Bassompierre passed the first night of his journey at Château-Thierry, where he received most alarming intelligence, to the effect that a gentleman of the name of Loppes, who was in the service of the Duc de Vendôme, was waiting with a troop of light horse between that town and Châlons, with the intention of making him a prisoner and carrying him off to Sedan. However, the rumour proved to be a false one, and he arrived safely at Châlons without seeing anything of M. de Loppes or his troop. Nevertheless, having ascertained that that gentleman was at his country-house some few miles from Châlons, he considered it advisable to pay him a visit, lest haply he should only have postponed the sinister designs attributed to him to some more convenient season.
A promise, in the King’s name, of the command of the troop in which he was now only a lieutenant sufficed to draw the most fervid expressions of loyalty from M. de Loppes; and he volunteered to escort Bassompierre with thirty of his men to Vitry, where two companies of the regiment of Champagne were in garrison.
On the following morning, Bassompierre reviewed the garrison, which he found pretty well up to strength, and sounded the officers, who appeared loyal enough, though the lieutenant-colonel was under suspicion. However, as he was away on furlough, and not likely to return for some time, there was nothing to be feared from him.
From Vitry Bassompierre proceeded to Verdun, where he arrived on July 6. Here there was a different tale to tell.
There were two regiments in garrison at Verdun: that of Picardy and that of the Comte de Vaubecourt.[131] The latter had its full complement of all grades, but the Regiment of Picardy could not muster a third of its strength; and he was informed that part of the absentees had gone off to serve as volunteers in Germany, where the Thirty Years’ War was just beginning; while the rest had been seduced from their duty by the Marquis de la Valette, d’Épernon’s second son, and had thrown themselves into Metz with him.
The following day, Bassompierre received a letter from Louis XIII, informing him that he was proceeding at once into Normandy to save Rouen, which Longueville was endeavouring to raise against him, and ordering him to assemble all the forces he could muster at Saint-Menehould, leaving Vaubecourt’s regiment to garrison what places in Champagne he considered necessary, and then to march with all possible speed to Montereau, where he would receive further orders.
At Verdun Bassompierre received a visit from M. de Fresnel, Governor of Clermont-en-Argonne, who was intimately acquainted with the military resources of that part of France. Fresnel warned him that he would find in every garrison-town the same condition of things as at Verdun, and that, apart from Vaubecourt’s regiment, he doubted whether he would be able to muster 2,000 men. The magazines, however, were full and capable of equipping any number of men; and, if he were prepared to offer a bounty to everyone who enlisted, he believed that plenty of recruits would be forthcoming.
Bassompierre readily agreed to give the bounty which Fresnel advised, though he had to find the money out of his own pocket, and in a few days Fresnel had raised 800 men on his estates in the Argonne, with whom and another 120 furnished by the town of Verdun, he filled the ranks of the Regiment of Picardy. The Bailiff of Bar, a personal friend of his, sent him 300, whom he drafted into the Regiment of Champagne; another 300 came from the Valley of Aillant, in the Yonne. The drum was beaten vigorously at Vitry, Saint-Dizier, Châlons, Rheims, Sens and other towns, and each of them furnished its contingent, with the result that he soon found himself at the head of what, for those times, was quite a formidable force, though, as the great majority of the men thus obtained were raw recruits who had never been under fire, their fighting value was not very great. However, he had the consolation of knowing that the rebel forces would undoubtedly be at the same disadvantage.
Bassompierre had the good fortune to have at his disposal a number of experienced commissariat-officers, and the arrangements he was thus enabled to make for the rapid march of his army westwards, notwithstanding that it was then the height of a very hot summer, appear to have left little to be desired, and to have shown a solicitude for the soldier’s comfort and well-being most unusual at this epoch.
“After deciding,” he says, “upon the routes which my troops were to follow, I decided upon my marches, which I made longer than was customary, to wit, nine or ten leagues per day. I gave orders that each regiment should start at three or four in the morning and march until nine o’clock, by which time it should have covered five leagues. And I arranged that the halting-place should be near some river or brook, where it would find a cart containing wine and another filled with bread awaiting it, to refresh the soldiers. Here they would rest until three of the afternoon, in order to avoid marching during the heat of the day, and then take the road again. And I further arranged that when they reached the village where they were to pass the night, they should find the beasts that were to provide their meal already slaughtered, for which I paid one half of the cost, and the village the other. By this means, the soldier, perceiving the care that I took that he should want for nothing, performed without a murmur these long marches so far as Montereau.”