At Grenoble the King remained for some three weeks to negotiate with the Duke of Savoy. Charles Emmanuel was unable to believe that Louis really intended to cross the Alps while the Huguenots of the South were still unsubdued, and, esteeming himself the arbiter between France and Spain, he refused to abandon the Spaniards, unless the King would undertake to assist him to conquer the Milanese or Genoa or sacrifice to him Geneva. The King and the Cardinal thereupon resolved to descend into Piedmont by way of Mont-Genèvre and Susa. The Duc de Guise, Governor of Provence, was directed to create a diversion by way of Nice and Liguria, an operation which he executed very slowly and inefficiently. At Grenoble, however, the utmost activity prevailed, and though, when Richelieu arrived there, the army was deficient in artillery, munitions, transport and, in short, nearly everything required for a campaign, thanks to his unwearying exertions, in a surprisingly short time it was ready to take the field, and on February 22 the advance began. On March 1 the army passed Mont-Genèvre, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, and on the 3rd the advance-guard, some 10,000 to 12,000 strong, under Bassompierre and Créquy, encamped at Chaumont, the last village on the French side of the frontier, at the entrance to the Pass of Susa. Two or three days were occupied in _pourparlers_ between Richelieu, who had left the King at Oulx, and the Prince of Piedmont, who had hurried to Susa on receiving the news that the French had crossed the mountains. The Cardinal, however, recognised that the prince and his father sought only to gain time to enable them to fortify the Pass of Susa and to allow of the arrival of the Piedmontese and Spanish troops whom they had summoned in all haste. The negotiations were accordingly broken off, and at two o’clock in the morning of the 6th the King arrived from Oulx, accompanied by Longueville, Soissons, the Comte de Moret, Henri IV’s son by Jacqueline de Beuil, and Schomberg, and the army crossed the frontier and advanced towards the head of the pass.