No sooner was the news of this great event noised abroad than the bells of every church in Paris rang out a joyous peal, and several couriers started to carry the glad tidings to Calais, where the King and Luynes had arrived a day or two before to inspect the fortifications of the harbour, which had been greatly damaged by a recent gale. Louis XIII was the first to receive the news, and so delighted was he that he gave the bearer a present of 4,000 crowns and undertook to announce it himself to his favourite. Before doing so, however, he ordered all the guns of the citadel to be discharged, and when Luynes inquired the meaning of this, embraced him and exclaimed: “My cousin, I am come to rejoice with you, because you have a son!” Truly, as Contarini, the Venetian Ambassador, observed, in announcing the event to his Government, “the Duc de Luynes seemed to have enchained Fortune.” CHAPTER XXII An alliance with Luynes’s niece, Mlle. de Combalet, proposed to Bassompierre--His journey to Spain--His entry into Madrid--He is visited by the Princess of the Asturias, the grandees and other distinguished persons--His meeting with the Duke of Ossuña--His audience of Philip III postponed owing to the King’s illness--Commissioners are appointed to treat with Bassompierre over the Valtellina question--Death of Philip III--His funeral procession--An indiscreet observation of the Duke of Ossuña to one of Bassompierre’s suite is overheard and leads to the arrest of that nobleman. Louis XIII and Luynes returned to Paris on January 12, 1621, and Bassompierre was “extremely pressed to take his departure.” But, as may be supposed, he was in no hurry to go, and, by raising all kinds of difficulties in regard to his instructions, succeeded in gaining a respite of three weeks; and it was not until the beginning of February that his despatches were handed to him. Even then, on one pretext or another, he contrived to postpone his departure for another week, though his suite, which numbered no less than 140 persons, including forty gentlemen whose expenses he had undertaken to defray himself, were sent on ahead in batches to await him at Bordeaux. Just before he left Paris, what was regarded at the time as a most advantageous marriage was proposed to him.