Valor has its limits. Like other virtues, once you cross the line, you find yourself on the train of vice. Through it, you can reach temerity, obstinacy and folly, if one does not know the limits well, and it is uncomfortable to tread that line.
From this consideration arose the custom, which we have in wars, of punishing, even with death, those who insist on defending a position, which by military rules cannot be sustained. Otherwise, under the hope of impunity, there would be no pillager who would not stop an army.
Monsieur de Mommorency, Constable of France, having been instructed to cross the Tesin and take up lodgings in the Saint Antoine suburbs, was prevented from doing so by a tower at the end of the bridge, which he besieged through fierce resistance. When he finally conquered it, he had all those inside hung. Monsieur le Dauphin on his journey beyond the mountains, having taken the castle of Villane by force, and everything inside having been torn to pieces by the fury of the soldiers. All, that is, except for the Captain and the ensign, who he had them hanged and strangled. And Captain Martin du Bellay, then governor of Turin in the same region, and Captain de Saint Bony, the rest of his men having been massacred when the town was taken.
However, judging the value and weakness of an opponent requires estimating the strength of countering forces. It would be right to proceed with attack against two culverins, but would be insane to take on thirty cannons. The reputation and respect owed to the conquering prince must be considered as well. This could also tip the balance in favor of the attackers.
It follows from these same terms that such people have such a high opinion of themselves and their abilities that, finding it unreasonable that anyone could put up a reasonable challenge to them, they cut a wide swath through all resisters as long as their luck holds. This can be seen from their forms of summoning and defying, which the princes of the East and their successors, who are still around, still employ. They are proud, haughty and full of barbaric command.
And in the quarter through which the Portuguese sailed to the Indies, they found states with this universal and inviolable law: that any enemy of the King defeated in person or by his Lieutenant is beyond the pale of ransom and mercy.
So above all, it is necessary to beware of falling into the hands of an enemy judge, victorious and armed.