Having persuaded the King of his danger, Luynes spoke of the various means of escaping it, and these were debated in midnight councils between the King of France, his favourite, Déageant, Barbin’s chief clerk, who had been gained over by Luynes,[120] an obscure priest, three gentlemen, a soldier, a gardener from the Tuileries, and some valets. The composition of this strange council, as Henri Martin observes, was indeed a biting satire on the education which Marie de’ Medici had given her son and the isolation in which she had left him. The King proposed to make his escape from Paris and to retire to Amboise, of which place Luynes was governor, or to join the army of the Princes. But Luynes, who desired to render the mother and the son irreconcilable, rejected these expedients in favour of one more easy and more sure: that of getting rid of Concini by surprise. And this was decided upon. The Marquis de Montpouillan, one of the sons of the Maréchal de la Force, and a playmate of Louis XIII in his boyhood, was admitted to their confidence; and Montpouillan, a young man of a bold and violent disposition, offered to poniard Concini in the King’s cabinet, if his Majesty would but get him there. The marshal came; but, at the last moment, Luynes’s courage failed him, and he would not allow the design to be executed. The conspirators then addressed themselves to the Marquis de Vitry, one of the captains of the Guards, who entered on his term of service at the beginning of April. He was a son of that Vitry who had arrested Biron at Fontainebleau fifteen years earlier, and one of the few men at the Court who had refused to bow before the power of the favourite. Assured that Vitry would be prepared to execute any orders that he might receive, Louis XIII sent for him and directed him to arrest the Maréchal d’Ancre as he was entering the Louvre to visit the Queen-Mother, which he did every morning when he was in Paris. The bâton of a marshal of France was to be his reward, if he succeeded. “But, if he defends himself?” said Vitry. “Then,” cried Montpouillan, “the King intends you to kill him!” “Sire, do you command me?” asked the officer, turning to the King. “Yes, I command you to do it,” was the reply.