During the next few days some progress was made by the Guards at Ville-Nouvelle; but the other two divisions seemed able to do little or nothing; while the garrison, strengthened by the accession of several hundred first-class fighting men, harassed them incessantly. On October 4, Louis XIII summoned another council of war at Picqueos, to which Bassompierre went. On his arrival he was met by Père Arnoux, the King’s Jesuit confessor, who said to him: “Well, Monsieur, Montauban is going to be given, so they say, to him who offers the lowest price for it, as they give the public works in France. In how many days do you offer to take it?” Bassompierre replied that no one would be so presumptuous as to name a day by which a place like Montauban could be taken, and that the duration of the siege would depend on many circumstances. “We have bidders much more determined than you are,” rejoined the Jesuit. And he told him that the leaders of the Le Moustier division had pledged “their heads and their honour” to take Montauban in twelve days, provided that the Guards would hand over to them the greater part of their cannon; and that it was with the object of deliberating upon this proposal that the council had been summoned. He then advised Bassompierre, with whom he was on very friendly terms, that he and colleagues “would do a thing agreeable to the King and the Constable by not opposing it, unless they were prepared to pledge themselves to place Montauban in the King’s hands in an even shorter time.” Bassompierre thanked the Jesuit, and drawing Praslin and Chaulnes aside, told them of the proposal which the leaders of the Le Moustier division--Schomberg, Saint-Géran and Marillac--intended to make at the council, though he did not tell them of the source of his information, which he allowed them to think was the King himself. He then pointed out that these officers, who had been in anything but good odour with the King and the rest of the army since their refusal to attack the bastion of Le Moustier, hoped to rehabilitate their reputation for courage by offering to accomplish a task which they must very well know to be impossible, even with the assistance of the Guards’ cannon. They undoubtedly believed, however, that Praslin and Chaulnes would refuse to surrender their artillery, in which event they would gain credit with the King for having made the offer, and, at the same time, throw the responsibility for being unable to carry it out upon the officers of the Guards’ division, of whom they were bitterly jealous. And he begged the two marshals “in God’s name” not to fall into the trap prepared for them by refusing to give up their cannon. The latter agreed to do as he advised, and they went into the room where the council was assembling.