Bassompierre arrived in the Royal camp on the 21st, just as the trenches were about to be opened, and at once proceeded to the Château of Piquecos, to the north of the town, on the right bank of the Aveyron, where Louis XIII had taken up his quarters. Having excused his return without orders on the ground of his zeal for the service of the King, he hastened to disclaim any desire to serve as brigadier-general and declared that “he should content himself with being in this siege Colonel-General of the Swiss.” Luynes thereupon became quite cordial, and the King told Bassompierre that, when the siege was over, and he and the Constable had returned to Paris, he would give him the command of the army. Lesdiguières had advised Luynes to employ against Montauban all the resources of the military art, and to enclose the town in lines of circumvallation protected by forts. But the presumptuous Constable was unwilling to waste time in what he was pleased to regard as superfluous precautions; and the siege of this formidable stronghold, defended by several thousand resolute men, prepared to die sword in hand in defence of their religion rather than surrender, and with strong reinforcements under an able general hovering in the background, was embarked upon as lightly as if its reduction had presented no more than ordinary difficulty. The besieging army was divided into three divisions. One division, composed of the French and Swiss Guards, with the regiments of Piedmont and Normandy, and commanded by the Maréchaux de Praslin and de Chaulnes, under the orders of the Constable, was to assail the advanced works of Montmirat and Saint-Antoine, to the west and north-west of the town, on the right bank of the Tarn, in front of the faubourg of Ville-Nouvelle. The second, of which Mayenne had the command, with the Maréchal de Thémines under him, was to attack Ville-Bourbon, a faubourg situated on the left bank of the Tarn,[172] and connected with the town by an old brick bridge, dating from the early part of the fourteenth century. The third, commanded by Joinville--or the Duc de Chevreuse, as he had now become--who had Lesdiguières and Saint-Géran to assist him, was entrusted with the attack on Le Moustier, a fortified suburb to the south-west of the town. Two bridges which had been thrown across the Tarn maintained communication between the three divisions, to the first of which Bassompierre, as Colonel-General of the Swiss, was attached. * * * * * On leaving the King, Bassompierre returned to the camp, and he and Praslin crossed the river to visit Mayenne. The Lorraine prince offered to show them the fortifications of Ville-Bourbon, and took them as close to the walls as he could persuade them to go, “with the intention of drawing upon us some musket-shots.” This kind of bravado appears to have been a favourite amusement of Mayenne, but, as we shall presently see, he was to indulge in it once too often.