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Home  »  Journeys in Diverse Places  »  The Journey to Bourges. 1562

Ambroise Paré (1510–90). Journeys in Diverse Places.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

The Journey to Bourges. 1562

THE KING with his camp was but a short time at Bourges, till those within the walls should surrender; and they came out with their goods saved. I know nothing worth 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, 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 recovered, but with no power in his hand: and from that time his comrades called him “Huguenot”: he is still living now.