In the night of September 2-3, the Lorraine prince advanced to the assault of a crescent-shaped outwork which had been constructed by La Force, and was defended by his sons and other Huguenot nobles and some of the best soldiers in the garrison. The attack failed; but on the following afternoon the attempt was renewed. After a furious hand-to-hand conflict, Mayenne was again repulsed, with heavy loss. On that day died the gallant Marquis de Thémines, eldest son of the marshal, La Frette, the governor of Chartres, “who yielded to no man of his time in courage and ambition,” and more than fifty Catholic gentlemen. The siege of Montauban, so lightly undertaken by Luynes, seemed likely to cost France dear. On September 4, the King and the Constable called a council of war to discuss the advisability of endeavouring to carry the bastion of Le Moustier by assault. Bassompierre strongly urged that the attempt should be made, and was supported by Lesdiguières; but the other generals opposed it, and Marillac declared that to descend into the fosse meant certain death. Luynes asked Bassompierre to step into his cabinet, where the King presently joined them. Louis XIII informed them that Marillac and the others had said to him that it was easy for M. de Bassompierre to advocate this hazardous undertaking, as all the danger would be left to them, and he would have no share in it; and had accused him of wishing to expose them to butchery. Bassompierre, in high indignation, thereupon declared that, if the King would give him leave, he himself would lead the assault on the bastion, and pledged his word that, if he did not fall, “in three weeks he would have three cannon in position there against the town.” “The King, who always had a rather good opinion of me, said to the Constable: ‘Take Bassompierre at his word and let him go; I will answer for him. Send the three brigadier-generals from Le Moustier to the camp of the Guards, and place him at Le Moustier. I am sure that he will do as he promises us, and we shall be the gainers.” The Constable objected that the change would not be agreeable to either division, and declared that the Guards would not obey the orders of the brigadier-generals from Le Moustier. Finally, Luynes asked Bassompierre to go and reconnoitre the bastion. This he did, in company with the Italian engineer Gamorini and two other officers from his division, and reported that an attack would not present more than ordinary difficulty. Luynes thereupon proposed that it should be undertaken; but Marillac and his colleagues persisted in their objections, and assured him that Montauban would soon be theirs, without any need for such sacrifice of life as this attack must entail. And they succeeded in bringing him round to their opinion.