“We did not find the Queen in London,” writes Bassompierre. “She was making a progress, and was at a country-house called Basin,[35] forty leagues distant, which belonged to the Marquis of Vincester.[36] The Queen notified her intention of receiving us at another country-house, called The Vine, a league from Basin, whither M. de Biron was conducted. He was very honourably received by the Queen, who went a-hunting next day with fifty ladies on hackneys and sent for M. de Biron to join the hunt. On the morrow, he took leave of the Queen and returned to London, where, after remaining three days, he repassed the sea.” The first news which greeted Bassompierre and the marshal on their arrival at Boulogne, near which contrary winds had obliged them to land, was the birth of the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XIII), which had taken place on September 27, 1601.[37] Bassompierre was present at Fontainebleau that evening in the following June, when Biron, after refusing Henri IV’s magnanimous offer of pardon on condition that he would confess the truth concerning his treasonable dealings with the Duke of Savoy, was arrested by the Marquis de Vitry, Captain of the Château of Fontainebleau, as he was passing from the King’s cabinet into the Chambre de Saint-Louis, and requested to give up his sword. “I was in the Chamber,” he writes, “having withdrawn to the window with M. de Montbazon and La Guesle.[38] We approached the marshal, who asked M. de Montbazon to go and beg the King that he might be allowed to retain his sword, adding: ‘What treatment, Messieurs, for a man who has served as I have!’ M. de Montbazon went to the King and returned to say that the King desired him to give up his sword, upon which he permitted them to take it away.” Biron was conducted to the Bastille, where his captivity was shared by the Comte d’Auvergne, who had been arrested at the same time.[39] Later that evening, Henri IV sent for Bassompierre and other nobles, and placed before them the letters which La Fin, the instigator of the conspiracy, who had subsequently turned informer, had given him. They were all written in Biron’s own hand. The marshal was arraigned for high treason before the Parlement of Paris, the peers of the realm being summoned to take their places amongst the judges, as was the custom when one of their number was on his trial. The evidence of the accused’s guilt was overwhelming, and he was unanimously sentenced to death. On July 31, 1602, he was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bastille, it having been decided to spare him the ignominy of a public execution in the Place de Grève. The pusillanimous Comte d’Auvergne was pardoned and set at liberty in the following October, thanks to the intercession of his half-sister, Madame de Verneuil. CHAPTER IV