On May 14, 1608, Charles III of Lorraine, who had been in bad health for some time past, died. Bassompierre went to Nancy to attend his funeral, and was away three weeks, during which, he tells us, he received the most gratifying testimony to the esteem in which he was held by the ladies of the Court of France:-- “It is impossible to describe how much care the ladies took to send me frequently news of themselves and to despatch couriers to me with letters and presents. The star of Venus was very much in the ascendant over me. I returned to Paris, and four ladies in a coach came beyond Pantin to meet me, making believe that they were merely taking a drive. They placed me in their coach and brought me to the Porte de Saint-Honoré, where I remounted my horse to enter Paris.” On his arrival in the capital, he learned that Marie d’Entragues had gone, with her mother and Madame de Verneuil, to Malesherbes, to marry a certain Comte d’Aché, of Auvergne; but, as may be supposed, his other lady-loves made every effort to console him for his loss, which, in point of fact, proved to be only a temporary one, since the parties were unable to agree about the marriage-articles, and the affair was broken off. In after years Bassompierre had good reason to regret that the projected marriage had not taken place, in which event he would have been spared great trouble and expense. The King, learning that he had returned, wrote telling him to come at once to Fontainebleau, where the Court was then in residence, and informing him that, although he had until then been the greatest gambler in his circle of friends, since his absence in Lorraine a Portuguese gentleman named Pimentel had appeared upon the scene, who played much higher than even he did. He must lose no time in redeeming his lost reputation. Bassompierre hastened to obey, and plunged once more into this ruinous amusement--ruinous, that is to say, to others, for, as we know, he was well able to take care of himself--with all the zest begotten of a three weeks’ abstinence from the card-table. For, though he had probably gambled at Nancy, the stakes in vogue there must have seemed a mere bagatelle compared with those for which Henri IV and his intimates played.