st.'
Your highness will have opportunity enough to display valor, and will
never be weak enough to be conquered by the babble of soldiers."
In person he was tall, thin, erect, with a small head, a long visage,
lean yellow cheek, dark twinkling eyes, a dust complexion, black
bristling hair, and a long sable-silvered beard, descending in two waving
streams upon his breast.
Such being the design, the machinery was well selected. The best man in
Europe to lead the invading force was placed at the head of ten thousand
picked veterans. The privates in this exquisite little army, said the
enthusiastic connoisseur Brantome, who travelled post into Lorraine
expressly to see them on their march, all wore engraved or gilded armor,
and were in every respect equipped like captains. They were the first who
carried muskets, a weapon which very much astonished the Flemings when it
first rattled in their ears. The musketeers, he observed, might have been
mistaken, for princes, with such agreeable and graceful arrogance did
they present themselves. Each was attended by his servant or esquire, who
carried his piece for him, except in battle, and all were treated with
extreme deference by the rest of the army, as if they had been officers.
The four regiments of Lombardy, Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, composed a
total of not quite nine thousand of the best foot soldiers in Europe.
They were commanded respectively by Don Sancho de Lodiono, Don Gonzalo de
Bracamonte, Julien Romero, and Alfonso de Ulloa, all distinguished and
experienced generals. The cavalry, amounting to about twelve hundred; was
under the command of the natural son of the Duke, Don Ferdinando de
Toledo, Prior of the Knights of St. John. Chiapin Vitelli, Marquis of
Cetona, who had served the King in many a campaign, was appointed
Marechal de camp, and Gabriel Cerbelloni was placed in command of the
artillery. On the way the Duke received, as a present from the Duke of
Savoy, the services of the distinguished engineer, Pacheco, or Paciotti,
whose name was to be associated with the most celebrated citadel of the
Netherlands; and whose dreadful fate was to be contemporaneous with the
earliest successes of the liberal party.
With an army thus perfect, on a small scale, in all its departments, and
furnished, in addition, with a force of two thousand prostitutes, as
regularly enrolled, disciplined, and distributed as the cavalry or the
artillery, the Duke embarked upon his mo
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