Accordingly, about the middle of August, 1603, having obtained leave of absence from the King, he left Paris, and travelled by way of Nancy and Strasbourg to Ulm, where his attendants, whom he had sent on in advance, had procured two large boats for his passage down the Danube. In these he and his suite, which appears to have been quite an imposing one, as befitted a gentleman of such ancient lineage and one of the favourites of the King of France, embarked and proceeded to Neuburg, where he was very hospitably entertained by Duke William II, who, a few years before, had abdicated his throne in favour of his son, now Maximilian I. Continuing his journey, with stoppages at Ingoldstadt, Ratisbon, and Linz, at the beginning of the second week in September he arrived in Vienna, where he found the Prince de Joinville, who had been temporarily banished from France,[40] Frederick, Count von Salm, and several other gentlemen of his acquaintance, both French and German, most of whom were, like himself, on their way to win honour and glory, or peradventure to find a soldier’s grave, on the plains of Hungary. Some of these modern Crusaders came to dine with Bassompierre on the day following his arrival in Vienna, and from them he learned a most unwelcome piece of intelligence, namely, that the commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces in Hungary under whom he was about to take service was none other than General von Rossworm, a mortal enemy of the Bassompierre family. It appears that some fifteen years before, in the time of the League, Rossworm had served in France under Bassompierre’s father, by whom he had been placed in charge of the town of Blancmesnil. Rossworm had taken advantage of his position to abduct a young lady of noble birth who had taken refuge at Blancmesnil with her mother, and whom he promised to marry, but subsequently discarded, after subjecting the poor girl to the most abominable treatment. On ascertaining the facts of the case, Christophe de Bassompierre, burning with righteous indignation, vowed that the German should pay for his villainy with his head; but the latter, warned in time, fled from Blancmesnil and for some little while succeeded in evading pursuit. Eventually, however, he was run to earth at Amiens, and would undoubtedly have been executed, had not the Sieur de Vitry, who commanded the light cavalry of the League, and who happened to be under some personal obligation to Rossworm, found means to enable him to escape. Rossworm subsequently returned to Germany and entered the Imperial service, and being, though a pretty bad scoundrel, even for a German soldier of fortune of those times, a very brave man and a most capable officer, rose step by step, until at length he was appointed to the command of the Imperial army in Hungary.[41] He had cherished the most implacable resentment against Christophe de Bassompierre, and while the two young Bassompierres were studying at