"What difference will it make," he asked, "whether we defer our action until either darkness or the General arrives?
In each case we give the enemy time enough to destroy the dyke, and thoroughly to relieve the city.

That done, what good can be accomplished by our arms?
Then our disheartened soldiers will either shrink from a fruitless combat or march to certain death." Having thus, very warmly but very sagaciously, defined the position in which all were placed, he proceeded to declare that he claimed, neither for himself nor for his legion, any superiority over the rest of the army.

He knew not that the Italians were more to be relied upon than others in the time of danger, but this he did know, that no man in the world was so devoted as he was to the Prince of Parma.

To show that devotion by waiting with folded arms behind a wall until the Prince should arrive to extricate his followers, was not in his constitution.

He claimed the right to lead his Italians against the enemy at once--in the front rank, if others chose to follow; alone, if the rest preferred to wait till a better leader should arrive.
The words of the Italian colonel sent a thrill through all who heard him.
Next in command under Capizucca was his camp-marshal, an officer who bore the illustrious name of Piccolomini--father of the Duke Ottavio, of whom so much was to be heard at a later day throughout the fell scenes of that portion of the eighty years' tragedy now enacting, which was to be called the Thirty Years' War of Germany.