“The evening before the King set out,” says Bassompierre, “he asked me for some cider, as I had been in the habit of giving him some very good, which my friends sent me from Normandy, knowing that I liked it. I sent him a dozen bottles, and in the evening when I went to him for the password he said: ‘Betstein, you have given me twelve bottles of cider, and now I give you 12,000 crowns. Go and find Effiat, who will give you the money.’ ‘Sire,’ said I, ‘I have the whole case at home, which, if it please you, I will let you have at the same price.’ He, however, was satisfied with the dozen bottles, and I with his liberality.”
This might seem an act of great munificence on the part of Louis XIII, did we not remember that the royal donor had been the guest of the recipient of his bounty for several weeks during the siege of La Rochelle, and had thereby put the latter to an expense which must have far exceeded the cost of the cider.
At Grenoble the King remained for some three weeks to negotiate with the Duke of Savoy. Charles Emmanuel was unable to believe that Louis really intended to cross the Alps while the Huguenots of the South were still unsubdued, and, esteeming himself the arbiter between France and Spain, he refused to abandon the Spaniards, unless the King would undertake to assist him to conquer the Milanese or Genoa or sacrifice to him Geneva.
The King and the Cardinal thereupon resolved to descend into Piedmont by way of Mont-Genèvre and Susa. The Duc de Guise, Governor of Provence, was directed to create a diversion by way of Nice and Liguria, an operation which he executed very slowly and inefficiently. At Grenoble, however, the utmost activity prevailed, and though, when Richelieu arrived there, the army was deficient in artillery, munitions, transport and, in short, nearly everything required for a campaign, thanks to his unwearying exertions, in a surprisingly short time it was ready to take the field, and on February 22 the advance began. On March 1 the army passed Mont-Genèvre, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, and on the 3rd the advance-guard, some 10,000 to 12,000 strong, under Bassompierre and Créquy, encamped at Chaumont, the last village on the French side of the frontier, at the entrance to the Pass of Susa.
Two or three days were occupied in pourparlers between Richelieu, who had left the King at Oulx, and the Prince of Piedmont, who had hurried to Susa on receiving the news that the French had crossed the mountains. The Cardinal, however, recognised that the prince and his father sought only to gain time to enable them to fortify the Pass of Susa and to allow of the arrival of the Piedmontese and Spanish troops whom they had summoned in all haste. The negotiations were accordingly broken off, and at two o’clock in the morning of the 6th the King arrived from Oulx, accompanied by Longueville, Soissons, the Comte de Moret, Henri IV’s son by Jacqueline de Beuil, and Schomberg, and the army crossed the frontier and advanced towards the head of the pass.
The Pass of Susa was a defile about a quarter of a league in length and in places less than twenty paces wide, obstructed here and there by fallen rocks. The enemy had not been idle and had erected three formidable barricades, strengthened by earthworks and ditches, while the rocky heights on either side were crowned with soldiers and protected by small redoubts. On a neighbouring mountain stood a fort called by the French the Fort de Gelasse, from the name of a little watercourse hard by, and the cannon of this fort commanded the open space between Chaumont and the entrance to the pass. It was one of those positions which a handful of resolute men might successfully defend against an entire army; and, as the Piedmontese had already between 3,000 and 4,000 men there, the probability of the invaders being able to force a passage through the defile, unless at a heavy sacrifice of life, seemed very slight.
The French troops before the pass consisted of seven companies of French Guards, six of the Swiss, the greater part of the Regiments of Navarre, the Baron d’Estissac and the Comte de Sault, and the Musketeers of the Guard. The Musketeers, who had dismounted from their horses, were under command of the Seigneur de Tréville, the erstwhile private soldier of the French Guards who, it will be remembered, had so distinguished himself at the siege of Montauban.[120] The Comte de Sault’s regiment was detached from the main body, and, guided by peasants of the neighbourhood, sent to make a détour through the mountains, which would bring it to a spot overlooking the town of Susa, whence it could descend and take the enemy in the rear; while the rest of the troops were drawn up just out of range of the guns of Fort de Gelasse.
At dawn the Sieur de Cominges was sent forward with a trumpeter to demand, in the name of the King, passage for his Majesty’s person and army from the Duke of Savoy. To his request the Count of Verrua, who commanded the Piedmontese, replied that the French did not come as people who desired to pass as friends; that he was fully prepared to resist them, and that if they endeavoured to force a passage, “they would gain nothing but blows.”
The three marshals of France, Créquy, Bassompierre, and Schomberg, had come to an arrangement by which each in turn commanded the army for three days at a time; and, when Cominges returned with this bellicose answer, Bassompierre, who happened to be in command that day, approached the King, who had taken up his position a little way behind the storm troops, and said to him: “Sire, Sire, the company is ready; the musicians have come in to demand permission to begin the fête; the masks are at the door. When it pleases your Majesty, we will dance the ballet.” The King replied sharply that the marshal knew very well that they had only light guns with them, which would have no effect upon the barricades, and that they must wait until their heavy artillery came up.
“I said to him,” continues Bassompierre: “‘It is too late now to think of that. Must we abandon the ballet because one of the masks does not happen to be ready? Allow us to dance it, Sire, and all will go well.’ ‘Will you answer to me for it?’ said he. ‘It would be very rash for me to guarantee a thing so doubtful,’ I replied, ‘but I will answer to you that we shall perform it to the end with honour, or I shall be dead or a prisoner.’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but if we fail, I shall reproach you.’ ‘You may call me anything if we fail,’ I replied, ‘except the Marquis d’Uxelles (for he had failed to pass at Saint-Pierre). But I shall take good care. Only allow us to do it, Sire.’ ‘Let us go, Sire,’ said the Cardinal to him. ‘From the demeanour of the marshal, I augur that all will be well. Be assured of it.’”