into 
 the towns and castles. 
 
 One of the servants of the captain-ensign of the 
 company of M. de Rohan went with others to enter 
 a church where the peasants were retreated, think- 
 ing to get victuals by love or by force ; but he 
 got the worst of it, as they all did, and came back 
 with seven sword-wounds on the head, the least 
 of which penetrated to the inner table of the skull ; 
 and he had four other wounds upon the arms, and 
 one on the right shoulder, which cut more than half 
 of the blade-bone. He was brought back to his 
 master's lodging, who seeing him so mutilated, and 
 not hoping he could be cured, made him a grave, 
 and would have cast him therein, saying that else 
 the peasants would massacre and kill him. I in pity* 
 told him the man might still be cured if he were 
 well dressed. Diverse gentlemen of the company 
 prayed he would take him along with the baggage, 
 since I was willing to dress him ; to which he agreed, 
 * Charite de I'Autheur.— A. P 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 49 
 
 and after I had got the man ready, he was put in a 
 cart, on a bed well covered and well arranged, drawn 
 by a horse. I did him the office of physician, 
 apothecary, surgeon, and cook. I dressed him to 
 the end of his case, and God healed him ; insomuch 
 that all the three companies marvelled at this cure. 
 The men-at-arms of the company of M. de Rohan, 
 the first muster that was made, gave me each a 
 crown, and the archers half a crown. 
 
 The Journey to Danvilliers. 1552. 
 
 On his return from the expedition against the 
 German camp. King Henry besieged Danvilliers, 
 and those within would not surrender. They got 
 the worst of it, but our powder failed us ; so they 
 had a good shot at our men. There was a cul- 
 verin-shot passed through the tent of M. de Rohan, 
 which hit a gentleman's leg who was of his house- 
 hold. I had to finish the cutting off of it, which I 
 did without applying the hot irons. 
 
 The King sent for powder to Sedan, and when it 
 
 came we began the attack more vigorously than 
 
 before, so that a breach was made. MM. de Guise 
 
 and the Constable, being in the King's chamber, told 
 
 him, and they agreed that next day they would 
 
 assault the town, and were confident they would enter 
 
 into it ; and it must be kept secret, for fear the enemy 
 4 
 
50 Ambroise Pare 
 
 should come to hear of it ; and each promised not to 
 speak of it to any man. Now there was a groom 
 of the King's chamber, who being laid under the 
 King's camp-bed to sleep, heard they were resolved 
 to attack the town next day. So he told the 
 secret to a certain captain, saying that they would 
 make the attack next day for certain, and he 
 had heard it from the King, and prayed the said 
 captain to speak of it to no man, which he prom- 
 ised ; but his promise did not hold, and forthwith 
 he disclosed it to a captain, and this captain to a 
 captain, and the captains to some of the soldiers, 
 saying always, " Say nothing." And it was just so 
 much hid, that next day early in the morning there 
 was seen the greater part of the soldiers with their 
 boots and breeches cut loose at the knee for the 
 better mounting of the breach. The King was told 
 of this rumour that ran through the camp, that the 
 attack was to be made ; whereat he was astonished, 
 seeing there were but three in that advice, who 
 had promised each other to tell it to no man. The 
 King sent for M. de Guise, to know if he had spoken 
 of this attack ; he swore and afifirmed to him he had 
 not told it to anybody ; and M. the Constable said 
 the same, and told the King they must know for 
 certain who had declared this secret counsel, seeing 
 they were but three. Inquiry was made from cap- 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 51 
 
 tain to captain. In the end they found the truth ; 
 for one said, " It was such an one told me," and 
 another said the same, till it came to the first of all, 
 who declared he had heard it from the groom of the 
 King's chamber, called Guyard, a native of Blois, 
 son of a barber of the late King Francis. The King 
 sent for him into his tent, in the presence of MM. de 
 Guise and the Constable, to hear from him whence 
 he had his knowledge, and who had told him the 
 attack was to be made ; and said if he did not speak 
 the truth he would have him hanged. Then he de- 
 clared he lay down under the King's bed thinking 
 to sleep, and so having heard the plan he revealed 
 it to a captain who was a friend of his, to the end 
 he might prepare himself with his soldiers to be the 
 first at the attack. Then the King knew the truth, 
 and told him he should never serve him again, and 
 that he deserved to be hanged, and forbade him 
 ever to come again to the Court.* 
 
 The groom of the chamber went away with this 
 to swallow, and slept that night with a surgeon- 
 in-ordinary of the King, Master Louis of Saint 
 Andre ; and in the night he gave himself six stabs 
 with a knife, and cut his throat. Nor did the 
 surgeon perceive it till the morning, when he found 
 his bed all bloody, and the dead body by him. 
 * Que c'est de reveler les secrets des Princes. — A. P. 
 
52 Ambroise Pare 
 
 He marvelled at this sight on his awaking, and 
 feared they would say he was the cause of the mur- 
 der ; but he was soon relieved, seeing the reason, 
 which was despair at the loss of the good friendship 
 of the King. 
 
 So Guyard was buried. And those of Danvil- 
 liers, when they saw the breach large enough for 
 us to enter, and our soldiers ready to assault them, 
 surrendered themselves to the mercy of the King. 
 Their leaders were taken prisoners, and their soldiers 
 were sent away without arms. 
 
 The camp being dispersed, I returned to Paris with 
 my gentleman whose leg I had cut off ; I dressed him, 
 and God healed him. I sent him to his house merry 
 with a wooden leg ; and he was content, saying he 
 had got off cheap, not to have been miserably 
 burned to stop the blood, as you write in your 
 book, mon petit maistre. 
 
 The Journey to Chateau le Comte. 1552. 
 
 Some time after, King Henry raised an army of 
 thirty thousand men, to go and lay waste the coun- 
 try about Hesdin. The King of Navarre, who was 
 then called M. de Vendosme, was chief of the army, 
 and the King's Lieutenant. Being at St. Denis, in 
 France, waiting while the companies passed by, he 
 sent to Paris for me to speak with him. When I 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 53 
 
 came he begged me (and his request was a com- 
 mand) to follow him on this journey ; and I, wish- 
 ing to make my excuses, saying my wife was sick 
 in bed, he made answer there were physicians in Paris 
 to cure her, and he, too, had left his wife, who was 
 of as good a house as mine, and he said he would use 
 me well, and forthwith ordered I should be attached 
 to his household. Seeing this great desire he had 
 to take me with him, I dared not refuse him. 
 
 I went after him to Chateau le Comte, within 
 three or four leagues of Hesdin. The Emperor's 
 soldiers were in garrison there, with a number of 
 peasants from the country round. M. de Ven- 
 dosme called on them to surrender ; they made answer 
 that he should never take them, unless it were piece- 
 meal ; let him do his worst, and they would do their 
 best to defend themselves. They trusted in their 
 moats, which were full of water ; but in two hours, 
 with plenty of faggots and casks, we made a way for 
 our infantry to pass over, when they had to advance 
 to the assault ; and the place was attacked with five 
 cannons, and a breach was made large enough for 
 our men to enter ; where those within received the 
 attack very valiantly, and killed and wounded a 
 great number of our men with arquebuses, pikes, 
 and stones. In the end, when they saw themselves 
 overpowered, they set fire to their powder and ammu- 
 
54 Ambroise Pare 
 
 nition, whereby many of our men were burned, and 
 some of their own. And they were almost all put 
 to the sword ; but some of our soldiers had taken 
 twenty or thirty, hoping to have ransom for them : 
 and so soon as this was known, orders were given to 
 proclaim by trumpet through the camp, that all sol- 
 diers who had Spaniards for prisoners must kill them, 
 on pain of being themselves hanged and strangled : 
 which was done in cold blood. 
 
 Thence we went and burned several villages; 
 and the barns were all full of grain, to my very great 
 regret. We came as far as Tournahan, where there 
 was a large tower, whither the enemy withdrew, but 
 we found the place empty : our men sacked it, and 
 blew up the tower with a mine of gunpowder, which 
 turned it upside down. After that, the camp was 
 dispersed, and I returned to Paris. And the day 
 after Chateau le Comte was taken, M. de Vendosme 
 sent a gentleman under orders to the King, to 
 report to him all that had happened, and among 
 other things he told the King I had done very 
 good work dressing the wounded, and had showed 
 him eighteen bullets that I had taken out of their 
 bodies, and there were many more that I had not 
 been able to find or take out ; and he spoke more 
 good of me than there was by half. Then the 
 King said he would take me into his service, and 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 55 
 
 commanded M. de Goguier, his first physician, to 
 write me down in the King's service as one of his 
 surgeons-in-ordinary, and I was to meet him at 
 Rheims within ten or twelve days : which I did. 
 And the King did me the honour to command me 
 to live near him, and he would be a good friend to 
 me. Then I thanked him most humbly for the hon- 
 our he was pleased to do me, in appointing me to 
 serve him. 
 
 The Journey TO Metz. 1552. 
 
 The Emperor having besieged Metz with more 
 than an hundred and twenty thousand men, and 
 in the hardest time of winter, — it is still fresh in 
 the minds of all — and there were five or six thousand 
 men in the town, and among them seven princes ; 
 MM. le Due de Guise, the King's Lieutenant, d'Eng- 
 hien, de Cond6, de la Montpensier, de la Roche- 
 sur-Yon, de Nemours, and many other gentlemen, 
 with a number of veteran captains and officers : who 
 often sallied out against the enemy (as I shall tell 
 hereafter), not without heavy loss on both sides. 
 Our wounded died almost all, and it was thought the 
 drugs wherewith they were dressed had been pois- 
 oned. Wherefore M. de Guise, and MM. the princes, 
 went so far as to beg the King that if it were possible 
 I should be sent to them with a supply of drugs, and 
 
56 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 they believed their drugs were poisoned, seeing that 
 few of their wounded escaped. My belief is that 
 there was no poison ; but the severe cutlass and ar- 
 quebus wounds, and the extreme cold, were the 
 cause why so many died. The King wrote to M. 
 the Marshal de Saint Andre, who was his Lieuten- 
 ant at Verdun, to find means to get me into Metz, 
 whatever way was possible. MM. the Marshal 
 de Saint Andr6, and the Marshal de Vielleville, 
 won over an Italian captain, who promised to get 
 me into the place, which he did (and for this he 
 had fifteen hundred crowns). The King having 
 heard the promise that the Italian captain had 
 made, sent for me, and commanded me to take 
 of his apothecary, named Daigne, so many and such 
 drugs as I should think necessary for the wounded 
 within the town ; which I did, as much as a post- 
 horse could carry. The King gave me messages to 
 M. de Guise, and to the princes and the captains 
 that were in Metz. 
 
 When I came to Verdun, some days after, M. the 
 Marshal de Saint Andre got horses for me and for 
 my man, and for the Italian captain, who spoke ex- 
 cellent German, Spanish, and Walloon, beside his 
 own mother-tongue. When we were within eight or 
 ten leagues of Metz, we began to go by night only ; 
 and when we came near the enemy's camp I saw, more 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 57 
 
 than a league and a half off, fires lighted all round the 
 town, as if the whole earth were burning ; and I be- 
 lieved we could never pass through these fires with- 
 out being discovered, and therefore hanged and 
 strangled, or cut in pieces, or made to pay a great 
 ransom. To speak truth, I could well and gladly 
 have wished myself back in Paris, for the great dan- 
 ger that I foresaw. God guided our business so well, 
 that we entered into the town at midnight, thanks to 
 a signal the captain had with another captain of the 
 company of M. de Guise ; to whom I went, and found 
 him in bed, and he received me with high favour, be- 
 ing right glad at my coming. 
 
 I gave him my message as the King had com- 
 manded me, and told him I had a little letter for 
 him, and the next day I would not fail to deliver it. 
 Then he ordered me a good lodging, and that I should 
 be well treated, and said I must not fail next morning 
 to be upon the breach, where I should find all the 
 princes and seigneurs, and many captains. Which 
 I did, and they received me with great joy, and did 
 me the honour to embrace me, and tell me I was 
 welcome ; adding they would no more be afraid of 
 dying, if they should happen to be wounded. 
 
 M. le Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon was the first 
 who entertained me, and inquired what they were 
 saying at the Court concerning the town of Metz. 
 
58 Ambroise Par6 
 
 I told him all that I chose to tell. Forthwith he 
 begged me to go and see one of his gentlemen named 
 M. de Magnane, now Chevalier of the Order of the 
 King, and Lieutenant of His Majesty's Guards, who 
 had his leg broken by a cannon-shot. I found him 
 in bed, his leg bent and crooked, without any dress- 
 ing on it, because a gentleman promised to cure him, 
 having his name and his girdle, with certain words 
 (and the poor patient was weeping and crying out 
 with pain, not sleeping day or night for four days 
 past). Then I laughed at such cheating and false 
 promises ; and I reduced and dressed his leg so skil- 
 fully that he was without pain, and slept all the night, 
 and afterward, thanks be to God, he was healed, and 
 is still living now, in the King's service. The Prince 
 de la Roche-sur-Yon sent me a cask of wine, bigger 
 than a pipe of Anjou, to my lodging, and told me 
 when it was drunk, he would send me another ; that 
 was how he treated me, most generously. 
 
 After this, M. de Guise gave me a list of certain 
 captains and seigneurs, and bade me tell them what 
 the King had charged me to say ; which I did, and 
 this was to commend him to them, and give them 
 his thanks for the duty they had done and were do- 
 ing in holding his town of Metz, and that he would 
 remember it. I was more than eight days acquitting 
 myself of this charge, because they were many. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 59 
 
 First, to all the princes ; then to others, as the Duke 
 Horace, the Count de Martigues, and his brother 
 M. de Baug^, the Seigneurs de Montmorency and 
 d'Anville, now Marshal of France, M. de la Chapelle 
 aux Ursins, Bonnivet, Carouge, now Governor of 
 Rouen, the Vidasme de Chartres, the Count de Lude, 
 M. de Biron, now Marshal of France, M. de Randan, 
 la Rochefoucaut, Bordaille, d' Estr^s the younger, M. 
 de Saint Jehan en Dauphin^, and many others whom 
 it would take too long to name ; and also to many 
 captains, who had all done their duty well for the 
 defence of their lives and of the town. Afterward 
 I asked M. de Guise what it pleased him I should do 
 with the drugs I had brought with me ; he bade me 
 distribute them to the surgeons and apothecaries, 
 and principally to the poor wounded soldiers, who 
 were in great numbers in the Hospital. Which 
 I did, and can truly say I could not so much as go 
 and see all the wounded, who kept sending for me 
 to visit and dress them. 
 
 All the seigneurs within the town asked me to give 
 special care, above all the rest, to M. de Pienne, who 
 had been wounded, while on the breach, by a stone 
 shot from a cannon, on the temple, with fracture and 
 depression of the bone. They told me that so soon 
 as he received the blow, he fell to the ground as dead, 
 and cast forth blood by the mouth, nose, and ears, 
 
6o Ambroise Pare 
 
 with great vomiting, and was fourteen days without 
 being able to speak or reason ; also he had tremors 
 of a spasmodic nature, and all his face was swelled 
 and livid. He was trepanned at the side of the tem- 
 poral muscle, over the frontal bone. I dressed him, 
 with other surgeons, and God healed him ; and to- 
 day he is still living, thank God. 
 
 The Emperor attacked the town with forty double 
 cannons, and the powder was not spared day or night. 
 So soon as M. de Guise saw the artillery set and 
 pointed to make a breach, he had the nearest houses 
 pulled down and made into ramparts, and the beams 
 and joists were put end to end, and between them 
 faggots, earth, beds, and wool-packs ; then they put 
 above them other beams and joists as before. And 
 there was plenty of wood from the houses in the 
 
 suburbs; which had 1 en razed to the ground, for 
 
 fear the enemy should get under cover of them, and 
 make use of the wood ; it did very well for repair- 
 ing the breach. Everybody was hard at work carry- 
 ing earth to repair it, day and night ; MM. the princes, 
 the seigneurs, and captains, lieutenants, ensigns, were 
 all carrying the basket, to set an example to the sol- 
 diers and citizens to do the like, which they did ; 
 even the ladies and girls, and those who had not bas- 
 kets, made use of cauldrons, panniers, sacks, sheets, 
 and all such things to carry the earth ; so that the 
 
FRANgOIS, DUG DE GUISE. 
 
 FROM A PRINT BY THERET. 
 FROM AN ENGRAVING IN THE PRINT-ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 6i 
 
 enemy had no sooner broken down the wall than 
 they found behind it a yet stronger rampart. The 
 wall having fallen, our men cried out at those out- 
 side, "Fox, fox, fox," and they vented a thousand 
 insults against one another. M. de Guise forbade 
 any man on pain of death to speak with those 
 outside, for fear there should be some traitor who 
 would betray what was being done within the town. 
 After this order, our men tied live cats to the ends 
 of their pikes, and put them over the wall and cried 
 with the cats, " Miaut, Miaut." 
 
 Truly the Imperials were much enraged, having 
 been so long making a breach, at great loss, which 
 was eighty paces wide, that fifty men of their front 
 rank should enter in, only to find a rampart stronger 
 than the wall. They threw themselves upon the 
 poor cats, and shot them with arquebuses as men 
 shoot at the popinjay. 
 
 Our men often ran out upon them, by order of M. 
 de Guise; a few days ago, our men had all made 
 haste to enrol themselves in sallying-parties, chiefly 
 the young nobihty, led by experienced captains ; and 
 indeed it was doing them a great favour to let them 
 issue from the town and run upon the enemy. They 
 went forth always an hundred or six score men, well 
 armed with cutlasses, arquebuses, pistols, pikes, par- 
 tisans, and halbards ; and advanced as far as the 
 
62 Ambroise Pare 
 
 trenches, to take the enemy unawares. Then an 
 alarum would be sounded all through the enemy's 
 camp, and their drums would beat plan, plan, ta tita, 
 ta ta ti ta, tou touf touf. Likewise their trumpets 
 and clarions rang and sounded, To saddle, to sad- 
 dle, to saddle, to horse, to horse, to horse, to 
 saddle, to horse, to horse. And all their soldiers 
 cried, " Arm, arm, ai'm / to arms, to arms, to arms ! 
 arm, to arms, arm, to arms, arm " .• — like the hue-and- 
 cry after wolves ; and all diverse tongues, accord- 
 ing to their nations ; and you saw them come out 
 of their tents and little lodgings, as thick as little 
 ants when you uncover the ant-hills, to bring help 
 to their comrades, who were having their throats 
 cut like sheep. Their cavalry also came from all 
 sides at full gaXXo^, patati, patata, patati, patata, pa, 
 ta, ta, patata, pata, ta, eager to be in the thick of 
 the fighting, to give and take their share of the 
 blows. And when our men saw themselves hard 
 pressed, they would turn back into the town, fight- 
 ing all the way; and those pursuing them were 
 driven back with cannon-shots, and the cannons were 
 loaded with flint-stones and with big pieces of iron, 
 square or three-sided. And our men on the wall 
 fired a volley, and rained bullets on them as thick 
 as hail, to send them back to their beds ; whereas 
 many remained dead on the field : and our men also 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 63 
 
 did not all come back with whole skins, and there 
 were always some left behind (as it were a tax levied 
 on us) who were joyful to die on the bed of honour. 
 And if there was a horse wounded, "it was skinned 
 and eaten by the soldiers, instead of beef and 
 bacon ; and if a man was wounded, I must run and 
 dress him. Some days afterward there were other 
 sallies, which infuriated the enemy, that we would 
 not let them sleep a little in safety. 
 
 M. de Guise played a trick upon them : he sent 
 a peasant, who was none of the wisest, with two 
 letters to the King, and gave him ten crowns, and 
 promised the King would give him an hundred if he 
 got the letters to him. In the one letter M. de 
 Guise told the King that the enemy shewed no 
 signs of retreating, and had put forth all their 
 strength and made a great breach, which he hoped 
 to defend, even at the cost of his own life and of all 
 who were in the town ; and that the enemy had 
 planted their artillery so well in a certain place 
 (which he named) that it was with great difficulty he 
 could keep them from entering the town, seeing it was 
 the weakest place in the town ; but soon he hoped 
 to rebuild it well, so that they should not be able to 
 enter. This letter was sewed in the lining of the 
 man's doublet, and he was told to be very careful 
 not to speak of it to any person. And the other 
 
64 Ambroise Pare 
 
 letter \vas given to him. wherein M. de Guise told 
 the King that he and all those besieged with him 
 hoped to guard the town well; and other matters 
 which I leave untold here. He sent out the man at 
 night, and he was taken by the enemy's guard and 
 brought to the Duke of Alva, that the Duke might 
 hear what was doing in the town ; and the peasant 
 was asked if he had any letters. He said "Yes," 
 and gave them the one ; and they having seen it 
 asked him if he had not another. He said " No." 
 Then he Avas searched, and they found on him that 
 which was sewed in his doublet ; and the poor mes- 
 senger was hanged and strangled. 
 
 The letters were taken to the Emperor, who called 
 his council, where it was resolved, since they had 
 been unable to do anything at the first breach, the 
 artillery should forthwith be set against the place 
 which they thought weakest, where they put forth 
 all their strength to make a fresh breach ; and they 
 sapped and mined the wall, and tried hard to make 
 a way into the Hell Tower, but dared not assault it 
 openly. 
 
 The Duke of Alva represented to the Emperor 
 that every day their soldiers were dying, to the 
 number of more than two hundred, and there was 
 so little hope of entering the town, seeing the 
 time of vear and the ^reat number of our soldiers 
 
'•Journeys in Diverse Places" 65 
 
 who were in it. The Emperor asked what men 
 they were who were dying, and whether they were 
 gentlemen and men of mark ; answer was made to 
 him " They were all poor soldiers." Then said he, 
 " It was no great loss if they died," comparing them 
 to caterpillars, grasshoppers, and cockchafers, which 
 eat up the buds and other good things of the earth ; 
 and if they were men of any worth they would not 
 be in his camp at six livres the month, and there- 
 fore it was no great harm if they died. Moreover, 
 he said he would never depart from the town 
 till he had taken it by force or by famine, though 
 he should lose all his army ; because of the great 
 number of princes who were shut up in it, with the 
 greater part of the nobility of France, who he hoped 
 would pay his expenses four times over ; and he 
 would go yet again to Paris, to see the Parisians, and 
 to make himself King of all the kingdom of France. 
 i\I. de Guise, with the princes, captains, and sol- 
 diers, and in general all the citizens of the town, 
 having heard the Emperor's resolve to exterminate 
 us all, forbade the soldiers and citizens, and even 
 the princes and seigneurs, to eat fresh fish or venison, 
 or partridges, woodcocks, larks, francolines, plovers, 
 or other game, for fear these had acquired any pes- 
 tilential air Vi'hich could bring infection among us. 
 
 So they had to content themselves with the fare of 
 5 
 
66 Ambroise Pare 
 
 the army ; biscuit, beef, salt cow-beef, bacon, cerve- 
 las, and Mayence hams ; also fish, as haddock, salmon, 
 shad, tunny, whale, anchovy, sardines, herrings ; also 
 peas, beans, rice, garlic, onions, prunes, cheeses, but- 
 ter, oil, and salt ; pepper, ginger, nutmegs and other 
 spices to put in our pies, mostly of horses, which 
 without the spice had a very bad taste. Many citi- 
 zens, having gardens in the town, had planted them 
 with fine radishes, turnips, carrots, and leeks, which 
 they kept flourishing and very dear, for the extreme 
 necessity of the famine. Now all these stores were 
 distributed by weight, measure, and justice, accord- 
 ing to the quality of the persons, because we knew 
 not how long the siege would last. For after we heard 
 the Emperor's words, how he would not depart from 
 before Metz, till he had taken it by force or by 
 famine, the victuals were cut down ; and what they 
 used to distribute to three soldiers was given to 
 four ; and it was forbidden to them to sell the re- 
 mains which might be left after their meals ; but they 
 might give them to the rabble. And they always 
 rose from table with an appetite, for fear they should 
 be subject to take physick. 
 
 And before we surrendered to the mercy of the en- 
 emy, we had determined to eat the asses, mules, and 
 horses, dogs, cats, and rats, even our boots and col- 
 lars, and other skins that we could have softened 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 67 
 
 and stewed. And, in a word, all the besieged were 
 resolved to defend themselves valiantly with all in- 
 struments of war ; to set the artillery at the entry 
 of the breach, and load with balls, stones, cart-nails, 
 bars and chains of iron ; also all sorts and kinds of 
 artificial fires, as barricadoes, grenades, stink-pots, 
 torches, squibs, fire-traps, burning faggots ; with 
 boiling water, melted lead, and lime, to put out the 
 enemy's eyes. Also, they were to make holes right 
 through their houses, and put arquebusiers in them, 
 to take the enemy in flank and hasten his going, or 
 else give him stop then and there. Also they were 
 to order the women to pull up the streets, and throw 
 from their windows billets, tables, trestles, benches, 
 and stools, to dash out the enemy's brains. More- 
 over, a little within the breach, there was a great 
 stronghold full of carts and palisades, tuns and casks ; 
 and barricades of earth to serve as gabions, interlaid 
 with falconets, falcons, field-pieces, crooked arque- 
 buses, pistols, arquebuses, and wild-fires, to break 
 their legs and thighs, so that they would be taken 
 from above and on the flank and from behind ; and 
 if they had carried this stronghold, there were others 
 where the streets crossed, every hundred paces, 
 which would have been as bad friends to them as 
 the first, or worse, and would have made many 
 widows and orphans. And if fortune had been so 
 
68 Ambroise Pare 
 
 hard on us that they had stormed and broken up our 
 strongholds, there would yet have been seven great 
 companies, drawn up in square and in triangle, to 
 fight them all at once, each led by one of the 
 princes, for the better encouragement of our men to 
 fight and die all together, even to the last breath of 
 their souls. And all were resolved to bring their 
 treasures, rings, and jewels, and their best and rich- 
 est and most beautiful household stuffs, and burn 
 them to ashes in the great square, lest the enemy 
 should take them and make trophies of them. Also 
 there were men charged to set fire to all the stores 
 and burn them, and to stave in all the wine-casks ; 
 others to set fire to every single house, to burn the 
 enemy and us together. The citizens thus were all 
 of one mind, rather than see the bloody knife at 
 their throats, and their wives and daughters ravished 
 and taken by the cruel savage Spaniards. 
 
 Now we had certain prisoners, who had been made 
 secretly to understand our last determination and 
 desperation ; these prisoners M. de Guise sent away 
 on parole, who being come to their camp, lost no 
 time in saying what we had told them ; which re- 
 strained the great and vehement desire of the ene- 
 my, so that they were no longer eager to enter the 
 town to cut our throats and enrich themselves with 
 the spoils. The Emperor, having heard the decision 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 69 
 
 of this great warrior, M. de Guise, put water in his 
 wine, and restrained his fury ; saying that he could 
 not enter the town save with vast butchery and 
 carnage, and shedding of much blood, both of those 
 defending and of those attacking, and they would 
 be all dead together, and in the end he would get 
 nothing but ashes ; and afterward men might say it 
 was a like destruction to that of the town of Jerusa- 
 lem, made of old time by Titus and Vespasian. 
 
 The Emperor thus having heard our last resolve, 
 and seeing how little he had gained by his attack, 
 sappings, and mines, and the great plague that was 
 through all his camp, and the adverse time of the 
 year, and the want of victuals and of money, and 
 how his soldiers were disbanding themselves and 
 going off in great companies, decided at last to 
 raise the siege and go away, with the cavalry of his 
 vanguard, and the greater part of the artillery and 
 engines of war. The Marquis of Brandebourg was 
 the last to budge from his place ; he had with him 
 some troops of Spaniards and Bohemians, and his 
 German regiments, and there he stopped for a day 
 and a half, to the great regret of M. de Guise, who 
 brought four pieces of artillery out of the town, 
 which he fired on him this side and that, to hurry 
 him off: and off he went, sure enough, and all his 
 men with him. 
 
JO Ambroise Par6 
 
 When he was a quarter of a league from Metz, he 
 was seized with a panic lest our cavalry should fall 
 upon his tail ; so he set fire to his store of powder, 
 and left behind him some pieces of artillery, and a 
 quantity of baggage, which he could not take along 
 with him, because their vanguard and their great can- 
 nons had broken and torn up the roads. Our cav- 
 alry were longing with all their hearts to issue from 
 the town and attack him behind ; but M. de Guise 
 would never let them, saying on the contrary we 
 had better make their way smooth for them, and 
 build them gold and silver bridges to let them go ; 
 like the good pastor and shepherd, who will not lose 
 one of his sheep. 
 
 That is how our dear and well-beloved Imperials 
 went away from Metz, which was the day after 
 Christmas Day, to the great content of those within 
 the walls, and the praise of the princes, seigneurs, 
 captains, and soldiers, who had endured the travail 
 of this siege for more than two months. Nevertheless, 
 they did not all go : there wanted more than twenty 
 thousand of them, who were dead, from our artillery 
 and the fighting, or from plague, cold, and starva- 
 tion (and from spite and rage that they could not get 
 into the town to cut our throats and plunder us) : 
 and many of their horses also died, the greater part 
 whereof they had eaten instead of beef and bacon. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 71 
 
 We went where their camp had been, where we found 
 many dead bodies not yet buried, and the earth all 
 worked up, as one sees in the Cemetery of the Holy 
 Innocents during some time of many deaths. In 
 their tents, pavilions, and lodgings were many sick 
 people. Also cannon-shot, weapons, carts, waggons, 
 and other baggage, with a great quantity of soldier's 
 bread, spoiled and rotted by the snows and rains 
 (yet the soldiers had it but by weight and measure). 
 Also they left a good store of wood, all that remained 
 of the houses they had demolished and broken down 
 in the villages for two or three leagues around ; also 
 many other pleasure-houses, that had belonged to 
 our citizens, with gardens and fine orchards full of 
 diverse fruit-trees. And without all this, they would 
 have been benumbed and dead of the cold, and 
 forced to raise the siege sooner than they did. 
 
 M. de Guise had their dead buried, and their sick 
 people treated. Also the enemy left behind them in 
 the Abbey of Saint Arnoul many of their wounded 
 soldiers, whom they could not possibly take with 
 them. M. de Guise sent them all victuals enough, 
 and ordered me and the other surgeons to go dress 
 and physick them, which we did with a good will ; 
 and I think they would not have done the like for 
 our men. For the Spaniard is very cruel, treacher- 
 ous, and inhuman, and so far enemy of all nations: 
 
72 Ambroise Pare 
 
 which is proved by Lopez the Spaniard, and Benzo 
 of Milan, and others who have written the history 
 of America and the West Indies : who have had to 
 confess that the cruelty, avarice, blasphemies, and 
 wickedness of the Spaniards have utterly estranged 
 the poor Indians from the religion that these Span- 
 iards professed. And all write that they are of less 
 worth than the idolatrous Indians, for their cruel 
 treatment of these Indians. 
 
 And some days later M. de Guise sent a trumpet 
 to Thionville to the enemy, that they could send for 
 their wounded in safety : which they did with carts 
 and waggons, but not enough. M. de Guise gave them 
 carts and carters, to help to take them to Thionville. 
 Our carters when they returned told us the roads 
 were all paved with dead bodies, and they never got 
 half the men there, for they died in their carts : and 
 the Spaniards seeing them at the point of death, be- 
 fore they had breathed their last, threw them out of 
 the carts and buried them in the mud and mire, say- 
 ing they had no orders to bring back dead men. 
 Moreover, our carters said they had found on the 
 roads many carts stuck in the mud, full of baggage, 
 for which the enemy dared not send back, lest we 
 who were within Metz should run out upon them. 
 
 I would return to the reason why so many of 
 them died ; which was mostly starvation, the plague, 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" ^2) 
 
 and cold. For the snow was more than two feet 
 deep upon the ground, and they were lodged in pits 
 below the ground, covered only with a little thatch. 
 Nevertheless, each soldier had his camp-bed, and a 
 coverlet all strewed with stars, glittering and shining 
 brighter than fine gold, and every day they had white 
 sheets, and lodged at the sign of the Moon, and en- 
 joyed themselves if only they had been able, and paid 
 their host so well over night that in the morning they 
 went off quits, shaking their ears : and they had no 
 need of a comb to get the down and feathers out of 
 their beards and hair, and they always found a white 
 table-cloth, and would have enjoyed good meals but 
 for want of food. Also the greater part of them 
 had neither boots, half-boots, slippers, hose, nor 
 shoes : and most of them would rather have none 
 than any, because they were always in the mire up 
 to mid-leg. And because they went bare-foot, we 
 called them the Emperor's Apostles. 
 
 After the camp was wholly dispersed, I distributed 
 my patients into the hands of the surgeons of the 
 town, to finish dressing them : then I took leave of 
 M. de Guise, and returned to the King, who received 
 me with great favour, and asked me how I had been 
 able to make my way into Metz. I told him fully 
 all that I had done. He gave me two hundred 
 crowns, and an hundred which I had when I set out : 
 
74 Ambroise Pare 
 
 and said he would never leave me poor. Then I 
 thanked him very humbly for the good and the 
 honour he was pleased to do me. 
 
 The Journey to Hesdin. 1553. 
 
 The Emperor Charles laid siege to the town of 
 Theroiienne ; and M. le Due de Savoie was General 
 of his whole army. It was taken by assault : and 
 there was a great number of our men killed and 
 taken prisoners. 
 
 The King, wishing to prevent the enemy from 
 besieging the town and castle of Hesdin also, sent 
 thither MM. le Due de Bouillon, le Due Horace, le 
 Marquis de Villars, and a number of captains, and 
 about eighteen hundred soldiers : and during the 
 siege of Theroiienne, these Seigneurs fortified the 
 castle of Hesdin, so that it seemed to be impregnable. 
 The King sent me to the Seigneurs, to help them 
 with my art, if they should come to have need of it. 
 
 Soon after the capture of Theroiienne, we were 
 besieged in Hesdin. There was a clear stream of 
 running water within shot of our cannon, and about 
 it were fourscore or an hundred of the enemy's 
 rabble, drawing water. I was on a rampart watching 
 the enemy pitch their camp ; and seeing the crowd of 
 idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, com- 
 missary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot 
 
igMiii i ir'i/wi )»i 
 
 ^^m^^lSUBSSSSSSS^SSSSimfMMi 
 
 mmw f mmmmmmmmmmmmfni i mH n im' 
 
 (T^WlWff^ 
 
 j^^^^EEHlwjnpjJw^^ 
 
 ..^^^^mmmmMmmmmvmmi(!iwfmmf)>'rii>mimPlfi 
 
 ;^^^^ 
 
 gaEjTTOj^- 
 
 ^ 
 
 33; 
 
 ^ ^^^1. ^^^^^^ ' ^ "" gS ^ 
 
 VARIOUS ARROWS, AND DETACHABLE ARROW-HEADS. 
 
 FROM PARC's WORKS. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 75 
 
 among this canaille : he gave me a flat refusal, say- 
 ing that all this sort of people was not worth the 
 powder would be wasted on them. Again I begged 
 him to level the cannon, telling him, " The more 
 dead, the fewer enemies " ; which he did for my sake : 
 and the shot killed fifteen or sixteen, and wounded 
 many. Our men made sorties against the enemy, 
 wherein many were killed and wounded on both 
 sides, with gunshot or with fighting hand to hand ; 
 and our men often sallied out before their trenches 
 were made ; so that I had my work cut out for me, 
 and had no rest either day or night for dressing the 
 wounded. 
 
 And here I would note that we had put many of 
 them in a great tower, laying them on a little straw : 
 and their pillows were stones, their coverlets were 
 cloaks, those who had any. When the attack was 
 made, so often as the enemy's cannons were fired, 
 our wounded said they felt pain in their wounds, as 
 if you had struck them with a stick : one was crying 
 out on his head, the other on his arm, and so with 
 the other parts of the body : and many had their 
 wounds bleed again, even more profusely than at 
 the time they were wounded, and then I had to run 
 to staunch them. Mon petit maistre, if you had 
 been there, you would have been much hindered 
 with your hot irons ; you would have wanted a lot 
 
76 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 of charcoal to heat them red, and sure you would 
 have been killed like a calf for your cruelty. Many 
 died of the diabolical storm of the echo of these en- 
 gines of artillery, and the vehement agitation and se- 
 vere shock of the air acting on their wounds ; others 
 because they got no rest for the shouting and crying 
 that were made day and night, and for want of good 
 food, and other things needful for their treatment. 
 Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, no doubt 
 you could have given them jelly, restoratives, gravies, 
 pressed meats, broth, barley-water, almond-milk, 
 blanc-mange, prunes, plums, and other food proper 
 for the sick ; but your diet would have been only on 
 paper, and in fact they had nothing but beef of 
 old shrunk cows, seized round Hesdin for our pro- 
 vision, salted and half-cooked, so that he who would 
 eat it must drag at it with his teeth, as birds of prey 
 tear their food. Nor must I forget the linen for 
 dressing their wounds, which was only washed daily 
 and dried at the fire, till it was as hard as parchment : 
 I leave you to think how their v/ounds could do well. 
 There were four big fat rascally women who had 
 charge to whiten the linen, and were kept at it with 
 the stick ; and yet they had not water enough to do 
 it, much less soap. That is how the poor patients 
 died, for want of food and other necessar)^ things. 
 )V One day the enemy feigned a general attack, to 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" ^"j 
 
 draw our soldiers into the breach, that they might 
 see what we were like : every man ran thither. We 
 had made a great store of artificial fires to defend 
 the breach ; a priest of M. le Due de Bouillon took 
 a grenade, thinking to throw it at the enemy, and 
 lighted it before he ought : it burst, and set fire to 
 all our store, which was in a house near the breach. 
 This was a terrible disaster for us, because it burned 
 many poor soldiers ; it even caught the house, and 
 we had all been burned, but for help given to put it 
 out ; there was only one well in the castle with any 
 water in it, and this was almost dry, and we took 
 beer to put it out instead of water ; afterward we 
 were in great want of water, and to drink what was 
 left we must strain it through napkins. 
 
 The enemy, seeing the explosion and violence of 
 the fires, which made a wonderful flame and thun- 
 dering, thought we had lit them on purpose to 
 defend the breach, and that we had many more of 
 them. This made them change their minds, to have 
 us some other way than by attack : they dug niines, 
 and sapped the greater part of our walls, till they 
 came near turning our castle altogether upside down ; 
 and when the sappers had finished their work, and 
 their artillery was fired, all the castle shook under 
 our feet like an earthquake, to our great astonish- 
 ment. Moreover, they had levelled five pieces of 
 
78 Ambroise Pare 
 
 artillery, which they had placed on a little hillock, so 
 as to have us from behind when we were gone to de- 
 fend the breach. M. le Due Horace had a cannon- 
 shot on the elbow, which carried off his arm one 
 w^ay and his body the other, before he could say a 
 single word ; his death was a great disaster to us, 
 for the high rank that he held in the town. Also 
 M. de Martigues had a gunshot wound which pierced 
 his lungs : I dressed him, as I shall tell hereafter. 
 
 Then we asked leave to speak with the enemy; 
 and a trumpet was sent to the Prince of Piedmont, 
 to know what terms he would give us. He an- 
 swered that all the leaders, such as gentlemen, cap- 
 tains, lieutenants, and ensigns, would be taken 
 prisoners for ransom, and the soldiers would leave 
 the town without their arms ; and if we refused this 
 fair and honest offer, we might rest assured they 
 would take us next day, by attack or otherwise. 
 
 A council was held, to which I was called, to know 
 if I would sign the surrender of the town ; with many 
 captains, gentlemen, and others. I answered it was 
 not possible to hold the town, and I would sign the 
 surrender with my own blood, for the little hope I 
 had we could resist the enemy's forces, and for the 
 great longing I had to be out of this hell and utter 
 torture ; for I slept neither night nor day for the 
 great number of the wounded, who were about two 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 79 
 
 hundred. The dead were advanced in putrefaction, 
 piled one upon the other like faggots, and not 
 covered with earth, because we had none. And if I 
 went into a soldier's lodging, there were soldiers 
 waiting for me at the door when I came out, for me 
 to dress others ; it was who should have me, and 
 they carried me like the body of a saint, with my 
 feet off the ground, fighting for me. I could not 
 satisfy this great number of wounded : nor had I 
 got what I wanted for their treatment. For it is 
 not enough that the surgeon do his duty toward his 
 patients, but the patient also must do his; and the 
 assistants, and external things, must work together 
 for him : see Hippocrates, Aphorism the First. 
 
 Having heard that we were to surrender the place, 
 I knew our business was not prospering ; and for 
 fear of being known, I gave a velvet coat, a satin 
 doublet, and a cloak of fine cloth trimmed with vel- 
 vet, to a soldier; who gave me a bad doublet all torn 
 and ragged with wear, and a frayed leather collar, 
 and a bad hat, and a short cloak; I dirtied the neck 
 of my shirt with water mixed with a little soot, I 
 rubbed my hose with a stone at the knees and over 
 the heels, as though they had been long worn, I did 
 the same to my shoes, till one would have taken 
 me for a chimney-sweep rather than a King's surgeon. 
 I went in this gear to M. de Martigues, and prayed 
 
8o Ambroise Pare 
 
 him to arrange I should stop with him to dress him ; 
 which he granted very wiUingly, and was as glad I 
 should be near him as I was myself. 
 
 Soon afterward, the commissioners who were to 
 select the prisoners entered the castle, the seven- 
 teenth day of July, 1553. They took prisoners MM. 
 le Due de Bouillon, le Marquis de Villars, de Roze, le 
 Baron de Culan, M. du Pont, commissary of the artil- 
 lery, and M. de Martigues ; and me with him, be- 
 cause he asked them ; and all the gentlemen who 
 they knew could pay ransom, and most of the sol- 
 diers and the leaders of companies ; so many and 
 such prisoners as they wished. And then the Spanish 
 soldiers entered by the breach, unresisted ; our men 
 thought they would keep their faith and agreement 
 that all lives should be spared. They entered the 
 town in a fury to kill, plunder, and ravage every- 
 thing: they took a few men, hoping to have ransom 
 for them.* ... If they saw they could not get 
 it, they cruelly put them to death in cold blood.* 
 . . . And they killed them all with daggers, and 
 cut their throats. Such was their great cruelty and 
 treachery ; let him trust them who will. 
 
 To return to my story : when I was taken from the 
 castle into the town, with M. de Martigues, there 
 was one of M. de Savoie's gentlemen, who asked me 
 
 * An account of the torture is here omitted. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 8i 
 
 if M. de Martigues's wound could be cured. I told 
 him no, that it was incurable : and off he went 
 to tell M. le Due de Savoie. I bethought my- 
 self they would send physicians and surgeons to 
 dress M. de Martigues ; and I argued within myself 
 if I ought to play the simpleton, and not let myself 
 be known for a surgeon, lest they should keep me to 
 dress their wounded, and in the end I should be 
 found to be the King's surgeon, and they would 
 make me pay a big ransom. On the other hand, I 
 feared, if I did not show I was a surgeon and had 
 dressed M. de Martigues skilfully, they would cut 
 my throat. Forthwith I made up my mind to show 
 them he would hot die for want of having been well 
 dressed and nursed. 
 
 Soon after, sure enough, there came many gen- 
 tlemen, with the Emperor's physician, and his sur- 
 geon, and those belonging to M. de Savoie, and six 
 other surgeons of his army, to see M. de Martigues' 
 wound, and to know of me how I had dressed 
 and treated it. The Emperor's physician bade me 
 declare the essential nature of the wound, and what 
 I had done for it. And all his assistants kept their 
 ears wide open, to know if the wound were or were 
 not mortal. I commenced my discourse to them, 
 how M. de Martigues, looking over the wall to mark 
 those who were sapping it, was shot with an arque- 
 
 6 
 
82 Ambroise Pare 
 
 bus through the body, and I was called of a sudden 
 to dress him. I found blood coming from his 
 mouth and from his wounds. Moreover, he had a 
 great difficulty of breathing in and out. and air came 
 whistling from the wounds, so that it would have put 
 out a candle ; and he said he had a very great stab- 
 bing pain where the bullet had entered. "^ . . . I 
 withdrew some scales_of bone, and put in each 
 Avound a tent with a large head, fastened with a 
 thread, lest on inspiration it should be drawn into 
 the cavity of the chest ; v/hich has happened vrith 
 surgeons, to the detriment of the poor wounded ; 
 for being fallen in, you cannot get them out ; and 
 then they beget corruption, being foreign bodies. 
 The tents were anointed with a preparation of yolk 
 of egg, Venice turpentine, and a little oil of roses. 
 . . . I put over the wounds a great plaster of 
 diach3'lum, wherewith I had mixed oil of roses, and 
 vinegar, to avoid inflammation. Then I applied 
 great compresses steeped in oxycrate, and bandaged 
 him, not too tight, that he might breathe easih,-. 
 Next, I drew five basons of blood from his right arm, 
 considering his youth and his sanguine tempera- 
 ment. . . . Fever took him, soon after he vras 
 wounded, with feebleness of the heart. . . . His 
 
 * Details of the case, here omitted, show that it was hopeless from 
 the first. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 83 
 
 diet was barley-water, prunes with sugar, at other 
 times broth : his drink was a ptisane. He could lie 
 only on his back. . . . What more shall I say? 
 but that my Lord de Martigues never had an hour's 
 rest after he was wounded. . . . These things 
 considered, Gentlemen, no other prognosis is possi- 
 ble, save that he will die in a few days, to my great 
 grief. 
 
 Having finished my discourse, I dressed him as I 
 was accustomed. When I displayed his wounds, 
 the physicians and surgeons, and other assistants 
 present, knew the truth of what I had said. The 
 physicians, having felt his pulse and seen that the 
 vital forces were depressed and spent, agreed with 
 me that in a few days he would die. Then they 
 all went to the Due de Savoie, and told him M. de 
 Martigues would die in a short time. He answered 
 them, " Possibly, if he had been well dressed, he 
 might have escaped death." Then they all with one 
 voice said he had been very well dressed and cared 
 for altogether, and it could not be better, and it was 
 impossible to cure him, and his wound was of neces- 
 sity mortal. Then M. de Savoie was very angry 
 with them, and cried, and asked them again if for 
 certain they all held his case hopeless : they answered, 
 yes. 
 
 Then a Spanish impostor came forward, who prom- 
 
84 Ambroise Pare 
 
 ised on his life to cure him ; and if he did not, they 
 should cut him in an hundred pieces ; but he would 
 have no physicians, nor surgeons, nor apothecaries 
 with him : and M. le Due de Savoie forthwith bade 
 the physicians and surgeons not go near M. de Mar- 
 tigues ; and sent a gentleman to bid me, under pain 
 of death, not so much as to touch him. Which I 
 promised, and was very glad, for now he would not 
 die under my hands ; and the impostor was told to 
 dress him, and to have with him no other physicians 
 or surgeons, but only himself. By and bye he came, 
 and said to M. de Martigues, " Senor Cavallero, 
 M. de Savoie has bid me come and dress your wound. 
 I swear to God, before eight days I will set you on 
 horseback, lance in hand, provided none touch you 
 but I alone. You shall eat and drink whatever 
 you like. I will be dieted instead of you ; and you 
 may trust me to perform what I promise. I have 
 cured many who had worse wounds than yours." 
 And the Seigneurs answered him, " God give you 
 His grace for it." 
 
 He asked for a shirt of M. de Martigues, and tore 
 it in little strips, which he laid cross-wise, muttering 
 and murmuring certain words over the wounds: hav- 
 ing done this much for him, he let him eat and drink 
 all he would, saying he himself would be dieted in 
 his stead ; which he did, eating but six prunes and 
 
" Journeys in Diverse Places " 85 
 
 six morsels of bread for dinner, and drinking only 
 beer. Nevertheless, two days later, M. de Martigues 
 died : and my friend the Spaniard, seeing him at 
 the point of death, eclipsed himself, and got away 
 Avithout good-bye to any man. And I believe if he 
 had been caught he would have been hanged and 
 strangled, for the false promise he made to M. le Due 
 de Savoie and many other gentlemen. M. de Mar- 
 tigues died about ten o'clock in the morning ; and 
 after dinner M. de Savoie sent the physicians and 
 surgeons, and his apothecary, with a store of drugs to 
 embalm him. They came with many gentlemen and 
 captains of his army. 
 
 The Emperor's surgeon came to me, and asked 
 me in a very friendly way to make the embalment ; 
 which I refused, saying that I was not worthy to 
 carry his instrument-box after him. He begged me 
 again to do it to please him, and that he would be 
 very glad of it. . . . Seeing his kindness, and 
 fearing to displease him, I then decided to show them 
 the anatomist that I was, expounding to them many 
 things, which would here be too long to recite.* . . 
 Our discourse finished, I embalmed the body ; and it 
 was placed in a cofifin. Then the Emperor's surgeon 
 drew me aside, and told me, if I would stop with 
 him, he would treat me well, and give me a new suit 
 * A discourse on anatomy is here omitted. 
 
86 Ambroise Pare 
 
 of clothes, and set me on horseback. I gave him 
 many thanks, and said I had no wish to serve any 
 country but my own.* Then he told me I was a 
 fool, and if he were a prisoner as I was, he would 
 serve a devil to get his freedom. In the end I told 
 him flat I would not stop with him. The Emperor's 
 physician then went back to M. de Savoie, and ex- 
 plained to him the causes of M. de Martigues' death, 
 and that it was impossible for all the men in the 
 world to have cured him ; and assured him again I 
 had done all that was to be done, and besought him 
 to take me into his service ; saying much more good 
 of me than there was. He having been persuaded to 
 do this, sent to me one of his stewards, M. du Bouchet, 
 to tell me, if I would serve him, he would use me 
 well ; I sent back my very humble thanks, and that 
 I had decided not to take service under any foreigner. 
 When he heard my answer he was very angry, and 
 said I ought to be sent to the galleys. 
 
 M. de Vaudeville, Governor of Graveline, and 
 colonel of seventeen ensigns of infantry, asked him 
 to send me to him, to dress an old ulcer on his leg, 
 that he had had for six or seven years. M. de Savoie 
 said he was willing, so far as I was concerned ; and 
 if I used the cautery to his leg, it would serve him 
 right. M. de Vaudeville answered, if he saw me try- 
 * Brave response. — A. P. 
 
" Journeys in Diverse Places " 87 
 
 ing it, he would have my throat cut. Soon after, he 
 sent for me four German halberdiers of his guard ; 
 and I was terrified, for I did not know where they 
 were taking me : they spoke no more French than I 
 German. When I was come to his lodging, he bade 
 me welcome, and said, now I belonged to him ; and 
 so soon as I had healed him, he would let me go 
 without ransom. I told him I had no means to pay 
 any ransom. He called his physician and his surgeon- 
 in-ordinary, to show me his leg ; and when we had 
 examined it, Ave withdrew into a room, where I 
 began my discourse to them.'^ . . . Then the 
 physician left me with the surgeon, and went back 
 to M. de Vaudeville, and said he was sure I could 
 cure him, and told him all I had decided to do ; 
 which pleased him vastly. He sent for me, and 
 asked if I thought I could cure him ; I said yes, 
 if he were obedient to what was necessary. He 
 promised to do only what I wished and ordered ; and 
 so soon as he was healed, he would let me go home 
 without ransom. Then I asked him to make better 
 terms with me, saying it was too long to wait for 
 my liberty : in fifteen days I hoped his ulcer would 
 be less than half its present size, and give no pain ; 
 then his own surgeon and physician could finish the 
 cure. He granted this to me. Then I took a piece 
 * A long surgical discourse is here omitted. 
 
88 Ambroise Pare 
 
 of paper to measure the size of the ulcer, and gave 
 it to him, and kept another by me ; I asked him to 
 keep his promise, when I had done my work ; he 
 swore by the faith of a gentleman he would. Then 
 I set myself to dress him properly, after the manner 
 of Galen. . . He wished to know if it were true, 
 what I said of Galen, and bade his physician look 
 to it, for he would know it for himself ; he had the 
 book put on the table, and found that what I said 
 was true ; so the physician was ashamed, and I was 
 glad. Within the fifteen days, it was almost all 
 healed ; and I began to feel happy about the 
 compact made between us. He had me to eat and 
 drink at his table, when there were no more great 
 persons than he and I only. He gave me a big red 
 scarf which I must wear ; which made me feel some- 
 thing like a dog when they give him a clog, to stop 
 him eating the grapes in the vineyards. His physi- 
 cian and surgeon took me through the camp to visit 
 their wounded ; and I took care to observe what our 
 enemy was doing. I found they had no more great 
 cannons, but only twenty- five or thirty field-pieces. 
 
 M. de Vaudeville held prisoner M. de Bauge, bro- 
 ther of M. de Martigues who died at Hesdin. M. 
 de Baug6 was prisoner at Chateau de La Motte au 
 Bois, belonging to the Emperor ; he had been cap- 
 tured at Theroiienne by two Spanish soldiers ; and 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 89 
 
 M. de Vaudeville, when he saw him there, con- 
 cluded he must be some gentleman of good family : 
 he made him pull off his stockings, and seeing his 
 clean legs and feet, and his fine white stockings, 
 knew he was one to pay a good ransom. He told the 
 soldiers he would give them thirty crowns down 
 for their prisoner : they agreed gladly, for they had 
 no place to keep him, nor food for him, nor did they 
 know his value : so they gave their man into his 
 hands, and he sent him off at once, guarded by four 
 of his own soldiers, to Chateau de La Motte au Bois, 
 with others of our gentlemen who were prisoners. 
 M. de Bauge would not tell who he was ; and en- 
 dured much hardship, living on bread and water, 
 with a little straw for his bed. When Hesdin was 
 taken, M. de Vaudeville sent the news of it to him 
 and to the other prisoners, and the list of the killed, 
 and among them M. de Martigues : and when M. de 
 Bauge heard with his own ears his brother was dead, 
 he fell to crying, weeping, and lamentation. His 
 guards asked him why he was so miserable : he 
 told them, for love of M. de Martigues, his brother. 
 When he heard this, the captain of the castle sent 
 straight to tell M. de Vaudeville he had a good 
 prisoner: who was delighted at this, and sent me 
 next day with four soldiers, and his own physi- 
 cian, to the castle, to say that if M. de Baug6 
 
90 Ambroise Pare 
 
 would pay him fifteen thousand crowns ransom, he 
 would send him home free : and he asked only the 
 security of two Antwerp merchants that he should 
 name. M. de Vaudeville persuaded me I should 
 commend this offer to his prisoner : that is why 
 he sent me to the castle. He told the captain to 
 treat him well and put him in a room with hangings, 
 and strengthen his guard : and from that time on- 
 ward they made a great deal of him, at the expense 
 of M. de Vaudeville. 
 
 M. de Bauge answered that he could not pay his 
 ransom himself: it depended on M. d' Estampes his 
 uncle, and Mile, de Bressure his aunt : he had no 
 means to pay such a ransom. I went back with my 
 guards, and gave this answer to M. de Vaudeville ; 
 who said, " Possibly he will not get away so cheap " : 
 which was true, forthey knew who he was. Then the 
 Queen of Hungary and M. le Due de Savoie sent 
 word to M. de Vaudeville that this mouthful was 
 too big for him, and he must send his prisoner to 
 them (which he did), and he had other prisoners 
 enough without him. The ransom paid was forty 
 thousand crowns, without other expenses. 
 
 On my way back to M. de Vaudeville, I passed by 
 Saint Omer, where I saw their great cannons, most 
 of which were fouled and broken. Also I passed by 
 Theroiienne, where I saw not one stone left on 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 91 
 
 another, save a vestige of the great church : for the 
 Emperor ordered the country people for five or six 
 leagues round to clear and take away the stones ; so 
 that now you may drive a cart over the town : and 
 tlie same at Hesdin, and no trace of castle and fort- 
 ress. Such is the evil that wars bring with them. 
 
 To return to my story ; M. de Vaudeville soon got 
 the better of his ulcer, and was nearly healed : so he 
 let me go, and sent me by a trumpet, with passport, 
 as far as Abbeville. I posted from here, and went to 
 find my master. King Henry, at Aufimon, who re- 
 ceived me gladly and with good favour. He sent MM. 
 de Guise, the Constable, and d' Estr^s, to hear from 
 me the capture of Hesdin ; and I made them a true 
 report, and assured them I had seen the great can- 
 nons they had taken to Saint Omer : and the King 
 was glad, for he had feared the enemy would come 
 further into France. He gave me two hundred 
 crowns to take me home : and I was thankful to 
 be free, out of this great torment and thunder of 
 the diabolical artillery, and away from the soldiers, 
 blasphemers and deniers of God. I must add that 
 after Hesdin was taken, the King was told I was not 
 killed but taken prisoner. He made M. Goguier, his 
 chief physician, write to my wife that I was living, 
 and she was not to be unhappy, and he would pay 
 my ransom. 
 
92 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Battle of Saint Quentin. 1557. 
 
 After the battle of Saint Quentin, the King sent 
 me to La Fere en Tartenois, to M. le Mar6chal de 
 Bourdillon, for a passport to M. le Due de Savoie, 
 that I might go and dress the Constable, who had 
 been badly wounded in the back with a pistol-shot, 
 whereof he was like to die, and remained prisoner 
 in the enemy's hands. But never would M. le Due 
 de Savoie let me go to him, saying he would not 
 die for want of a surgeon ; that he much doubted 
 I would go there only to dress him, and not rather 
 to take some secret information to him ; and that he 
 knew I was privy to other things besides surgery, 
 and remembered I had been his prisoner at Hesdin. 
 M. le Mar6chal told the King of this refusal : who 
 wrote to M. le Mar^chal, that if Mme. the Con- 
 stable's Lady would send some quick-witted man of 
 her household I would give him a letter, and had 
 also something to say to him by M'^ord of mouth, 
 entrusted to me by the King and by M. le Cardinal 
 de Lorraine. Two days later there came one of the 
 Constable's gentlemen of the bedchamber, with his 
 shirts and other linen, to whom M. le Mar6chal 
 gave a passport to go to the Constable. I was 
 very glad, and gave him my letter, and instructed 
 him what his master must do now he was prisoner. 
 
 I thought, having finished my mission, to return 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 93 
 
 to the King ; but M. le Mar^chal begged me to 
 stop at La F^re with him, to dress a very great 
 number of wounded who had retreated there after 
 the battle, and he would write to the King to ex- 
 plain why I stopped ; which I did. Their wounds 
 were very putrid, and full of worms, with gangrene, 
 and corruption ; and I had to make free play with 
 the knife to cut off what was corrupt, which was not 
 done without amputation of arms and legs, and also 
 sundry trepannings. They found no store of drugs 
 at La Fere, because the surgeons of the camp had 
 taken them all away ; but I found the waggons of 
 the artillery there, and these had not been touched. 
 I asked M. le Mar^chal to let me have some of the 
 drugs which were in them, which he did ; and I was 
 given the half only at one time, and five or six days 
 later I had to take the rest ; and yet it was not 
 half enough to dress the great number of V70unded. 
 And to correct and stop the corruption, and kill the 
 worms in their wounds, I washed them with ^gyp- 
 tiacum dissolved in wine and eau-de-vie, and did 
 all I could for them ; but in spite of all my care 
 many of them died. 
 
 There were at La F^re some gentlemen charged 
 to find the dead body of M. de Bois-Dauphin the 
 elder, who had been killed in the battle ; they 
 asked me to go with them to the camp, to pick him 
 
94 Ambroise Pare 
 
 out, if we could, among the dead ; but it was not 
 possible to recognise him, the bodies being all far 
 gone in corruption, and their faces changed. We 
 saw more than half a league round us the earth all 
 covered with the dead ; and hardly stopped there, 
 because of the stench of the dead men and their 
 horses; and so many blue and green flies rose from 
 them, bred of the moisture of the bodies and the 
 heat of the sun, that when they were up in the air 
 they hid the sun. It was wonderful to hear them 
 buzzing ; and where they settled, there they infected 
 the air, and brought the plague with them. Mon 
 petit maistre, I wish you had been there with me, 
 to experience the smells, and make report thereof 
 to them that were not there. 
 
 I was very weary of the place ; I prayed M. le 
 Marechal to let me leave it, and feared I should be 
 ill there ; for the wounded men stank past all bear- 
 ing, and they died nearly all, in spite of everything 
 we did. He got surgeons to finish the treatment of 
 them, and sent me away with his good favour. He 
 wrote to the King of the diligence I had shown 
 toward the poor wounded. Then I returned to 
 Paris, where I found many more gentlemen, who 
 had been wounded and gone thither after the 
 battle. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 95 
 
 The Journey to the Camp at Amiens. 1558. 
 
 The King sent me to Dourlan, under conduct of 
 Captain Gouast ; with fifty men-at-arms, for fear I 
 should be taken by the enemy ; and seeing we were 
 always in alarms on the way, I made my man get 
 down, and made him the master; for I got on his 
 horse, which carried my valise, and could go well if 
 we had to make our escape, and I took his cloak 
 and hat and gave him my mount, which was a good 
 little mare ; he being in front, you would have 
 taken him for the master and me for the servant. 
 The garrison inside Dourlan, when they saw us, 
 thought we were the enemy, and fired their cannon 
 at us. Captain Gouast, my conductor, made signs 
 to them with his hat that we were not the enemy ; 
 at last they ceased firing, and we entered Dourlan, 
 to our great relief. 
 
 Five or six days before this, a sortie had been 
 made from Dourlan ; wherein many captains and 
 brave soldiers had been killed or wounded : and 
 among the wounded was Captain Saint Aubin, vail- 
 lant comme Vespe'e, a great friend of M. de Guise : for 
 whose sake chiefly the King had sent me there. Who, 
 being attacked with a quartan fever, yet left his bed 
 to command the greater part of his company. A 
 Spaniard, seeing him in command, perceived he was 
 a captain, and shot him through the neck with 
 
96 Ambroise Pare 
 
 an arquebus. Captain Saint Aubin thought him- 
 self killed : and by this fright I protest to God he 
 lost his quartan fever, and was forever free of it. 
 I dressed him, with Antoine Portail, surgeon-in- 
 ordinary of the King ; and many other soldiers. 
 Some died, others got off with the loss of an arm 
 or a leg or an eye, and said they had got off cheap, 
 to be alive at all. Then, the enemy having broken 
 up their camp, I returned to Paris. 
 
 I say nothing here of mojt petit utaistre, who was 
 more comfortable in his house than I at the wars. 
 
 The Journey to Bourges. 1562. 
 
 The King with his camp was but a short time at 
 Bourges, till those within the walls should sur- 
 render ; and they came out with their goods saved. 
 I know nothing Avorth remembering, but that a boy 
 of the King's kitchen, having come near the walls of 
 the town before the agreement had been signed, cried 
 with a loud voice, " Huguenot, Huguenot, shoot 
 here, shoot here," having his arm thrown up and his 
 hand spread out ; a soldier shot his hand right 
 through with a bullet. When he was thus shot, he 
 came to find me to dress him. And the Constable 
 seeing the boy in tears, with his hand all bloody, 
 asked who had wounded him : then a gentleman 
 who had seen him shot said it served him right, 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 97 
 
 because he kept calling " Huguenot, hit here, aim 
 here." And then the Constable said, this Huguenot 
 was a good shot and a good fellow, for most likely 
 if he had chosen to fire at the boy's head, he would 
 have hit it even more easily than his hand. I 
 dressed the kitchen boy, who was very ill. He re- 
 covered, but with no power in his hand : and from 
 that time his comrades called him " Huguenot " : 
 he is still living now. 
 
 The Journey To Rouen. 1562. 
 
 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 
 
98 Ambroise Pare 
 
 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 
 v/ould recover; which made the Prince very glad. 
 Four days later, the King, and the Queen-m.other, 
 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 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 99 
 
 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. 
 
 M. le Prince, having heard of it, sent to me his 
 surgeon, and his physician, one Lefevre, now 
 physician-in-ordinary to the King and the Queen- 
 mother, to say he wished to have the bullet, and 
 we were to look for it, to see where it was. Then 
 I was very glad, and assured them I should quickly 
 find it ; which I did in their presence, with many 
 other gentlemen : it was just in the very middle of 
 the bone. M. le Prince took and showed it to the 
 King and to the Queen, who all said that my 
 prognosis had come true. The body was laid to 
 rest at Chateau Gaillard : and I returned to Paris, 
 where I found many patients, who had been 
 wounded on the breach at Rouen, and chiefly Ital- 
 ians, who were very eager I should dress them : 
 which I did willingly. Many of them recovered : 
 the rest died. Mo)i petit inaist7'e, I think you were 
 called to dress some, for the great number there 
 was of them. 
 
loo Ambroise Pare 
 
 The Battle of Dreux. 1562. 
 
 The day after the battle of Dreux, the King bade 
 me go and dress M. le Comte d'Eu, who had been 
 wounded in the right thigh, near the hip-Joint, witli 
 a pistol-shot : which had smashed and broken the 
 thigh-bone into many pieces : whereon many acci- 
 dents supervened, and at last death, to my great 
 grief. The day after I came, I would go to the 
 camp where the battle had been, to see the dead 
 bodies. I saw, for a long league round, the earth 
 all covered : they estimated it at twenty-five thou- 
 sand men or more ; and it was all done in less than 
 two hours. I wish, mon petit maistre, for the love I 
 bear you, you had been there, to tell it to your 
 scholars and your children. 
 
 Now while I was at Dreux, I visited and dressed 
 a great number of gentlemen, and poor soldiers, and 
 among the rest many of the Swiss captains. I 
 dressed fourteen all in one room, all wounded with 
 pistol-shots and other diabolical firearms, and not 
 one of the fourteen died. M. le Comte d'Eu being 
 dead, I made no long stay at Dreux. Surgeons 
 came from Paris, who fulfilled their duty to the 
 wounded, as Pigray, Cointeret, Hubert, and others ; 
 and I returned to Paris, where I found many 
 wounded gentlemen who had retreated thither after 
 the battle, to have their wounds dressed ; and I was 
 not there without seeing many of them. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" loi 
 
 The Journey to Havre de Grace. 1563. 
 
 And I will not omit to tell of the camp at Havre 
 de Grace. When our artillery came before the walls 
 of the town, the English within the walls killed some 
 of our men, and several pioneers who were making 
 gabions. And seeing they were so wounded that 
 there was no hope of curing them, their comrades 
 stripped them, and put them still living inside the 
 gabions, which served to fill them up. When the 
 English saw that they could not withstand our at- 
 tack, because they were hard hit by sickness, and 
 especially by the plague, they surrendered. The 
 King gave them ships to return to England, very 
 glad to be out of this plague-stricken place. The 
 greater part of them died, and they took the plague 
 to England, and they have not got rid of it since. 
 Captain Sarlabous, master of the camp, was left in 
 garrison, with six ensigns of infantry, who had no 
 fear of the plague ; and they were very glad to get 
 into the town, hoping to enjoy themselves there. 
 Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, you would 
 have done as they did. 
 
 The Journey to Bayonne. 1564. 
 I went with the King on that journey to Bay- 
 onne, when we were two years and more making 
 the tour of well-nigh all this kingdom. And in many 
 towns and villages I was called in consultation over 
 
I02 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 sundry diseases, with the late M. Chapelain, chief 
 physician to the King, and M. Castellan, chief physi- 
 cian to the Queen-mother ; honourable men and 
 very learned in medicine and surgery. During this 
 journey, I always inquired of the surgeons if they 
 had noted anything rare in their practices, so that I 
 might learn something new. While I was at Bay- 
 onne, two things happened worthy of remark by 
 young surgeons. The first is, I dressed a Spanish 
 gentleman, who had a great and enormous swelling 
 of the throat. He had lately been touched by the 
 deceased King Charles for the king's evil. I opened 
 his swelling. ... I left him in the hands of a 
 surgeon of the town, to finish his cure. M. de Fon- 
 taine, Knight of the Order of the King, had a severe 
 continued pestilent fever, accompanied with many 
 inflammatory swellings in sundry parts of the body. 
 He had bleeding at the nose for two days, without 
 ceasing, nor could we staunch it : and after this 
 haemorrhage the fever ceased, with much sweating, 
 and by and bye the swellings suppurated, and he 
 was dressed by me, and healed by the grace of God. 
 
 Battle of Saint Denis. 1567. 
 
 As for the battle of Saint Denis, there were many 
 killed on both sides. Our wounded withdrew to 
 Paris to be dressed, with the prisoners they had 
 

 Ofiii Yiittcr qziiijkt. riidtoiilhv qcwimdt 
 Da voncrailorbcn nncuifcmiqf'jnindc 
 

 lar M. D. LXVII. 
 
 BATTLE OP SAINT DENIS, 1567. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 103 
 
 taken, and I dressed many of them. The King 
 ordered me, at the request of Mme. the Constable's 
 Lady, to go to her house to dress the Constable ; 
 who had a pistol-shot in the middle of the spine of 
 his back, whereby at once he lost all feeling and 
 movement in his thighs and legs . . . because 
 the spinal cord, whence arise the nerves to give feel- 
 ing and movement to the parts below, was crushed, 
 broken, and torn by the force of the bullet. Also 
 he lost understanding and reason, and in a few days 
 he died. The surgeons of Paris were hard put to 
 it for many days to treat all the wounded. I think, 
 mon petit maistre, you saw some of them. I beseech 
 the great God of victories, that we be never more 
 employed in such misfortune and disaster. 
 
 Voyage of the Battle of Moncontour. 1569. 
 
 During the battle of Moncontour, King Charles 
 v/as at Piessis-les-Tours, where he heard the news of 
 the victory. A great number of gentlemen and 
 soldiers retreated into the town and suburbs of 
 Tours, wounded, to be dressed and treated ; and the 
 King and the Queen-mother bade me do my duty 
 by them, with other surgeons who were then on duty, 
 as Pigray, du Bois, Portail, and one Siret, a surgeon 
 of Tours, a man well versed in surgery, who was at 
 this time surgeon to the King's brother. And for 
 
I04 Ambroise Pard 
 
 the multitude of bad cases we had scarce any rest, 
 nor the physicians either. 
 
 M. le Comte de Mansfeld, Governor of the Duchy 
 of Luxembourg, Knight of the Order of the King, 
 was severely wounded in the battle, in the left arm, 
 with a pistol-shot which broke a great part of his 
 elbow ; and he withdrew to Borgueil near Tours. 
 Then he sent a gentleman to the King, to beg him 
 to send one of his surgeons, to help him of his wound. 
 So they debated which surgeon they should send. 
 M. le Mar^chal de Montmorency told the King and 
 the Queen that they ought to send him their chief 
 surgeon ; and urged that M. de Mansfeld had done 
 much toward the victory. 
 
 The King said flat, he would not have me go, and 
 wished me to stop with himself. Then the Queen- 
 mother told him I would but go and come back, 
 and he must remember it was a foreign lord, who 
 had come, at the command of the King of Spain, 
 to help him. Then he let me go, provided I came 
 back very soon. So he sent for me, and the Queen- 
 mother with him, and bade me go and find the 
 Lord de Mansfeld, wherever he should be, to do all 
 I could for him to heal his wound. I went to him, 
 with a letter from Their Majesties. When he saw 
 it, he received me with good-will, and forthwith 
 dismissed three or four surgeons who were dressing 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 105 
 
 him ; which was to my very great regret, because 
 his wound seemed to me incurable. 
 
 Now many gentlemen had retreated to Borgueil, 
 having been wounded : for they knew that M. de 
 Guise was there, who also had been badly wounded 
 with a pistol-shot through the leg, and they were 
 sure that he would have good surgeons to dress 
 him, and would help them, as he is kindly and 
 very generous, and would relieve their wants. This 
 he did with a will, both for their eating and drink- 
 ing, and for what else they needed : and for my 
 part, they had the comfort and help of my art : 
 some died, others recovered, according to their 
 wounds. M. le Comte Ringrave died, who was 
 shot in the shoulder, like the King of Navarre be- 
 fore Rouen. M. de Bassompierre, colonel of twelve 
 hundred horse, was wounded by a similar shot, in 
 the same place, as M. de Mansfeld : whom I 
 dressed, and God healed. God blessed my work so 
 well, that in three weeks I sent them back to Paris : 
 where I had still to make incisions in M. de Mans- 
 feld's arm, to remove some pieces of the bones, 
 which were badly splintered, broken, and carious. 
 He was healed by the grace of God, and made me 
 ^ handsome present, so I was well content with 
 him, and he with me ; as he has shown me since. 
 He wrote a letter to M. le Due d' Ascot, how he was 
 
io6 Ambroise Pare 
 
 healed of his wound, and also M, de Bassompierre of 
 his, and many others whom I had dressed after the 
 battle of Moncontour; and advised him to ask the 
 King of France to let me visit M. le Marquis d'Auret, 
 his brother: which he did. 
 
 The Journey to Flanders. 1569. 
 
 M. le Due d' Ascot did not fail to send a gentle- 
 man to the King, with a letter humbly asking he 
 would do him so much kindness and honour as to 
 permit and command his chief surgeon to visit M. le 
 Marquis d' Auret, his brother, who had received a 
 gunshot wound near the knee, with fracture of the 
 bone, about seven months ago, and the physicians 
 and surgeons all this time had not been able to heal 
 him. The King sent for me and bade me go and 
 see M. d' Auret, and give him all the help I could, 
 to heal him of his wound. I told him I would 
 employ all the little knowledge it had pleased God 
 to give me. 
 
 I went off, escorted by two gentlemen, to the 
 Chateau d' Auret, which is a league and a half from 
 Mons in Hainault, where M. le Marquis was lying. 
 So soon as I had come, I visited him, and told him 
 the King had commanded me to come and see him 
 and dress his wound. He said he was very glad I 
 had come, and was much beholden to the King, 
 
DrtitaiifnaTevtJefi(mti^tef)t zmSrar^t 
 
 
 Am in. 0^o[r. im i,ir M. n. 
 
 ^J 
 
 BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR, October 3, isSq. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 107 
 
 who had done him so much honour as to send me 
 to him. 
 
 I found him in a high fever, his eyes deep sunken, 
 with a moribund and yellowish face, his tongue dry 
 and parched, and the whole body much wasted and 
 lean, the voice low as of a man very near death : and 
 I found his thigh much inflamed, suppurating, and 
 ulcerated, discharging a greenish and very offensive 
 sanies. I probed it with a silver probe, wherewith I 
 found a large cavity in the middle of the thigh, and 
 others round the knee, sanious and cuniculate : also 
 several scales of bone, some loose, others not. The 
 leg was greatly swelled, and imbued with a pituitous 
 humor . . . and bent and drawn back. There was 
 a large bedsore ; he could rest neither day nor night ; 
 and had no appetite to eat, but very thirsty. I was 
 told he often fell into a faintness of the heart, and 
 sometimes as in epilepsy : and often he felt sick, with 
 such trembling he could not carry his hands to his 
 mouth. Seeing and considering all these great com- 
 plications, and the vital powers thus broken down, 
 truly I was very sorry I had come to him, because it 
 seemed to me there was little hope he would escape 
 death. All the same, to give him courage and good 
 hope, I told him I would soon set him on his legs, 
 by the grace of God, and the help of his physicians 
 and surgeons. 
 
io8 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Having seen him, I went a walk in a garden, and 
 prayed God He would show me this grace, that he 
 should recover ; and that He would bless our hands 
 
 and our medicaments, to fight such a complication of 
 diseases. I discussed in my mind the means I must 
 take to do this. They called me to dinner. I came 
 into the kitchen, and there I saw, taken out of a 
 great pot, half a sheep, a quarter of veal, three great 
 pieces of beef, two fowls, and a very big piece of 
 bacon, with abundance of good herbs : then I said 
 to myself that the broth of the pot would be full 
 of juices, and very nourishing. 
 
 After dinner, we began our consultation, all the 
 physicians and surgeons together, in the presence 
 of M, le Due d Ascot and some gentlemen who were 
 with him. I began to say to the surgeons that I 
 was astonished they had not made incisions in 
 M. le Marquis' thigh, seeing that it was all sup- 
 purating, and the thick matter in it very foetid and 
 offensive, showing it had long been pent up there; 
 and that I had found with the probe caries of the 
 bone, and scales of bone, which were already loose. 
 They answered me : " Never would he consent to 
 it " ; indeed, it was near two months since they 
 had been able to get leave to put clean sheets on 
 his bed ; and one scarce dared touch the coverlet, so 
 great was his pain. Then I said, " To heal him, we 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 109 
 
 must touch something else than the coverlet of his 
 bed." Each said what he thought of the malady of 
 the patient, and in conclusion they all held it hope- 
 less. I told them there was still some hope, because 
 he was young, and God and Nature sometimes do 
 things which seem to physicians and surgeons im- 
 possible.* . . . 
 
 To restore the warmth and nourishment of the 
 body, general frictions must be made with hot cloths, 
 above, below, to right, to left, and around, to draw 
 the blood and the vital spirits from within outward. 
 . . . For the bedsore, he must be put in a fresh, 
 soft bed, with clean shirt and sheets. . . . Hav- 
 ing discoursed of the causes and complications of 
 his malady, I said we must cure them by their con- 
 traries ; and must first ease the pain, making open- 
 ings in the thigh to let out the matter. . , . 
 Secondly, having regard to the great swelling and 
 coldness of the limb, we must apply hot bricks round 
 it, and sprinkle them with a decoction of nerval herbs 
 in wine and vinegar, and wrap them in napkins ; and 
 to his feet, an earthenware bottle filled with the decoc- 
 tion, corked, and wrapped in cloths. Then the thigh, 
 and the whole of the leg, must be fomented with a 
 decoction made of sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, 
 flowers of chamomile and melilot, red roses boiled in 
 * A long discourse on the case is here omitted. 
 
no Ambroise Pare 
 
 white wine, with a drying powder made of oak-ashes 
 and a little vinegar and half a handful of salt. . . . 
 Thirdly, we must apply to the bedsore a large plas- 
 ter made of the desiccative red ointment and of 
 Unguentum Comitissce, equal parts, mixed together, 
 to ease his pain and dry the ulcer; and he must have 
 a little pillow of down, to keep all pressure ofT it. 
 . . . And for the strengthening of his heart, we 
 must apply over it a refrigerant of oil of water- 
 lilies, ointment of roses, and a little saffron, dis- 
 solved in rose-vinegar and treacle, spread on a piece 
 of red cloth. For the syncope, from exhaustion of 
 the natural forces, troubling the brain, he must have 
 good nourishment full of juices, as raw eggs, plums 
 stewed in wine and sugar, broth of the meat of the 
 great pot, whereof I have already spoken ; the white 
 meat of fowls, partridges' wings minced small, and 
 other roast meats easy to digest, as veal, kid, pi- 
 geons, partridges, thrushes, and the like, with sauce 
 of orange, verjuice, sorrel, sharp pomegranates ; or 
 he may have them boiled with good herbs, as let- 
 tuce, purslain, chicory, bugloss, marigold, and the 
 like. At night he can take barley-water, with juice 
 of sorrel and of water-lilies, of each two ounces, with 
 four or five grains * of opium, and the four cold 
 seeds crushed, of each half an ounce ; which is a good 
 
 * See page 211. 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" iii 
 
 nourishing remedy and will make him sleep. His 
 bread to be farm-house bread, neither too stale nor 
 too fresh. For the great pain in his head, his hair 
 must be cut, and his head rubbed with rose-vinegar 
 just Avarm, and a double cloth steeped in it and put 
 there ; also a forehead-cloth, of oil of roses and 
 water-lilies and poppies, and a little opium and rose- 
 vinegar, with a little camphor, and changed from 
 time to time. Moreover, we must allow him to smell 
 flowers of henbane and water-lilies, bruised with 
 vinegar and rose-water, \\'ith a little camphor, all 
 wrapped in a handkerchief, to be held some time to 
 his nose. . . . And we must make artificial 
 rain, pouring Avater from some high place into a 
 cauldron, that he may hear the sound of it ; by 
 which means sleep shall be provoked on him. As 
 for the contraction of his leg, there is hope of 
 righting it when we have let out the pus and other 
 humors pent up in the thigh, and have rubbed the 
 whole knee with ointm.ent of mallows, and oil of 
 lilies, and a little eaii-de-vie, and wrapped it in black 
 wool with the grease left in it ; and if we put under 
 the knee a feather pillow doubled, little by little we 
 shall straighten the leg. 
 
 This my discourse was well approved by the phy- 
 sicians and surgeons. 
 
 The consultation ended, we went back to the 
 
112 Ambroise Pare 
 
 patient, and I made three openings in his thigh. . . . 
 Two or three hours later, I got a bed made near his 
 old one, with fair white sheets on it ; then a strong 
 man put him in it, and he was thankful to be taken 
 out of his foul stinking bed. Soon after, he asked to 
 sleep ; which he did for near four hours : and every- 
 body in the house began to feel happy, and espec- 
 ially M. le Due d' Ascot, his brother. 
 
 The following days, I made injections, into the 
 depth and cavities of the ulcers, of .^gyptiacum dis- 
 solved sometimes in eau-de-vie, other times in wine. 
 I applied compresses to the bottom of the sinuous 
 tracks, to cleanse and dry the soft spongy flesh, and 
 hollow leaden tents, that the sanies might always 
 have a way out ; and above them a large plaster of 
 Diacalcitheos dissolved in wine. And I bandaged 
 him so skilfully that he had no pain ; and when 
 the pain was gone, the fever began at once to abate. 
 Then I gave him wine to drink moderately tempered 
 with water, knowing it would restore and quicken 
 the vital forces. And all that we agreed in consul- 
 tation was done in due time and order ; and so soon 
 as his pains and fever ceased, he began steadily to 
 amend. He dismissed two of his surgeons, and one 
 of his physicians, so that we were but three with 
 him. 
 
 Now I stopped there about two months, not with- 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 113 
 
 out seeing many patients, both rich and poor, who 
 came to me from three or four leagues round. He 
 gave food and drink to the needy, and commended 
 them all to me, asking me to help them for his 
 sake. I protest I refused not one, and did for them 
 all I could, to his great pleasure. Then, when I saw 
 him beginning to be well, I told him he must have 
 viols and violins, and a buffoon to make him laugh : 
 which he did. In one month, we got him into a 
 chair, and he had himself carried about in his garden 
 and at the door of his chateau, to see everybody 
 passing by. 
 
 The villagers of two or three leagues round, now 
 they could have sight of him, came on holidays to 
 sing and dance, men and women, pell-mell for a 
 frolic, rejoiced at his good convalescence, all glad to 
 see him, not without plenty of laughter and plenty 
 to drink. He always gave them a hogshead of beer ; 
 and they all drank merrily to his health. And the 
 citizens of Mons in Hainault, and other gentlemen, 
 his neighbours, came to see him for the wonder of 
 it, as a man come out of the grave ; and from the 
 time he was well, he was never without company. 
 When one went out, another came in to visit him; 
 his table was always well covered. He was dearly 
 loved both by the nobility and by the common 
 people ; as for his generosity, so for his handsome 
 
114 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 face and his courtesy : with a kind look and a gracious 
 word for everybody, so that all who saw him had 
 perforce to love him. 
 
 The chief citizens of Mons came one Saturday, to 
 beg him let me go to Mons, where they wished 
 to entertain me with a banquet, for their love 
 of him. He told them he would urge me to go, 
 which he did ; but I said such great honour was not 
 forme, moreover they could not feast me better than 
 he did. Again he urged me, with much affection, 
 to go there, to please him : and I agreed. The next 
 day, they came to fetch me with two carriages: and 
 when we got to Mons, we found the dinner ready, 
 and the chief men of the town, with their ladies, 
 who attended me with great devotion. We sat 
 down to dinner, and they put me at the top of the 
 table, and all drank to me, and to the health of M. 
 le Marquis d'Auret: saying he was happy, and they 
 with him, to have had me to put him on his legs 
 again ; and truly the whole company were full of 
 honour and love for him. After dinner, they 
 brought me back to the Chateau d'Auret, where 
 M. le Marquis was awaiting me ; who affectionately 
 welcomed me, and would hear what we had done at 
 our banquet ; and I told him all the company had 
 drunk many times to his health. 
 
 In six weeks he began to stand a little on crutches, 
 
"Journeys in Diverse Places" 115 
 
 and to put on fat and get a good natural colour. 
 He would go to Beaumont, his brother's place ; and 
 was taken there in a carrying-chair, by eight men at 
 a time. And the peasants in the villages through 
 which we passed, knowing it was M. le Marquis, 
 fought who should carry him, and would have us 
 drink with them; but it was only beer. Yet I be- 
 lieve if they had possessed wine, even hippocras, they 
 would have given it to us with a will. And all were 
 right glad to see him, and all prayed God for him. 
 
 When we came to Beaumont, everybody came 
 out to meet us and pay their respects to him, and 
 prayed God bless him and keep him in good health. 
 We came to the chateau, and found there more than 
 fifty gentlemen whom M. le Due d'Ascot had invited 
 to come and be happy with his brother ; and he 
 kept open house three whole days. After dinner, 
 the gentlemen used to tilt at the ring and play with 
 the foils, and were full of joy at the sight of M. 
 d'Auret, for they had heard he would never leave 
 his bed or be healed of his wound, I was always 
 at the upper end of the table, and everybody drank 
 to him and to me, thinking to make me drunk, 
 which they could not ; for I drank only as I 
 always do. 
 
 A few days later, we went back ; and I took my leave 
 of Mdme. la Duchesse d'Ascot, who drew a diamond 
 
1 1 6 Ambroise Pare 
 
 from her finger, and gave it me in gratitude for my 
 good care of her brother : and the diamond was 
 worth more than fifty crowns. M.*d' Auret was ever 
 getting better, and was walking all alone on crutches 
 round his garden. Many times I asked him to let 
 me go back to Paris, telling him his physician and 
 his surgeon could do all that was now wanted for 
 his wound : and to make a beginning to get away 
 from him, I asked him to let me go and see the town 
 of Antwerp. To this he agreed at once, and told his 
 steward to escort me there, with two pages. We 
 passed through Malines and Brussels, where the 
 chief citizens of the town begged us to let them 
 know of it when we returned ; for they too wished, 
 like those of Mons, to have a festival for me. I gave 
 them very humble thanks, saying I did not deserve 
 such honour. I was two days and a half seeing the 
 town of Antwerp, where certain merchants, know- 
 ing the steward, prayed he would let them have the 
 honour of giving us a dinner or a supper: it was 
 who should have us, and they were all truly glad to 
 hear how well M. d' Auret was doing, and made 
 more of me then I asked. 
 
 On my return, I found M. le Marquis enjoying 
 himself : and five or six days later I asked his leave 
 to go, which he gave, said he, with great regret. 
 And he made me a handsome present of great 
 
" Journeys in Diverse Places " 117 
 
 value, and sent me back, with the steward, and two 
 pages, to my house in Paris. 
 
 I forgot to say that the Spaniards have since ruined 
 and demolished his Chateau d' Auret, sacked, pil- 
 laged, and burned all the houses and villages belong- 
 ing to him : because he would not be of their wicked 
 party in their assassinations and ruin of the Nether- 
 lands. 
 
 I have published this Apologia, that all men may 
 know on what footing I have always gone : and sure 
 there is no man so touchy not to take in good part 
 what I have said. For I have but told the truth ; 
 and the purport of my discourse is plain for all men 
 to see, and the facts themselves are my guarantee 
 against all calumnies. 
 
III. 
 
 NOTES TO THE "JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE 
 PLACES." 
 
 ( The historical part of these notes is taken from Michelet, Guizot, 
 Duruy, Malgaigne, and L'Estoile : the notes on the names mentioned 
 by Pare are mostly taken from Le Paulmierand L'Estoile.) 
 
 I. The Journey to Turin. 1537. 
 
 THE peace of Cambrai, signed in 1529, lasted till 
 1536. During these years, Francois I. strength- 
 ened his army, allied himself with England, and 
 sought to regain hold on Italy by the betrothal of 
 the Dauphin, afterward Henri II., with Catherine de 
 Medici, niece of Pope Clement VII. In 1535, 
 the Emperor, Charles V., being now free from war 
 with France, and seeing his power in Europe threat- 
 .ened by the Turks, sent a fleet of 500 ships and 
 30,000 men against the Turkish pirates in the Medi- 
 terranean, captured Tunis, and set at liberty 20,000 
 Christian slaves. The King of France had already, 
 in 1534, made alliance with the Sultan, Suleiman II., 
 
 118 
 
Notes to Journeys 119 
 
 against the Emperor ; saying that when the wolves 
 were worrying his sheep, he had a right to set the 
 dogs on them. In 1536, one of the King's secret 
 agents at MiJan was put to death, at the instance of 
 the Emperor, by Francois Sforza, Duke of Milan. 
 Soon afterward, Sforza died ; and the King, hoping 
 to recover his lost possessions in Italy, advanced 
 against Piedmont and Savoy. 
 
 War being declared, the Emperor sent against 
 Marseilles the fleet which had returned from Tunis, 
 and entered Provence in July, 1536, with an army of 
 50,000 men. The French army laid waste their own 
 country, that he might find no foothold in it. The 
 troops were ordered to demolish the villas and mills, 
 burn the grain and fodder, stave in the wine-casks, 
 and pollute the wells. Marseilles and Aries were to 
 be held ; the rest of the towns were to be left, with 
 their fortifications broken down, abandoned to the 
 enemy. In two months' time, the Emperor was 
 forced to retreat from a country so desolate that his 
 men were dying of hunger and dysentery. " From 
 Aix to Frejus, the roads along which he retreated 
 were blocked with dying and dead soldiers, with 
 harness, lances, pikes, arquebuses, and other equip- 
 ment of men and horses, piled in heaps." 
 
 The expedition to Turin was made next year, 1537, 
 and not, as Pare says, in 1536. The fighting at the 
 
I20 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 Pass of Suze, close to Mont Cenis, was in October, 
 1537 ; this same pass had been crossed by the French 
 army, without opposition, in March 1536. 
 
 The Mont Cenis pass was the highroad from Paris 
 to Venice and to the East. There is in the British 
 Museum a little hand-book, 1480, for pilgrims from 
 Paris to Jerusalem ; " Le Voyage de la Saincte Cit6 
 de Hierusalem Avec la description des lieux ports 
 villes cites et autres passaiges. Faict I'an mille 
 quatre cents quatre vingtz. On les vend a Paris, en 
 la rue neufve nostre Dame a I'enseigne sainct Nicolas 
 par Pierre Sergent." It says of Mont Cenis : 
 
 " Cy apres s'ensuyt le commecement de la montaigne 
 du mont Senis qui dure a monter une lieue, et deux 
 lieues de Icing : qui souvent est enclose et couverte de 
 moult grat habondance de neiges qui par temps venteux 
 cheent et descendet impetueusemet sur les chemins, et 
 apres que les neiges sent cosommes par pluye ou chaleur 
 on trouve les mors et les portes-on en la logete qon apelle 
 la chappelle des trassis du mont Senys, Et la Descend 
 jusques a Suze bonne Ville cinq lieues. Suze est le 
 commencement de pimont la ot. on commence a comp- 
 ter les chemins par milles. Aussi les Orloges commen- 
 cent a sonner autremet que en france, car ils sonnent 
 pour midy xxiiii heures : et aussi, le diet lieu passe, les 
 femmes ne portent pas de chaperons, mais seulement 
 coiffes et couvrechefz." 
 
 It was at Turin that Par6 first practised amputa- 
 tion at the elbow-joint ; it was here also, always 
 
Notes to Journeys 121 
 
 ready to note small things, that he observed an old 
 woman's treatment of burns by application of raw 
 onions. 
 
 M. the Constable : Anne de Montmorency, born 
 1492, died at the battle of Saint Denis, 1567. After 
 twenty years in the King's service, he fell into dis- 
 grace at Court, in 1541, through the hostility of the 
 King's mistress, M. la Duchesse d'Etampes, but 
 was recalled by Henri II. He was the uncle of 
 Coligny. He received the ofifice of High Constable 
 in 1538. 
 
 M. de Montejan : R6ne de Montejan, Seigneur de 
 Montejan en Anjou, de Sille, et de Beaupreau. He 
 was taken prisoner at the battle of Brignoles in 1536. 
 He was made Governor of Piedmont in 1537, and a 
 Marshal of France in 1538. He died that same 
 year. His wife was Philippes de Montespedon ; after 
 his death, she married Charles de Bourbon, Prince de 
 La Roche-sur-Yon ; she was godmother to Pare's 
 child Ambroise (born May, 1576, died January, 
 
 1577)- 
 M. d'Annebaut : Claude d'Annebaut, Chamberlain 
 
 of the King, Knight of the Order of Saint Michel, 
 
 was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, Feb. 25, 
 
 1525 ; made a Marshal of France in 1538, Governor 
 
 of Piedmont, 1538, Ambassador at Venice, 1539, 
 
 Admiral of France, 1544; died 1552. 
 
122 
 
 Ambroise Pare 
 
 2. The Journey to Marolles and Low Brit- 
 tany. The Journeys to Land regies, 
 Perpignan, and Boulogne, i 543-1 545. 
 
 Pare returned from Turin to Paris early in 1539. 
 and was there till 1543. Between these years, he 
 qualified as a master barber-surgeon, settled dov/n, 
 married Jehanne ]\Iazelin, worked under Sylvius, and 
 began writing his book on Gunshot Wounds. 
 
 After the retreat of the Emperor from Provence, 
 the treaty of Nice was signed : " A truce to last for 
 ten years, signed more from weariness of fruitless 
 war than from any real desire of peace." The power 
 of the Sultan again disturbed the peace of Europe : 
 the Turks invaded Hungary, which was part of the 
 Empire, and the Emperor, in the late autumn of 
 1541, sent a huge fleet against the Algerian pirates. 
 It was caught in a storm, and the greater part of it 
 was destroyed. " The sea was free of the Emperor 
 now; the fleur-de-lis and the crescent sailed side by 
 side." In 1543, a Franco-Turkish squadron bom- 
 barded Nice, and the Turkish soldiers ravaged the 
 place when it fell. The Emperor raged furiousl}^ 
 seeing his fleet scattered, and the " Padishah of 
 France " in open alliance at one and the same time 
 with the Infidels and with the German Protestants, 
 yet as King of Catholic France persecuting the Re- 
 formed Church in his own country. " All my life 
 
Notes to Journeys 12^ 
 
 has been given to appease the woes of the Church, 
 and to save the faith of Christ from the Turks. All 
 his life, the King of France has been siding with the 
 Infidels, and troubling the peace of Christendom." 
 He obtained the help of England and of Spain ; they 
 would invade France all three together. The Span- 
 ish troops were to enter Piedmont, and advance 
 upon Lyon. The Emperor and the King of Eng- 
 land were to meet under the walls of Paris. 
 
 The fortune of war was with France. The Span- 
 ish army was defeated a few miles south of Turin, 
 by the Due d'Enghien, at the battle of Cerisoles, 
 April 14, 1544, with loss of twelve thousand men, and 
 all their artillery and baggage. The English troops 
 did not get farther than Boulogne and IMontreuil, 
 The Emperor came within eighty miles of Paris, 
 capturing on his way Saint Dizier, Epernay, and 
 Chateau Thierry ; but the Dauphin was at Meaux, 
 between him and Paris. The English were no nearer 
 than Boulogne ; there was no help now to be got 
 from Spain, and the Emperor, thus isolated, was 
 willing to come to terms. The peace of Crespy was 
 signed on September 17, 1546. Boulogne was ceded 
 to England for a term of years, on annual payment 
 of a large sum of money. 
 
 According to the dates given by Pare, he was first 
 in Brittany, against the English ; then with the King 
 
124 Ambroise Pare 
 
 at Landrecies ; then at Perpignan, on the Gulf of 
 Lyon, against the Spaniards ; then at Boulogne, 
 with the Due de Guise, against the English again. 
 But according to Le Paulmier, the journey to Perpi- 
 gnan came first, and the dates are as follows : Perpi- 
 gnan was besieged from August 26 to September 4, 
 1542 ; the journey to Marolles and Low Brittany w^as 
 in June, 1543 ; the King was at Landrecies in Octo- 
 ber, 1543, and went thence to Guise, the Duke's 
 place, on November 2. The fighting at Boulogne 
 was in August, 1545. Between Perpignan and Lan- 
 drecies, and again between Landrecies and Boulogne, 
 Ambroise was in Paris. His first child was baptised 
 July 4, 1545. His first book, the treatise on Gun- 
 shot Wounds, w-as published in August of that same 
 year. 
 
 The journey to Perpignan was made by such rapid 
 posting on horseback that he was taken ill on the 
 way, at Lyon, with haematuria. 
 
 Perpignan is on the Gulf of Lyon. Marolles or 
 Maroilles was a village thirteen kilom. west of Aves- 
 nes. Landreneau, a fortified harbour twenty-five 
 kilom. from Brest. Landrecies, on the Sambre, is 
 described in R. L. Stevenson's Inland Voyage. 
 
 M. de Rohan : Rene, Vicomte de Rohan, Comte de 
 Porrhoet, de la Garnache, de Beauvoir-sur-Mer, et de 
 Carentan, Prince de Leon: married, in 1534, Isabella 
 
Notes to Journeys 125 
 
 d'Albret, daughter of Jehan, King of Navarre ; was 
 killed at Saint Nicholas, near Nancy, November 4, 
 1552. The town of Rohan was not far from Fare's 
 birthplace. To M. de Rohan was dedicated Fare's 
 first book. 
 
 M. de Brissac : Charles de Coss6, Comte de Brissac, 
 " le beau Brissac : " became a Marshal of France, and 
 Governor of Ficardy. One of his daughters married 
 the Comte de Mansfeld, of whom we hear after the 
 battle of Moncontour. He was father of the de 
 Brissac who fought at the battle of Saint Denis. He 
 died of the gout, aged 57, December 31, 1563. 
 
 M. Nicole Lavernot : surgeon-in-ordinary to Henri 
 H. and Francois H., and in 1559 premier surgeon to 
 Charles IX. He died toward the end of 1561. 
 
 M. d' Etampes : Jean de Brosse, Due d'Etampes, 
 
 M. de Laval : Claude, Comte de Laval (Fare's birth- 
 place), sixteenth of his line ; married a daughter of 
 Odet de Foix ; died May 25, 1547. His widow 
 married Charles de Luxembourg, Vicomte de Mar- 
 tigues, of whom we hear again at the siege of 
 Hesdin. 
 
 Monseigneur le Due de Gtiise: The great Francois, 
 Due de Guise, Frince de Joinville, head of the house 
 of the Guises ; brother of Charles, Cardinal of Lorra- 
 ine, and of the Due d' Aumale, and of Marie de 
 Lorraine, who was wife of James V. of Scotland and 
 
126 Ambroise Pare 
 
 mother of Mary Queen of Scots. He was father of 
 Henri, afterward Due de Guise, and of his brother 
 the Cardinal, who were murdered by order of Henri 
 HI., December 23, 1588. 
 
 He was born at Bar-le-Duc, February 17, 1519: 
 assassinated by Jehan de Poltrot, Sieurde Mere, Feb- 
 ruary 18, 1563. He was nicknamed Balafr6, from 
 the scar of his wound at Boulogne. An account of 
 Fare's treatment of him is given in a Life of Coligny, 
 published in 1686. The great Coligny was at the 
 siege of Boulogne : being then only M. de Chatillon, 
 and not yet Admiral of France. So soon as he heard 
 of the Duke's wound, he sent his own surgeon to 
 him : but the surgeon dared not attempt to remove 
 the spear-head from the Duke's face, and came back 
 to Coligny, saying all the King's surgeons could do 
 nothing in such a case : there was no way of with- 
 drawing the spear-head, or of getting any hold on it : 
 the Duke's eye would come out if they removed the 
 weapon, and then everybody would say the surgeon 
 had done it. Finally, how was it possible to cure a 
 wound of which nobody had ever before heard the 
 like? Thus Coligny's surgeon. Nor was Par6 him- 
 self hopeful of success, as the spear-head was firmly 
 wedged among the bones of the face. More to obey 
 orders than with any assurance he would save the great 
 soldier's life, he took a pair of smith's pincers, and 
 
Notes to Journeys 127 
 
 asked the Duke if he could bear to let him put his 
 foot upon the Duke's face, to get a better purchase 
 on the weapon. " Why not? " said he, " And would 
 I not rather you did me a little harm for my great 
 good, than forbid you to help me for fear of a pain 
 that will pass in a moment?" Par6 then tore out 
 the spear-head: the Duke said " Ah, mon Dieu " 
 once, and that was all. Pare himself held it marvel- 
 lous that he recovered. 
 
 3. The Journeys to Germany, Danvilliers, 
 AND Chateau le Comte. The Journey 
 TO Metz. 1552-1553. 
 
 Frangois I. died March 31,1 547, and was succeeded 
 by his son Henri II. So long as the peace of 
 Crespy was observed, Pare was hard at work in 
 Paris. His book on anatomy came out in 1550: 
 and that year he bought the Maison de le Vache, and 
 the property at Meudon. On March 10, 1552, the 
 second edition of the Gunshot Wounds finished print- 
 ing : and that very week the army, suddenly called 
 out, was to meet at Chalons, 38,000 strong, under the 
 Constable, Guise, Coligny, d' Aumale, and Saint 
 Andr^. 
 
 The power of the Emperor was at its zenith : those 
 who love Victor Hugo's Hertiani will remember 
 the magnificent description of it, spoken by the 
 
128 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Emperor himself, as he stands alone before the tomb 
 of Charlemagne. He was master of Central Europe, 
 Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands : the Pope was on 
 his side: the disturbing forces of the Reformation in 
 Germany had been checked by his victory at Miihl- 
 berg, in 1545, over the German Protestants. Henri 
 n. saw his country in danger: he appealed for help 
 to the Sultan, as his father had done before him ; 
 gave up a scheme for the invasion of England, and 
 sought alliance with her ; declared war on the Pope, 
 named himself defender of the freedom of Germany, 
 and gained over to his side Maurice of Saxony; "he 
 gave the blood of his own Protestant subjects as the 
 -price of a policy which made him, almost everywhere, 
 the enemy of the orthodox, the friend of heretics and 
 evil-doers." 
 
 In the winter of 1551, there was a conference, at 
 Fontainebleau, with the Protestant princes of Ger- 
 many, who appealed to the King for help against the 
 Emperor. On the second day of the conference, 
 the King was told what threats the Emperor had used 
 against him : how he was planning to seize Metz, 
 Strasbourg, Verdun, and other towns. The King 
 declared war : the army was to meet at Chalons : 
 he entered Toul on April 13, 1552, and Nancy the 
 next day. Metz, after some hesitation, opened her 
 gates to him four days later: Strasbourg refused 
 
Notes to journeys 129 
 
 admittance to him, and he retired to Verdun, "well 
 pleased to be holding Metz, Toul, and Verdun, the 
 keys of France against Germany, with an army com- 
 manded by young, enthusiastic, and careful officers. 
 It was more like a triumphal progress than a real 
 war : the three free cities, the bishoprics of Metz, 
 Toul, Verdun, had been brought back to the crown 
 of France." By June ist, the army was on its way 
 to Luxembourg: where its first exploit (July 1st) 
 was the siege and capture of Danvilliers. 
 
 The Emperor, so soon as war was declared, made 
 haste to leave Germany quiet behind him ; on 
 August 2 he signed with the Protestant princes the 
 treaty of Passau ; for six months the Catholics and 
 the Protestants of Germany were to enjoy equal 
 privileges ; the questions of religion were hung up, 
 to be considered at a diet six months hence. Then 
 he advanced toward Metz with an army of sixty 
 thousand men. 
 
 The famous siege of Metz broke the power of the 
 Emperor, and prepared the world for his abdication 
 in 1556. The command of the town was given by 
 the King to Frangois de Guise, who wrote joyfully 
 to Diane de Poitiers, the King's mistress, who at 
 fifty was still young, still shaping the fate of France, 
 and thanked her for helping him to obtain the ever- 
 lasting honour of pulling the Emperor's beard. He 
 
130 Ambroise Pare 
 
 passed through Toul, where the plague was raging, 
 restored its fortifications at his own cost, and reached 
 Metz on the 17th of August. He set to work with 
 furious energy, reconnoitring the country, victualHng 
 the town, drilling the recruits; he organised the bar- 
 ber-surgeons of Metz into a sort of ambulance corps, 
 established two hospitals, restored the fortifications, 
 and pulled down all the suburban buildings that 
 might afford a foothold to the enemy ; working with 
 his own hands, and taking his food among the la- 
 bourers. When Alva, on October 19th, came be- 
 neath the walls with twenty-four thousand men, he 
 had to reckon not with raw recruits, but with well- 
 trained soldiers. On October 30th, Alva began the 
 assault. The Emperor was at Thionville, twenty 
 miles to the north, ill with the gout, unable to 
 stand : he did not arrive till November 20th, his 
 face pale and haggard, his eyes sunken, his beard 
 turned white : he was lodged in a hut built anyhow 
 for him near Alva's quarters. " A fine palace," says 
 he, " when they bring me the keys of Metz here." 
 
 From November 20th to 26th, the attack was in- 
 cessant ; it is said that in one day fourteen thousand 
 cannon-shots were fired. The breach in the walls was 
 made on the 28th. But with winter came storms of 
 rain and heavy snow ; and frightful mortality in the 
 Imperial army from cold and wet, hunger and epi- 
 
Notes to Journeys 131 
 
 demic disease. The Emperor, ill and worn out, lost 
 heart : " I have no men with me now ; I must say- 
 good-bye to my empire, and shut myself in a monas- 
 tery ; I shall turn friar before three years are out." 
 And again, when at last he was forced to raise the 
 siege, just before Christmas Day: "Fortune is like 
 the women : she prefers a young king to an old em- 
 peror." There ran through the town a song that one 
 of the French soldiers made : 
 
 " Monsieur de Guise est dedans, 
 
 Avec beaucoup de noblesse . . . 
 
 Pour conclusion, ils ont leve 
 
 De devant Metz I'artillerie, 
 
 Et tout leur camp ont fait marcher : 
 
 Qui leur est grande moquerie. 
 
 Le noble seigneur de Guise 
 
 Sur la queue leur fit aller 
 
 Grand nombre de cavalerie, 
 
 Pour les apprendre a cheminer." 
 
 Guise would hardly believe they had gone. Even 
 on Christmas Eve he wrote to his brother Charles, 
 Cardinal of Lorraine : " Don't tell me the Emperor 
 will move from here ; be sure that, unless he is play- 
 ing some very deep trick on us, so long as he is alive 
 he will not bear the shame of leaving this place be- 
 fore he has seen the end of it." 
 
 During 1552 and 1553 Park's movements were as 
 follows: In April, 1552, he was with the King in his 
 
1^2 Ambroise Pare 
 
 triumphal progress through Toul and Metz ; in July 
 he was at Danvilliers with him. Then he got back 
 to Paris, but soon left home again for Chateau le 
 Comte, near Hesdin ; then back again, via Tournan, 
 to Paris ; then off again, via Verdun, to Metz. He 
 got into Metz at midnight, December 8th ; thus he was 
 an eye-witness of the last fortnight only of the siege. 
 He left Metz about the middle of January, 1553. ' 
 
 M. Begin gives the following details of his return 
 from Metz. They are taken from a journal, 122 small 
 quarto pages, said to be in Park's own hand, shown 
 to M. Begin at Metz. The genuineness of this manu- 
 script is denied by Le Paulmier ; and up to 1885, M. 
 Begin had not submitted it to the test of publication. 
 
 According to this manuscript Journal des Voyages, 
 Pare left Metz in the company of some French offi- 
 cers and citizens of the town : he was on a fine bay 
 horse, a present from Guise himself, and his man 
 rode behind him with his leather valise containing 
 instruments, salves, and dressings. They went 
 slowly, taking three days to get to Verdun, where 
 they had to parley for admission, and show a pass 
 with Guise's signature. He found Verdun crowded 
 with fugitives, and among the wounded many cases 
 of hospital gangrene : supplies had run short, and 
 fever was raging everywhere. " The Franciscan 
 fathers, taking night-watch, after great courtesies 
 
Notes to Journeys 133 
 
 prayed me with much kindness to go with them to 
 the highest part of the town, and there they made a 
 great fire to keep off the plague : whereat I was easy 
 and reassured. The reverend fathers gave me a 
 bowl of hippocras ; my man made my bed, and I 
 slept as it pleased God." Next day, for six hours, 
 he went the round of such hospitals as Verdun had 
 been able to set going : " where the poor patients 
 were lying, so that it was pitiful to see and hear 
 them, often having neither linen nor straw to suffice 
 them." Here he did a number of operations, and 
 was invited by the Governor of Verdun to stop with 
 him, but preferred the hospitality of a surgeon living 
 near the archers' lodgings : " a man of a good heart, 
 and well experienced in his calling. This honest 
 surgeon entertained me better than one would have 
 believed of a town in famine and plague. After a 
 night in a good bed, I took the old road, and went 
 straight to Rheims." 
 
 He got back to Paris about the end of January, 
 and began his lectures on anatomy. Th6odoric de 
 H^ry was not working with him now, but a younger 
 man, Rostaing de Binosc, a Provengal, chirurgien 
 jure a Paris. 
 
 M. d' Aumale : The Due d' Aumale, brother of 
 Francois de Guise. 
 
134 Ambroise Pare 
 
 M. de Saint Andr^ : Jacques d' Albon, made 
 Marshal of France in 1547: killed at the battle of 
 Dreux, December 19, 1562. 
 
 M. de Vendosme : Antoine de Bourbon, Due de 
 Vendosme : afterward King of Navarre, by his mar- 
 riage with Jeanne d' Albret, Queen of Navarre, in 
 1548. Father of Henri IV. Born, 15 18. Died at 
 the siege of Rouen, 1562. 
 
 M. dti Goguier : Louis de Bourges, born at Blois 
 about 1482. M. D., Paris, November 15, 1506: 
 physician-in-ordinar)' to Louis XIL, premier physi- 
 cian to Frangois L and Henri H. : he devoted him- 
 self to obtain the liberation of Frangois L after the 
 battle of Pavia (1525) and was made Seigneur du 
 Gauguier et de Mesland, en Touraine : died Novem- 
 ber 19, 1556. 
 
 M. de Condd : Louis de Bourbon, Prince de 
 Cond6 : the great leader, with Coligny, of the Hu- 
 guenot army: killed at the battle of Jarnac, 1569. 
 Brother of the King of Navarre. 
 
 M. d' Enghien : Jean de Bourbon, Due d' Enghien, 
 Comte de Soissons. 
 
 M. de La Roche-sur-Yon : Charles de Bourbon, 
 Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon : died 1 565. Lieutenant- 
 General of the King's armies, 1557: Governor of 
 Dauphin^, 1562. He married the widow of M. de 
 Montejan, Pare's first master at the wars. 
 
Notes to Journeys 135 
 
 M. de Montpensier ; Louis de Bourbon, Due de 
 Montpensier. 
 
 M. de Vielleville : Frangois de Seipieaux, Seigneur 
 de Vielleville et de Duretal, made Marshal of France 
 in 1562: died November 30, 1571. 
 
 M. le due Horace : Probably this was Horace Far- 
 nese, Due de Castro, nephew of Pope Alexander 
 Farnese : we hear of him again, a few months later. 
 
 M. de Martigiies : Charles de Luxembourg, 
 Vicomte de Martigues : married Claude, widow of 
 the Comte de Laval. We hear of him again at 
 Hesdin. 
 
 4. The Journey to Hesdin. 1553. 
 
 In 155 1-2, Ambroise Pare finished the second 
 edition, dedicated to the King, of his book on 
 Gunshot Wounds. 
 
 He was not long left in peace. After the retreat 
 from Metz (Christmas, 1552) the German army moved 
 westward, and in the early summer of 1553 besieged 
 Theroiienne, a few miles south of Boulogne. Theroii- 
 enne was a small place, but important by reason of 
 its position, lying near the Netherlands, and serving 
 also to keep a check on Calais, which was till 1558 in 
 the possession of England. In 15 13, Theroiienne 
 had been taken by the English, but in 1527 had been 
 retaken by the French : then Francois I. had fortified 
 
136 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 it, and used to compare it to a pillow, on which he 
 could rest his head and feel comfortable. 
 
 The news of the siege of Theroiienne reached Paris 
 in the middle of grand festivities. Horace Farnese, 
 Due de Castro, was just married to Diane d' Angou- 
 leme, a natural daughter of the King ; and Paris, ex- 
 ulting over the retreat of the Emperor from before 
 Metz, was given up to holiday-making. The news 
 was taken in a light-hearted way, though Theroiienne 
 was neither well garrisoned nor well provisioned. 
 Some troops were sent under the command of Fran- 
 9ois de Montmorency, son of the Constable ; but 
 the enemy attacked the place so furiously that on 
 June 20, after ten hours' assault, Montmorency sur- 
 rendered and was taken prisoner, and the town was 
 stormed, sacked, and razed to the ground. The 
 Emperor was at Brussels, when he heard of it : 
 throughout the Netherlands there was great light- 
 ing of bonfires, ringing of church bells, and firing of 
 salutes. 
 
 Then Hesdin, close to Theroiienne, was served the 
 same way. Hesdin had already seen war: in 1521, 
 being then in the possession of Germany, it had been 
 captured for France by the Due de Bourbon. 
 
 Hesdin fell on July 17, 1553 ; and Par6 came so 
 near death, that his story of Hesdin is one of the 
 most fascinating of all the Journeys. He was at this 
 
Notes to Journeys 137 
 
 time forty-three years old, and had followed the wars, 
 off and on, for sixteen years. 
 
 The following year, 1554, to avenge these losses, 
 Henri 11. led an army into Hainault and Flanders. 
 He sacked Marienbourg and Dinant, and, at the other 
 end of the Netherlands, attacked Renty, not far from 
 St. Omer, but failed to take it. 
 
 M. de Savoire: Emmanuel Philibert, "Tete de Fer," 
 Due de Savoie, born at Chamb6ry, 1528 ; died, 1580 ; 
 served under the Emperor at Metz and Hesdin, and 
 won the battle of Saint Quentin, August 10, 1557. 
 After the peace of Cateau Cambresis, 1559, he mar- 
 ried Marguerite, the King's sister. 
 
 The Queen of Hungary : the Arch-Duchess Marie. 
 
 5. The Battle of Saint Quentin. The 
 Journey to Amiens. 1557-1558. 
 
 From 1553 to 1557, Pare was hard at work in Paris. 
 In 1554 he was admitted to the College of Sur- 
 geons, and took the degree of master of surgery ; 
 he was surgeon-in-ordinary to the King ; he was hard 
 at work on anatomy, and in good practice. He 
 and his wife were still childless. 
 
 In England, by the death of Edward VI. in 1553, 
 Mary came to the throne ; and took for her husband 
 Philip II. of Spain, son of the Emperor. By the 
 abdication of the Emperor in January, 1556, his 
 
138 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 brother, Ferdinand of Austria, received the Imperial 
 title. Spain, Burgundy, and the Netherlands, went 
 to Philip. Following the abdication, a truce for five 
 years, the treaty of Vaucelles, was signed on Febru- 
 ary 5> 1556) by the Emperor, and by Coligny for the 
 King. 
 
 The forces of war had now become centred in Italy. 
 Montluc held Siena for nine months against the Im- 
 perialist and Florentine troops ; de Brissac, in Pied- 
 mont, opposed Alva with good success ; Corsica and 
 Elba fell into the hands of France; Guise himself, 
 with 20,000 men, entered Rome as the friend and 
 ally of Pope Paul IV. against the Spaniards, passed 
 into the kingdom of Naples, and besieged Civitella, 
 but failed to take it. Philip, by his hold on Milan 
 and Naples, and by his English marriage, and his 
 power in the Netherlands, was threatening both Italy 
 and France. The Pope, seeing the Spaniards on all 
 sides of him, took the side of France, and pro- 
 nounced Philip excommunicate. 
 
 In 1557, Philip and Mary declared war on France; 
 and the battle of Saint Quentin, called also, from 
 the day, the battle of Saint Laurence, was fought on 
 the loth of August. Philip's army was 47,000 men, 
 of whom 9000 were English ; the Due de Savoie had 
 the chief command. The French army, commanded 
 by the Constable, Cond6, Coligny, d'Enghien, Mont- 
 
Notes to Journeys 139 
 
 pensier, and d'Andelot, Coligny's younger brother, 
 was defeated. D'Enghien was killed ; the Constable, 
 Coligny, and Montpensier, were taken prisoners. 
 Cond^ and de Nevers, with the remains of the army, 
 made their way to La F^re ; d'Andelot escaped 
 capture. 
 
 Guise, furious at the bad news, rushed back from 
 Italy, leaving the Pope to make what terms he could 
 with Alva. On October 20th, Guise conferred with 
 the King, at Saint Germain, by what sudden blow 
 they could avenge themselves on Spain and Eng- 
 land. By New Year's Day, 155S, he was under the 
 walls of Calais ; in a week, he captured it ; the Eng- 
 lish governor. Lord Wentworth, was taken prisoner, 
 the English garrison was shipped off; Calais, after be- 
 ing for two hundred and ten years in the hands of 
 England, became on January 9th a town of France. 
 Eleven days later. Queen Mary died. 
 
 At La Fere, August, 1557, ended Park's twenty 
 years' service against the enemies of his country. 
 Henceforth he saw the wars of religion, and France 
 her own enemy. He was now forty-eight years old ; 
 no longer a vagrant barber-surgeon picking up work 
 and a living in the wars, but a famous surgeon, with 
 a lot of rich patients wanting him back in Paris. 
 He was longing to get away from La Fere : " il 
 m 'ennuyoit beaucoup la : je priay M. le Mareschal 
 
J 40 Ambroise Pare 
 
 de me donner conge de m'en aller, et avois peur de 
 demeurer malade." It sounds like the French gen- 
 tleman of whom Hotspur fell foul : 
 
 " And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, 
 He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly, 
 To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse 
 Betwixt the wind and his nobility." 
 
 But he who will read again the horrors of La F^re 
 will not find fault with Fare's desire to get back to 
 his childless home and his daily work in Paris. 
 
 La Fere : A small fortified town, 24 kilom. from 
 Chateau-Thierry. The ruins of a castle, XIII. cen- 
 tury, are still to be seen there. R. L. Stevenson has 
 described La Fere in his Inland Voyage. 
 
 M. le Mar^schal Bourdillon : " Non Mar^schal de 
 France, mais simple mareschal des camps et armies 
 de Roi, grade Equivalent k celui de g6n6ral de brig- 
 ade." — E. BEgin. 
 
 M. de Lorraine : Charles, Cardinal de Lorraine, 
 brother of Francois de Guise. 
 
 Donrlan : Now called Doullens : the fortifications 
 were demolished in 1867: the castle is still standing. 
 
 Antoine Portail : Born 1530 (?) ; came to Paris as 
 a member of the household of the Queen of Navarre, 
 and was made a master barber-surgeon in Paris; 
 married Jacqueline de Prime, a kinswoman of ParE. 
 
Notes to Journeys 141 
 
 Surgeon to Henri II., Charles IX., and Henri III.; 
 attended Henri III. on his assassination, 1588 ; was 
 living in iS9S> fiv'e years after Fare's death. It was 
 after Portail had bled Charles IX. that the King 
 had, for some months, a contracted arm, which got 
 well under Fare's care. 
 
 6. The Journeys to Bourges and Rouen. 
 The Battle of Dreux. The Journey to 
 Havre, i 562-1 563. 
 
 Fare's life in Faris, from 1558 to 1562, was marked 
 by many events of importance to him and to his 
 home : the births of Isaac and of Catherine, his ap- 
 pointment as premier surgeon to the King, his 
 broken leg, his evidence in the case of Mile, de 
 Rohan, and the publication of his books on General 
 Anatomy, and on Wounds of the Head. 
 
 During these same years, great changes came on 
 France. In April, 1558, Mary Stuart, daughter of 
 James V. of Scotland and of Marie de Lorraine, 
 having lived many years at the French Court under 
 the care of her uncles the Guises, was married to the 
 Dauphin, afterward Francois II. In April, 1559, the 
 peace of Cateau-Cambresis was signed between 
 Henri II., Fhilip, Elizabeth, and the princes allied 
 with Spain, among whom at that time was WilHam, 
 
142 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Prince of Orange. By it, France kept the three 
 episcopal towns, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and re- 
 ceived back Saint Quentin ; a great number of towns 
 in the Netherlands and in Italy was restored to 
 Spain and her allies ; Calais was to remain in the 
 possession of France, on payment of a large sum of 
 money to England. 
 
 In July, 1559, came the King's death. A year 
 and a half later, died the first of the three sons who 
 succeded him, Francois II., aged seventeen when he 
 died (December, 1560), "having reigned seventeen 
 months, seventeen days, and seventeen hours " 
 (L'Estoile). To him succeeded his brother, Charles 
 IX., then ten and a half years old, under the regency 
 of the Queen-mother. 
 
 In March, 1560, came the plot of the Seigneur de 
 La Renaudie against the Guises; in 1562, the mas- 
 sacres of the Huguenots at Vassy and at Sens, and 
 the first war of religion. After forty years of martyr- 
 dom* and of ever-growing strength, the Huguenots 
 took the sword lest they should perish by the sword. 
 To the tyranny of the Guises, the Reformed Church 
 
 * After the period of the persecutions, came the wars ; and the 
 brutality of the age was in both armies alike. Stories are told of 
 murder and torture of defenceless Catholics by the Huguenot 
 soldiers, as terrible as those that are told of Alva's Spaniards. 
 See the Archives Curieuses^ containing a long extract from a book 
 published in Antwerp, 1588, entitled Theatre des Cruautez des 
 HerMques de nostre temps. 
 
Notes to Journeys 143 
 
 opposed an army led by Cond6 and CoHgny. Civil 
 war, once begun, raged off and on for thirty-two 
 years, and was not ended till the conversion of Henri 
 IV. to the Catholic faith in 1594. 
 
 The war of 1562 seemed to break out everywhere 
 at once. The Huguenot cause was at its weakest in 
 Paris (the date of the first Reformed church in Paris 
 is so late as 1555) but it was strong in the country 
 towns and in the provinces. Within six weeks, two 
 hundred places had declared for it, including Lyon, 
 Orleans, Bourges, and Rouen. Philip sent to help 
 the Catholic army 3000 Spaniards, of whose brutality 
 fearful stories are told. Elizabeth sent a like num- 
 ber of English to Cond6 and Coligny, on condition 
 that Havre should be ceded to England. 
 
 Rouen was captured on the 26th of October, 1562. 
 The death of the King of Navarre was hailed by the 
 Huguenots as the divine judgment on a renegade: 
 it was an age of skits and epigrams, and L'Estoile 
 has preserved one which is worth quoting here : 
 
 " Par I'oeil, I'espaule, et 1' oreille, 
 Dieu a fait en France merveille ; 
 Par roreille, I'espaule, et I'oeil, 
 Dieu a mis trois rois au cerceuil ; 
 Par I'oeil, Toreille, et I'espaule, 
 Dieu a tue trois rois en Gaule, 
 Antoine, Frangois, et Henry, 
 Qui de lui point n' ont eu soucy." 
 
144 Ambroise Pare 
 
 When the King of Navarre was on his death-bed, 
 he received a visit from the Queen-mother. " My 
 brother, how are you passing your time ? You 
 ought to have somebody to read to you." — " Madame, 
 most of those round me are Huguenots." — " They 
 are none the less your servants." When she went, 
 he got somebody to read the book of Job to him. 
 Then he said : " I know well what you will all be say- 
 ing ; that the King of Navarre was converted, and 
 died a Huguenot. Never mind what I am, be content 
 that I wish to die in the Augsberg confession, and 
 if I recover I will have the gospel preached again in 
 France" (L'Estoile). He died of pyaemia from his 
 wound on November 17th. His physician was de La 
 Mezieres, who, at his request, stayed by his side 
 praying for him ; to the surprise of the Cardinal de 
 Bourbon, who said under his breath that these Hu- 
 guenots were strange people, for here they were 
 using the same prayers as the Catholics. The King 
 insisted they should put him in a boat, that he 
 might get out of the pestiferous air of Rouen ; but 
 he was taken with a rigor, and had to be landed 
 again. He left 6000 livres to " his surgeon." I sup- 
 pose this was Ambroise Par6, for Ambroise always 
 counted the King of Navarre as one of the four 
 Kings whom he had served. The whole story of 
 the King's death is valuable for the light it throws 
 
Notes to Journeys 145 
 
 on the motives of the wars of religion. A long ac- 
 count of it, written by a Huguenot, possibly by de 
 La M^zi^res, is published in the Archives Curieuses. 
 
 It was at Rouen that Pare began to be dissatisfied 
 with the results obtained with the puppy-dog oil ; 
 henceforth he preferred the use of ^gyptiacum, a 
 more stimulating preparation. But when he pub- 
 lished his collected works he still spoke well of the 
 oil, used in small quantities. 
 
 Cond6 escaped capture when Rouen fell : the work 
 of sacking the town went on for eight days. He 
 raised a reinforcement of 7000 German mercenaries, 
 and advanced as far as the environs of Paris, but was 
 driven back by Philip's Spaniards. Then he turned 
 toward Havre, hoping to get from England money 
 to pay his German troops, but was met by Guise's 
 army at Dreux, about fifty miles south of Rouen. 
 The battle of Dreux was fought on December 19, 1 562: 
 Guise, the Constable, Saint Andre, and 17,000 men, 
 against Cond6, Coligny, d'Andelot, and 12,000 men. 
 The victory was with the Catholics ; but Saint Andr^ 
 was killed, and the Constable was wounded and taken 
 prisoner. Seven thousand men were killed ; Conde 
 was taken prisoner, and put under the guard of 
 Henri de Montmorency, Seigneur de Dampville, 
 Admiral de France. Before the engagement began, 
 Guise had sent to the Queen-mother and the young 
 
146 Ambroise Pare 
 
 King, asking formal leave to give battle. During 
 the audience, the old Huguenot nurse came into 
 the room ; Catherine, knowing that the whole 
 thing was a mere formality, said mocking, " We 
 must ask the King's nurse if we shall give battle ; 
 what do you think of that ? " The old lady an- 
 swered, " Well, Madame, since the Huguenots will 
 never be satisfied, you must make them listen to 
 reason." 
 
 On February 18, 1563, Guise was assassinated be- 
 fore Orleans by Jean Poltrot, Seigneur de Mery. 
 Every least detail of the great soldier's death has 
 come down to us, and the story of it is full of inter- 
 est. He made a good end. There was no time to 
 fetch Ambroise Par6 from Paris ; and the surgeons 
 at Orleans treated the wound with caustics. With 
 Guise dead, and the Constable and Cond6 both pris- 
 oners, there was need of time to breathe ; and on 
 March 19th was signed the peace of Amboise. Thus 
 ended the first war of religion, and now that there 
 was peace, a combined force of Catholics and Hu- 
 guenots was sent against the English In Havre. The 
 town was but poorly defended, and after six days* 
 siege opened its gates to the besiegers, on July 28, 
 
 1563- 
 
 M. Lefevre : Physician-in-ordinary to Charles IX., 
 Henri HI., and the Oueen-mother. 
 
Notes to Journeys 147 
 
 M. le Cointe d'Eu : Francois de Cleves, Due de 
 Nevers, Comte d'Auxerre, de Rethel, et d'Eu, Seig- 
 neur d'Orval ; Governor of Champagne ; born, 1539; 
 married (i) Anne de Bourbon, (2) Jacqueline de 
 Longwic. It was under his command that the 
 French army assembled at Laon before the battle 
 of Saint Quentin. His death at Dreux was by acci- 
 dent : he was shot, before the battle, by one of his 
 own gentlemen. 
 
 M.Pigray : Pierre Pigray ; born, 153 1 ; a pupil of 
 Pare; master of surgery, 1564; surgeon-in-ordinary 
 to Charles IX., Henri III., and Henri IV. ; died, 
 October 15, 1613. 
 
 M. Cointeret : Jean Cointeret, born at Paris; one 
 of the surgeons of Le Chatelet ; died, May 13, 1592. 
 
 M. Hubert : Richard Hubert ; surgeon to Charles 
 IX.; died, September 7, 1581. He attended the 
 Comte de Mansfeld (see the Journey to Moncontoiir). 
 He was with Par6, when he broke his leg in 1561. 
 
 7. The Journey to Bayonne. i 564-1 565. 
 
 Between the battle of Dreux and the journey to 
 Havre, Par6 rearranged his surgical writings, and 
 added many new chapters to them, thus making up 
 the Ten Books of Surgery, which finished printing 
 on February 3, 1563. Next year, began that strange 
 Royal progress of the Queen-mother and the young 
 
148 Ambroise Pare 
 
 King through the provinces; a long political cam- 
 paign against the Huguenots, with enforcement of 
 restrictions and prohibitions against them in the 
 great towns of France ; a two years' tour, with this 
 reason given for it, that Charles IX. must get to 
 know his people ; but its real object was to weaken 
 the cause of the Huguenots throughout the king- 
 dom, and the climax of it was the conference at 
 Bayonne with Alva, whose suggestions were fulfilled 
 seven years later by the massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
 mew's Day. 
 
 The Court left Fontainebleau on March 13, 1564, 
 and went by way of Troyes, Bar-le-Duc, Dijon, 
 Lyon, and Avignon, to Montpellier, where they 
 passed the winter. In the spring of 1565, came the 
 conference at Bayonne. In the summer the Court 
 moved homeward through Bordeaux, Tours, Blois, 
 and Orleans, and came back to Paris in December, 
 1565-. 
 
 Pare must have hated this waste of his time. To 
 make the best use of it, he talked diligently with 
 the physicians and surgeons in the towns through 
 which the Court passed ; and saw many patients in 
 consultation with them. He studied the plague, not 
 for the first time: it was raging at Lyon in 1564. 
 From Bayonne, he went to attend the Prince de La 
 Roche-sur-Yon at " a little village called Biarris " ; 
 
Notes to Journeys 149 
 
 and here he interested himself in the whale fisheries, 
 and brought home a whale's vertebra to add to the 
 store of curious things in his house at Paris. His 
 account of the whaling, in his treatise Of Monsters 
 and Prodigies, is very pleasant reading : 
 
 " At Biarritz I learned and assured myself of the 
 means they use to take the whales, as I had read in the 
 book that M. Rondelet has written about fishes, 
 which is as follows : Over against the said village there 
 is a little hill, on which was built long ago a tower ex- 
 pressly to make watch from it both day and night, to 
 discover the whales that pass that way ; and they see 
 them come, part by the great noise they make, part by 
 the water they throw up through the passages in the 
 front of their heads. And seeing them coming, they 
 ring a bell, at whose sound all those in the village run 
 at once, well provided with all things necessary to catch 
 them. They have many ships and small boats, wherein 
 are some men set apart to fish out those who may fall 
 into the sea, others to give fight to the whale ; and in 
 each boat ten good strong men to row quick, and many 
 others with barbed irons and long ropes fastened to 
 them, and each man's iron is marked with his own mark 
 that he may know it again. And with all their strength 
 they cast them at the whale ; and when they see she is 
 wounded, which they know by the blood coming out, 
 they let out the ropes of their irons and follow the 
 whale, to weary her and take her more easily ; and 
 bringing her to land, they rejoice and make merry, and 
 divide her, each man having his portion according to 
 what he has done. . . . The flesh of the whale is 
 
150 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 of no value ; but the tongue, which is soft and dainty, 
 they salt ; also the lard, which they send far and wide into 
 the provinces, to be eaten in Lent with peas ; they keep 
 the fat to burn, and to grease their boats. Of the whale- 
 bone they make farthingales, stays for women, knife- 
 handles, and many other things. Of the bones, the peas- 
 ants make fences for their gardens ; and seats and stools 
 of the vertebrae. I took one away with me, and keep 
 it at home for a wonder." 
 
 At Montpellier he was handling some vipers in 
 an apothecary's shop, and got bitten : 
 
 " Now I will give another instance, that I may always 
 instruct the young surgeon. When King Charles was at 
 Montpellier, I was bitten by a viper on the end of my 
 first finger, between the nail and the flesh, in the house 
 of an apothecary named de Farges, who was making up 
 some U?iguentum Theriacce. I asked him to let me see 
 the vipers he was going to put in it. He showed me a 
 good number of them, that he kept in a glass vessel, 
 whence I took one ; and was bitten by it, trying to see 
 its teeth, which are in the upper jaw, covered with a 
 little membrane where it keeps its poison, which it ex- 
 presses into the part as soon as it has made a wound 
 there. And having received this bite, I at once felt 
 extreme pain, both from the sensitiveness of the part 
 and from the poison ; then I tied the finger round very 
 tight, above the wound, to make the blood flow and to 
 let out the poison, and prevent it from advancing up the 
 arm. Then I asked for some old theriac ointment, 
 which 1 moistened with eau-de-vie in the hand of one of 
 de Farges' servants, and then I dipped some cotton in 
 
Notes to Journeys 151 
 
 the mixture, and laid it to the bite ; and in a few days I 
 was healed without any further trouble, by this remedy 
 alone." 
 
 M. Chapelain : Jean Chapelain, doctor of medicine 
 of Montpellier and Paris, physician-in-ordinary 
 to Francois I., premier physician to Henri II. and 
 Charles IX. To him was dedicated Park's book on 
 Wounds of the Head. He died of the plague, De- 
 cember 5, 1569, at the siege of Saint Jean d'Angely. 
 
 M. Castellan : Honor6 Duchastel (Castellanus), 
 doctor of medicine of Montpellier, afterward pro- 
 fessor, physician-in-ordinary to Henri II., Frangois 
 II., and Charles IX., and premier physician to the 
 Queen-mother. To him Par^ dedicated his book 
 on the plague. His sister's son was Andr6 du 
 Laurens, premier physician to Henri IV. He died 
 in the same house as Chapelain, and of the same 
 epidemic, November 4, 1569. 
 
 8. The Battle of Saint Denis. 1567. 
 
 In January, 1566, Pare was with the Court at Mou- 
 lins. In 1567, he made application to have jurisdic- 
 tion over the whole body of "chirurgiens jur^s k 
 Paris," and was refused. 
 
 The peace of Amboise lasted from 1563 to 1567. 
 
152 Ambroise Pare 
 
 The murder of Guise was laid to the charge of Co- 
 hgny, who made passionate declaration of his inno- 
 cence, and was acquitted on oath before the King 
 and his Council, in January, 1556. The Queen- 
 mother, seeing the power of the Guises weakened, 
 sought to redress the balance of forces by imposing 
 fresh disabilities on the Huguenots. In June, 1567, 
 when Cond6 claimed the royal promise, given in 
 1563, that he should succeed his brother the King 
 of Navarre, as Lieutenant-General of France, Cath- 
 erine evaded the claim ; and her son Henri d'Anjou, 
 afterward Henri HI., then a boy of sixteen, repudi- 
 ated it with such scorn, and so plainly threatened 
 war, that Conde left the Court and joined Coligny, 
 dAndelot, and other leaders of the Huguenot army ; 
 and in September, 1567, the second war of religion 
 broke out. 
 
 Forty towns, Orleans and Montpellier among 
 them, opened their gates to the Huguenot troops, 
 or were forced to open them. Conde and Coligny 
 advanced toward Paris, and encamped at Saint 
 Denis, with 6000 men. There was a plot to seize 
 the person of the young King, but it failed : negoti- 
 ations also were tried, but came to nothing. The 
 Catholic army, no less than 20,000, was under the 
 command of the Constable, then seventy-five years 
 old. On November loth, was fought the battle of 
 
Notes to Journeys 15, 
 
 Saint Denis; the Constable had disposed his troops 
 badly, and was himself mortally wounded. The 
 victory rested with the Catholics : but when Cond^ 
 the next day again offered battle, they dared not 
 accept it. Strengthened by an enormous reinforce- 
 ment of German mercenaries, the Huguenot army 
 now laid siege to Chartres*; the Catholic party, 
 dispirited by the death of the Constable, were will- 
 ing to come to terms; and on March 25, 1568, 
 the second war of religion was ended by the peace 
 of Longjumeau. 
 
 Par^ was kept hard at work within the walls of 
 Paris, dressing the wounded who came pouring 
 in from Saint Denis. He attended the Constable 
 during the few days of life that remained to him 
 after his wound. 
 
 The Battle of Moncontour. The Journey 
 TO Flanders. 1569. 
 
 In 1568, Par6 published his book on the Plague: 
 certainly the most admirable and vivid of all his 
 writings. 
 
 The peace of Longjumeau lasted only six months. 
 Massacres of the Huguenots were not stopped by 
 it : a hundred died at Amiens, a hundred and fifty 
 
 * For the whole story of Chartres, and the siege of it, see Mr. 
 Pater's Gaston de Latour, 
 
154 Ambroise Par6 
 
 at Auxerre, thirty at Fr^jus. An attempt was made 
 to sieze Cond6 and Coligny at Noyers: they escaped 
 to La Rochelle, where Jeanne dAlbret joined them, 
 the widowed Queen of Navarre, an ardent Huguenot ; 
 with her son Henri de Navarre, afterward Henri IV. 
 Help was obtained from the German Protestants, 
 and from Ehzabeth of England ; and in August, 
 1568, began the third war of religion. On March 
 13, 1569, came the battle of Jarnac and the death 
 of Cond^ : on June 23d, the battle of Saint Yrieux, 
 with some advantage on the side of the Huguenots : 
 in September, Coligny was forced to raise the siege 
 of Poitiers. On October 3d, came the great battle 
 of Moncontour; the victory was with the Catholics ; 
 Coligny was wounded, and his army lost between 
 5000 and 6000 men, and a great part of their 
 baggage. 
 
 Still the war dragged on into the next year ; by 
 which time both armies were exhausted. In vain 
 Philip offered the King 9000 men to help him to 
 prolong the war : in vain Pope Pius V. wrote to 
 Catherine that there could be no communion be- 
 tween Satan and the children of light. Peace was 
 signed at Saint Germain, August 8, 15 70, on terms 
 favourable to the Huguenots, and was confirmed by 
 the marriage of the King's sister, Marguerite de 
 Valois, to Henri de Navarre, on October 4th. It 
 
Notes to Journeys 155 
 
 was a time of marriages : the King, on November 
 26th, was married to the Archduchess Elizabeth 
 of Austria. 
 
 With the peace of Saint Germain came the end of 
 Ambroise Park's work in the army. And of all his 
 yourneys in Diverse Places, surely the last of them, 
 the journey to Flanders, is just the one which 
 should come at the end ; it shows the whole work- 
 ing of his mind, the whole wealth of his shrewdness, 
 patience, gentleness, and skill. He was now sixty 
 years old, and had served in the army, off and on, 
 for thirty-three years. Francois de Guise, Anne de 
 Montmorency, the King of Navarre, Conde, were all 
 gone. One heroic soldier, one true lover of France, 
 was yet to be his patient : but Ambroise need not 
 leave Paris to stand at the bed-side of Coligny. 
 
 Plessis-les-Tours : A village, i kilom. from Tours. 
 
 M. dii Bois : Guillaume du Bois, surgeon-in-ordinary 
 to Henri H. He was one of those who received 
 Par6 into the College of Surgeons in 1554 : and was 
 present when Pare made the embalment of Charles 
 IX. He must not be confounded with the great 
 Jacques du Bois (Sylvius) Pare's old teacher. 
 
 Monseigneur lefr^re du Roy : Henri, Due d'xA.njou, 
 afterward Henri HI. 
 
156 Ambroise Pare 
 
 M. de Mansfeld : Pierre Ernest, Comte de Mans- 
 feld : he married a sister of Francois de Bassompierre. 
 
 M. de Montmorency : Francois, son of the Con- 
 stable: taken prisoner at Theroiienne, 1553. 
 
 M. de Rhingrave : Jean Philippe de Dauhn, 
 Comte de Rhingrave, eldest son of Philippe Fran- 
 gois de Dauhn : born 1545. 
 
 M. de Bassompierre : Christophe, son of Francois 
 de Bassompierre, and father of another Francois 
 who was a Marshal of France. 
 
 M.le Due d' Ascot : Philippe, Due d'Arschot, Prince 
 de Chimay, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Grandee of 
 Spain : born July 10, 1526 ; married, in 1559, Jeanne 
 Henriette, DamedeHalluyn: died December 6, 1581. 
 
 M. le Marquis d'Auret : Charles Philippe de Croz, 
 son of Philippe de Croz and of Anne de Lorraine : 
 born September i, 1549: married Diane, widow of 
 M. de Rhingrave: died November 23, 1613. He 
 was only twenty years old when Par6 attended him. 
 
 ^S<^(^fe)^)^ 
 
IV. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 1541-1572. 
 
 " God is my witness, and men know it well, I have worked more 
 than forty years to illumine and perfect the art of Surgery. I have 
 been so prodigal of myself, my toil, my powers, that I have not 
 spared time, working night and day, nor money." — Fare's dedication 
 of his Works to the King : first edition, 1575. 
 
 IT is certain Pare loved peace, and loved Paris. 
 " I returned to Paris," he says again and again ; 
 thankful to get back to his wife and his work there, 
 " Truly I repented to have left Paris. . . . To 
 speak truth, I could have wished myself back in 
 Paris. ... I was very glad to be at liberty, out 
 of the noise of the artillery, and far from the sol- 
 diers." Turin, Metz, Hesdin, La F^re, — at all of 
 them he worked hard, and took his chance of death, 
 even of torture ; and at all of them he was longing 
 to be back again in " this great and famous city of 
 Paris." 
 
 Now, therefore, his Journeys in Diverse Places 
 157 
 
158 Ambroise Pare 
 
 must be set aside, and he must give an account of 
 himself, not as an army surgeon, but as a citizen of 
 no mean city, bourgeois de Paris, a peaceful gentle- 
 man, whose face got to be as well known in the 
 streets as the face of the King himself, and much 
 more welcome. It is just half a century, from 1541, 
 when he qualified as a master barber-surgeon, to 
 December, 1590, when he died. Half a century of 
 such a life is too much for one chapter : and it 
 may be divided at the Massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
 mew's Day, August 24, 1572. The blood then 
 shed in Paris was but a small quantity in comparison 
 with the whole flood poured out over France in the 
 persecutions, and in the wars of religion ; yet for its 
 place in history, and for the mark it left on Paris, 
 this one of many massacres of the Huguenots is a 
 good dividing-point of Fare's hfe. He himself was 
 in the midst of it : and it nearly coincides with that 
 other break in his life, the death of Jehanne Mazelin, 
 in 1573. So this chapter tells the story of the years 
 1 541-1572: from the time he became qualified to 
 practice, to the day he stood by the bed-side of 
 his old friend Coligny, and heard Coligny's murderers 
 come howling round the house. 
 
 Starting in Practice. 
 In 1 54 1, Ambroise Pare had come back from his 
 first sight of war, had dined with Sylvius, had told 
 
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Paris 159 
 
 him how hot oil was not good for gunshot wounds, 
 and had been urged by Sylvius to write a book on 
 the subject.* He was thirty-one years old, qualified, 
 and without a wife : and he lived at the end of the 
 Pont Saint-Michel, not far from his old hospital, in 
 the parish of Saint Andr6 des Arcs. 
 
 His lodging was at one corner of a little open 
 place, called Place Saint Michel Archange : on the 
 ground floor of a little house running far back. He 
 had two fair-sized rooms, with the staircase between 
 them ; and being on the ground floor he had to open 
 the door for any belated fellow-lodger or strayed 
 reveller. At the back of the house was a cold, dark 
 little courtyard, with kitchen and woodshed. f The 
 
 * The book was published in 1545. A copy of it (i 551 edition) 
 presented to the King, or to Diane de Poitiers, is, or was ten years 
 ago, in the possession of Mr. Quaritch. See Quaritch's General 
 Catalogue, 1887, vol. ii., p. 1234 : n° 12876. "Pare (Ambroise) La 
 Maniere de Traicter les Playes faictes tat par hacquebutes que par 
 fleches , . . sm. 8vo. {\2mo) printed ott vellum, with numerous 
 initials and woodcuts of surgical instruments and their uses, all 
 richly painted and illuminated, the presentation copy to Diane de 
 Poitiers in the original calf-binding repaired, with a grand geometrical 
 or architectonic pattern in gold on the sides, the back covered with 
 gilt tooling, unique, in an olive morocco case, ;^300. Paris, 1551. 
 There is no mark on the binding, except its beauty and its age, that 
 indicates possession by the famous Diane : but in cadres within the 
 illuminated border of the title-page, the three crescents and the 
 interlacing H and QD are wrought in silver upon a blue ground ; 
 and the style of the ornament is that usually adopted by her binder. 
 This unique vellum copy is the dedication-copy to Henri II." 
 
 f M. Emile Begin gives these details : on the authority of the 
 
i6o Ambroise Pare 
 
 streets round the house were crowded, crooked, and 
 only five or six feet across : the river, without quay 
 or parapet, and the sewers, kept everything damp 
 and muddy. But the place was convenient for 
 work, near the H6tel Dieu and the lecture-rooms : 
 perhaps also he had in view the chances of practice, 
 for the Pr6-aux-clercs, near the house, was often the 
 scene of duels : and fighting in the streets was com- 
 mon, with ten or twelve thousand students of differ- 
 ent nationalities in Paris. 
 
 He was neither so poor nor so hopeless but that 
 he should fall in love ; and within a few months of 
 his being qualified, he was married, at his parish 
 church of Saint Andr6 des Arcs. 
 
 The marriage contract was signed on June 30, I54i- 
 His wife's name was Jehanne Mazelin, daughter of 
 Jehan Mazelin, "valet chauffe-cire de la Chancellerie 
 
 " Archives d' Aiitoine Louis, ancien secretaire perpetuel de I'Aca- 
 demie de Chirurgie : liasse intitulee, Notes sur Ambroise Pare (de 
 la main d' Antoine Louis). IvCS notes, recueillies toutes (1757) sur 
 des papiers authentiques et inedits, sout de deux mains differentes, 
 tres-lisibles. Malheureusement les copistes, lettres d' ailleurs, ne 
 connaissaient ni la langue du xvi™* siecle, ni ses signes abreviatifs ou 
 conventionels, source d'erreurs inevitables." But there is a most 
 suspicious completeness about the Pare documents that M. Begin 
 discovered at Metz : they are so exactly what one would wish to dis- 
 cover. A journal of 122 pages, in Pare's own hand ; a long letter of 
 good advice to his nephew Bertiand ; and his last will and testament. 
 M. Turner does not admit any hope that they were genuine : " au- 
 jourd'hui on peut afifiirmer hardiment que ces documents sont sans 
 aucune valeur." 
 
Paris i6i 
 
 de France " — -famulus domini cancellarii Francice — a 
 servant of the great Antoine Du Prat, Chancellor of 
 Frangois I.; who rose to great political power during 
 the King's captivity at Madrid after the battle of 
 Pavia(i525), was Archbishop of Sens, and a Cardinal, 
 and is said, when Pope Clement VII. died (1533), to 
 have made an offer of four hundred thousand crowns 
 for the Papacy. Antoine Du Prat died in 1535 : the 
 King laid hands on his property ; and perhaps Je- 
 hanne's father was ruined in the general crash. Any- 
 how, Jehan Mazelin died before Jehanne and Am- 
 broise were made man and wife ; leaving behind him 
 Jehanne, a younger daughter named Madeline, a son 
 named Antoine, and other children : and his widow 
 was married again, this time to Estienne Cleret, 
 a shopkeeper in the Rue Saint Andr^ des Arcs. 
 Jehanne was living with her stepfather, and was 
 about twenty years old. What, beside proximity, 
 drew Jehanne and Ambroise together, we do not 
 know : but it was not money. This fact is proved 
 by their marriage contract, published by Le Paul- 
 mier from the old family papers at Chateau Paley, 
 in the possession of Mdme. la Marquise Le Charron : 
 
 " Before Jehan Dupre and Remon d'Orleans, His 
 Majesty's Notaries of the Chatelet, were present in 
 person Estienne Cleret, salesman, citizen of Paris, and 
 Jehanne de Prime his wife ; aforetime wife, by her first 
 
1 62 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 marriage, of the late Jehan Mazelin, . . . and Je- 
 hanne Mazelin, daughter of the said deceased Jehan 
 Mazelin and the said Jehanne de Prime, . , . and 
 Ambroise Pare, master barber-surgeon in this city of 
 Paris . . . the which parties, of their free desire and 
 good will without constraint have agreed and promised, 
 in the presence of and before the said Notaries, as in 
 right judgment and moreover in the presence and by the 
 advice, council, and deliberation of Marguerite Choisel, 
 widow of the late Odo de Prime, in his lifetime also 
 master barber-surgeon of Paris, relations on the mother's 
 side of the said Jehanne Mazelin, and M.6vy de Prime, 
 salesman and citizen of Paris, her uncle on the mother's 
 side, and Estienne de la Riviere and Loys Drouet, also 
 master barber-surgeons in Paris, friends of the said 
 Ambroise Pare, to make, and by these presents have 
 made and make together the treaty, accords, promises, 
 and arrangements which follow, for the marriage which 
 at God's pleasure will soon be made and solemnized 
 before Holy Church, of the said Ambroise Pare and the 
 said Jehanne Mazelin : that is to say the said Estienne 
 Cleret and his wife have promised and promise to be- 
 stow and give in law of marriage the said Jehanne Maze- 
 lin free and quit of all debts and liabilities whatsoever to 
 the said Ambroise Par6, who has promised and promises 
 to take her to wife and spouse, so quickly as he well 
 shall be able to do it, if God and Holy Church allow 
 it. . . ." 
 
 Thus the notaries ramble on, illustrating the per- 
 petual contrast between law and medicine. M^ry 
 de Prime, Estienne de la Riviere, and Loys Drouet, 
 
Paris 163 
 
 come again into Park's life: his friends rose with 
 him, and kept near him. Jehanne brought Am- 
 broise six hundred livres tournois, and her clothes : 
 Ambroise settled on Jehanne two hundred livres 
 tournois. If he died, she was to keep all her clothes, 
 rings, and trinkets then in actual use : if she died, 
 he was to keep his clothes, rings, and surgical instru- 
 ments. They gave up all her rights of succession, 
 and all further claim on Estienne Cleret. The six 
 hundred livres tournois were paid over to them on 
 July i6th. The wedding-day came afterward : for in 
 the receipt for the money, Jehanne is not called 
 "sa femme" but "sa fiencee en Saincte Eglise." 
 
 Man and Wife. 
 
 Two years after their marriage, on October 21, 
 1543, they signed a "mutual donation" of all that 
 they had. Ambroise's life was never safe at the wars : 
 they would make a simpler arrangement of things : 
 on the death of one of them, the other was to have 
 everything, and to pay twenty crowns to the bereaved 
 family. At this time, they had no children. 
 
 Their first child, Frangois, was baptised at Saint 
 Andre, July 4, 1545: the godfathers were Francois 
 de Villeneuve, physician, and Loys Drouet or Duret, 
 barber ; the godmother was Jehanne de Prime. 
 Unhappily for Ambroise and his wife, the child died 
 
164 Ambroise Pare 
 
 in a few months ; and for fourteen years there is no 
 word of another. Then, in 1559, was born a son, 
 rightly named Isaac, baptised at Saint Andre on 
 August nth: the godfathers were Antoine Mazelin, 
 his uncle, and Nicole Lambert, surgeon-in-ordinary 
 to the King ; the godmother was Anne du Tillet, 
 wife of Estienne Lallemant, Seigneur de Vouzay. 
 This child also died, and was buried on August 2, 
 1560. Then a daughter was born to them, named 
 Catherine ; baptised at Saint Anc^ 3n 'September 30, 
 1560: Gaspard Martin, Fare's brother-in-law, was 
 godfather, and the godmothers were Catherine, wife 
 of Loys de Prime, Marguerite, whom Estienne 
 Claret married after the death of Jehanne Mazelin's 
 mother, and Jehanne de Prime. 
 
 Thus Ambroise was more than fifty years old before 
 he had a child of his own old enough to talk to him, 
 and he never had a son to follow him ; and Jehanne 
 remained childless for near fifteen years, with her 
 husband away at the wars, and her one baby buried 
 in the parish church. Catherine alone remained to 
 them ; and she was thirteen years old when her 
 mother died in 1573. 
 
 To console themselves, they helped other people's 
 children. In July, 1559, Ambroise settled fifteen 
 livres tournois yearly on Olive Arnoullet, six or seven 
 years old, daughter of a doctor practising near Eper- 
 
Paris 165 
 
 nay. If she died, the annuity was to go to her 
 brother Christopher, or to the other children. In 
 October, 1565, having received from the King the 
 effects of one Jehan Gaultier, Ambroise handed them 
 over to the dead man's brother, Claude Gaultier, a 
 wool-carder of Carpentras near Avignon, " a poor 
 blind man aged sixty years and more, burdened with 
 four children." But the charity of Ambroise and 
 Jehanne began at home, with their nephew Bertrand 
 and their niece Jehanne. 
 
 Bertrand Pare was the son of Ambroise's brother 
 Jehan, the master barber-surgeon at Vitr6 in Brittany, 
 who died some time before 1 549 ; and Bertrand was 
 to come to Paris to learn his father's business. In 
 August, 1549, Ambroise and Jehanne arranged that 
 at their death, if they died childless, as they then 
 were, Bertrand should have an annuity of forty livres 
 tournois, payable also to his heirs after him. Ambroise 
 took the young man in hand, entered him as a stu- 
 dent under the rules of the confraternity of Saint 
 Cosmo, and apprenticed him to an apothecary, Jehan 
 de Saint Germain. The young man was idle, con- 
 ceited, and a failure. 
 
 Jehanne Pare was the daughter of Ambroise's 
 other brother Jehan, the chest-maker in the Rue de 
 la Huchette, by his second wife, Marie de Neufville. 
 She was six or seven years old when her father 
 
1 66 Ambroise Pare 
 
 died, some time before 1560; and that same year 
 Ambroise and his wife gave her a dowry of five hun- 
 dred Itvres tournois, to be paid to her when she was 
 either married or settled. She became both married 
 and settled ; but this was after Jehanne Mazelin's 
 death, and therefore belongs to the next chapter. 
 
 The " Royal College of Surgeons." 
 
 Though a great surgeon, holding one court appoint- 
 ment after another, may yet keep outside politics, 
 and indifferent to the rise or fall of those in high 
 places, he cannot escape the politics of his own pro- 
 fession; and it was impossible for Ambroise Par6 to 
 stand apart from the perpetual strife between the 
 physicians, the surgeons, and the barber-surgeons. 
 
 The corporation of barber-surgeons represented the 
 barber-surgeons, the confraternity of Saint Cosmo rep- 
 resented the surgeons, and the faculty of medicine rep- 
 resented the physicians : and these three bodies were 
 engaged in a sort of triangular duel. Malgaigne gives 
 the whole history of it, in all its phases, throughout 
 the length and breadth of France ; but here we are 
 concerned with it only so far as it affected Ambroise 
 Par6. From 1541 to 1554, he was a barber-surgeon; 
 in 1554, he was admitted to the confraternity of Saint 
 Cosmo, then calling itself, as it were for that occasion 
 only, the Royal College of Surgeons; in 1567, he 
 
Paris 167 
 
 asked to receive supremacy and jurisdiction over the 
 confraternity, and the faculty successfully opposed 
 his petition. In 1569, came his controversy with 
 Julien Le Paulmier, one of the faculty; and in 1575, 
 when he published the first edition of his collected 
 works, he began that long conflict with the faculty 
 which lasted almost to his death in 1590. 
 
 In a triangular fight between three institutions all 
 of venerable antiquity, there must needs be many 
 lesser skirmishes and side-issues. Something has 
 been said already about the barber-surgeons ; the 
 physicians, and their warfare with Par6, belong to 
 the later years of his life. Between the barber- 
 surgeons and the physicians, and as it were 
 trampling on the barber-surgeons to get at the physi- 
 cians, comes that vigorous and discontented body of 
 men, the confraternity of Saint Cosmo, or College of 
 Surgeons of France. 
 
 The patron saints of the confraternity, Saint Cosmo 
 and Saint Damien, who were also the saints of the 
 barber-surgeons, were two brothers, physicians, born 
 in Arabia in the third century, and put to death for 
 the Christian faith. The confraternity was founded 
 in the thirteenth century, and afterward claimed Saint 
 Louis as its founder. In 1 3 1 1 , the members received 
 for their head Jehan Pitard ; in 1372, they got a 
 charter from the King. About the year 1400, medi- 
 
1 68 Ambroise Pare 
 
 aeval Paris had within her walls thirty-one physicians 
 of the faculty, ten master-surgeons of the confra- 
 ternity, and about fifty barber-surgeons ; theic con- 
 flicts were on a small scale, but perpetual. In 1423, 
 the surgeons obtained an order that none should 
 practise surgery but themselves ; next year, the bar- 
 ber-surgeons got their own privileges confirmed, and 
 the order was set aside ; then the surgeons appealed, 
 but without success. On September 28, 1424, the 
 surgeons took an oath not to see any patient with 
 a barber-surgeon more than once, or at the most for 
 two visits only ; and raised a special fund for fighting 
 expenses. In 1436, they appealed for admission to 
 the privileges of the university ; for these, they had 
 to pay a heavy price ; they must attend lectures on 
 surgery given by the physicians of the faculty. In 
 1438, the barber-surgeons got their privileges re- 
 newed ; later, came Ollivier le Dain, barber-surgeon 
 of Louis XL, who had the King's ear ; and, by this 
 time, the three opposing forces of the profession were 
 so nearly balanced that for many years there was 
 something like peace. 
 
 In 1470, fresh troubles arose over one Jehan Le 
 Roy, " operator for the stone, cataract, and incisions," 
 who obtained from Louis XL a command that he 
 should be examined and received into the confra- 
 ternity. The surgeons declared that the Royal order 
 
Paris 169 
 
 was " obreptice, subreptice, incivile et deraisonnable ;" 
 and they consoled themselves by compelling this un- 
 invited guest to drop his title, and by passing a reso- 
 lution that any such " incisor," once examined and 
 approved by the confraternity, should pay them a 
 sum of money for every operation he did in Paris. 
 
 Unhappy confraternity ; they had, in the common 
 phrase, jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. 
 They found all surgical practice drifting away from 
 them ; the barber-surgeons took all the minor sur- 
 gery, such as venesection; and the "incisors" came 
 into repute for all the special operations. And then 
 the confraternity, thus left without practice, began 
 to busy themselves over the invention of medical 
 treatment for the cure of surgical diseases ; and forth- 
 with they came into violent collision with that very 
 heavy body, the faculty of physicians. 
 
 In the year 1491, the faculty had started a course 
 of anatomy lectures for the apprentices of the barber- 
 surgeons ; and these lectures had been given, to the 
 great credit of the faculty, not in Latin but in French. 
 The confraternity opposed themselves to this vulgar 
 way of teaching ; and the faculty yielded to this ex- 
 tent, that the lectures were to consist of a reading, 
 in Latin, from Guy de Chauliac or some such author, 
 followed by an exposition of him in French. To 
 avenge themselves on the confraternity, the faculty 
 
170 Ambroise Pard 
 
 made a daring raid on surgical territory : they began 
 giving anatomical demonstrations on the dead body. 
 This brought another furious protest from the con- 
 fraternity ; to whom the faculty answered that the 
 physicians would continue to teach anatomy until 
 the surgeons left off writing prescriptions. In 1498, 
 the faculty started the demonstrations again. In 
 1502, the confraternity said that the faculty might 
 give the demonstrations, provided only that the pre- 
 liminary dissections for them were made by surgeons 
 of the confraternity ; and the faculty answered that 
 if the confraternity wanted a share of the honour and 
 glory of the demonstrations, they must pay a third 
 of the expenses of them. 
 
 The confraternity was now fairly caught between 
 the upper and the nether millstones, between the 
 physicians and the barber-surgeons. In 1505, the 
 barber-surgeons began to grind them, slowly, but 
 exceeding small. The barber-surgeons had hitherto 
 been called barbers ; now they changed the name of 
 their corporation, and, as barber-surgeons, received 
 new privileges from the Crown : an oath, a register, 
 a registration-fee. The faculty had a hand in the 
 examination of the barber-surgeons' apprentices ; the 
 candidates swore to limit themselves to manual sur- 
 gery, and to abstain from prescribing so much as a 
 laxative : where drugs were wanted, they would call 
 
Paris 171 
 
 in a physician of the faculty, and nobody else. In 
 return, the faculty continued their valuable lectures 
 to the apprentices, and made themselves into a sort 
 of " Medical Defence Union " to protect, at the cost 
 of the injured party, any master barber-surgeon who 
 might get into trouble in the exercise of his art. 
 
 That same year, 1505, came fresh quarrelling with 
 the surgeons, because the faculty had examined one 
 Jacques Bourlon, and had given him the degree of 
 Master of Surgery, without the approval of the con- 
 fraternity. In 1507, four surgeons of the confra- 
 ternity were summoned before the faculty for the 
 offence of prescribing; and had to swear on the Gos- 
 pels that they would not so ofTend again. In 1509, 
 a barber-surgeon, one I'Ecolier, had ventured to do 
 certain major operations; the confraternity brought 
 an action against him ; the faculty defended him. 
 Then the faculty scored one more point : the phys- 
 icians' lectures were declared compulsory; no surgeon 
 was to obtain his Master's degree who had not been, 
 in modern phrase, " signed up " for them. And then, 
 at last, came a long spell of peace. 
 
 I have tried to show, chiefly from Malgaigne's 
 wealth of details, the perpetual wranglings of all three 
 guardians of the peace and honour of the profession. 
 There is nothing heroic about the confraternity. 
 Take two of their rules, made in 147 1. The first of 
 
172 Ambroise Pare 
 
 them refers to the custom of visiting, once a month, 
 a crowd of poor patients at the doors of the church of 
 Saint Cosmo, at Luzarches. 
 
 1. Those who shall not go to Luzarches during 
 the octave of SS. Cosmo and Damien shall pay the 
 same as those who go, without excuse even for the 
 sick. 
 
 2. Every master, who has become licentiate at 
 Paris, but lives outside Paris, is bound to preside in 
 his turn at the meetings of the confraternity ; and 
 the day he is president he must pay for bread, wine, 
 and amusement after vespers, and for the fare next 
 morning, mutton and salt meats and pies, or fish if it 
 be a fast-day. . . . 
 
 Rules, as Malgaigne says, worthy of a harmony 
 club. 
 
 Nevertheless, to be a Master of Surgery, " chirur- 
 gien jure k Paris " was to take social rank above the 
 barber-surgeons, and not far below the faculty ; 
 and Ambroise Pare was too wise to ignore this fact. 
 The confraternity, on their side, were eager to 
 receive into their number the coming man, the King's 
 friend, to withdraw him from the ranks of the bar- 
 ber-surgeons, and set him to fight their battles with 
 the physicians. 
 
 It was in 1554, when Pare was forty-four years old, 
 two years after his appointment to the King, that he 
 
Paris 1 73 
 
 was received into the confraternity. The surgeons 
 were so glad to have him that the proceedings were 
 somewhat irregular. To get him without delay, the 
 ordinary time and place of meeting were changed ; 
 and those to whom he had to make formal application 
 for admission were chosen from among his friends. 
 Reapplied on August i8th for leave to pass the pre- 
 liminary examination ; it was granted. His application 
 was irregular ; but then he was a man busy at the 
 Court : " pluribus et multis negotiis aulicis detentus." 
 He was examined on the 23d, in an informal way, at 
 the house of the senior examiner, and declared fit to 
 be examined for the degree of Bachelor. This second 
 examination was at the Hotel Dieu, on the 27th ; 
 there were four examiners, and to keep up appear- 
 ances they solemnly ploughed him. He gave feeble 
 answers, most inelegantly worded : " questionibus et 
 chirurgicis problematibus illi objectis, debiliter et 
 sermone satis barbaro etcorrupto respondit." Then 
 they found extenuating circumstances, let Estienne 
 de La Riviere make them an appeal on his behalf, 
 told him he must learn more Latin and more surgery, 
 and must make a more regular and formal application 
 for the higher degrees ; and forthwith gave him the 
 degree of Bachelor. 
 
 On October ist, he asked to be examined for the 
 degree of Licentiate : a week later he was examined, 
 
174 Ambroise Pare 
 
 sustained a disputation, and, " since the King wished 
 it," was made Licentiate. 
 
 On November 5th, the whole confraternity unani- 
 mously agreed to give him the degree of Master. 
 On December 17th, it was conferred on him. There 
 was a solemn function in their church ; the faculty 
 was duly represented ; bishops, seigneurs, and other 
 great people were present. He had to read a Latin 
 thesis, he who had never learned Latin : we know 
 neither the subject nor the author of it. Next day 
 he was presented to the Provost of the confraternity, 
 received his " lettres de maitrise," and took the oath : 
 " Ego Ambrosius Par^ chirurgus regius et juratus 
 Parisiis, polliceor me sancte observaturum omnia col- 
 legii Chirurgorum statuta, meque antequadriennium 
 non suscepturum jurisdictionis officium nisi a prae- 
 dicto coUegio dispensatum. Actum die xviii De- 
 cembris, et anno Domini 1554. Teste meo signo hie 
 afifixo. A. Par6." 
 
 The faculty derided the whole affair; and raked 
 up the irregularities of it when Par6 came to fight 
 with them. Here is what Riolan said of it, twenty- 
 three years later : 
 
 " The surgeon is to the physician what the dentist is 
 to the surgeon. . . . Among surgeons who are ex- 
 cellent in practice, there are some (everybody knows 
 whom I mean, without my having to name them) who 
 

Paris 1 75 
 
 cannot decline their own names. We have seen them 
 called from the barber's shop to be Masters of Surgery, 
 and admitted gratis against the rules, for fear the barbers, 
 their superior skill being recognised, should put the 
 college to shame : we have heard them declaiming, in the 
 prettiest way in the world, the Latin that someone else 
 had breathed into them, and no more understanding 
 what they said than school children set to repeat Greek 
 speeches." ... 
 
 Riolan is in the right : the admission of Par6 to 
 the confraternity was what .^chylus, long before 
 modern slang was invented, called a " plant." But if 
 it did Par^ any good, or gave him any pleasure, that 
 is reason enough to justify it. 
 
 Pake's Houses in Paris and Outside it. 
 
 Ambroise Par^ was a good man of business, and 
 the story of his property in Paris proves more than 
 this : it shows he had a mind ever at rest in the same 
 surroundings, the "genius loci," a delight in home, 
 in having his own people close to him. Most of us 
 move house once, or more than once ; Par^ was bet- 
 ter pleased to stop in one place, and buy the houses 
 next to his own, till at last he had a compact block 
 of property, a little phalanx of adjoining houses, 
 side by side, or back to back, all within a stone's 
 throw of Saint Andr6 des Arcs. 
 
 He made his first bargain in September, 1550 — the 
 
176 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 Maison de La Vache, in the Rue de L'Hirondelle, 
 and the house at Meudon.* He held the property in 
 part only ; and got his share of it, a fourth, in ex- 
 change for a bad debt. Antoine Mazelin, Jehanne's 
 brother, had owed him, for four and a half years, 
 eighty gold crowns ; and now Ambroise sold up his 
 brother-in-law. Ambroise was not the only creditor, 
 and it seems to have been a family affair, without 
 any ill-will about it ; for we find Antoine, nine years 
 later, not only afloat as a government clerk, but 
 standing godfather to Isaac Pare. The four hold- 
 ers of the two houses were Ambroise, Jehanne, 
 Catherine de Prime, wife of Pierre de La Rue, and 
 the wife of Charles Fournier. These two last were 
 both of them Jehanne's relations ; the whole thing 
 was arranged eyi fmnille. Pierre de La Rue lived 
 close by ; he was a master-tailor ; we shall hear of 
 him again, and that not to his credit. 
 
 The house in the Rue de L'Hirondelle took its 
 name from the sign of a cow hanging from it. There 
 v/ere living-rooms, cellar, a little room in the base- 
 ment, upper rooms, loft, and a courtyard at the back 
 with two outhouses ; the whole building was roofed 
 with tiles. In front was the Rue de L'Hirondelle; 
 to the left, M^ry de Prime, wine-seller ; to the right, 
 
 * Rabelais was made cure of Meudon about four months later ; 
 January 18, 1551. 
 
Paris 
 
 177 
 
 Ambroise Park's Houses at the Pont Saint-Michel. 
 (Adapted from Le Paulmier.) 
 
 Maison de La Vache, with courtyard behind it. 
 
 Maison des Trois Maures, with courtyard behind it, extending 
 down to the river. 
 
 The Viarts' house. 
 
 The Gueaux. 
 
 The Periers. 
 
 Mery de Prime. 
 
 Fran5ois Pichonnat. 
 8. Charles de Paris. 
 
 The houses shaded are Ambroise's. The Rue des Augustins is 
 now the Quai des Grands Augustins. 
 
178 Ambrolse Pard 
 
 the Maison des Trois Maures, belonging to the heirs 
 of the late Jehan Mestreau. 
 
 The house at Meudon was in the Rue des Pierres, 
 at the back of the church ; and Le Paulmier thinks 
 he has identified No. 9 as the very house. It had 
 living-rooms front and back, cellar, upper room, 
 lofts, small rooms, courtyard and garden between 
 the living-rooms, with a well and a little tiled out- 
 house ; and a garden at the back, with trees and ar- 
 bours. In front, was the Rue des Pierres ; the next- 
 door neighbours were Jehan Berthelmy, Jehan 
 Lucas, and Guillaume Parvys. In the same lot with 
 the house at Meudon were included ten vineyards, 
 and a small piece of land. Happy age, when one 
 could get the fourth part of two houses, with gar- 
 dens and vineyards, in exchange for a brother-in- 
 law's bad debt of eighty gold crowns. 
 
 A few years later, Ambroise bought the Maison 
 des Trois Maures, the house next on the right to 
 the Maison de La Vache : in 1561, he was Hving in 
 this new house : and in it he died. Behind it, was a 
 large open space, opening on to the Rue des Augus- 
 tins, now the Quai des Grands Augustins : part of 
 this space was occupied by a narrow slip of a house, 
 also Ambroise's property, where lived Francois 
 P6rier, brother-in-law of Jehan Par6 : another part 
 of it Ambroise gave to Guillaume Gu^au and his 
 
Paris 1 79 
 
 wife, "pour la bonne amyti6 que ledict Pare a et 
 porte ausdits Gueau et sa femme, et aussy que ainsy 
 luy a pleu et plaist." The Gueaux built another 
 narrow slip of a house here, to match the P6riers* 
 house. 
 
 In 1574, Ambroise gave to his niece, Jehanne Pare, 
 a house in the same block with the rest : " pour la 
 bonne amour naturelle qu' il a et porte k icelle Je- 
 hanne Pare, sadicte niepce, et aussi parce que tel est 
 sou vouloir." Jehanne and her husband, Claude 
 Viart, were thus within a few yards of him. 
 
 Ambroise also had a house in the Rue Garanci^re, 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain : and a property at Ville-du- 
 Bois, outside Paris. The house in the Rue Garanci^re 
 he left to two of his daughters. But it is the block of 
 houses at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel that I 
 love : the air of home, the sense of kinship, the quiet 
 compact old-worldly affection about them. Take the 
 sketch of them, adapted from Le Paulmier, and go 
 round about it. There is the Rue de La Huchette, 
 where Jehan Par6 lived : the church of Saint Andr6, 
 with a thousand memories in it, is just round the 
 corner. There are Ambroise's five houses, all for 
 him and his kinsfolk : at number 6, M^ry de Prime, 
 wine-seller, who also was one of the family : at num- 
 ber 7 lived Francois Pichonnat : at number 8, Charles 
 de Paris, master pastry-cook. Claude Viart, before he 
 
i8o Ambroise Pare 
 
 married Jehanne Pare, lived, for no less than twenty 
 years, as Ambroise's pupil, in the same house with 
 him. Catherine, Jehanne Mazelin's only child that 
 lived, came home to the old Maison de La Vache, and 
 died there in 1616. By the labour of love of Lc 
 Paulmier, who has published every possible docu- 
 ment touching Ambroise's life, we possess a wealth 
 of materials for romancing over this story of the 
 houses in the Rue de L' Hirondelle.* 
 
 " Only the King's Surgeon." 
 
 It was Sully, himself only a King's minister, who 
 spoke thus of Ambroise Pare. He was surgeon to 
 four Kings, not counting the King of Navarre : to 
 Henri H., and his three sons in succession, Francois 
 n., Charles IX., and Henri III. Surgeon-in-ordinary 
 (1552) to Henri II. : surgeon-in-ordinary and valet-de- 
 chambre to Frangois II. : surgeon-in-ordinary, and 
 afterward (New Year's Day, 1562) premier surgeon 
 to Charles IX. : premier surgeon and councillor (1574) 
 
 * Eighteen years ago, M. Turner believed that he had discovered 
 Fare's house. "At the present day, in that part of the Rue de 1' 
 Hirondelle which has not yet been pulled down, there is a large 
 house that still catches your attention. It has been a great deal al- 
 tered : but the door has still the shape of the doorways of the Renais- 
 sance. The bit of carving over the low arch, and another carving in 
 the wall at the back of the courtyard, have an air of antiquity. But 
 no tradition concerning Pare is connected with it, and the present 
 owner believes that it must have belonged to Diane de Poitiers. I 
 am of opinion that it is really Ambroise Pare's house." 
 
Paris i8i 
 
 to Henri III. He was still holding this appointment 
 in 1587, three years before he died. The deaths of 
 Henri H. and Francois H. must be noted here ; and 
 one or two stories, in lighter vein, how Par6 bore 
 himself toward great people. 
 
 On June 29, 1.559, Henri H., in the fortieth year of 
 his life, and the twelfth of his reign, was present with 
 the Queen at a three-days tournament : the lists were 
 set at the end of the Rue Saint Antoine, near the 
 Bastille. It was the last day, and the King was 
 minded to break a lance with Gabriel de Lorges, 
 Comte de Montgomery, captain of the Scotch Guard ; 
 who would have refused, but the King compelled 
 him. It should be the last time ; he must do it as a 
 favour to the King. They met and broke their 
 lances in the approved fashion ; but Montgomery, by 
 accident or design, did not let drop his broken shaft : 
 it struck the King's helmet, lifted its vizor, and 
 wounded him above the right eye : 
 
 " The muscular skin of the forehead, over the bone, 
 was torn across to the inner angle of the left eye, and there 
 were many little fragments or splinters of the broken 
 shaft lodged in the eye ; but no fracture of the bone. 
 Yet because of such commotion or shaking of the brain, 
 he died on the eleventh day after he was struck. And 
 after his death, they found on the side opposite to the 
 blow, toward the middle of the commissure of the oc- 
 cipital bone, a quantity of blood effused between the 
 
1 82 Ambroise Pare 
 
 dura mater and the pia mater : and alteration in the 
 substance of the brain, which was of a brownish or yel- 
 lowish colour for about the extent of one's thumb : at 
 which place was found a beginning of corruption : which 
 were causes enough of the death of my Lord, and not 
 only the harm done to his eye." 
 
 " Five or six surgeons," says Carloix, " the most 
 skilful in France, diligently did their best to probe 
 the wound, and to search for the way into the brain 
 where the splinters of the broken shaft might have 
 gone. But it was impossible for them to find it ; 
 even though for four days they anatomised four 
 heads of criminals, that had been cut off at the Con- 
 ciergerie of the Palace and the prisons of the Grand 
 Chatelet." 
 
 Par6 was only one of many surgeons in attendance. 
 After the King's death, he put the case into his book 
 on Wounds of the Head ; and in the dedication to 
 Chapelain, he says, " On every occasion when the 
 appointed physicians and surgeons were assembled 
 to remedy the King's wound, and you, Monsieur, as 
 premier and chief of all, were usually present, to 
 hear the consultations and to give your judgment 
 and advice, what it was necessary to do in so dan- 
 gerous an evil — sometimes you did me the honour 
 to ask me my opinion." . . . Among the sur- 
 geons was Vesalius, come from Brussels by order 
 of Philip of Spain. 
 
HENRI II. 
 
 FROM AN ENGRAVING IN THE PRINT-ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
Paris 183 
 
 Fran9ois II. died within a year and a half of his 
 father, on December 5, 1560, at Orleans, aged seven- 
 teen. 
 
 " When one was least expecting it," says the author 
 of a Life of Coligny, published in 1686, " the King sud- 
 denly felt a great pain in his head, and took to his bed. 
 Men thought Conde's trial would now be put off ; but 
 the Guises, seeing how things would change if they lost 
 hold of Conde, so pressed sentence against him that he 
 was condemned to lose his head. When Coligny heard 
 this, he sent for Ambroise Pare, the King's surgeon ; 
 pretending he was ill. And as Pare was one of the num- 
 ber of his friends, and Coligny knew he secretly pro- 
 fessed the same religion as himself, he asked him 
 privately what he thought of the King's illness. Par^ 
 said the King was in great danger, but he had not once 
 dared to say so, for fear of doing harm at the Court. 
 The Admiral answered he had done a great wrong, for 
 he would have prevented the condemnation of Conde ; 
 let him therefore go at once and spread the news, or their 
 religion would lose the strongest of its supports. Pare 
 promised to amend his fault, and did it at once ; all 
 the Court were astonished, having believed the King's 
 illness was nothing, especially as it had begun to dis- 
 charge from the ear, which made them think Nature had 
 found a way out. . . . But the King died in a few 
 days ; and all the intrigues during his illness made men 
 believe his end had been hastened. Pare was suspected 
 of having put poison in his ear while he was dressing it, 
 by command of the Queen-mother." 
 
 The lives of the Queen-mother and of Pare touched 
 
184 Ambroise Pare 
 
 again and again, but there is nothing to show that 
 she was ever his patient. They came to Paris about 
 the same time, the King's strange Italian wife, and 
 the barber-surgeon's apprentice: they died, one in 
 1589, the other in 1590; they were together at Rouen, 
 at Moncontour, and on the long journey to Bayonne ; 
 she saw the curiosities of surgery that he showed at 
 Court ; she bade him write the treatise on the 
 plague : he must have spoken with her hundreds of 
 times. One scrap of talk has come down to us: 
 " M. Pare, do you believe you will be saved in the 
 next world ? " — " Surely, madame ; for I do what I 
 can to be a good man in this world ; and God is merci- 
 ful, giving ear well to all languages, and alike satis- 
 fied whether one prays to Him in French or in Latin." 
 But there is no record that she was ever in need 
 of surgery * ; and even Ambroise might have faltered 
 in his skill, with such a life entrusted to him ; like 
 the doctor who stands helpless and talks with the 
 
 * L'Estoile says that once she was ill of a surfeit, and once (only 
 once, in such a life ?) her nerves gave way, and she saw a ghost. 
 On December 26, 1574, at Avignon, died Charles de Guise, Cardinal 
 of Lorraine. According to his own people, he made a good end ; 
 but the Huguenots said he died cursing and swearing and calling on 
 devils. The day that Catherine heard of his death, she was talking 
 of it at dinner ; as they gave her glass into her hands, she began to 
 tremble, and let it fall ; — " Jesus ! There is Monsieur the Cardinal of 
 Lorraine : I can see him." For some nights following, she had the 
 same vision. 
 
Paris 185 
 
 waiting-woman, while Lady Macbeth is washing the 
 smell of the blood from her hands. 
 
 There is a tradition that Mary Stuart liked him, 
 and often talked with him ; and one or two stories, 
 of no great value, have been preserved about his 
 Hfe at the Court. They had best be put on a string 
 here. Once, the King sent for Ambroise, and Am- 
 boise, Seigneur de Bussy, went by mistake instead 
 of him ; and when they laughed at him, he declared 
 that if he had not been Amboise, he would wish to be 
 Ambroise ; for there was nobody at the Court whom 
 he admired more. Once, the King's dogs were ailing, 
 and the King said that Ambroise must see them. 
 He would not ; he sent one of the servants from the 
 royal kennels, and went home in a rage ; the King 
 heard of this, but still addressed him next day as 
 " my dear Ambroise." Once, Chapelain the Queen- 
 mother's physician was suspected of treason against 
 Charles IX., and the young King told his suspicions 
 to Ambroise ; who answered him : " No, Sire, his 
 accusers are the real criminals, who would rob you of 
 one of the best of your servants." And the last 
 story is that the magnificent young gentlemen at the 
 Court gave the name of " ambrosia " to Ambroise's 
 decoctions; to be under his treatment was called 
 ** living on ambrosia " : surely a very little joke to 
 come such a very long way. 
 
1 86 Ambroise Par6 
 
 There is yet another story, and to his discredit ; 
 he tells it against himself, with some remorse, but 
 not enough ; the horrible story of the Cook and the 
 Bezoar-stone. A gentleman at the Court showed to 
 Charles IX. a bezoar-stone, as was the fashion then 
 to show all sorts of odd things to Royalty, and told 
 him it was a universal antidote to all poisons. The 
 King asked Par6 if this were possible ; who said it 
 was not; each poison must have its own contrary for 
 its antidote ; but it would be easy to try it on a con- 
 demned criminal. 
 
 " Then the King sent for M. de La Trousse, his Pro- 
 vost, and asked him if he had anyone who deserved 
 hanging. He said that he had in his prisons a cook, 
 who had stolen two silver dishes in his master's house, 
 and was to be hanged to-morrow. The King said he 
 wished to make trial of a stone which they said was 
 good against all poisons ; let them ask the said cook, 
 now he was condemned, if he would take a certain poi- 
 son, and forthwith they would give him an antidote, 
 and if he recovered he should keep his life. The cook 
 very willingly agreed, saying he would far rather die of 
 poison in prison than be hanged in the sight of the peo- 
 ple. Then an apothecary gave him a certain poison to 
 drink, and forthwith the bezoar-stone. Having these 
 two fine drugs inside him, he began crying out he was on 
 fare, calling for water to drink, which was not refused 
 him. , . . An hour later, having heard of it, I asked 
 M. de La Trousse to let me go and see him, and he sent me 
 thither with three of his archers. I found the poor cook 
 
CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. 
 
 FROM AN ENGRAVING IN THE PRINT-ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
Paris 187 
 
 on all fours, going like an animal, his tongue out of his 
 mouth, his eyes and his face flaming red. ... I 
 made him drink about half a sextier of oil, thinking to 
 save his life ; but it was of no service, being given too 
 late, and he died miserably, crying out he had better 
 have died on the gallows : he lived about seven hours." * 
 
 The evil that we do lives after us. Years later, 
 the faculty attacked Par6 over this bad business of 
 the bezoar-stone ; here is his lame defence (i575) of 
 himself and of the King : 
 
 " Those who consider the end for which the poison 
 was given, may see my action was neither detestable, nor 
 defamatory of the King's memory, but rather praisewor- 
 thy, that I let them poison the thief, fearing for the love 
 of the service I bore my master that if he himself were 
 secretly poisoned he might trust such an antidote. And 
 I do not consider I defamed the memory of his name by 
 citing him in the story, no more than Matthiolus defamed 
 the memory of Pope Clement VII., telling a similar 
 story ; who commanded that poison should be given to 
 two robbers, for testing the virtue of an oil said to be 
 antidotal to all poisons. Moreover, the thief took the 
 poison of his own free will, preferring to die in prison, 
 having hope of escape, rather than end his days in pub- 
 lic with a halter." 
 
 * A bezoar-stone is a concretion found in the intestines of some 
 herbivorous animals. The poison given to the poor man was proba- 
 bly corrosive sublimate. 
 
 For an earlier instance of experiments on condemned criminals, 
 January, 1474, see the story of the Archer of Meudon ; page 154 of 
 Malgaigne's Introduction to Fare's Works. 
 
1 88 Ambroise Pare 
 
 The Saint Bartholomew's Massacre. 
 
 On the Friday (August 22, 1572,) before the mas- 
 sacre, CoHgny, leaving the Louvre and busy reading 
 a letter, was shot by Maurevel, from the window of 
 a house close to Saint Germain LAuxerrois. His 
 left arm was wounded, and tv/o fingers of his right 
 hand were broken ; but he walked home to his 
 house. Par4 amputated the two fingers, and made 
 one or more incisions in the arm. He had come in 
 haste ; his instruments were ill chosen, and he did 
 not do the operation well ; but Coligny did not 
 flinch, and whispered to one of those round him 
 that Merlin, a minister of the Reformed Church in 
 Paris, was to give a hundred gold crowns to the 
 poor. It was feared the shot was poisoned : he 
 said, " That will be as it shall please God ; pray 
 Him to give me the gift of patience." On the Sun- 
 day morning early, he was woke by the tumult 
 round his house and the firing of shots in the court- 
 yard. He rose, steadied himself against the wall, and 
 said to Merlin, " Pray for me ; I commend my soul 
 to the Saviour." One of his gentlemen, named Cor- 
 naton, came into the room ; Pare, who was watch- 
 ing by Coligny's bed, asked what had happened. 
 Cornaton answered to Coligny, " Monseigneur, it 
 is God who calls us to Him." Coligny said, " I 
 have been ready to die this long time ; but you. 
 
iliiilillilllliiiiliiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie 
 
 COLIGNY. 
 
 FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING IN THE PRINT-ROOM. BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
Paris 189 
 
 my friends, save yourselves if you still can." They 
 went up to the top of the house, and escaped 
 through a window in the roof. 
 Of the King, Brantome says : 
 
 " He kept crying out, ' Kill, kill,' and never had a 
 wish to save one of them, except Master Ambroise 
 Pare ; and he sent for him to come that night into his 
 chamber, commanding him not to stir out of it ; and 
 said it was not reasonable that one who was worth a 
 whole world of men should be thus murdered, and he 
 would not urge him, no more than he would urge his 
 old nurse, to change his religion," 
 
 Sully, who was twelve years old at the time of 
 the massacre, and came in danger of death during 
 it, says : 
 
 " Of all those round the King, not one had so much of 
 his confidence as Ambroise Pare. This man, who was only 
 his surgeon, had become so familiar with him that on the 
 day of the massacre, when the King told him that every- 
 body must now turn Catholic, Pare coolly answered him, 
 * By the light of God, Sire, I think you remember your 
 promise never to command these four things of me : To 
 enter again into my mother's womb, to look after my- 
 self in battle, to leave your service, and to go to Mass.' 
 The King took him aside, and disclosed the misery he 
 felt overwhelming him. ' Ambroise,' he said, ' I do not 
 know what has come over me these last two or three 
 days, but I find myself, mind and body, as much shaken 
 as if I had the fever. It seems to me at every moment, 
 
190 Ambroise Pare 
 
 sleeping or waking, these massacred bodies keep show- 
 ing me their frightful blood-stained faces. I can only- 
 hope that among them are none that were witless, none 
 that Avere innocent.' " 
 
 When the killing was all done, the Queen-mother, 
 pour repaistre ses yeux, went to see CoHgny's body 
 hanging on the gallows at Montfaucon. On the 
 evening of the Sunday of the massacre, pour se 
 refraischir un peu et se donner plaisir, she walked 
 with her ladies to see the dead bodies in the 
 streets ; and was pleased to make some particu- 
 larly obscene pathological observations on one of 
 those that were naked. She could take an interest 
 in pathology without Park's help this time : and he 
 must have been wishing himself with the dead. He 
 saw his country running blood, the poor taxed past 
 endurance, and every office under government to 
 be had for money : his friends were dead in the 
 streets, at the bottom of the Seine, on the gallows. 
 Worse things were yet to come ; but already, look 
 which way he would, he could not see the salvation 
 of France. 
 
V. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 1573-1590- 
 
 " I am so determined not to hide the talent it has pleased God to 
 give me in Surgery, which is my calling in this brief life, that the 
 more my days pass away, so much the more I feel driven to work yet 
 harder while they last, to help, if I can, those who shall have to do 
 with me, while God is pleased to leave me in this world." — Preface of 
 the Book of the Plague, 1568. 
 
 ON Wednesday, November 4, 1573, Jehanne 
 Mazelin died, aged fifty-three, and was buried 
 that same day at Saint Andr^. Ambroise was left 
 alone with their only surviving child, Catherine, who 
 was thirteen years old. He had also the care of Je- 
 hanne Par^, his brother Jehan's daughter. Jehan had 
 died some time before 1560, and his second wife, Je- 
 hanne's mother, had died before 1577. Ambroise 
 and his wife seem to have adopted Jehanne Par^, 
 that the little Catherine might have a companion. In 
 1560, they set aside a dowry for her; in 1574, Am- 
 broise gave her a yearly allowance, and the house 
 
 191 
 
192 Ambroise Pare 
 
 where she and Claude Viart lived after their marriage 
 in 1577. 
 
 Children and Grandchildren. 
 
 Thus left with the care of the two girls — a hard 
 matter to combine with his work — Ambroise married 
 again, in what looks like indecent haste. And it is 
 to be noted, as evidence of a good understanding 
 between Ambroise and his young daughter, and of a 
 strong centripetal force in the family, that father and 
 daughter married sister and brother. Ambroise 
 married Jacqueline Rousselet ; Catherine, seven years 
 later, married Francois Rousselet. 
 
 Ambroise and Jacqueline Rousselet were married 
 at Saint S6verin, January 18, 1574; less than three 
 months after Jehanne Mazelin's death. Jacqueline 
 was the daughter of Jacques Rousselet, one of the 
 King's servants ; her dowry was five thousand livres 
 iourfiois, but Ambroise took two thousand and no 
 more; he settled on her, under certain conditions, 
 five hundred livres tournois per annum : at her death, 
 he was to keep not only his clothes and his surgical 
 instruments, but also his weapons and his horses. 
 The affluent air of this second marriage-contract is 
 very different from the poverty of his first marriage : 
 more money, but less romance. Jacqueline's wit- 
 nesses to the contract were well-to-do people, Gov- 
 
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Paris 193 
 
 ernment officials, such as are " in Society " : Ambroise 
 was content to have an old friend and neighbour, 
 Hilaire de Brion, shopkeeper, master-apothecary, and 
 grocer, bourgeois de Paris. 
 
 Six children were born to them ; and some of 
 the godparents were very grand personages. It may 
 be well here to follow the fortunes of all his children 
 by both wives, and the fortunes of Jehanne Par6, 
 who may be counted as one of the family. 
 
 Of Jehanne Mazelin's children, the two boys, born 
 fifteen years apart, Francois and Isaac, died in early 
 childhood. Catherine, the only one of Fare's child- 
 ren who could remember the old times, was married, 
 on March 28, 1581, to Frangois Rousselet, her step- 
 mother's brother, treasurer and secretary to the 
 King's brother. They had eight children, three of 
 whom were born before Ambroise died. Unhappily, 
 a dispute arose between Ambroise and the Rous- 
 selets, as to money owing to Catherine from the 
 time of her minority. A law suit was threatened, but 
 was averted by friends of the family, and the matter 
 was arranged ; probably the quarrel was wholly the 
 fault of Frangois Rousselet. He died before Cath- 
 erine: she came back, in her widowhood, to the old 
 Maison de La Vache, and died there September 21, 
 1616. 
 
 Jehanne Par6 married Ambroise's pupil, Claude 
 13 
 
194 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Viart, on March 27, 1577. He was for twenty years 
 Ambroise's pupil or assistant ; he had been in prac- 
 tice at Nantes, and had served in the army. He had 
 plenty of money ; Jehanne had the house, her dowry, 
 and her allowance, — all of them the gifts of Am- 
 broise ; who also gave Claude all his surgical instru- 
 ments, certain rights over his books, the plates for the 
 first edition of the Complete Works, — which had cost 
 more than a thousand crowns, — and his long black 
 robe with the velvet trimmings. Claude Viart died 
 about 1583 ; Jehanne made a second marriage with 
 Frangois Forest of Orleans, January 11, 1588 ; they 
 had a son, Francois, born 1589. 
 
 The children of Ambroise Par6 and his second 
 wife, Jacqueline Rousselet, were : 
 
 1. Anne, baptised at Saint Andr6, July 16, I575> 
 with godparents of exceptional splendour : Anne 
 d'Este, Duchesse de Nemours, and her son, Due 
 de Nemours, She was married July 4, 1596, to 
 Henri Simon, who became one of the King's 
 Council, and held a high position in the Gov- 
 ernment. In 1599, Anne nearly died in child- 
 birth. Her life was saved by Haultin, by a 
 method that her father had taught him. Anne 
 and her husband were alive, but without child- 
 ren, in 1616. 
 
 2. Ambroise, baptised May 30, 1576, died in in- 
 
Paris 195 
 
 fancy. Grand godparents again : Charles, Comte 
 de Mansfeld, son of Park's old patient ; Charles, 
 Marquis d'ElbcEuf, one of the Guises ; and 
 Philippe de Montespedon, Princesse de La 
 Roche-sur-Yon, wife of another old patient. 
 
 3. Marie, baptised February 6, 1578. 
 
 4. Jacquehne, baptised October 8, 1579; died 
 1582. 
 
 5. Catherine, baptised at Saint Andr6, February 
 12, 1581. This is Catherine the second. She 
 was married at Saint Andre, September 29, 
 1603, to Claude Hedelin, advocate, poet, and 
 Government ofificial. They had twelve children, 
 one of whom, Francois, was the famous Abbe 
 d'Aubignac. Claude H6delin died in 1638. 
 Catherine died in 1659. The portrait of Am- 
 broise, in the beginning of this book, and many 
 documents relating to the family, are in the 
 possession of Mdme. la Marquise de Charron, a 
 descendant of the Hedelins. 
 
 6. Ambroise the second, baptised November 8, 
 1583 ; died August next year. 
 
 That is the history of Ambroise Park's nine child- 
 ren : and he who will read and read again the 
 " Pieces Justicatives " of Le Paulmier, the parish 
 registers, and the family papers, may weave a hun- 
 dred pictures out of them. We come across Saint 
 
195 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Andre far more often than I have written the name. 
 Baptisms, marriages, and funerals, the same parish 
 church took them all. The increased wealth in the 
 marriage-contracts, the magnificent godparents, the 
 good marriages that the daughters made, the crowd 
 of grandchildren whom I have not named — all these 
 are mixed with the names, here and there, of Am- 
 broise's old friends, successful at last, or still ob- 
 scure. The sound of the vie de famille is in the 
 houses of the Rue de L'Hirondelle long after his 
 death. There his widow lived and died (June 26, 
 1606) ; there Catherine Rousselet, widowed too, 
 came back and died, ten years later. And of all the 
 daughters I most want to know more of her, Jehanne 
 Mazelin's child ; especially why Claude Viart married 
 not her but her cousin. Ambroise never had a son 
 to follow him. There is a meaning, the lacrimcB 
 reriun, in the names of these babies : Isaac, the 
 child of promise, born fifteen years after Francois ; 
 Ambroise, born seventeen years after Isaac ; then 
 another Ambroise, the last child of his father's old 
 age : all four of them dead in a few months or years 
 after their birth. 
 
 " Le Roi est Mort : Vive le Roi." 
 
 The death of Charles IX., from phthisis, was on 
 Whitsunday, May 30, 1574, in the twenty-third 
 
CHARLES IX. 
 
 FROM AN ENGRAVING IN THE PRINT-ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
Paris 197 
 
 year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. He 
 had been under Park's care, for pain and contraction 
 of the arm after venesection, some time before 1569. 
 Of his death, Brantome says, " M. de Strozzi and I 
 told Master Ambroise Par6, the King's chief surgeon, 
 that the King was dead ; who answered, in an offhand, 
 abrupt way : — en passant et sans long propos — that 
 he was dead from too hard blowing of his horn out 
 hunting." Mazille attended him in his last illness. 
 The terrors of which he had told Par6 returned upon 
 him. On the Thursday before he died, there was a 
 great consultation of all the physicians, and on the 
 Friday, Mazille told him they could do no more for 
 him. Then he asked them to draw the bed curtains, 
 that he might try to sleep ; and they left him with 
 two of his gentlemen and his old Huguenot nurse:* 
 
 * " Mazille estant sorty, et ayant fait sortir tous ceulx qui estoynt 
 dans la chambre, hormis trois, assavoir, La Tour, Saint Pris, et sa 
 nourrice, que Sa Majeste aimoit fort, encore qu'elle fut de la religion ; 
 comme elle se fut mise sur un coffre et commenfast a sommeiller, 
 ayant entendu le roy se plaindre, pleurer, et sospirer, s'approche 
 tout doucement au lit ; et tirant sa custode, le roy commence a luy 
 dire, jettant un grand souspir, et larmoyant si fort, que ses sanglots 
 lui interrompoyent la parole : ' Ah, ma nourrice, ma mie, ma nour- 
 rice, que de sang et que de meurtres. Ah, que j'ay eu un meschant 
 conseil. O mon Dieu, pardonne-les-moy et me fay misericorde, s'il 
 te plaist. Je ne S9ais ou je suis, tant ils me rendent perplex et agite. 
 Que deviendra tout cecy ? que deviendrai-je moy a qui Dieu le 
 recommande? que feray-je? Je suis perdu, je le sens bien.' Alors 
 la nourrice luy dit, ' Sire, les meurtres et le sang soyent sur 
 la teste de ceux qui vous les ont fait faire et sur vostre meschant 
 
198 Ambroise Pare 
 
 and on the Sunday he died. On the Monday after- 
 noon, at four o'clock, Pare made the examination 
 and embalment, in the presence of eight physicians 
 and surgeons of the household. The account of the 
 King's funeral states that among the host of great 
 people who followed it were the King's surgeons, on 
 horseback. 
 
 Henri III. (i 574-1 589) was twenty-three years old 
 when he succeeded his brother. Pare kept his place 
 as chief surgeon and valet-de-chambre, and became a 
 member of the King's Council. Even to Henri HI. 
 he was loyal; the King had his good moments, and 
 Par6 must make the most of them. He bore with 
 the King's favourites, the vices of the Court, the 
 King's follies — his monkeys, dogs, and parrots, his 
 horseplay in the streets, his bilboguet, — Par6 saw 
 him thus playing the fool a score of times. He 
 made him laugh once, with a joke that sounds very 
 simple now ; and showed him the anatomical pict- 
 ures in his big books — the sort of thing that would 
 amuse him. 
 
 He was soon called to attend him, in September 
 
 conseil. . . . Mais pour I'honneur de Dieu, que Vostre Majeste 
 cesse de larmoyer et se fascher, de peur que cela ne rengrave, qui est 
 le plus grand malheur qui s9auroit advenir a vostre peuple et a nous 
 tous.' Et sur cela luy ayant este querir un mouchoir, pour ce que 
 le sien estoit tout mouille et trempe de larmes, apres que Sa Majeste 
 I'eut pris de sa main, luy fist signe qu'elle s'en allast, et le laissast en 
 r eposer . ' ' — L' E st oile. 
 
Paris 199 
 
 I575> for a furious earache : this was a serious mat- 
 ter, his brother having died of disease of the ear. 
 Here is L'Estoile's account of it : 
 
 " Sept. 2d. The King fell ill with a pain in his ear, 
 which frightened him, because the King his brother had 
 died of it ; and he said this two or three times to-day. 
 
 " Sept. loth. The King drove out, against the advice 
 of his physicians ; and returned soon after, with extreme 
 pain in his ear ; and that night he was so ill, that they 
 sent to all the monasteries in Paris, to pray for him, 
 and a courier to the Queen-mother ; for all the doctors 
 despaired of him for twenty-four hours, except Le Grand. 
 They attributed the malady to his wakeful nights and 
 excesses during the Carnival, when notwithstanding the 
 affairs he had on his hands, he had passed whole nights 
 in mumming and masquing, and other exercises little 
 suited to his health." 
 
 A rumour ran through the Court, that Par^ might 
 attempt to poison the King ; he was therefore care- 
 ful to do nothing save in the presence of the phy- 
 sicians. This was the year of his first fight with the 
 faculty ; and in their jealousy they tried to keep him 
 out of the consultations. Ingrat ! tii as battu ton 
 pere, he said to Ferrier, one of the Queen-mother's 
 physicians, who tried this trick on him. 
 
 When Jacques Clement, in 1589, rid France of 
 Henri HI., Pare was seventy-nine years old ; it was 
 Antoine Portail who stood by the King's death-bed 
 at Saint Cloud. 
 
200 Ambroise Par6 
 
 Warfare with the Faculty. 
 
 Park's long fight with the physicians, from 1575 to 
 1 585, was waged over the pubHcation of his Collected 
 Works. The ten years' war is marked by three great 
 battles : it is the War of the Three Editions. Some 
 account of his writings is given in the chapter, 
 " Opera Omnia " ; here we are concerned only with 
 the effect produced by each successive edition on 
 the faculty. It was a sort of Holy War for the de- 
 liverance of surgery from the bondage of medicine ; 
 and it is pleasant to read the fatuous indignation 
 and futile reprisals of the physicians, as they lost one 
 battle after another. 
 
 I. The Edition of i^JS. The King's privilege, 
 for nine years, allowing Par6 to publish his Collected 
 Works, was signed at Avignon, on November 30, 1 574. 
 The book, a folio of 945 pages, dedicated to the 
 King, finished printing on April 22, 1575. It is 
 characteristic of the faculty, that they were taken 
 by surprise. On May 5, they held their first meet- 
 ing, to stop a book that was already published ; they 
 called Par6 impudent and ignorant ; they appealed 
 to the Parliament — a method still employed by the 
 profession, from time to time, without very marked 
 success — and asked that a decree, forty years old, 
 should be confirmed, forbidding the sale of any medi- 
 cal book without the approval of the faculty ; and 
 
Paris 20 1 
 
 they observed that Par6 was only a barber-surgeon, 
 thrust into the College of Surgeons by the King, 
 ignorant of Latin and Greek, even of grammar. 
 They got together some of the surgeons, and a 
 deputation from the University; and on July 9, they 
 had another meeting, with the miserable Estienne 
 Gourmelen, then Dean of the faculty, in the chair : 
 who pointed out to them that the book contained 
 much that was grossly indecent and immoral. 
 
 Five days later the case came before Parliament. 
 There were counsel present on behalf of (i) the 
 faculty, (2) the confraternity of Saint Cosmo, (3) the 
 civil authorities, for fear the book should be really 
 indecent, (4) Andr6 Malezieu, Provost of the con- 
 fraternity, who said Ambroise had plagiarised from 
 him : — from him, whose contribution to medical and 
 surgical literature was a translation into French of a 
 surgical work in Latin by that eminent physician 
 Gourmelen. The Parliament confirmed the decree 
 of 1535 ; everybody was to put in his pleadings, in 
 writing, within three days. The whole thing stopped 
 here ; farce from beginning to end ; the book was all 
 over Paris long ago. 
 
 Ambroise took this opportunity of telling the fac- 
 ulty what he thought of them, in a thin quarto 
 of fifteen pages."^ Every word of it should be read 
 
 * This pamphlet was addressed to the Parliament. It is given in 
 full by Le Paulmier. 
 
202 Ambroise Pare 
 
 carefully; and there was some good plain-speaking 
 in it : — 
 
 " For more than thirty years I have been printing my 
 treatises on Surgery ; Avhich not only have been opposed 
 by no man, but were received by one and all with favour 
 and applause ; which made me think, if I gathered them 
 together, I should be doing a thing very agreeable to the 
 public. Which I having accomplished, and that at an 
 expense past thinking — when I would make them see 
 the light, lo and behold, the physicians and the surgeons 
 have set themselves to obscure and quench them, for this 
 sole reason, that I wrote them in our mother-tongue, in 
 phrases quite easy to be understood. The physicians 
 feared lest all who should get the book into their hands 
 would be advised how to take care of themselves in time 
 of sickness, and would not be at the pains to call them 
 in. The surgeons were afraid lest the barbers, reading 
 these my works, would receive full instruction in all the 
 operations of surgery, and would come to be as good as 
 themselves, and so trespass on their domains. For the 
 rest, both parties in general were moved by wilful hate, 
 envy, and jealousy, to see Ambroise Pare in some repu- 
 tation as a man well esteemed in his profession. 
 Let me tell them I can pay them back. And I ask you. 
 Gentlemen, touching this charge of indecency, to re- 
 member it is one thing to treat of the right conduct of 
 life, according to moral philosophy, for the instruction 
 of tender youth, and another thing wholly different to 
 speak of natural things, like a true physician or surgeon, 
 for the instruction of full-grown men." 
 
 2. The Edition of iS79- ^^ ^S/^- VdiVh had a law- 
 
Paris 203 
 
 suit with the College of Surgeons, over certain alter- 
 ations in their statutes, which Par6 and four other 
 surgeons refused to sign : these five carried the day. 
 The faculty, of course, took an interest in it ; and 
 decided that their legal adviser should watch the 
 case on their behalf. 
 
 In 1578, when the second edition was ready for 
 publication, the faculty held in their hands the de- 
 cree of 1535, confirmed in 1575 ; Pare therefore 
 submitted the new edition to them. What they 
 had called indecent and immoral he left untouched ; 
 but as they had been angry that he, a surgeon, had 
 written on fevers, he cut the treatise on fevers into 
 pieces, and mixed it with the treatise on tumours ; 
 a method of pathology not to be recommended 
 now. Then he submitted to them the book thus 
 shaken up. The faculty appointed a committee of 
 ten, on April 5, 1578, to report on " this man's heavy 
 volume." On August 2, the committee were called 
 upon to report. They said they would rather not 
 bind the whole faculty to any definite opinion ; and 
 suggested that each member of it should make up 
 his mind for himself. Here the matter dropped ; 
 and the second edition came out on February 8, 1579. 
 The Dean of the faculty in 1578 was no longer Gour- 
 melen, but Claude Rousselet, probably related to 
 Park's wife. 
 
204 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Park's anger was rising fast. " I know very well 
 that the surgeons, who ought to lend me a hand to 
 hold up my chin for fear I should go to the bottom, 
 have wanted to push my head under water to drown 
 me. They have done their best to make me obnox- 
 ious to the authorities both of Church and of State, 
 and to the public ; they have left no stone unturned 
 to upset me if they could." 
 
 3. TJie Edition of 1582. This is the Latin edition, 
 put into Latin by Jacques Guillemeau. The opposi- 
 tion of the faculty to it was a marvel of stupidity. 
 Like the oft-quoted Dogberry, they were anxious 
 to be written down asses : and the minutes of their 
 meetings are still to be read in Paris. They met 
 on December 21, 1581, and were furious that anybody 
 but one of themselves should translate a book into 
 Latin. " Since there is nobody but a member of 
 the school who would know how to make the trans- 
 lation, it is disgraceful — quod indignum — to leave it 
 to over-presumptuous surgeons, incapable of writing 
 a page of Latin." They appointed a committee of 
 six, to enquire into the outrage : who made their 
 report nine days later. " Your committee have 
 gone into the subject carefully {inaxivie laboravit). 
 We recommend the following title for the book : 
 * Ambrosii Paraei primarii regis chirurgi Opera Latin- 
 itate donata a Docto quodam Viro : Cura et dili- 
 
Paris 205 
 
 gentia Jacobi Guillemeau, chirurgi Parisiensis.' This 
 title to be given to the printer, Jacques Dupuys. 
 Any leaves of the book having upon them any other 
 title but this, to be effaced, torn up, and kept for 
 some vile purpose {expuncta et lacerata et in viliorem 
 usmn asservata)." Some physician was to be the 
 vir doctus : the faculty would make the translation 
 themselves, or pretend to make it. Nothing came 
 of it all: the book was printed in Germany, and 
 published in January, 1582, with the following title : 
 " Opera Ambrosii Paraei regii primarii et Parisiensis 
 chirurgi A docto viro plerisque locis recognita : Et 
 Latinitate donata, Jacobi Guillemeau regii et Paris- 
 iensis chirurgi labore et diligentia." The vir doctus 
 was perhaps Pare himself. The faculty were power- 
 less: they said Guillemeau's behaviour was madness, 
 and the height of impudence. 
 
 4. The Edition of 158^. This, the last edition in 
 Pare's lifetime, is above all to be prized ; for it con- 
 tains the Apologia and the Journeys. No opposi- 
 tion was offered to it : the faculty were silenced 
 at last. 
 
 Antimony, Mummy, and Unicorn's Horn. 
 
 Pare conquered the faculty in this War of the 
 Editions ; but he did not shake the supremacy of 
 the physician over the surgeon in practice. It was 
 
2o6 Ambroise Pare 
 
 a good thing, perhaps, that he did not : there was 
 only one Ambroise Pare, and the subjection of the 
 average surgeon of the XVI. century to the average 
 physician gave the patients a better chance that 
 their cases would be looked at all round. Pare 
 accepted this arrangement : again and again he tells 
 the young surgeon he must do this or that only with 
 the approval of the physician ; especially, the physi- 
 cian must decide if the patient is to be bled, and to 
 what amount. Pare was not a blind advocate of 
 bleeding, " lest the patient pour forth his life to- 
 gether with his blood ; " and was glad that the physi- 
 cians should decide in each case for or against it. 
 " For the practice of all such things as bleeding, a 
 physician shall be consulted. But because physi- 
 cians are not in every place and always to hand, I 
 have thought good to set down the following medi- 
 cines. ..." Again, of sciatica, he says, " The 
 quantity of blood to be drawn must be left to the 
 judgment of the physician, without whose advice 
 I would attempt nothing in this case." Once he 
 bled the Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon, for a sick 
 headache : taking the blood from an artery, not 
 from a vein, " whereof I have made trial upon 
 myself, to my great good " — but he did not do it 
 till the physicians had given their approval. 
 
 We have a good instance of the airs assumed by 
 
Paris 207 
 
 the faculty. On August 10, 1559, Par6, then close 
 on fifty, and surgeon to the King, was a witness in 
 the action brought by the Damoiselle Fran^oise de 
 Rohan against the Due de Nemours: a scandal 
 in high life. Here is his evidence, shorn of legal 
 technicalities : 
 
 " That the Damoiselle de Rohan sent two of her 
 servants to him, asking that he would come and bleed 
 her next morning between seven and eight o'clock, say- 
 ing the physicians were to be there at that time to assist 
 at the bleeding. Witness went next morning to the 
 lady's chamber at the Louvre. At her chamber door he 
 met M. Sallon, chief physician to the Queen-mother : 
 who asked what was the purpose of his visit. Witness 
 answered he had come to bleed Mile, de Rohan. Then 
 M. Sallon said he should not bleed her. Witness asked 
 M. Sallon the reasons why he should not bleed the said 
 lady : then M. Sallon answered, ' There is a good reason,' 
 without explaining or specifying the said reasons." . . . 
 
 Ambroise got the reasons from one of the ladies- 
 in-waiting. 
 
 Again, over the use of drugs, Ambroise was will- 
 ing to give way to the physicians. Thus, in 1560, 
 the faculty obtained a prohibition against the sale 
 of antimony in Paris, because it was in vogue with the 
 alchymists as a poison. Ambroise believed in an- 
 timony, as a good treatment for cases of plague, and 
 in his book on the plague, etc., 1 568, he spoke well of 
 
2o8 Ambroise Pare 
 
 it. The faculty attacked him for this, and with 
 success ; and when he published his Collected 
 Works, 1575, he left out all praise of antimony, say- 
 ing only : 
 
 " Some approve antimony, and highly recommend it, 
 alleging many instances of its use observed by them- 
 selves. But since the use of it is forbidden by the mem- 
 bers of the faculty of medicine, I shall avoid saying 
 anything about it here." 
 
 But there were two drugs, of high repute in the 
 XVI. century, that he hated: and in his old age he 
 made a furious attack on them. These were mum- 
 my, and unicorn's horn : and his exposure of them 
 shows the wonderful vigour and youthfulness of his 
 old age, still at seventy-two original, independent of 
 habit and of tradition.'^ 
 
 On August 31, 1580, M. Christophe Jouvenel des 
 
 Ursins, Marquis de Traisnel, a man of many titles, had 
 
 a bad fall from his horse in the country. Par6 was sent 
 
 for: and he called in five other surgeons, so serious 
 
 was the case, so important the patient. M. des Ursins 
 
 recovered, and lived eight years after his accident. 
 
 During his convalescence, he asked Ambroise why 
 
 * " Discours d' Ambroise Pare, conseiller et premier chirurgien 
 du roy, a scavoir, de la mumie, des venins, de la licome et de la 
 peste. A Paris, chez Gabriel Buon, au clos Bruneau, a 1' enseigne 
 Saint-Claude, 1582." 75 pages, with a fine portrait. There is a copy 
 in the British Museum. 
 
>*£'- 
 
 
 
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Paris 209 
 
 he had never given him any mummy : and this was 
 the origin of the last of all Ambroise's books: a 
 quarto of 75 pages, with Ambroise's portrait ; dedi- 
 cated to the patient. 
 
 Mummy was, or was supposed to be, what it said 
 it was : the resinous debris or scrapings of Egyptian 
 mummies. For unfathomable reasons, it was given 
 internally for the cure of falls and contusions ; and 
 was in high repute, "yea, the very first and last 
 drug of almost all our practitioners in such a case at 
 this present time." Ambroise will have none of it, 
 this " flesh of decomposed cadaverous dead bodies " : 
 he has never seen it do anything but give the patient 
 a pain inside, and make him sick : the ancient Jews, 
 Egyptians, and Chaldees, never dreamed of embalm- 
 ing their dead to be eaten by Christians. There are 
 mummies two thousand years old : " I leave you to 
 think what good meat and drink they would make 
 now." It smells so bad, that fishermen use it for 
 bait. The methods of embalment were different in 
 Egypt for rich and for poor : a low-class embalment 
 was only so much asphalt. And after all, what is 
 the drug that we use in Paris ? 
 
 " As a matter of fact, neither the physicians and sur- 
 geons who prescribe it, nor those who have written about 
 it, nor the apothecaries who sell it, are at all sure what it 
 really is. Read the ancients, read the moderns, you will 
 
2IO Ambroise Pare 
 
 find they all differ about it : ask the apothecaries, ask the 
 merchants who sell it to them : one will tell you one 
 thing, another will tell you another. . . . Some 
 people believe that mummy is made and manufactured 
 in our own France : and that they take the bodies by 
 night off the gallows, eviscerate them, dry them in an 
 oven, dip them in pitch, and sell them for good true 
 ftmmmy, saying they bought them of Portugese mer- 
 chants, who brought them from Egypt." 
 
 Then comes the story of Ambroise's friend, Guy 
 de La Fontaine, who being at Alexandria in 1564, 
 made friends with a Jew there, who did a great trade 
 in mummies. 
 
 " He showed me," says Fare's friend, " a storehouse 
 where he had many bodies piled one atop of the other. 
 Then I asked the Jew again to tell me where he had 
 found these bodies, and whether they were found, as the 
 ancients said, in the sepulchres throughout the country. 
 The Jew fell to laughing, and mocked at this false state- 
 ment, saying that it was not four years since he had 
 prepared all these bodies himself, thirty or forty, and 
 they were the bodies of slaves, and such-like people : he 
 did not care whence they came, nor what they died of, 
 nor whether they were old or young, male or female, 
 provided he got them : and nobody could tell who they 
 were, once they were embalmed : and he marvelled 
 greatly, that the Christians were so greedy to eat the 
 bodies of the dead." 
 
 So much for mummy : " the sovereign'st thing on 
 earth for an inward bruise " in the XVI. century. 
 Pare would never prescribe it, or let anyone take it. 
 
Paris 211 
 
 "As if there were no other way of saving a man 
 fallen from a height, contused, and grievously hurt, 
 but inserting and burying inside him another man : 
 as if there were no way of recovering health, but by 
 a more than brutal inhumanity." 
 
 Unicorn's horn was a drug so far like mummy 
 that nobody knew whence it came, what it was, how 
 it acted, or what was the dose of it. In Fare's time, 
 drugs were weighed and measured in a primitive 
 fashion : the grain was literally " a barley corn or 
 grain, and that such as is neither too dry, nor over- 
 grown with mould, nor rancid, but well conditioned, 
 and of an indifferent bigness " : other measures were 
 the handful,/?/:^//, and the pound medicinal, "which 
 is for the most part the greatest weight used by 
 physicians, which they seldom exceed." Happily, 
 the virtues of unicorn's horn were so great that it did 
 not matter how much or how little one took of it. 
 The genuine sort, narwhal or rhinoceros horn, sold 
 for more than its weight in gold : but horns and 
 bones and tusks of all kinds were used as unicorn's 
 horn. It was an antidote to all poisons : but Ron- 
 deletius had obtained equally good results, in cases of 
 poisoning, with plain ivory-dust ; " which is the rea- 
 son," says he, " why for the same disease, and with 
 the like success, I prescribe ivory to such as are poor, 
 and unicorn's horn to the rich." Chapelain used to 
 
212 Ambroise Pare 
 
 say he would gladly abolish that custom of dipping a 
 piece of unicorn's horn in the King's cup, but he knew 
 the belief in its efficacy was rooted too deep in men's 
 minds for argument : besides, if it did no good, it did 
 no harm, save to the purses of those who bought it. 
 Ambroise reviews a whole host of delightful stories : 
 the travels of Venetian and Spanish gentlemen in 
 Arabia, Asia, and Cathay: Herodotus, Pliny, Prester 
 John, the great Cham of Tartary, his own friend 
 Louis de Paradis ; he quotes them all, and many 
 others. He would wholly refuse to recognise the 
 existence of the unicorn, but that it is mentioned in 
 the Psalms and the Prophets ; anyhow, what is sold 
 by the Paris apothecaries is too plentiful to be genu- 
 ine : and whatever it is, there is no virtue in it. He 
 tested the belief that if you draw a wet ring on the 
 table with a bit of unicorn's horn, round a spider, 
 scorpion, or toad, the animal will die sooner than 
 cross the ring : they did nothing of the kind. He 
 kept a toad three days in water with a bit of the 
 horn, and the toad was as lively as ever. There was 
 an old lady who sold unicorn's horn at the Pont du 
 Change : she kept a bit of it on a silver chain, and 
 would dip this in a glass of water for you for nothing. 
 One day a beggar-woman, with a baby suffering from 
 eczema, got the water, but the dipping had been 
 omitted : nevertheless the baby rapidly recovered. 
 
Paris 213 
 
 His old friend, Luys Drouet, was as incredulous as 
 Chapelain : he gave the drug sometinfies, but only 
 when the patient compelled him. 
 
 After good stories innumerable, " Let us come to 
 reason," says Par6 : " there is neither taste nor smell 
 nor air nor nourishment in it : therefore it cannot act 
 on the heart." And then, as with all his life's work, 
 comes the final appeal to facts : " I can protest this 
 much, that I have often made trial of it, yet never 
 could I find any good success from its use." 
 
 An answer was published next year to this dis- 
 course, an anonymous pamphlet, " seen and approved 
 by M. Grangier, Dean of the Schools of Medicine." 
 It begins well : " Par6, my friend, so long as you 
 practise surgery, the people make much of you, but 
 when you go outside the limits of your profession 
 to censure physicians and apothecaries, the little 
 children laugh at you." Then comes a hit at the 
 illustrations in Ambroise's treatise on Monsters ; 
 " All those monsters that you have stuck anyhow 
 into your Surgery, to amuse small children." And 
 how could unicorns fail to exist, when the King had 
 at Saint Denis a horn for which he had refused a 
 hundred thousand crowns? ** If I had no other ar- 
 gument to show there are unicorns, this alone Avould 
 sufifice me." Ambroise made a good-natured reply to 
 his anonymous critic, ending thus : '* Anyhow, I pray 
 
214 Ambroise Pare 
 
 him, if he wishes to oppose further arguments to this 
 my reply, to lay aside his animosities, and be more 
 gentle in his treatment of the old gentleman {le bon 
 viellard)y 
 
 It would be easy over mummy and unicorn's horn 
 to moralise on the folly of the profession : but the 
 point is that Ambroise, in the seventy-second year of 
 his age, was still young, shrewd, humorous, observant, 
 practical, free from prejudice, ready to oppose tradi- 
 tion. The times were Gourmelen's times, but the 
 voice is the voice of John Hunter — "Why think? 
 Why not try the experiment ? " 
 
 " Le Bon Viellard." 
 He was still young at seventy-two : and when he 
 wrote the Apologia and the Journeys, he was seventy- 
 five. He had need of the consolations of a sound 
 mind and good health in his old age : outside his 
 home and his work, things went from bad to worse. 
 These last few years of his life — from 1585 to 1590 — 
 must be put in a setting of history, for this reason, 
 that Ambroise Par6 in his old age was not one in a 
 crowd, merely a successful surgeon in good practice. 
 Paris in the XVI. century had a smaller population 
 than Bristol has now : he was a historical figure in 
 the streets, known to everybody,* keeper of the lives 
 
 * He used to say, ' ' J'ai des choses que je tiens pour les dire a Dieu, 
 mon souverain maitre, et rien qu'a lui." 
 
CAGE D'ESCALIER DU XVI^me SIECLE; 
 RUE CHANOINESSE. 
 
 FROM Martial's " ancien paris." 
 
Paris 215 
 
 and secrets of innumerable important people, head 
 of his profession, chief surgeon to the King. To 
 grasp the fact of his greatness in Paris, we must see 
 Paris as he did. 
 
 Those who could by any possibility be taxed 
 were squeezed to the last drop of their blood, and 
 the money went to the King's favourites. Those 
 whom we now call the submerged tenth sank ever 
 deeper as the refugees from the provinces poured 
 into Paris. In 1580 came the plague, and after it 
 the influenza. In 1 585, L'Estoile wrote : *' The plague 
 is great and furious at Lyon, Dijon, Bordeaux, Sen- 
 lis, and in most of the towns. At Paris it is always 
 with us, for the last six years, but with less evil and 
 fury." A year later, August, 1586, "This month, 
 one might almost say over the whole of France, the 
 poor country folk, dying of hunger, were going in 
 troops plucking the half-dead ears of corn in the 
 fields, and eating them raw." Then began the 
 frightful rush of paupers and beggars into Paris, '' so 
 great an influx of beggars in the streets, and at the 
 doors of the citizens, from all parts of France, and 
 even from foreign countries." (May, 1586). Next 
 year, food rose to famine prices; in June, 1587, 
 " from the great multitude of poor beggars in the 
 streets, we were forced to send two thousand of 
 them into the workhouse at Crenelle, to be lodged 
 
2i6 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 and fed by the King, who distributed to each of 
 them five sous daily." Put side by side with this 
 dole of twopence halfpenny, three entries in 
 L'Estoile's journal: 
 
 (i) Sunday, Aug. 23, 1587. "Jean Louis de Mau- 
 garet, due d'Espernon, chief favourite of the King, whom 
 he used to call his eldest son, was married quietly at the 
 chateau of Vincennes. The story was told everywhere, 
 that the King gave him on his marriage the sum of four 
 hundred thousand crowns." 
 
 (2) April, 1578. (Death of Quelus). "The King 
 went every day to see him, and would not leave his bed- 
 side, and promised to the surgeons a hundred thousand 
 francs if he recovered, and, to his favourite, a hundred 
 thousand crowns, to encourage him to get well." 
 
 (3) Monday, March 21, 1581. (The King visits the 
 Parliament, and forces them to appoint his nominees to 
 along roll of vacant offices under Government). "And 
 that evening he went off to Olinville, to take the waters, 
 with d'Arcques and de La Vallette, his favourites, to 
 whom it was said he had given the best part of the four 
 hundred thousand crowns from the sale of these offices." 
 
 There is a list, of incredible length, made in 
 1586, of all " ofifices v^naux her^ditaires." And the 
 courts of law were no less corrupt than the Govern- 
 ment. In May, 1581, one Levoix, living with another 
 man's wife, and enraged at her wish to return to her 
 husband, fell on her with a band of rufifians, and 
 nearly murdered her before her husband's eyes. 
 
Paris 2 1 7 
 
 Having been arrested and brought to trial, he got 
 off scot-free, " and escaped by the gate of gold, hav- 
 ing compounded the matter with her friends for two 
 thousand crowns ; and it cost him two thousand 
 more to corrupt justice, and buy the voice and ver- 
 dict of his judges." The scandals of the Court and 
 of Society may be left between the covers of L'Es- 
 toile's memoirs ; nor can we take as true all the 
 Huguenot epigrams and skits, collected by him, de- 
 tailing the vices of those in high places. Some of 
 these satires are stupid, some of them are filthy ; but 
 here is a good stanza, showing at a glance the state 
 of Paris in 1582. Princeps is Henri de Navarre; Dux 
 is Henri, Due de Guise : 
 
 Status Regni Francise Anno Currente 1582. 
 
 Nobilitas Princeps Dux Rex Regina Senatus 
 dira offensus atrox mollis avara levis 
 
 Plebem vindictam regnum asra tributa favores 
 
 vexat agit quasrit dissipat auget emit. 
 
 Or we may take a few pages of L'Estoile's journal; 
 noting only such things as may have been heard or seen 
 by Par6 himself. Some of the entries made between 
 New Year's Day, 1586, and Lent, 1589, show the real 
 Paris of his old age. " Truly the face of Paris was 
 miserable at this time ; and he who has ever heard 
 or read in Josephus the factions of John, Simon, and 
 other villains, who under the veil of hypocritical 
 
2i8 Ambroise Pare 
 
 religious zeal plundered and sacked the city of Jeru- 
 salem — if he had now come to Paris, he would have 
 seen a like thing." 
 
 1586. 
 
 Jan. 1st. Solemn ceremony of the Order of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 Jan. i6th. The King goes to Vincennes, to shake 
 off a fever. 
 
 Jan. 30th. Two murderers broken on the wheel, 
 at the Pont Saint Michel, close to Park's house. 
 Suicide of a doctor named Sylva, imprisoned in La 
 Conciergerie. 
 
 Feb. 1st. Jean Badon, late Rector of the Univer- 
 sity, hanged and burned on the Place de Gr^ve. 
 
 Feb. loth. Exhibition of an armless man, who 
 could write, play cards, etc. 
 
 March 8th. An affray, for some trivial reason, on 
 the King's highway, between six Seigneurs : three 
 killed, three wounded. 
 
 March 26th. The King and others make a pilgrim- 
 age afoot to Chartres. 
 
 March 30th. Procession of the King and 200 peni- 
 tents through Paris. 
 
 April 24th. Arrival of a Protestant embassy from 
 Denmark. Three deaths, in April, from suicide ; 
 one of them a boy 13 years old. 
 
 May 2 1 St. Arrival of a Protestant embassy from 
 
Paris 219 
 
 Germany. In May, such crowds of beggars in the 
 streets that house-to-house collections were made 
 for them. 
 
 Aug. 5th. Arrival of another Protestant embassy 
 from Germany. In August, news of the return of 
 " Drac, capitaine anglois " from his voyage round 
 the world. 
 
 Sept. 1 2th. Return of the King from another pil- 
 grimage to Chartres. Visit to the church of the 
 Capuchins. In September, news that Mary Stuart 
 is imprisoned in the Tower of London. 
 
 Nov. 22d. Francois le Breton, Parliamentary ad- 
 vocate, hanged for treason. 
 
 December. The King again at Chartres, and then 
 at the Capuchins. 
 
 1587- 
 
 Jan. 1st. Solemn ceremony of the Order of the 
 Holy Spirit. Price of food rising. Further measures 
 for the relief of the crowds of beggars. A whole 
 gang of forgers hanged ; the ringleader was boiled 
 alive, at the markets. 
 
 Feb. 6th. Suicide of a prisoner in La Conciergerie. 
 His body dragged through the streets on a hurdle. 
 Carnival and Lent duly observed by the King. 
 
 Feb. 1 2th. Duel between two Seigneurs at the 
 Pre aux Clercs. Collision between their men and 
 the archers of the King's guard. Many killed. 
 
220 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Feb. 2 1st. Rumours of a plot against the King's 
 
 life. 
 
 Feb. 26th. A man and a woman hanged and 
 burned in front of Notre Dame, for magic and 
 witchcraft.'^ 
 
 March ist. News of the execution of Mary Stuart. 
 Public mourning in Paris. 
 
 March 15. Another rumour of a plot for the 
 League to seize Paris. 
 
 April 5th. The King heads a solemn procession 
 at the church of the Augustines. Food very dear. 
 Severe frosts. Continued rush of paupers and beg- 
 gars into Paris. 
 
 May 24th. Still winter. The vineyards frozen 
 round Paris. 
 
 June 3d. Food at starvation prices. 2000 beggars 
 deported out of Paris. 
 
 June 28th. News of the defeat of 400 or 500 Hu- 
 guenots, in Poitou, by the King's favourite, the Due 
 de Joyeuse. They surrendered under promise of 
 life ; and were all put to death. 
 
 July. Public exhibition at Saint S6v6rin of a huge 
 cartoon of Elizabeth oppressing the English Catholics. 
 
 July 9th. The shrine of Saint Genevieve carried 
 in procession, to stop the rain. 
 
 * " On trouva ceste execution toute nouvelle a Paris, pour ce que 
 ceste vermine y estoit tousjours demeuree libre et sans estre recber- 
 chee, principalement k la cour." — L'Estoile. 
 
Paris 221 
 
 July 2 1st. Solemn procession of the King and 
 other penitents through Saint-Germain des Pres. 
 
 July 22d, The bakers' shops in Les Halles stormed 
 by a mob, 
 
 Aug. 2d. Solemn ceremony of the Order of St. 
 John of Jerusalem. 
 
 Aug. gth. Sermons throughout Paris in praise of 
 the Due de Guise and the Due de Joyeuse, and not 
 of the King. 
 
 Aug. 25th. Huguenot victory at Montelimart. 
 7(X) or 800 Catholics killed. Defeat of Swiss Hugue- 
 nots in Dauphin^. Solemn Te Deum at Notre 
 Dame. 
 
 Aug. 30th. Marriage of the Due d'Espernon, the 
 King's favourite. The King gives him 400,000 
 crowns, and to the bride a necklace worth 100,000 
 crowns. 
 
 Sept. 2d. Tumult in the Rue Saint Jacques, on 
 an attempt made by the King to arrest three preach- 
 ers of the League. 
 
 Sept. 13th. The King goes to Gien. Solemn pro- 
 cession and prayers for his safety. 
 
 Sept. 26th. A man broken on the wheel for forg- 
 ery, and for sending an infernal machine to the Seig- 
 neur de Millaud. 
 
 October. Battle of Coutras, victory of Henri de 
 Navarre ; defeat and death of Joyeuse. 
 
222 Ambroise Pare 
 
 November. Guise defeats the German Protestants 
 at Auneau. Disbanding of the German and Swiss 
 Protestant armies. Solemn Te Deum at Notre 
 Dame. 
 
 December. Return of the King. Secret journey 
 of Guise to Rome. False report of the death of 
 Henri de Navarre. 
 
 1588. 
 
 Jan. 1st. Solemn ceremony of the Order of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 Jan. 24th. A marvellous thick darkness over Paris. 
 
 Jan. 31st. Theological disputation between the 
 King and two Huguenot women in the prison of 
 Le Chatelet. 
 
 Feb. 1 2th. The King daily at the great fair held 
 at Saint Germain, " voiant et souffrant faire par ses 
 mignons et courtizans, en sa presence, infinies vila- 
 nies et insolences." 
 
 Feb. 2ist. Solemn ceremony at Notre Dame : the 
 Bishop of Paris made a Cardinal. 
 
 Feb. 29th. Their swords taken from the students 
 of the University, for riotous behaviour at the fair. 
 Discovery of the Due d'Aumale's plot against the 
 Due d'Espernon. 
 
 March 3d. A man hanged for stealing a watch. 
 
 March 4th. Grand lying-in-eflfigy and funeral of 
 the Due de Joyeuse. 
 
Paris 223 
 
 March 9th. News of the death of Henri de Bour- 
 bon, son of Cond6. Raising of the tax on salt ; great 
 indignation of the people. 
 
 April. A madman whipped and sent to the Bas- 
 tille, for speaking his mind to the King. 
 
 April 26th. Departure of Espernon for Normandy. 
 The King goes to Vincennes, for a week of peni- 
 tence. Another rumour of a plot of the League to 
 seize Paris. 
 
 May 9th. Return of Guise to Paris, amid shouts 
 of "Vive Guise, vive le pilier de I'Eglise" : furious 
 quarrel of the King with him. 
 
 May 1 2th. The Day of the Barricades : open war 
 in Paris between Guise and the King. 
 
 May 14th. Guise receives the keys of the Bas- 
 tille : offers his protection to the English Ambassador. 
 
 May i6th. Fighting at the Porte Saint Honor^. 
 Departure of a Capuchin procession to the King at 
 Chartres. Murder of Mercier, near Park's house. 
 Several rich houses plundered by Guise's men. 
 
 June 23d. Burning of an &^^y of Heresy, stufTed 
 with fireworks. Exhibition of a Loyalist cartoon 
 outside the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 June 28th. The two sisters, whom the King had 
 visited in prison, hanged and burned on the place 
 de Gr^ve. The mob cut down one of them and 
 threw her alive into the fire. 
 
224 Ambroise Pare 
 
 July i6th. Guitel hanged and burned for heresy, 
 or rather for atheism. 
 
 July 2 1st. Fresh measures against the Huguenots. 
 Solemn Te Deum, and a big bonfire in front of the 
 Hotel de Ville. 
 
 July 30th. Departure of the Queen-mother, Guise, 
 the Archbishop of Lyon, and others, to the King 
 at Chartres. Pretended reconciliation of Guise with 
 the King.* 
 
 August. News of the destriiction of the Spanish 
 Armada. 
 
 September. Riot in the Church of Saint Gervais, 
 over the appointmet of a new cur6. 
 
 November. Two sensational cases of attempt to 
 murder. One of the culprits tortured and broken 
 on the wheel. 
 
 Dec. 23d. Murder of Guise by order of the King. 
 Next day, murder of his brother the Cardinal. Fury 
 of the people. They tear down the royal arms, smash 
 the statues. Wild confusion in the streets and in the 
 churches. 
 
 * " Le Mardy, 2 Aoust, Sa Majeste entretenue du dit due pendant 
 son disner, lui demanda a boire ; puis, en riant, lui demanda a qui ils 
 beuroient : 'A qui vous plaira, Sire,' respondit le due de Guise; 
 'c'est aVotre Majeste d'en ordonner.' — 'Mon cousin,' dit le Roy, 'beu- 
 vons a nos bons amis les huguenos.' — ' C'est bien dit. Sire,' respond 
 monsieur de Guise. — ' Et a nos bons barricadeus de Paris,' va 
 dire le Roy tout aussi-tost, ' beuvons aussi a eux, et ne les oublions 
 pas.' " 
 
S\.oy I honncur ch cc 'fleck , c^ qui as ianantaai 
 bur tant dc B-^oys jui ont cc ti-cn fceptrc portc , 
 "jju Jtrai -vn nui-^clc a la pcrtcncc , 
 L ornmz t^n, trcjchrcstun ^ trcfdcuot , a" xrcfs'acjc 
 
 HENRI III. 
 
 FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING IN THE PRINT-ROOM. BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
Paris 225 
 
 1589. 
 
 January. Furious sermons against the King by 
 Lincester and other preachers of the League. 
 
 Jan. 7th. News of the death of the Queen-mother, at 
 Blois.* 
 
 Jan. 9th. Another false report of the death of 
 Henri de Navarre. 
 
 Jan. i6th. Rioting in the streets ; many houses 
 stormed and plundered. 
 
 Jan. 26th. A messenger from the King seized and 
 imprisoned. The Sorbonne and the Faculty of The- 
 ology absolve the people of all duty to the King, 
 and erase his name from the prayer-books : furious 
 sermons, processions, and public prayers against him. 
 
 Feb. 7th. Solemn ceremony, and public rejoicing, 
 at the baptism of the posthumous son of Guise. 
 
 Feb. 14th. More processions, one of 600 children. 
 A sudden craze for midnight processions, which led to 
 much immorality. 
 
 Feb. 1 5th. (Ash Wednesday). Lincester's sermon ; 
 
 * The ne\v3 came on Saturday. Here is an extract from next day's 
 sermon at the Church of Saint Bartholomew : 
 
 " Aujourd'hui, messieurs, se presente une difficulte, s9avoir, si 
 Teglise Catholique doit prier Dieu pour elle, aiant vescu si mal 
 qu'elle a vescu, avance et supporte souvent I'heresie. Sur quoi je 
 vous dirai, messieurs, que si vous lui voulez donner a I'avanture par 
 charite ung Pater et un Ave, vous le pouvez faire ; il lui servira de 
 ce qu'il pourra, si non, il n'y a pas grand interest. Je vous le laisse 
 a vostre liberte. " 
 15 
 
2 26 Ambroise Pare 
 
 that he would not preach the Gospel, because that 
 was so common, and everybody knew it. But he 
 would preach the life, actions, and abominable deeds 
 of that perfidious tyrant, Henri de Valois — " against 
 whom he disgorged an infinity of villainies and in- 
 sults, saying he invoked devils," etc. 
 
 Ambroise Par6 died in December 1590; and so 
 late as 1587 the plot was still thickening, and the 
 actors were all on the stage. Then Death began to 
 shift the scenes. On March i, 1587, came the news of 
 the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. On May 12, 
 1588, the struggle between the King and the Guises 
 came to open warfare in the streets, the Day of 
 the Barricades. In August of that same year the 
 Spanish Armada was destroyed. The scenes were 
 shifted now to some purpose ; but the actors re- 
 mained in their places, and must finish their parts. 
 The last act of the tragedy was soon over. On De- 
 cember 23, 1588, Guise and his brother were mur- 
 dered by order of the King. On January 7, 1589, 
 the Queen-mother died. On August i, of that same 
 year, the King was assassinated. The curtain fell 
 now, and Henri de Navarre comes before it to speak 
 the epilogue. 
 
 He, now Henri IV., having defeated the Catholic 
 army at Ivry, March 14, 1590, advanced upon Paris 
 
^a nMalettlae din nur JieSeiff , 
 f^ar aSs lejjnnn mytrvet werpt , 
 
 nkd iliehen m dtrfttbm nod i JneJ> Tarma hmftias>AcUrlan4t,> 
 OdunTUSiJmiUch^ckce mchcr \ 'VUParm n«^h Snf/plJicHsa't ' 
 
 SIEGE OF PARIS, 1590. 
 
 '} ~'V^^ 
 
Paris 227 
 
 and laid siege to it. To Catholic Paris he was a 
 heretic, a traitor, and a murderer ; they would die, 
 before they would open their gates to him. The 
 siege lasted from May to September. The number 
 of the population was about two hundred thousand. 
 An eye-witness says that at last they died in the 
 streets, a hundred to two hundred daily. Those who 
 headed a meeting in favour of peace were taken by 
 the League, and hanged. When the food came to 
 an end, they ate ofTal, the refuse in the gutters, the 
 bones of the dead ; even, it is said, the bodies of 
 children. It was the delirium of weakness : the 
 preachers of the League, Lincester and others, put 
 on armour with their priests' robes, and raged through 
 Paris. The great Archbishop of Lyon was the 
 leader of them ; he had dined with the Guises, on 
 the eve of the Day of the Barricades ; they had 
 supped with him, the Sunday before they were mur- 
 dered ; he stood for the League, to avenge his party 
 on the Protestants, though the people of Paris should 
 die like flies. 
 
 The likeness of Paris to Jerusalem was complete 
 now : the stories of the two sieges are strangely alike. 
 It is the one time, the last of all his fourscore years, 
 when we most desire to catch sight of Ambroise 
 Par6, and hear the sound of his voice. And we see 
 him, eighty years old, afoot in the streets among the 
 
228 Ambroise Pare 
 
 dying and the dead, set suddenly face to face with 
 the great leader of the League, bidding him for God's 
 sake and the poor to preach peace to the people. It 
 is not an incident in Fare's life, but the crown of it ; 
 " the last of life, for which the first was made." 
 
 A few days later, August 29th, the siege was 
 raised. When Christmas Day came, Ambroise Par6 
 had just died. Of the manner of his death, conscious 
 or unconscious, easy or uneasy, we know nothing. It 
 was the time when he had seen the retreat of the 
 Emperor, eight and twenty years ago, from before 
 the walls of Metz. 
 
VI. 
 
 OPERA OMNIA. 
 
 " God is my witness, and men are not ignorant of it, that I have 
 laboured more than forty years to throw light on the art of Surgery 
 and bring it to perfection. And in tliis labour I have striven so hard 
 to attain my end, that the ancients have nought wherein to excel us, 
 save the discovery of first principles : and posterity will not be able to 
 surpass us (be it said without malice or offence) save by some additions, 
 such as are easily made to things already discovered." — Dedication to 
 the King of the Edition of i^JS- 
 
 AMBROISE PARE was sixty-five years old, when 
 he set this astounding statement about poster- 
 ity on the first page of his Works, more than three 
 centuries ago : and for two centuries and a half it re- 
 mained not far from the truth. The discovery of 
 anaesthetics, about fifty years ago, and the work of 
 Lister and of other surgeons, have put an end to his 
 prophecy. But if we put aside the sciences — anatomy, 
 physiology, pathology, experimental work — and take 
 what Pare meant by surgery, and read what sort of 
 work was done, what measure of success was at- 
 tained, at the beginning of the present century, we 
 
 229 
 
230 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 shall acknowledge that his words held good, on the 
 whole, for two hundred and fifty years. 
 
 After the Dedication, the Preface is pleasant read- 
 ing for a surgeon : 
 
 " The Medicine which we profess at this present time 
 is composed of three parts. Surgery, Diet, and Pharmacy. 
 . . But if we refer to Celsus, we shall find that no 
 part of it is so praiseworthy as Surgery : for in the cure 
 of diseases by drugs and by diet, Nature is very power- 
 ful, and what has been profitable at one time is at an- 
 other time useless, till one may doubt if the return of 
 our health be due to the kindness of Nature, or to the 
 power of medicines and of dieting. . . . This Sur- 
 gery surpasses Pharmacy and Diet alike in antiquity, 
 necessity, certainty, and difficulty : yet one without the 
 other would not be very profitable : for they are so 
 joined together that if they were kept apart, and did not 
 each help the other, never would Surgeon, or Physician, 
 or Apothecary, attain the object they have set before 
 themselves." 
 
 Save art and politics, the Works of Par6 contain 
 every possible subject : Anatomy and Physiology, 
 Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, State Medicine, Pathol- 
 ogy, Pharmacy, Natural History, Demonology, and 
 much else. The divine origin of diseases, the influ- 
 ence of the stars, the power of devils, the nature of 
 the soul, the history of medicine — he ranges from 
 these to the tricks of beggars and of quacks, the 
 homely remedies of old women, the folly of tight- 
 
opera Omnia 231 
 
 lacing, the best sort of tooth-powder, and the right 
 way to make pap for a baby. The breadth, insight, 
 force, and humanity of his writings, their shrewd hu- 
 mour, his infinite care for trifles, the gentleness and 
 clear-headed sense of his methods — they are amazing. 
 It is no answer, to say that Pare was ignorant, super- 
 stitious, credulous, bound hand and foot by medi- 
 jeval imagination and tradition. Truly his theories 
 and explanations are childish, and his ignorance of 
 things not yet discovered is as profound as our own : 
 but put Ambroise on one side of the patient's bed, 
 and a surgeon of our own day, single-handed, on the 
 other : you will not find the balance of insight and 
 practicality against Ambroise. 
 
 For example, we have various meat extracts and 
 essences ready-made in tins. Contrast with these 
 the following advice for what he calls a restorative 
 draught : 
 
 " Take of veal, mutton, kid, capon, fowls, fat fowls, 
 partridges, pheasants, as much as shall seem good to you, 
 well minced together : and to diminish their heating 
 qualities, add a handful of soaked barley, a handful of 
 red roses, dry or fresh, first steeped in juice of pome- 
 granates, citrons, and rose-water, and a little canella- 
 bark. , . . Put them in thin layers in a glass vessel, 
 and distil them in a bain-Marie, or over cinders or hot 
 sand : renewing the water over them from time to time, 
 and leaving them to infuse. . . . Strain through a 
 
232 Ambroise Pare 
 
 fine sieve, and flavour with sugar and canella, adding a 
 little citron-juice, or verjuice, or vinegar, to suit the 
 patient's taste." 
 
 Again, we do not greatly trouble over matters of 
 diet ; we value, perhaps too highly, the simplicities 
 of beef-tea and barley-water, fish and custard pudding. 
 Pare has a thousand devices against this monotone 
 of nourishment. Here is his dietary for a case of 
 fractured skull : 
 
 " Hippocrates wholly forbids wine : but instead of it 
 he shall drink barley-water, or boiled water with a little 
 bread in it, or hippocras made with water, or boiled 
 water with syrup of roses or violets, or acid, or boiled 
 water sugared, with lemon or citron juice. . . , He 
 may eat panada, soaked barley, cooked Damas plums, 
 Damas raisins preserved with a little sugar and canella 
 (particularly good for comforting the stomach and re- 
 freshing the spirits) : and sometimes a small fowl, a 
 pigeon, veal, kid, leverets, little field-birds, pheasants, 
 larks, turtledoves, partridges, thrushes, and other good 
 meats boiled Avith lettuce, sorrel, purslain, borage, 
 bugloss, chicory, endive, and the like. Or sometimes 
 these meats ma)'- be roasted : and then he may have with 
 them verjuice, oranges, citrons, lemons, sharp pomegran- 
 ates, sorrel-juice, changing them according to the pa- 
 tient's taste and the length of his purse. If he desire 
 fish, then trout, loach, and pike from clear waters, not 
 muddy, with raisins, Damas plums, sharp cherries : but 
 he must avoid cabbages and all leguminous vegetables, 
 because they trouble the head. And after dinner, com- 
 mon sweetmeats, or annis, fennel, coriander comfits, 
 conserve of roses, or quince marmalade." . . . 
 
Opera Omnia 233 
 
 Again, there were no skilled nurses in Ambroise 
 Park's time : when Charles IX. lay dying of phthisis, 
 haunted by terrors, the old Huguenot nurse, the 
 " family nurse," settled herself to sleep on the big 
 carved chest in the King's bedroom. Pare was sin- 
 gle-handed : as he says in the Journey to Germany, 
 " I did my patient the office of physician, surgeon, 
 apothecary, and cook." The indefatigable neatness 
 and minute finish of his work never failed him. 
 Take his rules for bandaging ; the bandages must be 
 made of old linen already used, that they may be 
 soft and phable ; they must be of the right length, 
 not hemmed or stitched, without lace or seam, clean, 
 cut longways and not across, of the right strength : 
 the knot must come where it will not be felt, the 
 ends must be turned in : " the surgeon must consider 
 to what end the bandaging was done, and whether 
 he has done it well and properly, as also with neat- 
 ness and elegance, to the satisfaction of himself and 
 the beholders." 
 
 Or take the following rules for the comfort of his 
 patients. If the room be too hot, and the windows 
 may not be opened, sprinkle the floor with water and 
 oxycrate, and strew it with twigs of willow and vine. 
 If a plain bath, as opposed to a medicinal bath, be 
 prescribed, then plain warm water, wherein the 
 flowers of violets and of water-lilies, willow-leaves 
 
234 Ambroise Pare 
 
 and barley, have been boiled, will be sufficient. In 
 time of plague, open your windows to the North and 
 East, shut them to the West : kindle a clear fire in 
 every living-room in the house, and perfume the 
 whole house with frankincense, myrrh, benzoin, 
 labdanum, styrax, roses, myrtle, lavender, rosemary, 
 sage, savory, wild thyme, marjoram, broom, fir-cones, 
 pine-wood, juniper, cloves, perfumes; and let your 
 clothes be dried in the same. It is indeed the plague 
 that shows most clearly his skill in practice. Or, if 
 we wish to see how he could concentrate on a single 
 case the whole of his strength, there is the story of 
 the Journey to Flanders, how he saved the life of the 
 Marquis d' Auret : a magnificent example of good 
 surgery. 
 
 The work itself that he did in this fine spirit must 
 be studied by surgeons in his collected writings ; and 
 no technical account of it here would be of value or 
 in place. Many of his operations have in these lat- 
 ter days come again into practice, and have been put 
 to the credit of modern surgery. And every bit of 
 his work bore the naked impress of his character — 
 the same insight, diligence, and single-handed mas- 
 tery of the case : all through his life, he gave the lie 
 to that old saying that the Frenchman cures the dis- 
 ease, but the Englishman cures the patient. Next, 
 comes the question, what were the limitations and 
 
Opera Omnia 235 
 
 the faults of his work? How wide is the gulf be- 
 tween him and modern surgeons? He had no know- 
 ledge of the circulation of the blood, or of the 
 absorbent system : no anaesthetics, no antiseptics, 
 no bacteriology : his understanding of the nervous 
 system was not in advance of his times, and he had 
 neither microscope nor stethoscope nor thermometer. 
 Other things also stood between him and accurate 
 pathology. 
 
 (i) He believed, though without much care for the 
 matter, that the stars influence the course of disease. 
 He says of the operation for cataract, " You must 
 choose a proper time for it, when the moon is on the 
 wane, and not any time of lightning or thunder, 
 and not when the sim is in A vies, which has dominion 
 over the Jiead'' ; but he only added these last words 
 in the second edition of his works, 1579. There is 
 no evidence that he followed astrology, though the 
 rage for it was so strong in Paris in his old age. Fie 
 believed the moon affected human life ; but only as 
 do the sun and the east wind. And where he speaks 
 of the change of type, or involution, of a disease, he 
 throws over the astrologers altogether. " Astrolo- 
 gers think the cause of it to be that the celestial in- 
 fluences, by the contrary revolutions of the stars, 
 lose their power and become weak. But physicians 
 had rather take to themselves the glory, that this 
 
236 Ambroise Pare 
 
 disease is become less furious, and refev it to the 
 many v/holesome means which have be'er, invented, 
 used, and opposed to it by the happy labours of 
 noble minds." 
 
 (2) He believed that the plague came of itself, by 
 the Divine will, apart from nature, He doe? not 
 wholly ignore the philosophical d/^ctrines of first 
 causes and second causes, but they have no interest 
 for him. His only concern is to believe and prove, 
 from Scripture and from Hippocrates, that the 
 plague is sent to punish men for their sins. In a 
 recent account of the plague, its variations in inten- 
 sity of virulence are said to be " phenomena which 
 have to be regarded as indicative of a secular evolu- 
 tion of morbid changes." 
 
 (3) He lived when all men believed in spontane- 
 ous generation ; a belief which died hard, not many 
 years ago. It was a common thing in his time for 
 maggots to breed in a wound. He notes it not only 
 in the army, but even in his private practice : 
 
 " What wonder was it, if in these late civil wars the 
 wounds have caused so many grievous accidents, and 
 lastly death itself ? Especially since the air encompass- 
 ing us, tainted with putrefaction, corrupts and defiles 
 the wounds, and the body and the humours are already 
 disposed or inclined to putrefaction. There came such 
 a stench from these wounds, when they were dressed, 
 that the bystanders could scarce endure it. Nor could 
 
Opera Omnia 237 
 
 this be attributed to the want of dressing, or the fault of 
 the surgeon, for the wounds of the princes and the no- 
 bility stank as ill as those of the common soldiers. And 
 the corruption was such that if any chanced to be left 
 without dressing for one day — which sometimes hap- 
 pened with such a multitude of wounded — next day the 
 wound would be full of worms. Many also had abscesses 
 in parts opposite to their wounds ; which I remember 
 befel the King of Navarre, the Due de Nevers, and 
 sundry others." 
 
 With this terror of the powers of the air, it is no 
 wonder that he sometimes despaired of getting good 
 results in military surgery. " If things went wrong, 
 owing to this great malignancy of the wounds in the 
 civil wars, the surgeon was not to be blamed, for it 
 were a sin to fight against God, and the air, wherein 
 are the hidden scourges of Divine justice." There 
 was the same frightful mortality, the same fear of 
 the air, two hundred years after Fare's time, in his old 
 hospital. And with the air, he included the time 
 of year, the condition of the soil, the locality, the 
 weather ; to all these things he paid heed : he had 
 no great dread of pure air, save lest it should give 
 the patient cold. For this reason he advises that 
 when a wound of the head is dressed a chafing-dish 
 or a hot iron should be held near it, that the air and 
 the wound may be gently warmed. 
 
 (4) He believed in the devil, evil spirits, sorcery, 
 
238 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 and witchcraft ; that the devil and his angels were 
 permitted to plague men with diseases, to put for- 
 eign bodies inside them, to possess and enslave them. 
 Magicians and sorcerers sold themselves to devils, 
 and got power from them. There were devils in the 
 air, and underground in mines. All this, and more 
 like it, he firmly believed, on the authority of Scrip- 
 ture, history, and his own eyes. He is not clear how 
 far the works of the devil and of devils are material, 
 how far they are illusions inflicted on man's senses ; 
 and in his old age he was still uncertain on this 
 point : 
 
 " Not long ago, in the presence of King Charles IX., 
 and MM. de Montmorency, de Retz, de Lussac, and M. 
 de Mazille, first physician to the King, and M. de Saint 
 Pris, valet-de-chambre in ordinary to the King, I saw a 
 certain impostor and enchanter do many things which 
 are impossible for men to do without the subtlety of the 
 Devil, who deceives our vision, and makes us see some- 
 thing false and fantastic ; which this impostor freely con- 
 fessed to the King, that what he did was by the subtlety 
 of a spirit, and he had to be enslaved to him for yet 
 three years longer, and was sore tormented by him. And 
 he promised the King, when this time was come and over, 
 he would be an honest man. God forgive him, for it is 
 written, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. King Saul 
 was cruelly punished, because he sought counsel of the 
 witch of Endor ; likewise Moses commanded the Jews to 
 exterminate all sorcerers." 
 
opera Omnia 239 
 
 He attended one or two cases of possession : he 
 did not use exorcism, but followed what we may 
 call an expectant line of treatment. 
 
 White magic, the popular use of spells, charms, 
 amulets, and the like, he mostly derided and de- 
 spised ; he admits it can cure diseases, but it is a 
 false and palliative sort of cure at the best : 
 
 " I have seen the jaundice, all over the body, disappear 
 in a night, because they hung a little sentence round the 
 patient's neck ; I have seen fevers cured by words and 
 ceremonies ; but they came back again worse than ever. 
 . . . They say it cures a quartan fever, if the patient 
 drinks wine stirred with a sword that has cut off a man's 
 head ; if this were true, the Paris headsman would be 
 better off than he is. . . . A rope that has hanged a 
 man, tied round your forehead, cures the headache : it 
 is pleasant to know this way of practising medicine." 
 
 He quotes a multitude of quaint charms and spells, 
 but says they are foolish nonsense ; being especially 
 sore against them, because they were opposed alike 
 to religion and to the honest practice of medicine. 
 
 (5) He was a firm believer in the power of the 
 saints to cure diseases ; and this belief he justifies, 
 oddly enough, by appealing to Hippocrates. " They 
 do not send diseases upon us, but these diseases, 
 sent on us by the just judgment of God, are cured 
 by their means. And herein I have written as a 
 surgeon, following the doctrine of divine Hippo- 
 
240 Ambroise Pare 
 
 crates, in his book De Morbis Sacris, who says those 
 who beHeve the saints send diseases on us are miser- 
 able men, deceivers, wicked ; not that he denies these 
 diseases are cured by their power and means." (1575). 
 (6) He beheved in the royal touch for the king's 
 evil : 
 
 " It is known and affirmed by all men, that the Kings 
 of France have this power of healing. I have seen it, an 
 infinite number of times, and I said nothing of it in my 
 book, because it is a thing familiar to everybody. I 
 could prove, by the evidence of many in this city, men 
 of good repute, what authority I attribute to this gift of 
 grace granted to the Kings of France by the loving kind- 
 ness of God, having sent them to the King, and used all 
 my influence to get them admitted to him, seeing there 
 was no help for them from remedies of man's making." 
 (1575)- 
 
 But in practice, some of his operations and meth- 
 ods were curiously modern. He understood and 
 practised what we now call massage ; he had a good 
 way of producing local ansesthesia ; he was opposed 
 to immoderate bleeding; he knew the value of rest 
 and of silence for his patients. He says, for instance, 
 of wounds of the head, " The patient must be in a 
 place of rest, as far from loud noise as possible, far 
 from church bells, not near a farrier's, cooper's, car- 
 penter's, or armourer's shop, or the traffic of carts or 
 the like, because noise increases pain, fever, and 
 
Opera Omnia 241 
 
 other complications." Yet still in London we see 
 hospitals built straight on to the main road. 
 
 Of the two discoveries which all men know that 
 he made, the story of the first is told in the Journey 
 to Turin. The second, the use of the ligature in 
 amputation-wounds, was probably made at or about 
 the time of the Journey to DanviUiers. He recom- 
 mends good threads, two together — l?on fil qui soit 
 en double — and a catch-forceps such as is now used 
 by surgeons. Then comes the famous passage : 
 
 " Here I confess freely and with deep regret that for- 
 merly I practised not this method but another. Remem- 
 ber, I had seen it done by those to whom these 
 operations were entrusted. So soon as the limb was 
 removed, they would use many cauteries, both actual 
 and potential, to stop the flow of blood, a thing very 
 horrible and cruel in the mere telling. . . . And 
 truly of six thus cruelly treated scarce two ever escaped, 
 and even these were long ill, and the wounds thus 
 burned were slow to heal, because the burning caused 
 such vehement pains that they fell into fever, convul- 
 sions, and other mortal accidents ; in most of them, 
 moreover, when the scar fell off, there came fresh bleed- 
 ing, which must again be staunched with the cauteries, 
 which, thus repeated, consumed a great quantity of flesh 
 and other nervous parts. By which loss the bones re- 
 mained long afterward bare and exposed, so that, for 
 many, healing was impossible ; and they had an ulcer 
 there to the end of their lives, which prevented them from 
 
 having an artificial limb. Therefore I counsel the young 
 16 
 
242 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 surgeon to leave such cruelty and inhumanity, and fol- 
 low my method of practice, which it pleased God to 
 teach me, without I had ever seen it done in any case, 
 no, nor read of it." 
 
 He had often used the ligature to vessels bleeding 
 in an ordinary wound ; this method was as old as Ga- 
 len. When it came to his thoughts that he might use 
 it in amputation-wounds, he conferred with Estienne 
 de La Riviere and other Paris surgeons, and they 
 agreed together to make trial of it, having the cau- 
 teries ready to hand, in case the ligature should fail. 
 
 To know Ambroise Par6 from his books, it is not 
 enough to quote passages from them ; their sequence 
 must be noted, his reasons for writing them, and the 
 circumstances under which they were published. 
 Malgaigne gives many facts about them, which can- 
 not all be put here. The list of them is as follows : 
 
 1. " The method of treatment of wounds made by 
 arquebuses and other firearms, and of those made 
 by arrows, darts, and the like ; also the burns made 
 by gunpowder. By Ambroise Par^, Master-barber, 
 surgeon at Paris. 1545." A small 8vo of 61 pages, 
 dedicated to M. le Vicomte de Rohan. Written by 
 the advice of Sylvius. 
 
 2. " A short compendium of the chief facts of 
 anatomy, with the articulations of the bones. By 
 
opera Omnia 243 
 
 Ambroise Pare, Master-barber, surgeon at Paris. 
 1550." With a treatise on obstetrics. Small 8vo, 
 96 pages, dedicated to M. de Rohan. This book 
 was the outcome of the dissections and demonstra- 
 tions made by Pare and Theodoric de H6ry at the 
 School of Medicine, for the physicians' lectures there. 
 The Advice to the Reader shows the strain of Park's 
 life at this time : 
 
 " Dear Reader, I would have you know that when I 
 had sent this book to press I was compelled to go to the 
 camp at Boulogne, for the service of my Lord and Master ; 
 and in my absence many mistakes have been made, which 
 I have corrected with the pen, to save you trouble, desir- 
 ing your advancement, and hoping to give you some- 
 thing else after this, God helping me. Whom I pray to 
 enrich us with His grace."' 
 
 3. A second edition of the book on gunshot 
 wounds, with additions. 1551 and 1552. 8vo., 80 
 pages. Dedicated to the King. In the Advice to 
 the Reader, he says that the tumult of the wars has 
 prevented him from properly finishing and correct- 
 ing the book. 
 
 4. " The method of curing wounds and fractures 
 of the human head ; with illustrations of the instru- 
 ments necessary for their cure. By M. Ambroise 
 Par6, surgeon-in-ordinary to the King, sworn sur- 
 geon at Paris. 1561." With a portrait, and the 
 
244 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 motto, " Labor improbus omnia vincit." 8vo, 226 
 pages: dedicated to Chapelain, Pages 1-113 give 
 the anatomy of the head ; the rest of the book is 
 surgical. The case of Henri II. is given at length; 
 his death was doubtless the occasion of the book. 
 
 5. " Universal anatomy of the human body. By 
 Ambroise Pare, surgeon-in-ordinary to the King, 
 and sworn surgeon at Paris. Revised and enlarged 
 by the author with I. Rostaing du Bignosc, Pro- 
 vencal, also sworn surgeon at Paris. 1561." 8vo., 
 277 pages, with portrait and motto. Dedicated to 
 the King of Navarre. This book was the outcome 
 of dissections and demonstrations made with Ros- 
 taing du Bignosc at the School of Medicine. Many 
 of the illustrations were taken from Vesalius. 
 
 6. " Ten Books of Surgery ; with the set of in- 
 struments necessary for it. By Ambroise Pare, 
 premier surgeon to the King, and sworn surgeon 
 at Paris. 1568." With illustrations, portrait, and 
 motto. 8vo., 234 pages. Dedicated to the King. 
 
 7. " Treatise on the plague, small-pox, and 
 measles ; with a short account of leprosy. By 
 Ambroise Pare, premier surgeon to the King, and 
 sworn surgeon at Paris. 1568." 8vo., 235 pages. 
 Dedicated to Castellan. Written at the wish of 
 Catherine de Medici, after the Royal progress to 
 Bayonne. 
 
Opera Omnia 245 
 
 8. "Five Books ot Surgery, 1572." No copy of 
 this book is now to be found. 
 
 9. " Two Books of Surgery. By Ambroise Par6, 
 premier surgeon to the King, and sworn surgeon 
 at Paris. I573-" 8vo., 519 pages, with portrait and 
 motto. Dedicated to M. le Due d'Uz^s. 
 
 10. " Discourse of Ambroise Par6, councillor and 
 premier surgeon to the King, on mummy, poisons, 
 unicorn, and the plague. 1582." 8vo., 75 pages, 
 with portrait. Dedicated to M. des Ursins. 
 
 11. Reply of Ambroise Par6, premier surgeon to 
 the King, to the answer made against his discourse 
 on unicorn. 1584." Quarto, 7 pages. 
 
 Some account of the complete editions of his Col- 
 lected Works has already been given. After his 
 death, the rights over them were granted to his 
 widow. Eight editions in all were published at 
 Paris; then five editions (1633-1685) were published 
 at Lyon ; inferior in every way to the Paris editions, 
 badly printed, corrupt. His works have been trans- 
 lated into Latin, English, Dutch, and German ; per- 
 haps Itahan also, but this is doubtful. In 1840, 
 Malgaigne published his classical edition of the 
 Works, restoring the text, and prefixing to it a long 
 historical and critical Introduction, 351 pages, a 
 masterpiece of learning and labour. 
 
246 Ambroise Pare 
 
 The moral of Opera Omnia is not without encour- 
 agement for " the young surgeon," to whom Par6 
 ever addressed himself. He did not publish any- 
 thing till he was thirty-five ; his first two books were 
 very short, and there was an interval of five years 
 between them. The third book came eleven years 
 after the second ; the sum of his published works is 
 not so great that the young surgeon should despair. 
 
 Yet there is in his books a note of eagerness and 
 vehemence, telling that he did not take things leis- 
 urely. He cannot finish one book but he must 
 promise another. " If I hear you like this little 
 work, I will set myself to do something else." — " If 
 I learn you have found pleasure and profit herein, I 
 promise you a general treatise on the whole of sur- 
 gery." — " The author promises, God willing, you shall 
 soon see other of his works on surgery." These 
 sentences come in the prefaces of his first, fifth, and 
 seventh books. Certainly he worked very hard ; his 
 output for 1 561 was two books of 500 pages between 
 them ; a year busy with practice, and interrupted by 
 his breaking his leg — a bad compound fracture.* 
 
 * " This accident befell me on May 4, 1561 ; witness M. Nestor, 
 physician-regent in the Faculty of Medicine, and Richard Hubert 
 and Antoine Portail, master barber-surgeons of Paris, men of good 
 renown. They were called, and I with them, to see some patients 
 at the village of Bons-Hommes, near Paris. It happened thus : 
 Having to cross the water, and trying to get my mare into the ferry- 
 
opera Omnia 247 
 
 Moreover, he lived a double life : with the army in 
 times of war, at Paris in the intervals of peace ; and 
 these two lives must be multiplied together, to find 
 the full strength of his character. 
 
 boat, I switched her behind, and the brute gave me such a kick that 
 she broke both bones of the left leg, four fingers' breadth above the 
 ankle. Having received the blow, and fearing she would have at me 
 again, I went back a step, but fell down at once, and the broken 
 bones stuck out through my flesh, my stocking, and my boot ; whereat 
 I felt such pain that in my judgment it is not possible for a man to 
 endure more without dying of it. My bones thus broken, and the 
 foot displaced, I greatly feared the leg must be cut off, to save my 
 life ; wherefore turning my eyes and my thoughts to Heaven, I in- 
 voked the name of God, and prayed Him of His goodness to be will- 
 ing to help me in my extreme necessity. Forthwith I was put in the 
 boat, to take me across the water to get my wound dressed ; but the 
 movement of it almost killed me. . . . Then I was taken to a 
 house in the village, with even worse pain than I had endured on the 
 boat : for one took my body, another the leg, and another the foot ; 
 and on the way one took me to the left, another to the right. . . . 
 They dressed me with such applications as we could get in the vil- 
 lage : applying to the wound white of egg, flour, soot from the chim- 
 ney, and fresh butter melted. I prayed Master Hubert to treat me 
 as one wholly unknown to him, and in reducing the fracture to forget 
 the friendship he owed me. . . ." 
 
 
VII. 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OF PARC'S LIFE. 
 
 " Generosity he lias, such as is possible to those who practise an 
 art, never to those who drive a trade ; discretion, tested by a hundred 
 secrets ; tact, tried in a thousand embarrassments ; and what are more 
 important, Heraclean cheerfulness and courage. So it is that he 
 brings air and cheer into the sickroom, and often enough, though 
 not so often as he wishes, brings healing." — R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 THERE remain some aspects of Park's life which 
 have yet to be noted. From the beginning of 
 it to the end, he had good health. Till he was a 
 man, he lived in country air ; and his father and 
 mother were not too poor to give their children 
 decent food and comfort. A healthy simplicity kept 
 hold of him, body and mind, to the end of the four- 
 score years. His illnesses were but accidents in a busy 
 life : a broken leg, a bite from a viper, an attack of 
 haematuria after posting hard across France, a touch 
 of sciatica from sitting in a draught, working at night 
 in his study. Once he fainted, standing over a plague- 
 stricken patient ; he had the plague himself, late in 
 
 248 
 
COLLEGE DE CLUNY : RUE DE CLUNY. 
 
 FROM Martial's " ancien paris." 
 
Some Aspects of Park's Life 249 
 
 life, and pulled through it with a scar as big as the 
 palm of his hand. Except the toothache, of which 
 he writes with a grievance, this is the whole list of 
 his maladies : it would be hard to find a healthier set 
 of complaints. If there were more, we should know 
 it ; for he loved to teach the young surgeon by tell- 
 ing his own case. 
 
 He was fond of good wine : witness that great cask 
 of wine, bigger than a pipe of Anjou, that he got at 
 Metz for curing M. de Magnane ; " and he told me 
 when it was finished he would send me another." 
 But it is evident from the Journey to Flanders that 
 he limited himself, and did not exceed his rule. It is 
 not likely that he smoked ; he was fifty years old 
 when Jehan Nicot brought tobacco to Paris. He 
 walked or rode to see his patients ; there were no doc- 
 tors' carriages then.* Blessed with a country bring- 
 ing-up, and a good constitution, he stood all the 
 hardship of war, the unwholesomeness of Paris, the 
 constant pressure of work. And when some acci- 
 dent or some chance attack of illness laid him on his 
 back, he treated himself, or let himself be treated, 
 with great prudence and courage. 
 
 * When he first came to Paris, only two carriages were to be seen, 
 belonging to the Queen and to Madame d'Estampes. Carriages in- 
 side Paris were prohibited by a sumptuary law in the time of Charles 
 IX. Even later than Pare's death, we find Henri IV. writing to Sully 
 that he cannot come to see him, because the Queen is uisng the 
 carriage. 
 
250 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 There was yet another occasion of sudden illness, 
 wherein he had to be his own doctor : 
 
 " A-fter the taking of Rouen (1562) I found myself at 
 dinner with a company wherein were some who hated 
 me to death for the Religion : they handed me some 
 cabbages, which contained either corrosive sublimate or 
 arsenic. "With the first mouthful, I felt nothing : with 
 the second, I had a great heat and burning, and great 
 astringency in the mouth and especially at the back of it, 
 and the foul taste of the good drug. . . ." 
 
 He at once treated himself in the right way, and 
 was none the worse. Of course he may have made 
 a mistake ; the use of poison was so common that 
 the fear of it was everywhere ; or some fool may 
 have thought it funny to put the surgeon's drugs in 
 the surgeon's dinner. At any rate, he believed that 
 poison had been administered to him, in 1562, be- 
 cause he was, or Avas supposed to be, a Huguenot. 
 Thirteen years later, and three years after the massa- 
 cre of St. Bartholomew's Day, in the warfare over 
 the first edition, the faculty took him to task for put- 
 ting this story into his treatise on poisons. Here is 
 his answer, 1575 • 
 
 " ]\Iy enemies have wickedly chosen to drag into the 
 matter this word Religion, to make me hated of all good 
 men. For it was used by me, not to glorify myself for 
 having followed this way of thinking, but lest the reader 
 should think they attempted my life because I committed 
 
Some Aspects of Pare 's Life 251 
 
 some great crime. Still less did I use it to show that 
 those who follow the Holy Catholic Church of Rome 
 take illicit means to get rid of their enemies. For I 
 hereby declare, and it is absolutely certain, that this 
 poisoner was neither of the one religion nor of the other, 
 but only a libertine without fear of God." 
 
 And the same year, in the Preface to the first 
 edition, he wrote: 
 
 " The Surgeons have wished to make me odious to 
 the powers of Church and State, and to the people ; they 
 have left no stone unturned to make me stumble if they 
 could." 
 
 This story of the dinner at Rouen brings with it 
 the old unwelcome question, was Pare Catholic or 
 Huguenot ? I will endeavour to be at least inoffens- 
 ive over it. To make a beginning somewhere, 
 boldly plunging, I say that I believe he was more 
 Catholic than Huguenot ; that religion, for him, was 
 not Calvinism, nor the sermons of Huguenot minis- 
 ters, nor any zeal for Protestant tactics ; but rather 
 it was the Bible, and the faith of the Catholic Church, 
 as set forth at Saint Andr6 des Arcs, at whose altar 
 he and Jehanne Mazelin were married. Here the 
 children were baptised, here they were buried, and 
 their mother with them ; and he was to lie side by 
 side with them. It was the church of a thousand 
 memories, and within a stone's throw of home : and 
 
252 Ambroise Pare 
 
 I am convinced that he was never wholly Huguenot, 
 and became almost wholly Catholic ; not only for 
 the sake of safety, but because he was loyal, quiet, 
 and conservative : a man who heartily disliked 
 change, self-will, scepticism, controversy, politics, 
 and foreigners. 
 
 Having made this plunge, I submit some facts 
 touching Ambroise in his relation to the two opposed 
 parties in the State : 
 
 (i) In 1579, ^^^ wrote the following Advice to the 
 Reader at the end of his treatise on the plague. I 
 put it here not only for its own merits, but because 
 it shows how well he worked with the Catholic 
 clergy : 
 
 " Advice to the Reader. 
 
 " The Author gives the following little admonition to 
 the young surgeon, who may sometimes find himself in 
 places where there are neither priests nor other people 
 of the Church at the death-beds of the poor patients ; 
 as I saw when King Charles was at Lyon (1574) during 
 the great mortality, where they used to shut up a surgeon 
 in the rich houses, to tend those within that were plague- 
 stricken ; so that they could not be helped by any to 
 console them in the extremity of Death. The said sur- 
 geon, having been instructed by this little admonition, 
 will be able to serve in need of some greater cleric than 
 himself. And I do not wish here to pass beyond the 
 bounds of my calling, but only to help the poor plague- 
 patients in their extremity of Death : 
 
Some Aspects of Pare 's Life 253 
 
 *' Death is the fear of the rich, 
 The desire of the poor, 
 The joy of the wise, 
 The dread of the wicked, 
 End of all miseries, 
 And beginning of life eternal : 
 Happy to the elect, 
 And unhappy to the reprobate." 
 
 (2) After the massacre of the Huguenots, the cure 
 of Saint Andre, M. Christofle Orbry, was a strong 
 Leaguer, furious against the Reformed Church. 
 
 (3) The Reformation came late to France, later 
 still to Paris. The Huguenot cause was weak in 
 Paris, long after it was strong in the provinces ; there 
 were massacres of Huguenots in the country towns, 
 years before the Saint Bartholomew's Day in Paris. 
 The date of the first Reformed church opened in 
 Paris is 1555. It is not likely that Par6, getting on 
 for fifty, would leave Saint Andre to sit under a 
 strange Calvinist preacher in a brand-new place of 
 worship. 
 
 (4) He had no liking for theological disputation. 
 In the battle of the first edition, the faculty de- 
 clared he had said something wrong about predestin- 
 ation. Here is his answer to them (1575) : 
 
 '* I say I will not enter into the holy inner chamber of 
 God, and it is not for me to settle such high matters. 
 Still, if there be rashness in what I have declared, you 
 must equally accuse M. Saint Paul (i. Cor., eh. 12) of 
 rashness, from whom the words are taken." 
 
254 Ambroise Pare 
 
 (5) L' Estoile has preserved a vast store of epi- 
 grams, skits, satirical verses, and the like, from both 
 parties. Many of those made by the Huguenots are 
 veritable triumphs of brutality and obscenity, without 
 parallel on the Catholic side. Fare's name is not 
 once mentioned, either for good or for evil, by either 
 Catholic or Huguenot. 
 
 These suggestions are vague and disconnected : 
 so much the better : he himself saw the chaos of 
 intrigues and interests, the plots and counter-plots, 
 the points at issue all confused and vague. I believe 
 he went to Mass, he and Jehanne together, at Saint 
 Andre ; and I believe he went more regularly after 
 1572-73, not only because it was dangerous not to 
 go, but because now his wife and children were 
 buried there. I am sure he went neither as a 
 " secret Huguenot," nor " as hypocrite and not as 
 Catholic " : nor yet to follow the fashions, like the 
 man in the Huguenot skit: 
 
 " Pour suivre le monde k la Messe 
 Colin pense estre homme de bien : 
 Pour aller souvent a confesse 
 Colin cuide estre homme de bien." 
 
 Nor did he make cheap allusions to the house of 
 Rimmon : nor, like Conde going to Mass for safety's 
 sake, the year after the Massacre, did he " show him- 
 self in such difficulties over his devotions that you 
 
Some Aspects of Fare's Life 255 
 
 might tell he was not a good Catholic, crossing hinn- 
 self at all sorts of odd times." 
 
 But we do not know for certain, nor is it our busi- 
 ness, whether he went to Mass. At least, he may- 
 have gone partly for safety's sake. He was not in 
 danger at the Court ; but his life was not always safe 
 in the streets and slums of Paris : there were times 
 after the Massacre when any drunken ruffian might 
 raise the cry of Huguenot against him. Here, to 
 illustrate this peril, are two entries in L' Estoile's jour- 
 nal ; the first of them comes very near Par6 himself : 
 
 (i) " May, 1578. One Mercier, a pedagogue, was 
 attacked at nine o'clock at night, in his house near 
 Saint Andre des Arcs, by two villains, a tinplate worker 
 called Poccart, and a tailor called Pierre de La Rue, who 
 lives at the corner of the Pont Saint Michel. They 
 stabbed him and threw him into the river without a 
 shadow of justification. The account given by these two 
 hirelings of the League, two of the busiest blackguards 
 in the city, was that the poor gentleman was a heretic, 
 therefore they put him to death. Whereas, only two 
 days before, he made his Easter communion in his parish 
 church of Saint Andre des Arcs, and took the Sacra- 
 ment from the cure's own hands. Mdme. Seguier, the 
 President's wife, who had been near Mercier at the com- 
 munion, remined M. le cure of this * : he answered her, 
 
 * If it is the same man who was cure of Saint Andre two years 
 later, then, according to L' Estoilc, he is not to be trusted. In 1580, 
 L' Estoile makes the following note : " This year died in Paris, at 
 her house on the Quai des A.ugustins, Mdme. de Bisseaux, a wise and 
 
256 Ambroise Pare 
 
 that he clearly remembered giving the Sacrament to 
 Mercier, and how Mercier was close to her at the table ; 
 but, for all that, Mercier was still a Huguenot, as they 
 said of him, and had received the communion as hypo- 
 crite, not as Catholic." The widow appealed to the 
 magistrates for justice. " They made her no other an- 
 swer but that her husband had been a dog of a minister, 
 and if she said anything more they would put her into the 
 river in a sack." 
 
 Pierre de La Rue was connected by marriage with 
 Pare, and lived within a stone's throw of his house ; 
 Mercier also lived close by ; so did Mme. de Bis- 
 seaux. 
 
 (2) "Saturday, July 16, 1578. One Guitel, of Anjou, 
 was hanged, and his body burned to ashes, on the Place 
 de Greve ; he had already at Angers been condemned 
 to be burned alive, for the abominable heretic that he 
 was. The people kept shouting, according as they were 
 made to believe and to shout, that he was a Calvinist ; 
 but on the contrary, he was a real Atheist, as he showed 
 plainly at his execution, where he pronounced execrable 
 blasphemies against God, the Holy Trinity, and other 
 articles of the Christian Faith, which all men believe 
 alike, as much the Calvinists as the Roman Catholics. 
 
 virtuous lady, and one of the Religion ; whereof she had always 
 made profession. Nevertheless the cure of Saint Andre des Arcs, 
 her parish church, published everywhere the contrary, saying that he 
 had administered all the Sacraments to her. And the reason was 
 that M. de Bisseaux, her husband, fearing the times, and to avoid 
 scandal, had given six crowns to the cure to say this and declare it 
 everywhere." 
 
Some Aspects of Fare's Life 257 
 
 But the evils of the times were so great, and the minds 
 of the common people so poisoned b)^ the sorceries of 
 the League, that all criminals were Calvinists, Heretics, 
 Politicals, or Navarrists." 
 
 Pare, therefore, might be in danger in the streets. 
 He was safe at the Court and in society. And the 
 attitude that the Court would take toward him is 
 illustrated by the stories told of two members of 
 the household with whom he worked : Mazille and 
 the old nurse. 
 
 Mazille was premier physician to Henri HI. He 
 died in 1578, and his property went to the Crown. 
 The King's favourites heard that he had died with 
 twenty thousand crowns ready money in the house : 
 they ransacked it from top to bottom, and found 
 nothing; at all events they found so little, that the 
 King, when he heard of it, said : 
 
 " I am very glad that the truth is known about him, 
 and that I myself am confirmed in the good opinion I 
 always had of Mazille : whom I loved and trusted, 
 though he was a bit of a Huguenot {ten peu Huguenot) ; 
 anyhow he was more faithful to my service than many 
 whom I see at the Court here, who abuse him, pretend- 
 ing they are good servants and great Catholics." 
 
 The old Huguenot nurse of Charles IX., " ma 
 mie, ma nourrice," must have been an odd figure 
 at the Court ; what people call a character. That 
 »7 
 
258 Ambroise Pare 
 
 story of her advising the Queen-mother to give 
 battle to the Huguenots at Dreux : — "Well, Ma- 
 dame, if nothing will satisfy them, they must be 
 made to listen to reason " ; it is like Juliet's old 
 nurse shaping the fates of the houses of Capulet 
 and Montagu ; and she did not even know how to 
 nurse. She was a Huguenot, and the young King 
 would not meddle with her faith : from the begin- 
 ning of his life to the end of it, she was paid to be 
 with him : the life and training of the King himself 
 were put in the hands of a heretic. 
 
 In his methods of work, Ambroise Par6 was in 
 some ways like John Hunter. They are separated 
 by two centuries, by all the differences between the 
 Scotsman and the Frenchman, between London in 
 the time of George HI. and Paris under the House 
 of Valois ; this diversity only emphasises the like- 
 ness between them, as surgeons. They both of them 
 began life in the country ; they saw something of war, 
 and wrote on gunshot wounds ; they spent the money 
 lavishly, when it came ; they were great lovers of ani- 
 mals and their ways : 
 
 " I kept at ray house a great quantity of sparrows' 
 nests in earthen pots ; and when the young ones were 
 fledged and of fair size, I had the whole nest taken 
 down, and set on the ground, that I and my friends 
 
Some Aspects of Park's Life 259 
 
 might delight ourselves in seeing the care of the old 
 birds in feeding the young . . . and often I would 
 make trial with a strange sparrow put with the rest of 
 the young ones, to see if they would feed the stranger 
 as though he were legitimate." 
 
 And Fa.r6 loved the collecting of specimens, dis- 
 secting them, demonstrating them : though Hunter's 
 magnificent collection is far beyond anything that 
 Par6 dreamed of. Yet Pare was diligent at the same 
 work ; his house was full of curiosities of natural his- 
 tory and surgery ; he gets a rare specimen of disease, 
 and calls together sixteen physicians and surgeons 
 to see him dissect it ; he gets a dead ostrich, and 
 makes a skeleton of it, no easy matter ; he keeps the 
 bullets he has removed ; he shows odd specimens at 
 Court. 
 
 But there are two points of special likeness be- 
 tween them : first, the constant appeal to experi- 
 ence ; next, the love of questioning, comparing 
 notes, getting to know the results obtained by other 
 men. 
 
 Of the appeal to experience and experiment — 
 Hunter's " Don't think ; try " — we have many in- 
 stances in Park's writings : here is one of the best : 
 
 " In the year 1538, when I was at Turin, surgeon to 
 the late M. le Mareschal de Montejan, I dressed one of 
 his pages, who was struck on the side of his head with a 
 
26o Ambroise Pare 
 
 stone by one of his companions, on the parietal bone, 
 with fracture and depression of it ; and there came out 
 of the wound a portion of the brain, of the size of half a 
 hazel-nut or thereabouts : which so soon as I perceived 
 I said the wound was mortal. Hereupon came a young 
 physician, who disputed vehemently against me, saying 
 this portion of the brain was fat, and not brain. I told 
 him to keep it till I had done with my patient, and then 
 he should see I was right. Having dressed the page, to 
 prove by reason and experience that this portion of 
 brain could not be fat, I told him first that fat cannot be 
 formed within the skull, although the parts be cold ; for 
 there is great store of animal spirits, which are very hot 
 and subtle, together with the multitude of vapours raised 
 from all parts of the body to the head ; which things 
 hinder the generation of fat. And for experience, in 
 the dissection of dead bodies one never sees any fat 
 there. None the less he kept trying to gainsay me by 
 constant argument. At last I told him experiment 
 should decide between us. If it were fat, it would float 
 on water, and would melt if you put it on a hot 
 shovel." . . . 
 
 The love of questioning, of learning from every- 
 body, and of comparing notes, is as plainly marked 
 in Park's account of his work as in Hunter's letters 
 to Jenner. Nothing, so it were practical, was too 
 small for Park's notice : the old women's homely 
 remedies, — onions to a burn, onions for a toothache, 
 vinegar for weak eyes ; the rough and ready treat- 
 ment of wounds by the soldiers ; the wonderful drugs 
 of quacks, the sham diseases of professional beggars. 
 
Some Aspects of Park's Life 261 
 
 He is sent by the King to Nancy, in 1575, to see 
 Madame la Duchesse de Lorraine, and learns from 
 Nicolas Piccart, her surgeon, a new way to reduce dis- 
 locations of the shoulder : he waits two years, bribing 
 and cajoling, to get the prescription for an ointment 
 from a surgeon at Turin ; he asks questions of every- 
 body : " On the journey to Bayonne, which I made 
 with my King in the year 1565, I asked the physi- 
 cians, surgeons, and barbers in all the towns through 
 which we passed, where the plague had been, what 
 results they had obtained from bleeding in cases of 
 plague," He would learn even of quacks. He got the 
 prescription for a caustic paste, his " velvet cautery," 
 from an arch-quack, " a philosopher, a great distiller 
 of the quintessence of life, a quintessential master " : 
 to whom he gave, in exchange, enough velvet to 
 make him a pair of breeches. Having got this pre- 
 scription under promise of secrecy, he published it. 
 *' And if any should urge that I have broken my 
 promise to this alchymist, I answer that since he had 
 sold it to me it was mine ; and anyhow I think I 
 have done him no wrong ; on the contrary, he and I 
 between us have conferred a great benefit on the 
 public." Of these quacks or empirics he has many 
 good stories ; those, for instance, who promise to 
 insert a gold plate after fracture of the skull, shape 
 and hammer it in the presence of the patient and his 
 
262 Ambroise Pare 
 
 > 
 
 friends, and then slip it into their own purses. But 
 he only disliked a quack when there was nothing to 
 be learned from him ; and he is not above quoting 
 one Doublet, an empiric, to confute his old enemy 
 Gourmelen. 
 
 He hated with all his heart the whole confraternity 
 of beggars ; he saw, in his old age, the frightful 
 rush of them into Paris ; stories were told how they 
 poisoned the wells and set fire to the houses : their 
 counterfeit sores and deformities were abominable to 
 him. For those who lament, as Charles Lamb did, 
 the decay of beggars, Ambroise's chapters on the 
 malingering of beggars are the most delightful read- 
 ing. There was the woman whom Jehan Pare found 
 begging at the door of the Huguenot chapel at Vitry, 
 on a Sunday, with a counterfeit ulcer ; and so she 
 was whipped and banished. On the same pitch, a 
 year later, was another beggar, with banner and tub 
 and castanets, and the nucleus of a subscription set 
 on the top of the tub ; his face was covered with 
 leprosy, made of glue, and was kept of a livid tint 
 by a scarf pulled round his neck half throttling him. 
 He, too, was unmasked by Jehan Par6, and was 
 whipped through the town on three successive Satur- 
 days, with his tub and castanets hung round his 
 neck ; the third whipping killed him : " which was 
 no great loss for the country." There was the big 
 
Some Aspects of Pares Life 26 
 
 o 
 
 stout woman who was so misguided as to display 
 her malady to Ambroise himself and to Dr. Flesselles, 
 as they were waiting for dinner at Flesselles' cottage 
 at Champigny ; she had suffered a most fatal com- 
 plication of diseases for forty years, and looked none 
 the worse for it. Flesselles, in his wrath, ran at her, 
 knocked her down, and jumped on her and kicked 
 her till she pretended to be dead ; then she got up 
 and ran away. There was another stout woman, 
 thirty or thereabouts, with a live snake inside her ; 
 whom a charitable unmarried lady took into her own 
 house, and got Ambroise, Hollier the physician, 
 and Cheval the surgeon, to see her. Hollier gave 
 her a powerful draught, but without result. When 
 they threatened to make it yet more powerful, she 
 went off that evening, packing up with her own 
 clothes some that belonged to the charitable lady ; 
 and six days later Ambroise saw her sitting astride 
 a pack-horse at the Porte Montmartre, in very low 
 company and very high spirits. 
 
 He who loves good reading, but is not a member 
 of Park's profession, let him take Malgaigne's edition, 
 and read the chapters on beggars, the treatise on the 
 plague, and the Journeys in Diverse Places. But he 
 will lose half the goodness of them if he reads them 
 only as history, only as romance: he must know 
 Par6, he must see him in his writings. 
 
264 Ambroise Par^ 
 
 As for his faults, Pare puts them down with the 
 ingenuous readiness of a child writing a diary. He 
 was proud of himself. But was there ever a more 
 engaging type of vanity ? Those marginal notes 
 that he wrote in his old age for the complete editions 
 of his works — Chariti de VAutheur. . . . Addresse 
 de r Autheur . . . Tesmoinage de la Dexterity de 
 VAutheur . . . Modestie de V Autheur — their sim- 
 plicity is past comprehension. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is the hard 
 saying, which yet he did not include in all the good 
 advice which he gives to "the young surgeon": 
 that character, in the long run, avails more than 
 circumstances. Ambroise Park's methods are anti- 
 quated, his theories were all wrong, his books are the 
 forgotten treasures of a few great libraries. Our 
 methods, our explanations, will also be superseded ; 
 our books, many of them, will not even be treasured. 
 He has kept his hold for three centuries on men by 
 force of character, and by that alone. 
 
VIII. 
 
 AMBROISE PARC'S ACCOUNT OF THE 
 PLAGUE. 
 
 " Let us be sure that the evil of the plague would be much less, if 
 we had help and consolation one from another. The Tu7-k has 
 these virtues ; and we, Christians in name, take no count of them : 
 as if we could thus escape out of God's hands. . . . And when 
 it shall please Him to take us from the world, that will be the be- 
 ginning of our greatest happiness, since this life brings with it an 
 infinity of labour and sorrow, and here we are well nigh buried under 
 things that fade and pass." — From the Book of the Plague. 
 
 FROM Ambroise Park's account of the plague I 
 have taken those chapters that give the best 
 picture of him and of his times. The Book of the 
 Plague was first published in 1 568, as part of a 
 larger treatise : and was included in the first edition 
 of Park's collected works. This present year 1897 
 has witnessed M. Haffkine's work in India, and the 
 discovery of the preventive treatment of bubonic 
 plague : it is therefore a good time to read the story 
 of a like disease in the sixteenth century, and to 
 see what Ambroise Par6 thought of it. 
 
 265 
 
266 Ambroise Pare 
 
 I. Of the Plague ix General. 
 
 The plague is a disease coming of the wrath of 
 God, furious, sudden, swift, monstrous, dreadful, 
 contagious, terrible, called by Galen a wild beast, 
 savage, and most cruel ; the mortal enemy of the life 
 of men and of diverse sorts of beasts, plants, and 
 trees. The ancients called it Epidemic, because the 
 whole air was corrupt, so that many died all at once 
 in this or that part of the world : and they gave the 
 name Endemic to a disease which is peculiar and 
 familiar to one country, as the king's evil in Spain, 
 the goitre in Savoy, the leprosy in Guyenne near 
 Bordeaux, that is called Gahetz, and in Low 
 Brittany Cacots, and the lepers are called Ladres 
 blancs : and so with other diseases that have the 
 master}^ over other countries. The plague is often 
 attended by very cruel, pernicious troubles that 
 daily come of it : such as fever, buboes, carbuncles, 
 purpura, dysentery, delirium, phrenzy, gnawing 
 pains at the stomach, palpitation of the heart, heavi- 
 ness and weariness of all the limbs, deep sleep, and 
 dulness of all the senses. Some have a burning 
 heat within them, and are cold on the surface, with 
 restlessness, difficulty of breathing, frequent vomit- 
 ing, dysentery, bleeding from the nose and other 
 parts of the body; their appetite is gone, they are 
 wholly changed, with a hard, dry, black tongue, a 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 267 
 
 horrible pinched look, and their faces pale and 
 leaden, or sometimes red and inflamed, with general 
 tremors, and spitting of blood, and many other 
 troubles ; from the sudden corruption of the infected 
 air, and the evil disposition of them that are at- 
 tacked. But all these troubles do not always come 
 at once, or to all patients ; and some have more of 
 them than others : so that one hardly sees two cases 
 of the plague that are alike, for they differ according 
 to the different effects that it produces. Which 
 comes of the variableness of the poison, the ill-health 
 and general condition of the patients, the times and 
 seasons of the year, and the parts of the body that 
 are first attacked : so that the plague is not always of 
 one sort, but of many : thus there are many names 
 for it — fievre pestilente, caqiiesangiie, coqiielucJie, 
 siiette, trousse-galant, bosse, charbo7i, pourpre, and 
 others, that I shall give hereafter. 
 
 The essential nature of the poison of the plague is 
 unknown, and past all explanation ; so that we may 
 call the plague a fourth kind of disease. For if it 
 were a simple intemperature, it would be hot or cold, 
 or moist or dry, or compounded of these: and then 
 it would be cured by its contraries, by their mere 
 qualities of hot, cold, dry, moist, or by an admixture 
 of them. If it were an incommodation, that is to 
 say a wrong composition of parts, it would be in 
 
268 Ambroise P 
 
 are 
 
 undue conformation or figure, or in number, or 
 magnitude, or position. Again, if it were solution 
 of continuity, there would be erosion, contusion, in- 
 cision, perforation, laceration, puncture, or rupture; 
 all which things would be healed with the remedies 
 given to us by the ancients. But it comes not only 
 of simple corruption, but also of contagion of the 
 infected air, past all words, and past understanding; 
 which impresses the character of its poison on a 
 body already disposed to it. 
 
 You will ask how a surgeon can find any real cure 
 for this contagion, since the cause of it cannot be 
 known. The answer must be, that we must follow 
 the course of Nature. For this poison, which goes 
 straight to the heart, is abhorrent to Nature : there- 
 fore she sets to work, and endeavours to dislodge 
 and drive to the surface all the infected material 
 that is keeping up the mischief, whence come pesti- 
 lential fevers, carbuncles, buboes, purpura, and 
 other troubles: by which action of Nature, the 
 nobler parts of the body are much relieved : so that 
 the patient may escape and be safe, if all, or the 
 greater part, can be thus driven outward and kept 
 there. And the physician and the surgeon, who are 
 ministers and coadjutors of Nature, have but to fol- 
 low Nature's course : as in bringing about sweating 
 and vomiting in the first stage of the disease, and in 
 
Pares Account of the Plague 269 
 
 the use of such things as strengthen the heart, and 
 all remedies proved good against putrefaction and 
 venenosity. In brief, we must fortify the heart 
 with antidotes, and draw to the surface the products 
 of the disease, and treat the troubles as they come, 
 altering our remedies according to them. 
 
 Such is my description of the plague : which is 
 never universal, nor all of one kind : as I have said 
 already. 
 
 2. Of the Divine Causes of the Plague. 
 
 It is a thing established among true Christians, to 
 whom the Eternal has revealed the secrets of His 
 wisdom, that the plague, and other diseases common 
 among men, come from the hand of God ; as the 
 prophet teaches us : Shall there be evil in a city, and 
 the Lord hath not done it ? We should always be 
 careful to think of this, for two reasons. First, that 
 we may see how all our life, health, movement, and 
 being, come directly from the pure goodness of 
 God, who is the Father of light : so that we may be 
 thankful to Him for His gifts. Next, when we 
 know that these afflictions are laid on us by God, 
 we are in the right way to understand His just deal- 
 ing with our sins, and to humble ourselves like 
 David * under His strong hand, keeping our souls 
 ♦ Voyez a ce propos le Ps. 39. A. P. 
 
2/0 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 from the sin of rebellion : that being raised from de- 
 spair we may call on His greatness to deliver us 
 from all evil by His loving kindness. Thus we shall 
 learn to seek in God and in ourselves, in Heaven 
 and on earth, the true knowledge of the causes of 
 the plague which has visited us. 
 
 And since divine Philosophy teaches us that God 
 is the beginning and first cause of intermediate 
 causes, without which there can be no action of 
 secondary and subordinate causes, so these are 
 ordered and arranged by His secret will and design, 
 who uses them as instruments of His work according 
 to His unchangeable decree and ordinance. 
 
 But we must not simply attribute the cause of the 
 plague to immediate causes, like the Lucianists, 
 Naturalists, and other infidels; remembering that as 
 God by His omnipotence has created all things from 
 the highest to the lowest, so by His wisdom He 
 preserves, restrains, and directs all things as it seems 
 good to Him, and often He even changes their nat- 
 ural course, according to His good pleasure. That 
 is why the Prophet warns us, Learn not the way of 
 the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of 
 heavefi ; for the heathen are dismayed at them. And 
 let no man be so bold and full of madness as to wish 
 to hold God bound, who is the sovereign cause of 
 all things, to secondary and subordinate causes, or 
 
Park's Account of the Plague 271 
 
 to His creatures, or to that first disposition that He 
 Himself has given them : which would rob God of 
 this title of Omnipotent, and take from Him the 
 freedom henceforth to change anything and order it 
 otherwise than He has ordered it in the beginning; 
 as though He could be subject and bound by the 
 order that He has established, and unable to make 
 a new disposition of things.* For whatever order 
 or arrangement God may have put in Nature, in the 
 course of the seasons, in the movement of the stars 
 and the planets, yet he is not bound or subject to 
 anything created : for He works and accomplishes 
 His works in perfect freedom, and is in no way sub- 
 ject to follow the order that He has established in 
 Nature. But if He wishes to punish men for their 
 sins, that they may see His justice ; or to pour bene- 
 fits upon them, that they may feel His goodness as 
 a Father — He without difficulty changes this order 
 of things as He thinks fit, and makes it serve His 
 will, according as He sees good and just. For as, at 
 the beginning of the creation of the world, by the 
 commandment of God, the earth brought forth 
 grass, and trees yielding fruit, and the sea brought 
 forth fish, and there was light, before the two great 
 lights, the sun and the moon, were created, to teach 
 us that it is the Omnipotent, who alone has made 
 
 * This phrase was added in 1579. 
 
272 Ambroise Pare 
 
 all things: so, after the government of the creatures 
 was committed to the sun and to the planets, whence 
 the earth and all things on it receive food and nour- 
 ishment, we know how Almighty God has altered 
 their natural course for the good and profit of His 
 Church. Thus we read that the Lord went before 
 the Israelites, by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead 
 them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to 
 give them light. Also the sun and the moon were 
 stayed, and changed their course, at the prayer of 
 Joshua. Also by the prayer of Elijah there was no 
 rain for the space of three years and six months. 
 These examples make it plain that God disposes His 
 creatures according to His good pleasure, both for 
 His glory, and for the salvation of those who call on 
 Him in spirit and in truth. 
 
 Now as the Lord employs these lower things to 
 be ministers of His will and witnesses of His grace 
 to those who fear Him, so they serve Him as heralds 
 and executors of His justice, to punish the iniquities 
 and offences of sinners who despise His majesty. 
 In a word, it is the hand of God that by His just 
 judgment hurls from Heaven this plague and con- 
 tagion, to chastise us for our offences and iniquities, 
 according to the threat contained in Scripture. The 
 Lord speaks thus, / will bring a sword upon you, 
 that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant : and 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 273 
 
 when ye are gathered together withi7t your cities, I 
 will send the pestilence amoftg you ; and ye shall be 
 delivered into the hands of the enemy. Read also 
 what is written in the third chapter of Habakkuk. 
 The Lord of Hosts says, Behold, I send upon them 
 the sword, the famine, and the pestilence. Likewise 
 God commanded Moses to cast into the air a certain 
 powder, in the presence of Pharaoh, so that in all 
 the land of Egypt both man and beast should be 
 afflicted with pestilent boils, ulcers, and many 
 other diseases. And David is witness to this, say- 
 ing that God sent upon Egypt flies which devoured 
 their land, and frogs which destroyed them, and 
 gave their fruit to the caterpillar, and their labour 
 to the grasshopper, and spoiled their vines with hail- 
 stones, and their wild fig-trees with the storm : and 
 gave their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to the 
 thunderbolt. Afterward, he says. He made a way 
 to His anger ; He spared not their soul from death, 
 but gave their life over to the pestilence. Also, in 
 Deuteronomy, Moses threatens those who transgress 
 the law of God with many curses, and among others 
 with pestilence, boils, swellings, and fevers. 
 
 And the one example of David shows the accom- 
 plishment of these terrible threats: when God, for 
 his sin, destroyed seventy thousand men with the 
 plague, as Scripture is witness. The prophet Gad 
 
 x8 
 
274 Ambroise Pare 
 
 was sent to David with this commandment from 
 God, / offer thee three things ; choose thee one of 
 them, ayid I will do it. Which wilt thou have, that 
 seven years of famine come upon the land, or that for 
 the space of three jnonths thou flee before thine ene- 
 mies, and they pursue thee, or that for three days the 
 pestilence be on the land? Then David prays to 
 fall into the hands of God rather than into the 
 hands of men : for His mercies are great. 
 
 And if any one should say that the people did not 
 deserve to die for the offence of their king, it may 
 be answered that they were yet more wicked than 
 he : for God preserved David for the honour of His 
 holy name.* 
 
 We read also that the Lord punished idolatry, and 
 profanation of His service, with the scourge of the 
 pestilence. For He speaks thus. Because thou hast 
 defiled my holy place in thy infamies aiid abomina- 
 tions, I will break thee also, neither shall mine eye 
 spare, nor will I have pity on thee : for the third part 
 shall die of pestilence. 
 
 So let us be agreed that the plague, and other 
 dangerous maladies, are evidence of the wrath of 
 God against the sins, idolatries, and superstitions, 
 which reign over the earth : as even a profane author 
 is compelled to confess that there is something divine 
 
 * This sentence was added in 1585. 
 
Pares Account of the Plague 275 
 
 in diseases.* And, when it pleases the Lord of 
 Lords, and Creator of all things, to bring His just 
 judgments to pass, none of His creatures can escape 
 His terrible fury, as David teaches us: 
 
 " Les cieux fondirent en sueur : 
 La terre trembla de la peur 
 De ta face terrible." 
 
 How then will it be with us, miserable men, who 
 pass away like the snow ? How shall we be able to 
 stand before the fire of the wrath of God, we who 
 are as hay and stubble, and our days vanish like 
 smoke ? Let us learn to leave our evil ways for the 
 pure service of God, not imitating those insane 
 patients, who bewail the heat and action of their 
 fever, yet reject the medicine given to cure the 
 cause of their suffering. Let us be sure that our best 
 antidote against the plague is the conversion and 
 amendment of our lives. And just as the apothe- 
 caries make theriacum of the flesh of snakes, to heal 
 the bite of a venomous animal, so from the cause of 
 our diseases, from our sins, let us obtain remedy and 
 healing, looking to the Son of God, Jesus Christ our 
 Lord, who not only heals the body of its infirmities 
 and diseases, but cleanses the soul of all sin and 
 filth. And like David let us lament and acknowledge 
 
 * Hippocrates, chap. 2, du i. livre des Prognostiques. A. P. 
 
276 Ambroise Pare 
 
 our sins, praying to the good God with heart and 
 lips, as follows, 
 
 " Ne vueille pas, 6 Sire, 
 Me reprendre en ton ire, 
 Moy qui t'ay irrite," etc. 
 
 Such is the first and most important consideration 
 that all Christians should bear in mind, when we 
 would find out the divine causes of the plague, and 
 the precautions that we must take for the cure of it. 
 Furthermore, I warn the surgeon not to neglect the 
 remedies approved by physicians both ancient and 
 modern : for as by the will of God this disease is sent 
 among men, so by His holy will He gives us methods 
 and remedies, to use them as instruments for His 
 glory, seeking help in our troubles even from His 
 creatures, endowed by Him with certain properties 
 and virtues for the alleviation of poor sufferers; and 
 it is His will that we should use these secondary 
 natural causes as instruments of His blessing, or we 
 should be thankless indeed, and blind to his loving 
 kindness. For it is written that the Lord has given 
 to men the knowledge of the art of medicine, to be 
 glorified in His marvellous works. Wherefore we 
 must neglect none of all these other measures, that 
 shall hereafter be described. 
 
 Next, we must enquire into the natural causes and 
 reasons of the plague. 
 
Pares Account of the Plague 277 
 
 3. Of the Human or Natural Causes of the 
 Plague: and how it is Sown among 
 Men by Infection of the Air. 
 
 There are two natural general causes of the plague : 
 one is the infection and corruption of the air, the 
 other is the vitiation of the humours of the body, so 
 that they are predisposed to take the plague from 
 the air. Which is proved by Galen : who says that 
 the humours of the body can become corrupt and 
 acquire venenosity. 
 
 The air becomes corrupt, when there is something 
 excessive in the seasons of the year, so that they lose 
 their natural constitution : which happens when the 
 year, almost all of it, has been wet with much rain 
 and heavy mists. The winter, for the most part, 
 has not been cold ; the spring, also, has not been so 
 cool and temperate as usual ; and in the autumn are 
 seen in the skies bright flames, shooting stars, and 
 comets of diverse shapes, which come of dry exhala- 
 tions. The summer is hot, and the wind blows only 
 from the South, and so gently that men have hardly 
 felt it, have only noted from time to time that the 
 clouds were driven from South to North. These 
 constitutions of the seasons are described by Hip- 
 pocrates in the first book of the Epidemics, and in 
 the third book of the Aphorisms: and they make 
 
278 Ambroise Pare 
 
 the air altogether pestilent. Then the intempera- 
 ture of the air predisposes the serous humours of the 
 body to corruption, and the unnatural heat of the 
 air burns and inflames them. But all unnatural con- 
 stitutions of the seasons do not always engender 
 the plague, but rather other epidemic diseases. 
 
 Sometimes a single inhalation of the infected air 
 from a case of plague infects every member of the 
 body.* 
 
 Again, the air becomes corrupt when certain 
 vapours — as I have already said — are mixed with it : 
 as by a great multitude of dead bodies kept too long 
 above ground, men, horses, and other animals, 
 making a tainted and putrid vapour which infects 
 the air : which often happens after a battle, or after 
 shipwreck, when the waves have brought many 
 bodies ashore : or when the sea has cast up heaps of 
 fish and other creatures that were swept down to it 
 by floods, killing them, for they cannot live in salt 
 water. Sometimes the sea leaves great quantities 
 of fish high and dry, when the gulfs or chasms made 
 under it by earthquakes become filled with water, 
 or when the waves throw on the beach great fish 
 that have come up out of the deep: and not long 
 ago a whale went rotten on the coast of Tuscany, 
 and brought the plague over the whole country. 
 * This sentence was added in 1585. 
 
Park's Account of the Plague 279 
 
 Fish also (but this seldom happens, as Aristotle 
 says in the eighth chapter of the History of Ani- 
 mals ) * may be infected by foul exhalations arising 
 under the water and passing through it, so that 
 they feel the contagion of the air round them when 
 they come to the surface. For these reasons, when 
 the plague is in a country, many fish are found dead, 
 mostly in ponds, lakes, and sluggish streams, what 
 we call sleeping waters. Which does not happen in 
 the sea: for its violent movement, and the salt in it, 
 keep it from corruption : so that the fish are not in- 
 fected like those in sleeping waters. 
 
 Again, the air becomes infected by foul vapours 
 from lakes, muddy and marshy pools, and stagnant 
 water in houses where there are pipes and drains 
 underground, and the water does not flow off, and 
 in summer, from the excessive heat of the sun, it 
 becomes corrupt, and exhalations arise from it. 
 Thus we read that at Padua there was a well which 
 had long been kept covered : and when they opened 
 it, which was in summer, such putrid exhalations 
 came out, that the air of the neighbourhood was 
 corrupted through and through : whence arose a 
 marvellous plague, and lasted a very long time, and 
 great numbers died of it. 
 
 Again, the air is corrupted by the fumes and ex- 
 
 * This sentence in parentheses was added in 1579. 
 
2 So Ambroise Pa.re 
 
 halations that come of corrupt infected vapours shut 
 up in the bowels of the earth, long confined and 
 smothered in its deep dark places, and then set free 
 by an earthquake. For in time of earthquake, the 
 waters have a sulphurous or metallic taste, and are 
 hot and troubled by exhalations from the disturbed 
 and shaken earth. Diverse voices are heard, like 
 the groans of men dying in battle, and diverse cries 
 of animals : and we see come out of the earth many 
 animals, as toads, adders, asps, vipers, and other 
 vermin.* And when these exhalations are let loose, 
 they infect not only men and other animals, but 
 also plants, and all sorts of fruit and grain, and 
 everything that nourishes us if and as the troubled 
 and putrefied waters kill the fish that are in them, 
 so the malignant and pestiferous air is fatal to men, 
 altering the spirits, corrupting the humours, and at 
 the last killing them, and even beasts and plants, as 
 I have said. 
 
 And there are those cases of men digging wells, 
 who have met a vapour so putrid and infected that 
 they have soon died. Only a short time ago, in the 
 Faulxbourgs Sainct Honor6 here in Paris, five 
 healthy young men died of cleaning out a cesspool 
 
 ♦These sentences, from "For in time of" to "other vermin," 
 were added in 1579. 
 
 f La paste des plantes est appellee sideration, A. P. 
 
Fare's Account of the Plagfue 281 
 
 where the ordure from some pigstyes had long been 
 stagnant without exhalation : and men had to fill 
 the hole with earth, so as to make a quick end of it 
 and prevent worse disasters. 
 
 A like thing was noted of old time by the philoso- 
 pher Empedocles, who found an opening in the earth, 
 among the mountains, whence came foul vapours 
 which caused the plague; and he had it blocked 
 up, and so he drove the plague out of Sicily. 
 
 And we know this is true, from the infection that 
 came of dead bodies at Chateau de Pene, on the 
 river Lot : where in September, 1562, during the first 
 troubles that arose out of the Religion, many dead 
 bodies were thrown into a well about a hundred 
 fathoms deep, whence two months later issued a 
 putrid cadaveric vapour which spread over the 
 whole Agenois country and the places around for 
 ten leagues, and many were attacked by the plague. 
 Nor is this strange, seeing that the wind drives the 
 exhalations and putrid fumes from one country into 
 another, and in this way too we see the plague arise, 
 as I have said already in the first Apologia.* 
 
 Against all this it might be said that if the plague 
 be due to putrefaction of the air, then wherever car- 
 rion is lying, and in all pools, marshes, or other 
 
 * This last sentence was added in 1579. The reference is to the 
 edition of 1572. 
 
282 Ambroise Pare 
 
 putrid places, the plague must always be there, be- 
 cause the air is disposed to putrefaction : and every 
 sort of putrefaction, once inhaled, must beget the 
 plague : which is against experience, as we see in 
 those who inhabit and frequent putrid places, as 
 fish-markets, slaughter-houses, cemeteries, hospitals, 
 sewers, and tan-yards ; and in those who handle and 
 cart manure in a putrid state, and so forth. Answer 
 must be made that the putrefaction of plague is 
 wholly different from all other putrefactions; for it 
 is of a hidden malignancy, past all words, which we 
 cannot explain any more than the lodestone attract- 
 ing iron, or than drugs withdrawing certain humours 
 from us and purging us of them. So the occult 
 malignancy of this putrefaction of plague does not 
 belong to things that are simply corrupt : yet 
 these things, when the plague is about, are easily 
 turned to a like malignancy with it : so that all boils, 
 and putrid fevers, and other diseases that come of 
 putrefaction, are apt in time of plague to acquire 
 this especial and most mysterious malignancy. 
 
 Therefore, when the times are thus constituted 
 we must avoid all infected places, and all association 
 with them that are stricken, lest we be infected by 
 the vapour and exhalation of the corrupt air. But 
 all who inhale the air of the plague do not of neces- 
 sity take the disease: for you cannot catch it unless 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 283 
 
 you are prepared and disposed to it; as every day's 
 experience proves. And Galen notes the same 
 thing, in his book Oti the Differences of Fevers, say- 
 ing that no cause can produce its effect except the 
 body be apt and prepared for it, or all would be in- 
 fected from the same cause. Nevertheless, he who 
 constantly frequents places and persons infected 
 with the poison may acquire this disposition, and 
 may become susceptible to the plague : for green 
 wood is not disposed to burn, yet, after being long 
 in the fire, it burns. So I advise men to take all 
 care of themselves, and to avoid places and persons 
 stricken with the plague : for the poison got by 
 smelling these evil vapours is wonderfully swift, and 
 has no need of any humour to help it to enter the 
 body and act as I have already said. For these 
 vapours being subtle are easily drawn with the air 
 into the lungs, thence into the heart the seat of life, 
 then they pass along the arteries, and so are diffused 
 over the whole body, disordering first the spirits, 
 then the humours, and at last the very substance of 
 the solid parts."*^ 
 
 * In the edition of 1568, the word " solides " was left out : this 
 
 omission was noted as an "erratum" by Pare, in the following 
 
 note : 
 
 Au Lecteur. 
 
 " Amy Lecteur, k la page 16. ligne 9., apr^s ce mot, parties, faut 
 
 adjouster ce mot, solides. S'il se trouve d'autres fautes, elles sent 
 
 ou de petite consequence, ou aisees a un chacun de corriger." 
 
284 Ambrolse Par^ 
 
 When I speak of plague in the air, I would not be 
 understood to mean simple elemental air, which be- 
 ing simple never becomes corrupt, but by addition 
 and admixture of corrupt vapours diffused through 
 it. Now the air immediately round us is necessary 
 to each moment of our lives, and we cannot live 
 without it: for it brings about innumerable changes 
 in us, by the lungs drawing it into the chest, and by 
 its transpiration through the pores and invisible out- 
 lets all over the body, and through the arteries of the 
 skin : whereby the spirit of life is generated, and the 
 natural heat of the body is kept up. Therefore, if 
 the air be immoderately hot, cold, moist, or dry, it 
 changes and subdues the temperature of the body 
 into likeness with itself. And of all the constitutions 
 of the air, that is most dangerous which is hot and 
 moist, for these qualities cause putrefaction : as ex- 
 perience proves in those places where the sea-wind 
 from the East exercises its tyranny, where fresh 
 meat goes bad and tainted in less than half an hour. 
 Also we see how heavy rains beget an abundance of 
 vapours, and these, when the sun cannot break them 
 up and melt them, change and corrupt the air, and 
 dispose it for the plague. But here we must note 
 that the corruption of the dead bodies of men is more 
 pernicious to men than that of other animals: so is 
 that of cattle to cattle, of horses to horses, of swine 
 
Pare s Account of the Plague 285 
 
 to swine, and so with sheep and other animals: 
 which comes of the sympathy and concordance be- 
 tween them ; as we see in one family, or among per- 
 sons alike in their temperaments, if one catches the 
 plague, it generally spreads to all of them. All the 
 same, there are cases of men having flayed cattle 
 and other beasts dead of the plague, who died sud- 
 denly, and their bodies became all swollen. 
 
 Thunder and lightning, by their great noise and 
 commotion, so violently disturb the air, that they 
 make the plague worse.* 
 
 And to come to an end of the manifold effects of 
 the air, I must add that as it is diverse and variable 
 in its action so it produces a variety of affections 
 and acts in several ways, even on the spirits, making 
 them gross and dull, or subtle and acute. In a word, 
 the air has dominion over all men and other animals, 
 and over plants, trees, and shrubs. 
 
 4. Of the Duties of Magistrates and Pub- 
 lic Officers, who Keep Order in 
 Towns. 
 
 The magistrates must keep clean all houses and 
 
 streets, and let no filth or ordure lie in them, and 
 
 carry all dead animals and other rubbish far out of 
 
 the town, and bury them deep : they must keep all 
 
 * This sentence was added in 1585. 
 
286 Ambroise Pare 
 
 rivers, wells, and cisterns free from impurities, and 
 must expressly forbid the sale of spoiled grain, 
 tainted meat in the markets, and stale, unwhole- 
 some fish. They must close the public hot baths, 
 because on leaving them the muscles and the general 
 tone of the body are relaxed, and the pores are open, 
 and so the vapour of the plague can readily enter the 
 body and cause death at once ; there are many cases 
 of this kind. They must catch and kill the dogs 
 and cats, lest they carry the plague from one house 
 to another: for these animals may devour the re- 
 mains or the excretions of persons attacked by the 
 plague, and so take the plague and carry it else- 
 where; but the animals seldom suffer from it, be- 
 cause their temperament is not disposed that 
 way. 
 
 The magistrates must have all sick folk attended 
 by physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, good 
 men, of experience: and must know them that are 
 attacked, and must isolate them, sending them to 
 places set apart for their treatment, or must shut 
 them up in their own houses (but this I do not 
 approve, and would rather they should forbid those 
 that are healthy to hold any converse with them) 
 and must send men to dress and feed them, at the 
 expense of the patients, if they have the means, but 
 if they are poor, then at the expense of the parish. 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 287 
 
 Also they must forbid the citizens to put up for sale 
 the furniture of those who have died of the plague. 
 
 They must close the gates of such towns as are 
 not yet attacked, lest the plague be brought by trav- 
 ellers from some infected place : for as one diseased 
 sheep may contaminate a whole flock, so one man 
 with the plague may infect a whole town. 
 
 And they must hang a cloth, or some such token, 
 from the windows of houses where any are dead of 
 the plague. And the surgeons, and all who have 
 to do with the patients, must carry white staves in 
 their hands when they go through the town, that 
 men may keep away from them. 
 
 Also the magistrates must bury all bodies at once : 
 for in one hour they become more corrupt and 
 putrid than those become in three days who die of 
 something other than the plague : and putrid vapours 
 arise from them in a very fetid exhalation, worse, 
 past all comparison, than in life, because the natural 
 heat is gone v/hich restrained and tempered the cor- 
 ruption : indeed, bodies dead of the plague are not 
 devoured by any animal, even the crows do not 
 touch them, and if they ate them they would die at 
 once. 
 
 And since fire, of all things that can purify the 
 air, is most necessary and unlike anything else, we 
 must here imitate Hippocrates, who, as the ancients 
 
288 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 have told us, stopped a marvellous great plague in 
 the city of Athens by making them burn huge fires 
 at night in the houses and streets of the city, and 
 all round it, throwing on the flames strong-smelling 
 things, as juniper, pine, broom and the like, which 
 produced a quantity of aromatic smoke, and so the 
 plague ceased : then the citizens raised a gold statue 
 to him in the middle of the square, and adored him 
 as a God, and saviour of the country: which had 
 never before been done for any man. 
 
 And Levinus Levinius, in the second book De 
 Occultis NaturcB Miracidis, chapter lo, says that 
 when the plague was at Tournay the soldiers, to 
 prevent it, used to load their cannon with powder 
 without ball, and fire them every night and at day- 
 break: and by this explosion and strong-smelling 
 smoke the contagion of the air was amended and re- 
 moved, and the town was made free of plague. 
 
 Finally, to perform their whole duty to the state, 
 the Magistrates will do all else that shall be for the 
 safety of the city. 
 
 There is one thing more : they must keep an eye 
 on certain thieves, murderers, and poisoners, worse 
 than inhuman, who grease and daub the walls and 
 doors of rich houses with matter discharged from 
 the swellings and carbuncles, and other excretions 
 of them that have the plague, so as to infect the 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 289 
 
 houses, and then break into them and sack and strip 
 them, and even strangle the poor sufferers in their 
 beds: which was done at Lyon in the year 1565. 
 Oh my God, what exemplary punishments these 
 gentlemen deserve : whom I leave to the discretion 
 of the magistrates, and the arm of the law. 
 
 5. How TO Proceed to the Election of 
 Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothe- 
 caries, TO Attend them that Have 
 THE Plague. 
 
 As for the physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, 
 the magistrates must choose good men, of experi- 
 ence, to help the poor folk. Let them not by 
 sound of trumpet make a proclamation — buying bad 
 wares in a cheap market — that any companion bar- 
 bers and apothecaries, who are willing to dress them 
 that have the plague, shall in return receive the 
 Mastership. Oh my God, what fine Masters! In- 
 stead of curing their patients, they more often flout 
 Heaven and earth with their inexperience, for they 
 have never seen or known a case of the disease : 
 hence they will be a hundred times more formidable 
 than the brigands and murderers who infest our 
 woods and highways, whom you can avoid, and take 
 some other road : but a poor wretch with the plague 
 must go and look for his surgeon, and must hold his 
 
290 Ambroise Pare 
 
 own throat to the murderer's knife, hoping for help 
 from the very man who takes his life. 
 
 Again, if the Magistrates compel and force ex- 
 perienced physicians and surgeons to serve them, by 
 false promises or by violence, threatening that if 
 they do not serve they shall be driven out of the 
 town for ever, I leave you to decide, Gentlemen, how 
 the poor patients can be treated properly, if those 
 who are set to attend them are thus employed by 
 force and violence : then, when the occasion for 
 their services is past, they are cheated of their 
 wages, and there the poor physicians, surgeons, 
 apothecaries, and barbers, are left, white staves and 
 all, with this mark branded on them, that they were 
 employed to dress patients with the plague : and 
 every one avoids them as if they were the plague 
 itself, and they are called no more to the exercise of 
 their art : then their colleagues, seeing them after- 
 ward thus begging their bread, and fearing they 
 themselves will fall, sooner or later, into the like 
 disaster of poverty, which they dread a hundred 
 thousand times more than the plague, will not go 
 near a case of it : for it is indeed a great plague to 
 a man, not to have money for the needs of this 
 poor life. 
 
 So I implore the Magistrates, with all respect, to 
 choose, as I have said, men of good position and ex- 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 291 
 
 perience to help them that have the plague : and to 
 give them an honest pension, not only during the 
 time of need, but for their whole life. Then they 
 will not want any trumpets and proclamations; for 
 the men will come forward of their own accord to 
 serve the magistrates and their fellow-citizens. 
 
 6. Of the Duties of those who shall be 
 Chosen to Attend Patients with the 
 Plague. 
 
 Above all things, they must remember that they 
 are called of God to this vocation for the exercise of 
 surgery: therefore they should go to it with a high 
 courage free of all fear, having firm faith that God 
 both gives and takes away our lives as and when it 
 pleases Him : but, as I have said before, they must 
 not neglect and despise preservative remedies, or we 
 should be plainly guilty of ingratitude, since God 
 has given them to us, having done all things for our 
 good. 
 
 Therefore those surgeons, who shall be called to 
 attend patients with the plague, must first get 
 purged and bled, if they have need of it, to make 
 their bodies wholesome and proof against the poison 
 of the plague. Next, the surgeon must have two 
 issues made — unless he has already some running 
 
292 Ambroise Pare 
 
 sore — one on the right arm a little below the deltoid, 
 the other three fingers' breadth below the left knee, 
 on the outer side : for truly we know from experi- 
 ence that they who have such open sores have not 
 been subject to the plague, and have taken no 
 harm, though they were every day among cases of 
 it. 
 
 Also they must wash the whole of their bodies 
 very frequently with this water, which has great 
 aromatic virtue, and is full of vaporous and subtle 
 spirits, and wholly opposed to the poison : 
 
 A Preservative Water. 
 
 ^r. Aquae rosarum, aceti rosati aut sam- 
 
 bucini, vini albi aut malvatici . ana | vi. 
 
 Rad. enulae campanae, angelicse, gen- 
 
 tianae, bistortae, zedoariae . . ana | iii. 
 
 Baccarum juniperi et hederae . . ana f ii. 
 
 Salviae, rorismarini, absinthii, rutae . ana TTj, i. 
 
 Corticis citri ..... § ss, 
 
 Theriacae, mithridatii . . . ana | i. 
 
 Conquassanda conquassentur, et buUiant lento 
 igni, et serventur ad usum. 
 
 They must wash the whole body with a sponge in 
 this water, making it just warm. And it is a good 
 thing to wash the mouth with it, and draw a little 
 of it up the nose, and put a few drops into the ears. 
 
 Also they should carry and wear over the region 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 293 
 
 of the heart a sachet or epitheme, Hke those that I 
 have aheady described : for Jean Baptiste Theodose, 
 in the second of his Medical Letters written to 
 Athanase, a Florentine physician, says it is useful 
 to wear arsenic or some other poison over the heart, 
 to accustom the heart to the poison of the plague 
 and to fortify it, since all poisons alike seek the 
 heart. But as to this you will note what I have 
 said already. 
 
 Their clothes shall be of camlet. Arras serge, 
 satin, taffeta, or the like. If they cannot afTord 
 these, they must have morocco, or German twill, or 
 some other fine black stuff: not cloth, or frieze, or 
 fur, lest it harbour the poison, and they carry death 
 to them that are healthy. They must frequently 
 change their clothes, shirts, and vests, if they have 
 suf^cient store of them, and must perfume them 
 with the smoke of aromatic herbs : and when they 
 come to their patients, they must be careful not to 
 inhale their breath, or the smell of their excretions, 
 also not to use their clothes or bed-clothes, and not 
 to eat and drink with them, or partake of anything 
 that they have tasted. 
 
 Moreover, they must breakfast early in the 
 morning: and if they hate breakfast, as some men 
 do, they may instead of it take this or that preserva- 
 tive drug which I have already mentioned : and 
 
294 Ambroise Pare 
 
 when they come near the patient, they must keep 
 in their mouths a clove, or a morsel of canella or 
 angelica-root, or a juniper berry, or some such pre- 
 ventive to occupy and fill the void interstitial spaces, 
 and so the vapour of the plague will find no lodg- 
 ment in them. 
 
 I will tell here, as an example of the danger of 
 frequent contact with infected persons, what once 
 happened to me, going to dress a man with the 
 plague, who had a bubo and two great carbuncles : 
 when I got there, I raised the sheet and the cover- 
 let off him, and was overcome by the extreme fcetor 
 from his body and from his sores, and fell down at 
 once like a dead man, suddenly, as do those who 
 faint, from want of action of the heart : but I had no 
 pain, and no trouble at the heart, which shows plainly 
 that the animal faculty alone was injured : then I got 
 up at once, and it felt as if the house were turning up- 
 side down, and I had to hold on to one of the posts 
 of the patient's bed, or I should have fallen again. 
 And having soon recovered animation, I sneezed ten 
 or twelve times, with such violence that my nose 
 bled : and this, in my humble opinion, was why the 
 vapour of the plague made no impression on me. 
 For I leave the reader to philosophize whether death 
 would not have followed, but for the ef^cacy of the 
 expulsive virtue of my brain in sneezing: seeing 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 295 
 
 that all my senses, and even the animal faculty, 
 suddenly failed me : which are the instruments of 
 the soul. 
 
 So I advise both physicians and surgeons, espe- 
 cially those who have much to do with the victims 
 of this pernicious disease, to be careful not to inhale 
 the breath of their patients or the vapours of their 
 excretions, whether gross or liquid or in vapour ; and 
 to take breakfast every morning, or some antidote, 
 before they go to see them, that they may have the 
 more protection against the poison. Finally, let 
 them study what things are known to be profitable, 
 what hurtful, in this disease of the plague, that they 
 may follow these, or avoid those, according to their 
 needs : but remembering that their preservation lies 
 more in the providence of God than in the wisdom 
 of the physican or the surgeon. 
 
 7. A Discourse on the Troubles Brought 
 UPON Men by the Plague. 
 
 Touching the causes of the plague, I have already 
 urged that as it is one of the scourges of the wrath of 
 God, so we can only fall into this utmost extremity 
 of evil when the enormity of our sins has provoked 
 His goodness to take away His favourable hand 
 from us, and to inflict on us this grievous wound. 
 
296 Ambroise Pard 
 
 Therefore it will be enough, for the end of my 
 book, if I recount the troubles, or rather the terrible 
 calamities, which come upon human society from 
 this perilous disease: that by the methods divinely 
 ordained for our protection against it we may from 
 the very greatness of the evil be the more eager to 
 seek and use such remedies as may save us. 
 
 Consider then : so soon as a country is attacked 
 by the plague, all commerce and traiific, which men 
 must have to help one another, are interrupted and 
 abandoned : for none will dare bring anything to an 
 infected place, for fear of death. So victuals are 
 soon very dear, and at last fail altogether, especially 
 in great cities where multitudes live from hand to 
 mouth without provision for to-morrow: for those 
 who go to buy food at this or that place are not 
 allowed inside the town or village, and often those 
 within the walls drive them away with diverse 
 weapons, arquebuses, cross-bows, and stones : some- 
 times they are even killed or massacred brutally, 
 instead of the help that men ought to give them 
 in their distress. So others will not go after them, 
 and they who would save their own town from want 
 and famine must starve along with the rest. Often 
 children bury their fathers and mothers, parents 
 their children, husbands their wives, and wives their 
 husbands (which tears their hearts out) because no 
 
Park's Account of the Plague 297 
 
 one else will do it. Often bodies are left unburied, 
 and emit putrid vapours which make the plague 
 worse.* Again, the wealthier folk, even the magis- 
 trates, and others who have the management of 
 public affairs, are mostly among the first to depart 
 and go elsewhere, so that justice is no longer admin- 
 istered, for there is no man from whom to seek it : 
 and then everything is in disorder, which is one of 
 the greatest evils that could happen to a state, to 
 be without justice: and villains bring yet another 
 plague on the town, breaking into the houses, rob- 
 bing and stripping them to their hearts' content 
 without punishment, and often cutting the throats 
 of the patients, or even of them that are not ill, lest 
 discovery and arrest overtake them. 
 
 If any man wants recent instances, he can get 
 them from the inhabitants of Lyon, when the King 
 went there. t A like thing happened here in Paris: 
 there was a gang of men who all had a grudge 
 against one poor fellow : they got some villains to 
 help them, and spread a report that he had the 
 plague, though he was perfectly well : and on the 
 day when he must be in the streets about his busi- 
 ness — some affair that required him to be there — 
 they had him seized and carried off to the hospital, 
 
 * These two sentences were added in 1585. 
 f 1565. A. P. 
 
298 Ambroise Pare 
 
 with the help of these blackguards, he making the 
 best fight that he could, one against all of them : 
 and when he would call on the people to pity and 
 help him, these murderous thieves prevented him, 
 and drowned his voice by shouting louder than he 
 could, or gave folk to understand that the disease 
 had made him mad and possessed by a devil : then 
 everybody ran away, and they managed to drag him 
 to the hospital, and had him bound and put to bed 
 with them that had the plague. And in a few 
 days he died, as much from anguish of mind as 
 from infection, knowing that his death, while he yet 
 lived, had been bought and sold for good ready 
 money. 
 
 Nor need I here describe what we all know only 
 too well : how the deserted towns become like fields, 
 and you see grass growing in the streets, husband- 
 men leaving their cottages and fruit-trees, land un- 
 tilled, flocks lost and scattered far and wide, and 
 men, who chance to meet, running away from each 
 other; a sure sign of the heavy hand of God. I will 
 only add that the misery of a man in time of plague 
 is so extreme, that at once, when he is but suspected 
 of it, his home, which was his chief safety and free- 
 dom, is his cruel prison : for they shut him up in it, 
 that he cannot get forth, and none are allowed to 
 enter and help him. And if one dies in a family 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 299 
 
 thus kept under lock and key, the rest of them, it 
 may be for a long time, have to face the fearful sight 
 of the body full of worms and corruption, and the 
 fcetid stench of it, which increases the poison and 
 infection of the air, till the plague is twice as bad as 
 it was, and often kills everybody in the house. Or 
 if a man flees into the country, the same fear and 
 horror are there, in every one who sees him, all the 
 more because he is less known and cared for there. 
 The country towns, villages, and hamlets are all 
 shut up close, even their own houses are shut against 
 the masters of them, so that they must camp out in 
 the fields as best they can, away from all human 
 intercourse and acquaintance: which happened at 
 Lyon, on the Rhone, where those patients who 
 camped out in the open country were overpowered 
 by the heat of the day, and at night the cold 
 gnawed upon them, and brought with it other fatal 
 diseases. And what is worse, in these field-huts 
 there was that sight of the father and the mother 
 grievously ill, not able to help their child, and they 
 saw it smothered and bitten by wasps, and the 
 mother to save it got up and then fell dead between 
 her child and her husband. Again, he who has vas- 
 sals, serfs, or servants, is deserted by them : they 
 turn their backs, and none dare go to him : even the 
 father abandons his child, and the child his father : 
 
300 Ambrolse Pare 
 
 the husband his wife, and the wife her husband : the 
 brother his sister, and the sister her brother: and 
 those whom you think your nearest and truest 
 friends abandon you now in the horror and peril of 
 this disease. And if any man, out of pity and 
 Christian charity, or from kinship, will help and 
 visit the sick man, nor parent nor friend will after- 
 ward talk with him or come near him. And Lyon 
 is witness that this is true : for if the physicians, 
 surgeons, and barbers, appointed to dre<is the pa- 
 tients, were but seen in the streets, everybody ran 
 after them throwing stones to kill them like mad 
 dogs, bidding them go by night only, lest they 
 should infect them that were healthy. 
 
 How many poor women, great with child, have 
 been deserted and left to travail all alone, on mere 
 suspicion, though they had no trace of the plague 
 about them — for every sort of illness, in time of 
 plague, is feared — and so the mother and the child 
 have died together. I found on the breasts of a 
 woman, dead of the plague, her baby still sucking 
 the deadly poison that was soon to kill it like its 
 mother. And if a nurse dies, though it were not of 
 the plague, no other nurse will be found for the 
 child, for they all think it may have been the 
 plague : such fear and panic come of it, that a man 
 is no sooner stricken than all help is gone and he 
 
Pares Account of the Plague 301 
 
 must just await a painful death. Out of an infinite 
 number of such cases as we often see, take that 
 story * of the woman whose husband and two of her 
 children died, and she found she too had the plague, 
 and began to put herself into her shroud, and was 
 found half shrouded, and the needle and thread still 
 in her hands. In another case, a strong hearty man 
 was seized, and went to the graveyard, and had his 
 grave dug in his own presence, and before it was 
 done he died on the edge of it. 
 
 Others, when the plague fell on them, were so 
 afraid to die that they applied red-hot irons to the 
 swelling, burning their own flesh, if by any means 
 they might escape : others, in hope of cure, tore it 
 out with pincers. Some in the heat and phrenzy of 
 the disease have thrown themselves into the fire, 
 others into wells, others into rivers : men have 
 hurled themselves out of windows, or have dashed 
 their heads against the wall till their brains came 
 out, as I have seen : others have put an end to 
 themselves with a dagger or a knife. 
 
 The Latin poet Lucretius noted that the plague 
 once raged so furiously in Athens that many, over- 
 powered by the vehemence of it, threw themselves 
 into the water. And they say that the plague, 
 about fourscore years ago, was so fierce all round 
 * Au livre des Histoires prodigieuses. A. P. 
 
302 Ambroise Pare 
 
 Lyon that many (women more than men), though 
 they had no visible mark of the disease on them, 
 threw themselves into the wells, overwhelmed by 
 the phrenzy of it.* 
 
 Thus I have heard that a priest of Sainct Eustache 
 here in Paris, a short time ago, lying ill of the 
 plague at the Hostel Dieu, went mad and got out 
 of bed, took a dagger, and stabbed a number of 
 poor patients in their beds, and killed three of 
 them : and if the surgeon of the hospital had not seen 
 and held him — who in the struggle got stabbed in 
 the bowels and nearly died of it — he would have 
 killed all whom he found : but as soon as he was 
 controlled, and the phrenzy was spent, he yielded 
 up the ghost. 
 
 Another horrible case happened at Lyon, Rue 
 Merciere, where a surgeon named Amy Baston be- 
 ing dead of the plague his wife was taken with it six 
 days later, and went from apathy to phrenzy, and 
 appeared at the window brandishing a little child in 
 her arms : the neighbours all shouted to her that she 
 should do the child no harm, but she gave no heed 
 to them, and then and there threw him into the 
 street, and herself after him : so mother and child 
 died together. 
 
 There is an infinite number of like instances, 
 
 * This paragraph was added in 1579. 
 
Fare's Account of the Plague 303 
 
 enough for me to be telling them for ever: and the 
 root of the whole evil is that none dare hold con- 
 verse with the patients or draw near to help them. 
 There is no disease like it for this : not even leprosy, 
 for men will help lepers: but the plague cuts a man 
 off from parents, from friends, even from his own 
 home, as I have said : which is the less strange, see- 
 ing that human charity to-day has waxed so cold that 
 men who are free to do as they like, with gold and 
 silver to buy all they fancy, yet in time of plague 
 can get no help from anywhere. 
 
 Nor can I stop here v/ithout quoting good old 
 Guidon,* how in the year 1348 came a time of 
 death, when the plague's victims died in three days, 
 or five at most : so contagious that one caught it 
 from another not only by conversing with him but 
 from just setting eyes on him: men died without 
 attendants, and were buried without priests, and 
 each day so many that there were not enough to 
 bury them, and they had to make great pits in the 
 graveyards, and throw them in pell-mell, some dead, 
 some still in agony : the father deserted his child, 
 the child his father, the wife her husband, the hus- 
 band his wife, as I have said before : all charity was 
 dead, all hope gone. This cursed pestilence was 
 almost universal, and spared scarce one in four. It 
 * This extract from Guy de Chauliac was added in 1575. 
 
304 Ambroise Pare 
 
 brought great disgrace and small profit to the phy- 
 sicians and surgeons, for they dared not visit the 
 sick for fear of infection : and if they had, yet all 
 their remedies profited nothing: for this plague 
 never struck without killing. In some parts of the 
 country, men thought the Jews had poisoned every- 
 thing, and ran them down and made an end of 
 them : others said the Beggars had done it, and 
 drove them out of the land : others suspected the 
 Seigneurs, who therefore dared not be seen in the 
 streets. And at last the gates of the towns were 
 guarded, and no man was admitted save those who 
 were well known. And if any one kept powders or 
 ointments about him, they took these to be poisons, 
 and made him swallow them. This plague lasted 
 for seven months without interruption. There you 
 have old Guidon's account of it: surely a most 
 wonderful story of the wrath of God. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbeville, 91 
 
 Albret, Jeanne d', 1 54 
 
 Alva, 64, 147 
 
 Amboise, peace of, 146 
 
 America, 72 
 
 Amiens, 95, 153 
 
 Angers, 13 
 
 Annebaut, M. d', 36, 121 
 
 Antwerp, 126 
 
 Anville, M. d', 59 
 
 " Apostles," the Emperor's, 72 
 
 Arabians, the, 2 
 
 Aristotle, 279 
 
 Armada, the, 5, 224 
 
 Arnoullet, Olive, 164 
 
 Ascot, M. le Due d', 105, 156 
 
 Astrologers, the, 235 
 
 Athanase, 293 
 
 Aufimon, gi 
 
 Aumalle, M. le Due d', 47, 133 
 
 Auret, M. le Marquis d', 106, 156 
 
 Avignon, 148 
 
 B 
 
 Barber-Surgeons, the, 23, 170 
 Barricades, the, 223 
 Basel, 4 
 
 Bassompierre, M. de, 105, 156 
 Baston, Maitre, 302 
 Bauge, M. de, 59, 88 
 Bayard, 5 
 Bayonne, lOi, 147 
 
 Beggars, the, 215, 262, 304 
 Benzo of Milan, 72 
 Biarritz, 149 
 Biron, M. de, 59 
 Bisseaux, Mme. de, 255 
 Bois-Dauphin, M. de, 93 
 Boisy, M. de, 49 
 Bonnivet, 59 
 Bons-hommes, 246 
 Bouchet, M. de, 86 
 Bouillon, M. de, 74, 80 
 Boulogne, 45 
 
 Bourdillon, M. de, 59, 140 
 Bourgeuil, 104 
 Bourlon, Jacques, 171 
 Bourg-Hersent, 11 
 Brandebourg, 59 
 Brantome, I'Abbe, 189, 197 
 Bressure, Mile, de, 90 
 Brissac, M. de, 125, 138 
 Brittany, 37, 122 
 Brussels, 116 
 Bussy, Amboise de, 185 
 
 Calais, 5, 139 
 Calvin, 9 
 
 Canappe, M. de, 47 
 Carloix, 182 
 Carouge, 59 
 Castellan, 102, 151 
 Cateau-Cambresis, peace of, 141 
 Celsus, 230 
 
 Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, 
 71 
 
 305 
 
3o6 
 
 Ind 
 
 ex 
 
 Cenis, Mont, 120 
 
 Cerisoles, battle of, 123 
 
 Chalons, 125 
 
 Champigny, 263 
 
 Chapelain, 102, 151, 182, 211 
 
 Chapelle aux Ursins, M. dela, 59 
 
 Charles the Bold, 22 
 
 Charles IX., his friendship for 
 
 Ambroise Pare, 185-189; his 
 
 death, 196 
 Charron, Mme. la Marquise de, 
 
 Chartel, Captain, 47 
 
 Chartres, 153 
 
 Chateau d'Auret, 106 
 
 Chateau Beaumont, 115 
 
 Chateau le Comte, 53 
 
 Chateau Gaillard, 99 
 
 Chateau de la Motte au Bois, 88 
 
 Chateau de Pene, 2S1 
 
 Chauliac, Guy de, 2. 15, 303 
 
 Cheval, Maitre, 263 
 
 Clement VII., 187 
 
 Clement. Jacques, 199 
 
 Cleret, Etienne, 161 
 
 Cointeret, Maitre, 100, 147 
 
 CoLiGNY, at Boulogne, 126 ; at 
 Dreux, 145 ; wounded at Mont- 
 contour, 154; death, 188 
 
 Colot, Laurence, 13 
 
 Comperat of Carcasonne, 12 
 
 CoNDfi, 134, 145 ; his going to 
 mass, 254 ; his death, 154 
 
 Confraternity of S. Cosmo, 166- 
 
 175 
 
 Constable, THE(Anne de Mont- 
 morency), 121 ; at Danvilliers, 
 49 ; at Metz, 55 ; death, 146 
 
 Cornaton, 188 
 
 Crespy, peace of, 141 
 
 Culan, M. le Baron de, 80 
 
 D 
 
 Daigne, apothecary, 56 
 Danvilliers, 49, 129 
 D'Arcques, 216 
 Dativo, pedagogue, 38 
 De la Fontaine, Guy, 210 
 
 De la Rue, Pierre, 176, 255 
 
 De la Valletta, 216 
 
 De Paradis, Louis, 212 
 
 D'Espernon, 216, 221 
 
 Des Ursins, M. Christophe, 208 
 
 Devils, Pare's belief in, 238 
 
 Diane de Poitiers, 129, 159 
 
 Dinant, 137 
 
 Doublet, the empiric, 262 
 
 Dourlan, 95, 140 
 
 Drouet, Luys, 162 
 
 Dubois, Maitre, 103, 155 
 
 Dubois (Sylvius), 18, 158 
 
 Dupont, M., 74, 80 
 
 Duprat, Antoine, 161 
 
 Dupuys, Jacques, 205 
 
 E 
 
 Elizabeth, 141, 143, 220 
 Empedocles, 281 
 Emperor, the, 122, 128 
 Enghien, M. le Due d', 55, 139 
 English, the, 5, 37, loi 
 Erasmus, 9 
 
 Estampes, M. le Due d', 90 
 Estampes, Mme. la Duchesse d', 
 
 37, [21, 249 
 Estoile, Pierre de 1', 7, 215, etc. 
 Estres, M. d', 59, 91 
 Eu, M. le Comte d', loo, 147 
 
 Faculty, the, 169, 200-208 
 Falcon, Jehan, 16 
 Farges, de, 150 
 Ferrier, Dr., 199 
 Flesselles, Dr., 24, 263 
 Flodden Field, 5 
 Fontaine, M. de, 102 
 Fontainebleau, 128, 148 
 Franciscans, the, 132 
 Frangois I., 21, 30 
 Franc^ois II., marriage with 
 Mar}' Stuart, 141 ; death, 183 
 
 Galen, 88, 283 
 Gaultier, Claude, 165 
 
Index 
 
 307 
 
 Germany, 46 
 
 Gilbert, Maitre, 97 
 
 Godlee, Mr., Preface 
 
 Goguier, M. de, 55, gi, 134 
 
 Gouast, Captain, 95 
 
 Gourmelen, Etienne, 25, 201 
 
 Grangier, M. , 213 
 
 Gueau, 178 
 
 Guillenieau, Jacques, 204 
 
 Guise, Charles de, Cardinal de 
 Lorraine, 184 
 
 Guise, FRANgois, Due de, 126 ; 
 at Boulogne, 46 ; at Danvilliers, 
 49 ; at Metz, 55 ; death, 146 
 
 Guise, Henri, Due de, 224 
 
 Guise, Louis de. Cardinal de Lor- 
 raine, 224 
 
 Guitel, 224, 256 
 
 Guyard, 213 
 
 H 
 
 Haultin, Maitre, 194 
 
 Havre, lOi 
 
 Hedelin, Claude, 195 
 
 Henri II., marriage with Cath- 
 erine de Medicis, 118 ; at Lan- 
 drecies, 44 ; at Danvilliers, 49 ; 
 at Aufimon, 91 ; at Bourges, 
 96; death, 181 
 
 Henri III., 152 ; with Pare, 
 198; later years. 218-225; 
 death, 226 
 
 Henri IV., at La Rochelle, 194 ; 
 marriage with Marguerite de 
 Valois, 154; Ivry, 225; siege 
 of Paris, 226 
 
 Hery, Theodoric d', 24, 243 
 
 Hesdin, 74-91, 136 
 
 Hippocrates, 79, 239, 277, 287 
 
 Hollier, Dr., 263 
 
 Horace, M. le Due, 59, 78, 136 
 
 Hotel Dieu, 18, 36 
 
 Hubert, Maitre, 100, 147, 246 
 
 Hungary, Queen of, go, 137 
 
 Hunter, John, 258 
 
 " Indians," the, 72 
 Ivry, battle of, 7, 226 
 
 J 
 
 Jarnac, battle of, 154 
 Jerusalem, 69, 120, 218 
 Joyeuse, 222 
 
 K 
 
 King's Evil, the, 240 
 Knox, 9 
 
 La F^re, 92, 140 
 
 Landrecies, 44, 124 
 
 Landreneau, 44, 124 
 
 Landry, Saint, 18 
 
 La Trousse, M. de, 86 
 
 Laval, II 
 
 Lavernot, Nicole, 42, 125 
 
 L'Ecolier, 171 
 
 Le Dain, Ollivier, 168 
 
 Lefevre, 99, 146 
 
 Le Grand, Dr,, 36, igg 
 
 Le Paulmier, Julien, 167 
 
 Le Paulmier, Dr., Preface, 24, 
 
 118, 201 
 Le Rat, Captain, 31 
 Le Roy, Jehan, 168 
 Levoix, 216 
 Ligature, the, 241 
 Lincester, 225 
 Longjumeau, peace of, 153 
 Lopez the Spaniard, 72 
 Lorraine, M. le Cardinal de, g2, 
 
 140 
 Louis, Maitre, 51 
 Louis, Saint, 21, 167 
 Louis XII., 5 
 Loyola, Ignatius, g 
 Lude, M. le Comte de, sg 
 Luther, 4 
 Luzarches, 172 
 Lyon, 252, 2gg 
 Lyon, the Archbishop of, 8, 227 
 
 M 
 
 Magnane, M. de, 58 
 Maison de la Vache, 176 
 Maison des Trois Maures, 178 
 
;o8 
 
 Index 
 
 Malazieu, Andre, 201 
 
 Malgaigne, Preface, i, 14, etc. 
 
 Malines, 116 
 
 Mansfeld, M. le Comte de, 104, 
 156 
 
 Marguerite de Valois, 154 
 
 Marienbourg, 137 
 
 Marolles, 37, 124 
 
 Marseilles, 119 
 
 Martial, M,, Preface 
 
 Martigues, M. de, 78-86, 135 
 
 Martin, Gaspard, 12 
 
 Mary of England, 137-139 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots, 141, 219 
 
 Maurevel, 188 
 
 Mazelin, Antoine, 176 
 
 Mazelin, Jehan, 161 
 
 Mazelin, Jehanne, marriage 
 with Ambroise, 160 ; death, 191 
 
 Mazelin, Madelaine, 161 
 
 Mazille, Dr., 197, 257 
 
 Mercier, pedagogue, 223, 255 
 
 Merlin, 188 
 
 Metz, 55, 129 
 
 Meudon, 178 
 
 Mezieres, Dr. de la, 144 
 
 Moncontour, battle of, 103, 154 
 
 Mons, 114 
 
 Montejan, Colonel, 30, 36, 121 
 
 Montgomery, Gabriel de, 181 
 
 Montluc, 138 
 
 Montmorency, Anne de (see Con- 
 stable) 
 
 Montmorency, Fran9ois de, 104, 
 136 
 
 Montmorency, Henri de, 145 
 
 Montmorency, Mme. de, 92, 103 
 
 Montpellier, 15, 150 
 
 Montpensier, M. le Due de, 135 
 
 N 
 
 Nemours, M. le Due de, 194, 
 207 
 
 Nestor, Maitre, 246 
 Nevers, M. le Due de, 237 
 Nice, 122 
 Nicot, Jelian, 249 
 Nurse, the King's, 146, 197, 233, 
 257 
 
 O 
 
 Orbry, M. Christofle, 253 
 Orleans, 146, 152 
 
 Padua, 279 
 
 Palissy, Bernard, 9 
 
 Paracelsus, 3 
 
 Pare, Ambroise, boyhood, 11- 
 14; apprenticeship, 14-17; at 
 the Hotel Dieu, 18-21 ; made 
 barber-surgeon, 23 ; with the 
 army, 21-117 ; marriage with 
 Jehanne Mazelin, 160 ; made 
 surgeon, 172 ; property in 
 Paris, 175 ; the St. Bartholo- 
 mew's Massacre, 188 ; mar- 
 riage with Jacqueline Rousse- 
 let, 192 ; warfare with the 
 Faculty, 200-205 > works, 229- 
 247 ; children and grandchil- 
 dren, 164, 192 ; meeting with 
 the Archbishop of Lyon, g, 
 227 ; death, 9, 228 
 
 Pare, Ambroise (A. P.'s son), 
 194 
 
 Pare, Anne (A. P.'s daughter), 
 194 
 
 Pare, Bertrand (A. P.'s nephew), 
 12, 165 
 
 Pare, Catherine (A. P.'s sister), 
 II 
 
 Pare, Catherine (A. P.'s daugh- 
 ter, Mme. Rousselet), 164, 192 
 
 Pare, Catherine (A. P.'s daugh- 
 ter, Mme. Hedelin), 195 
 
 Pare, Jehan, of Vitry (A. P.'s 
 brother), 11, 262 
 
 Pare, Jehan, of Paris (A. P.'s 
 brother), 12 
 
 Pare, Jehanne (A. P.'s niece, 
 Mme. Viart), 12, 165, 194 
 
 Pare, Marie (A. P.'s daughter), 
 
 195 
 Paris, 17, 157, 218, 227, etc. 
 Parliament, the, 201 
 Pater, Mr., Preface, 153 
 Paul IV., 138 
 
Index 
 
 309 
 
 Perier, Francois, 178 
 
 Perpignan, 41, 124 
 
 Philip of Spain, 137, 143 
 
 Piccart, Nicolas, 261 
 
 Pienne, M. de, 59 
 
 Pigray, Maitre, 22, 100, 147 
 
 Pirates, the, 122 
 
 Pitard, Jehan, 167 
 
 Pius v., 154 
 
 Plague, the, 265 
 
 Plessis-les-Tours, 103, 155 
 
 Poltrot, Jehan, 146 
 
 Portail, Antoine, 96, 103, 140 
 
 Pr^-aux-Clercs, 160, 219 
 
 Queen-Mother, The, marriage 
 with Henri II., 118 ; at Rouen, 
 98, 144; at Dreux, 146; at 
 Bayonne, 102 ; at Montcon- 
 tour, 103 ; with Pare, 184 ; 
 death, 225 
 
 Quelus, death of, 216 
 
 R 
 
 Rabelais, 176 
 
 Randan, M. de, 59 
 
 Raphael, 5 
 
 Recrod, Captain, 47 
 
 Renaudie, Sieur de la, 142 
 
 Renty, 137 
 
 Rheims, 55, 133, 156 
 
 Ringrave, Captain, 47, 105 
 
 Riviere, Etienne de la, 162, 242 
 
 Rochefoucaut, M. de, 59 
 
 Rohan, M. le Vicomte de, 37, 
 
 134 
 Roche-sur-Yon, M. le Prince de 
 
 la, 55, 98, 134 
 Rostaing de Binosc, 133 
 Rouen, 97, 143 
 Rousselet, Francois, 193 
 Rousselet, Jacqueline, 192 
 Roze, M, de, 80 
 
 St. Andre-des-Arcs, 160, 196, 
 
 251-256 
 St. Andre, M. de, 47, 56, 134 
 St. Arnoul, Abbey of, 71 
 St. Aubin, Captain, 95 
 St. Denis, battle of, ro2, 151 
 St. Germain, peace of, 154 
 St. Jehan en Dauphine, M. de, 
 
 59 
 St. Michel Archange, Place, 159 
 St. Quentin, battle of, 92, 138 
 St. Yrieux, battle of, 154 
 Sarlabous, Captain, lOI 
 Sedan, 49 
 Servetus, 9 
 Sforza of Milan, 119 
 Siret, Maitre, 103 
 Spaniards, the, 43, 62, 78, etc. 
 Spurs, battle of the, 6 
 Suleiman, 6, 118 
 Suze, pass of, 31, 120 
 Sylvius, 18, 158 
 
 T 
 
 Theodose, 293 
 Therouenne, 74, 88, 135 
 Thionville, 72, 130 
 Toul, 47, 129 
 Tournahan, 54 
 Turin, 30, 119 
 
 V 
 
 Vaucelles, treaty of, 138 
 Vaudeville, M. de, 86 
 Verdun, 56, 132 
 Vesalius, 9, 18, 182 
 Vialot, Maitre, 14 
 Vielleville, M. de, 50, 135 
 Vigo, John de, 33 
 Villars, M. de, 74, 80 
 Villeneuve, Fran9ois de, 163 
 
 W 
 
 William of Orange, 141 
 Wrestlers, the, 38 
 
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