At the conclusion of the betrothal ceremony, the King, addressing _Monsieur_ before Bassompierre, said: “Brother, I tell you before the Maréchal de Bassompierre, who loves you well, and who is my good and faithful servant, that I have never in my life accomplished anything which has pleased me so much as your marriage.” _Monsieur_ then invited Bassompierre to walk with him in the garden which is on the bastion [of Nantes] and said to him: “Betstein,[46] you will see me now without fear, since I stand well with the King.” He then proposed to Bassompierre that he should enter his service as _Surintendant_ of his Household and chief of his council, as Ornano had been, and begged him to speak to the King and obtain his consent. The marshal, however, begged to be excused, foreseeing that such a position, though very honourable and lucrative, was likely to prove extremely embarrassing. “I answered,” says he, “that if the King were to offer me 100,000 crowns a year to enter his service, I should decline, not because I should not deem it a great honour and that I have not an ardent desire to serve you, but because it would be necessary for me to deceive one or the other of you, and I am not skilful in that.” Mlle. de Montpensier brought her husband a revenue of 350,000 livres and immense estates, amongst which was the sovereign principality of Dombes, and Louis XIII, on the advice of Richelieu, gave _Monsieur_, as the price of his honour and the lives of his friends, a rich appanage. He exchanged the duchy of Anjou for those of Orléans and Chartres and the county of Blois, with a revenue of 100,000 livres and pensions amounting to more than six times that sum.[47] Little wonder, then, that he should have received the news of the unfortunate Chalais’s death with equanimity![48]