At Rome they stayed a week, in order to perform the various devotions customary for good Catholics who visited the Eternal City, and waited upon several of the cardinals to whom they had letters of introduction, and also upon the Spanish Ambassador, the Duke of Sessa, who had been a friend of their father, and whose acquaintance they had made some years before when he passed through Lorraine on his way to France. The Ambassador provided them with passports and with letters of recommendation to the Viceroy of Naples, and they set out for that city, stopping on the road at Gaëta, Capua, and Aversa. On their arrival at Naples, they lost no time in presenting the letters which the Duke of Sessa had given them to the Viceroy, Don Henriques de Guzman, Count of Olivares, “who, on opening them, inquired if we were the sons of that M. de Bassompierre, colonel of _reiters_, who had come to the succour of the Duke of Alva in Flanders, by orders of the late King Charles. And when we told him that we were, he embraced us most affectionately, assuring us that he had loved our father as his own brother, and that he was the most noble and generous cavalier whom he had ever known; adding that he would treat us, not only as persons of quality, but as his own children, which, indeed, he did, giving us all the proofs of affection and good-will possible to imagine.” At Naples, the brothers passed a considerable part of their time in practising equitation, under the guidance of two celebrated Italian riding-masters; but at the beginning of 1597 their course of instruction was interrupted by an attack of small-pox. On their recovery, they returned to Rome, where they remained until after Easter, the only incident of importance which marked their second visit to the Papal city being their rescue of a French gentleman named Saint-Offange, who had killed another in a duel, from the pursuit of the law. From Rome they went to Florence, where they resumed the riding-lessons which the small-pox had interrupted at Naples. “As for our other exercises,” writes Bassompierre, “we had Messire Agostino for dancing, Messire Marquino for fencing, Guilio Parigi for fortification, in which Bernardo della Girandolla also sometimes assisted. We continued these lessons all the summer, and also witnessed the festivities of Florence, such as the _calcio_ and the _palio_, the plays and some marriages within and without the palace.”