The King and the Constable had recourse to a singular expedient to avenge Mayenne and take the town. The famous Spanish Carmelite monk Domingo de Jesu Maria, who had marched at the head of the Imperial army on the day of the Battle of Prague, and to whom the devout attributed the victory, was passing through France on his way from Germany. Luynes sent for him to come to the camp, and asked him what he ought to do to reduce this heretic stronghold, upon which the monk assured him that if he caused four hundred cannon-shots to be fired into the town, the terrified inhabitants would undoubtedly surrender. The King thereupon sent for Bassompierre and ordered him to fire the four hundred shots, which were to deliver Montauban into his hands. “This I did,” says Bassompierre; “but the enemy did not surrender for all that.” Matters continued to go badly with the besiegers, which is scarcely surprising, having regard to the gross ineptitude of the amateur warriors who commanded them. At Ville-Nouvelle, where alone any real progress had been made, a mine had been prepared which was intended to demolish the inner face of the advanced-work of which the Guards had carried the outer. On the day before it was to be fired, Ramsay, the officer in charge of the mine, came to the Maréchal de Chaulnes to inquire how he wished it to be charged. Chaulnes, who was entirely ignorant of such matters, turned to the officers about him for information; but he misunderstood what they said and ordered the charge to be made four times as large as that which they had suggested. The astonished engineer remonstrated, but was curtly told to carry out his orders. On the following day, however, Chaulnes appears to have discovered his mistake, and told Bassompierre to go and have the mine charged as he judged best. It was too late; for, just as he reached the entrance to the gallery, Ramsay came rushing out and shouted to him to run for his life, as he had ignited the fuse and feared that the explosion would be terrible. “I needed no second bidding,” writes Bassompierre, “and ran back forty paces as fast as I could to get away. The mine exploded with a greater violence than I have ever seen, and all the entrenchment under which it was laid was carried into the air. It was a long time in descending, when it came pouring down into the trench upon us.”