One morning in January, 1628, the marshal received a visit from the Marquis de Grimault, who informed him that he had been sent by the King, who had gone to spend a few days at a château near Nantes, to express to him his Majesty’s displeasure to learn that he had been so negligent as to allow a large herd of cattle to be driven through his lines into the town. In great astonishment, Bassompierre inquired who had accused him of this, and was told that it was the Duc d’Angoulême, from whom the King had received a letter that morning. The marshal at once despatched one of his officers, named Lisle-Rouet, who was a noted huntsman and could be trusted to identify the track of any animal, to investigate the affair; but Lisle-Rouet could find no sign of a herd of cattle having passed through their lines. He then proceeded to examine the country on the other side of La Rochelle, where the main part of the Royal army under Angoulême and Schomberg lay, and, by good fortune, came upon the track of the cattle near the village of Périgny, to the south-east of the town. He returned and reported his discovery to Bassompierre, who at once despatched him to the King, to whom, says the marshal, “he expressed just resentment that I had been blamed for the faults of others, and that without having heard me or had the matter confirmed, the King should have not only judged but condemned me on the mere statement of my enemy”; and he offered to prove, if his Majesty would send someone who was a huntsman with him, that the cattle had entered the town through Angoulême’s and Schomberg’s lines. Louis thereupon sent for the two commanders, before whom Lisle-Rouet repeated what he had told the King. They, of course, declared that the thing was impossible, upon which his Majesty suggested that they had better go and examine the ground over which the cattle were said to have passed themselves, and sent with them one of his gentlemen named Croysilles, who, like Lisle-Rouet, was an experienced huntsman. Croysilles confirmed the opinion of the other, and Angoulême and Schomberg were reluctantly obliged to acknowledge that it was with themselves, and not with Bassompierre, that the blame for a particularly gross piece of negligence lay. It seems probable, however, that the admission of the cattle into La Rochelle was due to something worse than negligence, at least so far as Angoulême was concerned. Anyway, he was most severely reprimanded both by the King and the Cardinal, the latter being furiously indignant that the success of operations involving so much labour and such enormous expense should be compromised in this fashion. As for Bassompierre, the King, “satisfied him by many words of his esteem and affection for his person”; but it must, nevertheless, have been very galling to the marshal to find how ready his Majesty was to credit the most unfounded accusations against even his most intimate friends.