Bassompierre reluctantly consented, and Créquy accordingly proceeded to Cœuvres’s house. The marquis, at first, flatly refused to give up the letter, declaring that Fortune had brought it to him to enable him to avenge himself on Bassompierre for the ill that he had done him. Créquy pointed out that, if he were so imprudent as to do this, Bassompierre would certainly call him out, in which case one of them would probably be killed, while the victor would be sure to incur the severe displeasure of the King. Cœuvres thereupon began to waver, and finally told him to come back early on the following morning, when he would let him know his decision. When Créquy returned, the marquis, who, Bassompierre believes, had, in the meantime, sent La Varenne with the letter to the King and received it back again, told him that he would himself take the letter to Mlle. d’Entragues, if this would satisfy the lady’s admirer. “To this I agreed,” writes Bassompierre, “resolved, nevertheless, to fight with this trickster, though I was anxious first to get Antragues out of the affair.” The marquis took the letter to the lady, and, shortly afterwards, Bassompierre received a message from his mistress, informing him that it was her good pleasure that he should be reconciled to Cœuvres, for which purpose he was to come to her house that afternoon at five o’clock, where he would find the marquis waiting to embrace him. Much against his will, he obeyed, and a formal reconciliation took place between the two gentlemen, who then separated, secretly hating one another more bitterly than ever. In the evening, as Bassompierre was leaving his lodging to go to the Louvre, the Grand Equerry, the Duc de Bellegarde, arrived and told him that the King, having learned that he had quarrelled with the Marquis de Cœuvres, forbade him, on pain of death, to call the latter out. Bassompierre replied, laughing, that it would be easy to obey his Majesty, as he and the marquis were now the best of friends.