because the armies being without discipline, know not the hurt
that it dooth them, in lodging not together, for that it is no griefe to
them not to be able to keepe those orders, and to observe that
discipline, which they have not: yet they oughte to see howe much harme,
the Camping in the Winter hath caused, and to remember, how the
Frenchmen in the yeare of oure Lorde God, a thousande five hundred and
three, were broken at Gariliano of the Winter, and not of the
Spaniardes: For as much as I have saide, he that assaulteth, hath more
disadvauntage then he that defendeth: because the fowle weather hurteth
him not a littell, being in the dominion of others and minding to make
warre. For that he is constrayned, either to stande together with his
men, and to sustaine the incommoditie of water and colde, or to avoide
it to devide his power: But he that defendeth, may chuse the place as he
listeth, and tary him with his freshe men: and he in a sodayne may set
his men in araye, and goo to find a band of the enemies men, who cannot
resiste the violence of them. So the Frenchemen were discomfited, and so
they shall alwayes be discomfited, which will assaulte in the Winter an
enemye, whoo hath in him prudence. Then he that will that force, that
orders, that discipline and vertue, in anye condition availe him not,
let him make warre in the fielde in the winter: and because that the
Romaines woulde that all these thinges, in which they bestowed so much
diligence, should availe them, fleedde no otherwise the Winter, then the
highe Alpes, and difficulte places, and whatsoever other thing shoulde
let them, for being able to shewe their arte and their vertue. So this
suffiseth to your demaund, wherefore we wil come to intreate of the
defending and besieging of tounes, and of their situacions and
edifications.

THE SEVENTH BOOKE

[Sidenote: Tounes and Fortresses maie be strong twoo waies; The place
that now a daies is moste sought to fortifie in; How a Toune walle ought
to bee made; The walle of a toune ought to bee high, and the diche
within, and not without; The thickenes that a Toune walle ought to bee
of, and the distaunces betwene everie flancker, and of what breadth and
deapth the dich ought to bee; How the ordinaunce is planted, for the
defence of a toune; The nature of the batterie.]

You oughte to knowe, how that tounes and fortresses, maie bee strong
either by nature, or by industrie; by nature, those bee strong, whi