Boutteville and Des Chapelles--the latter was also a Montmorency, on his mother’s side--were conducted to the Bastille and brought to trial before the Parlement. The Procurator-General was instructed to demand the extreme penalty, and they were both condemned to death. What was more, the sentence was duly carried out, for, notwithstanding the entreaties and remonstrances of all the great nobles in France, the King, thanks to Richelieu’s efforts, was inexorable, and on June 22, 1627, they were beheaded in the Place de Grève.[106] This most necessary example had, for a time, a very salutary effect, for, however reckless men might be, few cared to face the executioner’s axe. But after Richelieu’s death the practice was renewed, and, though it never attained to anything like the proportions it had reached in the early part of the seventeenth century, duels were still both numerous and sanguinary, as will be gathered from the fact that during the eight years of Anne of Austria’s regency more than a thousand gentlemen lost their lives in them. On May 29 _Madame_ gave birth to a daughter--the celebrated Mlle. de Montpensier--“contrary to the expectation and the desire of their Majesties and of _Monsieur_ her husband, who would have preferred a son.” The poor lady only survived the birth of her little daughter a few days, and her death cast a gloom over the Court, and from a political point of view was most unfortunate, since it afforded Richelieu’s many enemies an opportunity for fresh intrigues. About the same time, news arrived of the formidable armament which Buckingham was assembling at Portsmouth, and the French Government did not doubt that the duke was meditating a descent upon the western coast of France, and that his arrival there would be the signal for the Rochellois and probably the bulk of the Huguenots to take up arms. No time, therefore, was lost in assembling an army in Poitou, and Louis XIII gave the command to _Monsieur_, and appointed Bassompierre and Schomberg as his lieutenant-generals. The King decided also to go to the West himself, and on June 28--the day after Buckingham’s expedition sailed from Portsmouth--he left Paris.