Much relieved at having extricated himself from a very awkward situation--for had the duke insisted on accompanying him back to France, Bassompierre would undoubtedly have got into serious trouble--the marshal returned to Dover, to find that his suite, acting presumably on his instructions, had taken advantage of a change in the weather and sailed for Calais. Although it was not until several days later that the Ambassador himself was able to cross the Channel, it would have been infinitely cheaper for him had his attendants elected to remain at Dover, notwithstanding the heavy expense which their maintenance there entailed: “They encountered such ill-fortune,” says he, “that they were unable to reach Calais for five days, and were obliged to cast into the sea my two fine coaches, in which by mischance there were clothes to the value of more than 40,000 francs which I had purchased in England for presents. I lost, further, twenty-nine horses, who died of thirst during those five days, because no fresh water had been laid in for this passage, which in fine weather does not occupy more than three hours.” On the morning of the 18th, although the sea was still very rough, Bassompierre embarked once more and about noon arrived safely on the French shore, after no worse misadventure than a violent attack of sea-sickness, which prostrated him to such a degree that he was unable to continue his journey until the following day. Seldom can anyone have had more cause to anathematise the Channel passage than the luckless Bassompierre. The maintenance of himself and his suite at Dover had alone cost him, he tells us, 4,000 crowns; he had lost 40,000 francs worth of clothes, two fine coaches, which must have been worth a large sum, and nearly thirty horses, including probably most of those presented to him by Carlisle and other English nobles, all of which were, of course, valuable animals. In short, in the fortnight which had elapsed between his arrival at Dover and his landing at Calais, he must have lost at the very lowest computation the equivalent of half-a-million francs in money of to-day. On the 20th he reached Amiens, whose governor, the Duc de Chaulnes, ordered the guns of the citadel to fire a salute in his honour, and entertained him magnificently; and two days later he arrived in Paris. Here, as he had, of course, foreseen, he found that “the coming of the Duke of Bocquinguem was not agreeable,” and Louis XIII ordered him to write to the duke to that effect. Since certain writers appear inclined to question the ability shown by Bassompierre in his mission to England, it may be as well to cite here the opinion of so high an authority on the period as Gardiner:--