“It had been resolved some days before to break by cannon-shot the bridge of Montauban,[173] in order to stop the reinforcements which those in Montauban were sending to Ville-Bourbon. The Maréchal de Chaulnes, who was newly returned from Toulouse, where he had been lying ill, had charged me to bring a battery to bear upon the bridge. But, since it was a great way off and five hundred shots caused but little damage, which could easily be repaired with wood, I remonstrated against the little utility and great expense of this bombardment; and I was told not to persist in it. At the same time, two hundred women who were in the habit of washing linen and kitchen-utensils under or near this bridge, and who were incommoded by the cannon-shot, aware that I was in command in the quarter from which the firing came, and that I had always made war upon women in kindly fashion, sent me a drummer to beg me, on their part, not to incommode their washing. This request I granted them readily, since I had already received an order to that effect; and so pleased were they with me, that they demanded a truce in order to see me, and a great number of the principal women of the town came on to the top of the ramparts to look at me. And I, on that day alone, during the whole of the siege, dressed myself with care and adorned myself, so that I might go and talk with them.” All this was very charming, but, a few days later, Bassompierre was to meet the women of Montauban in much less agreeable circumstances. On the 17th, Guise, who had arrived in the camp some days earlier, accompanied by a great number of gentlemen from his government of Provence, came to see Bassompierre and persuade him to go and dine with Mayenne. Bassompierre, however, who had to attend a council of war which Praslin had summoned, excused himself and, at the same time, warned the duke to be on his guard against Mayenne, “who had no greater pleasure than to make the enemy fire on him or on those whom he took to view his works, and was burning his fingers in order to burn others.” “To my great regret,” he continues, “my prophecy was in a certain fashion a true one, for, after dinner, as he [Mayenne] was showing them his works, a ball from an arquebus, which had first pierced M. de Schomberg’s hat, struck him in the eye and killed him.” Mayenne had possessed amiable qualities, and had enjoyed in Paris a popularity which recalled that of the great Guises. The news of his death caused a riot in the capital, where an infuriated mob fell upon the Huguenots one day when they were returning from their temple at Charenton. The Huguenots were armed, and several persons were killed on both sides, while the temple was burned.