Christophe was at Blois at the time of the assassination of Guise in December, 1588, but, warned in time, he succeeded in effecting his escape from the town before the principal adherents of the duke were arrested, and, exasperated by the fate of his friend and patron, raised large levies in Germany for the service of the Leaguer princes. He fought under Mayenne against Henri IV at Arques and Ivry, in which latter engagement he was twice wounded and obliged to return to Lorraine. He returned to France in 1593, to assist, as representative of Duke Charles III, at the Estates of the League, where he offered very effective opposition to the proposal of the ultra-Catholic party to confer the crown of France on the Infanta Clara Eugenia. The conversion of Henri IV having caused him to abandon any projects which he might have had in France, he now devoted himself to re-establishing the affairs of the Duke of Lorraine, which were in sad disorder, and was appointed by that prince Grand Master of his Household and Superintendent of Finance. In July, 1534, he signed, on behalf of the duke, in Henri IV’s camp before Laon, a treaty by which Charles III undertook to observe complete neutrality between France and Spain. This gallant old warrior was an excellent father and spared no expense to give his sons the most thorough education which it was possible for them to obtain. François de Bassompierre’s early years were passed at the Château of Harouel. “I was brought up in this house,” he writes, “until October, 1584, when I first remember seeing Henri, Duc de Guise, who was concealed at Harouel, for the purpose of treating with several colonels of _landsknechts_ and _reiters_ for the levies of the League. At this time I began to learn to read and write, and afterwards the rudiments. My tutor was a Norman priest, named Nicolas Ciret.” In the autumn of 1587, on the approach of the invading army of Dohna and Bouillon, Madame de Bassompierre and her children had to leave Harouel and take refuge at Nancy. The invaders burned the town of Harouel, but appear to have left the château untouched. On the return of the family to Harouel, François and his younger brother Jean, who now shared his studies, were given another tutor, named Gravet, “and two young men, called Clinchamp and La Motte, the one to teach us to write, the other to dance, play the lute and music.” They passed the next four years partly at Harouel and partly at Nancy, where, in the autumn of 1591, François saw for the first time Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, who had recently effected his romantic escape from the Château of Blois,[5] and with whom he was to be on such intimate terms in later years.