His preparations completed, Bassompierre, accompanied by Thémines, ascended to the room where Condé was confined, and awakened the prince, “who was in great apprehension,” being evidently under the impression that they had come to conduct him to execution. Thémines having reassured him on this score, he went with the marshal down to the courtyard and entered the coach; Bassompierre mounted his horse, and the cortège moved off. Bassompierre, with the mounted gentlemen and fifty of the Swiss, led the way; then came the coach, guarded on either side by the Gardes du Corps and the Swiss of the Guard, with their partizans and halberds; while the French Guards and the rest of the Swiss brought up the rear. Thus they wended their way through the dark, silent streets towards the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, no one being encountered on their march save a few belated pedestrians, and, in less than an hour after they left the Louvre, the gates of the Bastille had closed upon the first Prince of the Blood. Before setting out for the Bastille, Bassompierre had judged it advisable to send a messenger to assure the Duc de Guise, whose hôtel lay on their way[111] and who, he thought, might take alarm if he learned that soldiers were approaching, that nothing was intended against him. The messenger was only just in time, for Guise, warned by a friend living near the Louvre that troops were assembling at the palace, and persuaded that his arrest was their objective, had promptly decided on flight; and he and some of his attendants were already dressed and preparing to get to horse. CHAPTER XVI Serious illness of the young King, who, however, recovers--Bassompierre and Mlle. d’Urfé--Gay winter in Paris--Richelieu enters the Ministry as Secretary of State for War--His foreign policy--His energetic measures to put down the rebellion of the Princes--Return of Concini--His arrogance and presumption--Singular conversation between Bassompierre and Concini, after the death of the latter’s daughter--Policy pursued by Marie de’ Medici and Concini towards Louis XIII--Humiliating position of the young King--His favourite, Charles d’Albert, Seigneur de Luynes--Bassompierre warns the Queen-Mother that the King may be persuaded to revolt against her authority. At the end of October, Louis XIII fell ill, and on All-Hallows’ Eve “had a convulsion, which it was apprehended would develop into apoplexy.” His physicians were of opinion that if he had a second attack it would probably prove fatal; and Marie de’ Medici, on learning of this, sent for Bassompierre and kept him at the Louvre all night, so as to be in readiness to summon the Swiss to her support, in the event of the King’s death. However, the young monarch passed a good night, and by the morning all danger was over.