On July 13, towards evening, Bassompierre arrived at Poivre, where he had arranged to pass the night. Shortly afterwards, he received a visit from a Huguenot gentleman named Despence, with whom he had some slight acquaintance, and whom he invited to sup with him. When they rose from table, M. Despence led him into the garden adjoining the house, and there inquired if he might speak to him frankly and “in all security”; by which he meant that whatever the nature of the communication he wished to make might be, Bassompierre would afterwards suffer him to depart in peace.
Bassompierre having given him the assurance he demanded, he informed him that he came from Sedan, on behalf of the Duc de Bouillon, who had charged him to say that while the duke, as a soldier himself, could not help but commend the zeal and energy which M. de Bassompierre was employing in raising and equipping troops and overcoming the difficulties with which he had to contend, he wondered greatly what could be the motive which prompted him to all this activity. Could it be that he entertained some personal animosity against the Queen-Mother, to whom, he had always understood, he was indebted for many benefits, or had M. de Luynes placed him under some great obligation? The duke desired to point out to M. de Bassompierre that the Queen-Mother and the princes and nobles who supported her had not taken up arms to attack the King or the State, but to decide whether both should be governed by her who had ruled so well during his Majesty’s minority, or by three robbers who had seized the authority and the person of the King. He praised M. de Bassompierre’s resolution to “keep always to the trunk of the tree, and to follow, not the best and most just party, but that which possessed the person of the King and the seal and wax.” But to display such fiery ardour, such boundless activity; to exceed even the orders of the King in the rapidity with which he was pushing forward his troops; to employ his own money so profusely as he was doing in the cause of persons who had proved themselves so ungrateful to the Queen, their first benefactress, and would prove no less ungrateful to their friends; to be apparently intent on compassing the ruin of the party of the Queen, the consort of the late King, who had been so much attached to him; to assist “three pumpkins who had sprung up in a night”[132] to trample upon her, and thus to compromise his reputation and his honesty—for all this M. de Bouillon could see neither rhyme nor reason.
After this long-winded preamble, M. Despence came to the point. The duke, he said, had no intention of suggesting to M. de Bassompierre that he should do anything contrary to his honour and duty; nothing was further from his thoughts. But, if he could see his way to delay for three weeks the junction of the army under his command with that of the King, which might be done without disobeying the orders he had received from his Majesty, who did not anticipate that he would be able to join him before then; if he would rest content with such troops as he found in garrison, and cease to amuse himself by levying everywhere at his own expense men to reinforce them, and, in short, abate a little of his ardour and animosity towards the party of the Queen-Mother, M. de Bouillon would without delay deposit the sum of 100,000 crowns in the hands of any banker whom he might be pleased to name, and no one but themselves would be the wiser.
Bassompierre, with growing indignation, heard him to the end, and then told him that he was astonished that he should have taken advantage of the promise of safety he had received to make him so disgraceful a proposition. “I did not think,” said he, “that M. de Bouillon knew me so little as to imagine that money or any other advantage would make me fail in my duty or honour. It is not animosity, but ardour and desire to serve the King which has spurred me to these extraordinary exertions. Next to his I am the most devoted servant of the Queen in the world; but, when it is a question of the service of the King, I do not recognise the Queen. I would that I could run or fly to whatever place his service called me, and, as for my money, I would dispense that right willingly to the last sol, provided that his affairs might be placed in a good state. If you had not obtained an assurance of safety from me, I should have had you arrested, and sent you to Châlons; but the promise I have given you prevents me from doing that.”
With which he turned on his heel and left M. Despence to return whence he came, marvelling greatly that so shrewd a judge of men as the lord of Sedan professed to be should have sent him on so bootless an errand.
On the 18th, the army reached Montereau, and Bassompierre brought his troops across the Seine and quartered them in and around Étampes. The evening before he had received a letter from the King announcing that Caen and Rouen had opened their gates to him; that Longueville had retired to Dieppe and shut himself up there; while the Grand Prior, who had been assisting him to stir up trouble, had fled to Angers, and that his Majesty was about to begin his march to the Loire.
On the 19th, Bassompierre went to Paris to make arrangements for the provisioning of his army. On going to salute Anne of Austria, her Majesty told him that “she did not know whether to receive him as general of an army or as a courier, seeing the extreme activity he had displayed,” while the Council “could not believe that the army was at Étampes and in such strength as he assured them was the case.”
As Bassompierre was so much ahead of his time, and there was no need for him to begin his march to join the army of the King for some days, he received orders to make an attempt to reduce Dreux, one of the few places in Normandy still occupied by the rebels. He accordingly returned to Étampes, and was about to set out for Dreux at the head of the regiments of Champagne and Picardy and a detachment of cavalry, when he received a letter from Anne of Austria informing him that she had received intelligence that the Comte de Rochefort, husband of a lady to whom Bassompierre had “offered his service” at the end of the previous year, and who, we may presume, had been graciously pleased to accept it, was in dire peril of his life. It appeared that Rochefort, who was governor of the Château of Nantes, had been arrested at Angers by orders of Marie de’ Medici, and that “M. de Vendôme intended to bring him before the Château of Nantes, to force it to surrender; threatening, in case of refusal, to cut off his head.” The only way to save M. de Rochefort, wrote the Queen, was to seize Vendôme’s mother-in-law, Madame de Mercœur, and his children, who were at the Château of Anet, near Dreux, the palatial country-seat which Henri II had built for his middle-aged inamorata Diane de Poitiers, and bring them as hostages to Paris. “And she recommended to me this affair, which was very important to the service of the King and which would afford infinite satisfaction to Madame de Rochefort, of whom I was so much the servant.”
Bassompierre accordingly detached the greater part of his cavalry and sent them to Anet to secure Madame de Mercœur and the little Vendômes, and with the rest of his force presented himself before the gates of Dreux. They were opened to him at once, and the citizens shouted, “Vive le Roi!” with all the strength of their lungs; but Bassompierre informed them that, although he was very gratified to hear such cries, he would prefer to have some practical proof of their loyalty. And he ordered them to assist him in bringing M. d’Escluzelles, the governor of the château, to reason.
M. d’Escluzelles, however, refused to surrender, and, though Bassompierre’s troops, with the assistance of the citizens, built a formidable barricade which cut off all communication between the château and the town, he appeared to regard their proceedings with indifference. When, however, on the following day, Bassompierre caused him to be informed that, unless he capitulated forthwith, he proposed to burn his country-seat, which lay a few miles from Dreux, to the ground, cut down every tree on his estate, and carry off his wife and children to Paris, he “had pity upon his property and his family,” and sent to demand a parley. Next morning (July 25), the château surrendered, and Bassompierre having placed a garrison there and seen Madame de Mercœur and her grandchildren, whom the cavalry had brought from Anet, off to Paris, returned to Étampes and began his march towards the Loire. On August 2 his army arrived at Connerré, not far from Le Mans, where Louis XIII’s headquarters were, and Bassompierre went to pay his respects to his Majesty, who gave him a most flattering reception and “expressed himself very satisfied with the care and expedition which he had shown.”