Bassompierre, with growing indignation, heard him to the end, and then told him that he was astonished that he should have taken advantage of the promise of safety he had received to make him so disgraceful a proposition. “I did not think,” said he, “that M. de Bouillon knew me so little as to imagine that money or any other advantage would make me fail in my duty or honour. It is not animosity, but ardour and desire to serve the King which has spurred me to these extraordinary exertions. Next to his I am the most devoted servant of the Queen in the world; but, when it is a question of the service of the King, I do not recognise the Queen. I would that I could run or fly to whatever place his service called me, and, as for my money, I would dispense that right willingly to the last sol, provided that his affairs might be placed in a good state. If you had not obtained an assurance of safety from me, I should have had you arrested, and sent you to Châlons; but the promise I have given you prevents me from doing that.” With which he turned on his heel and left M. Despence to return whence he came, marvelling greatly that so shrewd a judge of men as the lord of Sedan professed to be should have sent him on so bootless an errand. On the 18th, the army reached Montereau, and Bassompierre brought his troops across the Seine and quartered them in and around Étampes. The evening before he had received a letter from the King announcing that Caen and Rouen had opened their gates to him; that Longueville had retired to Dieppe and shut himself up there; while the Grand Prior, who had been assisting him to stir up trouble, had fled to Angers, and that his Majesty was about to begin his march to the Loire. On the 19th, Bassompierre went to Paris to make arrangements for the provisioning of his army. On going to salute Anne of Austria, her Majesty told him that “she did not know whether to receive him as general of an army or as a courier, seeing the extreme activity he had displayed,” while the Council “could not believe that the army was at Étampes and in such strength as he assured them was the case.”