“I answered,” says Bassompierre, “that he was right; but that these regiments, which were largely composed of new recruits, would fight well if they saw me at their head, and badly if I remained behind; and since I had raised and brought them to this army, I had an interest in their conducting themselves well. Then he said: ‘I shall not remain on horseback if you are on foot,’ and, dismounting, placed himself on my left.” The entrenchments were carried with but little resistance, for the defenders appear to have been demoralised by the desertion of Retz and his troops and the suddenness of the attack, and fled in disorder towards the town. A flanking-fire, however, from the roofs and windows of some of the houses in the faubourgs caused a few casualties amongst Bassompierre’s men; and, as they were crossing some open ground between the trenches and the town, a squadron of cavalry emerged from a field, deployed and seemed about to charge. “And now,” says Bassompierre, “I shall relate a strange thing. A man from one of our storming-companies who had remained behind--I never learned his name--and who was carrying a pike, addressed himself to a chief who was riding some twenty paces in front of the others and gave his horse a thrust in the stomach with his pike. The horse reared, upon which the soldier gave him another thrust; and the rider, fearing to be thrown, wheeled to the left and galloped off. And, at the same moment, the squadron wheeled in the same direction and passed under the arch of the bridge, where the water was very shallow.” The Comte de Saint-Aignan, who, it will be remembered, had accompanied the Comte de Soissons when he left Paris to join the Queen-Mother, was with this squadron, having ridden up to order it to charge. He was on its left flank and tried to rally the fugitives, but without success, and was carried away with them for some little distance. Now, M. de Saint-Aignan was a great dandy, and was wearing gilded armour and a hat that was the _dernier cri_ in sumptuous headgear--a hat to marvel at, adorned with great ostrich plumes fastened by diamond-buckles--and when he at last succeeded in getting out of the press and pulling up his horse, he found that his hat had been knocked off. He could not bring himself to abandon it, and accordingly rode back to where it lay and attempted to recover it with the point of his sword. Bassompierre, passing near him, on his way into the town, did not attempt to make him prisoner, and merely shouted: “Adieu, Saint-Aignan!” “Adieu, adieu!” replied the count, without desisting from his efforts to recover his hat. This was no easy matter, as his horse was very restive, but eventually he succeeded and had just replaced it triumphantly on his head, and was about to ride away, when he was stopped and taken prisoner by two carabiniers.