"Your Majesties should withdraw to the distance of five Hundred yards with Guitaut and the guards, while I ride forward with the musketeers and light-horse, and reconnoitre the place."
The queen replied with a single word.
"Forward!" said she. "We will see if they will dare refuse to let us pass."
The young king, in his delight, drove his spurs into his horse, and galloped ahead of the others.
The marshal and Guitaut darted forward and overtook him.
"You cannot pass!" said the sentinel, still maintaining his hostile attitude.
"It is the king!" cried the pages.
"Halt!" cried the sentinel, with a threatening gesture. At the same moment the hats and muskets of the soldiers assigned to the defence of the outermost intrenchment appeared above the parapet.
A prolonged murmur greeted the sentinel's words and hostile demonstrations. Monsieur de La Meilleraie seized the bit of the king's horse, and turned him around, at the same time bidding the queen's coachman to turn and drive back. The two insulted majesties withdrew some seven or eight hundred yards, while their attendants scattered like a flock of birds at the report of the hunter's rifle.
Maréchal de La Meilleraie, master of the situation, left some fifty men as escort for the king and queen, and with the rest of his force rode back toward the fortifications.