Bassompierre was certainly a person of extraordinary energy, for after this strenuous day he volunteered to take command of the force which was detached each evening to watch for the approach of the enemy’s reinforcements from Saint-Antonin, in place of Praslin, who was suffering from the effects of a slight wound, and spent the whole night in the saddle. “Next morning,” he says, “as I was returning with my thousand men to camp, the King sent for me to come to him at Picqueos. I did not alight from my horse, and, in the dirty and disordered condition in which I was, after having been on the watch all night, and with the clotted blood from the wound on my head spread all over my face and round my eyes, I was unrecognisable. On my arrival, the King and the Constable told me that M. de Luxembourg,[175] who had command of 600 horse who went out every night to watch for the arrival of the reinforcements, had fallen ill, and that I must take charge of them, until the reinforcements had either made their way into the town or had been defeated. This I accepted willingly. While I was talking to them, the Queen arrived from Moissac.[176] The King sent the Constable to receive her and remained talking to me. As she entered, she asked who was that frightful man talking to the King. He told her that it was a nobleman of that part of the country called the Comte de Curton. ‘Jesus!’ she exclaimed, ‘how ugly he is!’ The Constable said to the King as he approached the Queen: ‘Sire, present M. de Bassompierre to the Queen, and tell her that he is the Comte de Curton.’ And this the King did. I kissed the hem of her gown, after which the Constable presented me to the Princesse de Conti, Mlle. de Vendôme, Madame de Montmorency and Madame la Connétable, his wife. I saluted them and heard them say: ‘This is a strange-looking man, and very dirty; he does well to stay in the country.’ Then I began to laugh, and, from my laugh and my teeth, they knew me, and had great pity upon me, and still more after dinner, when, on an alarm being raised that the enemy’s reinforcements were coming, we went out to fight.” The alarm proved to be a false one; but in the night of September 26-27, just as Bassompierre was looking forward to the enjoyment of the first night’s rest he had had for more than a week, his equerry Le Manny came in with the news that the reinforcements from Saint-Antonin were approaching. There could be no doubt about the matter this time; the officer who had arrived with the news had seen them marching through the forest.