During the closing weeks of the siege of Montauban, whenever the King had an opportunity of speaking to Bassompierre privately, he “complained incessantly of the Constable.” The love--it was of a very innocent kind--which Louis had hitherto entertained for Luynes’s beautiful wife, Marie de Rohan, no longer protected her husband. This love had, in fact, changed into hatred, since his Majesty had perceived that the lady was accepting other attentions, without doubt less platonic than his. And he took a particularly mean way of avenging himself. “What made me think worse of him [the King],” writes Bassompierre, “was that all of a sudden the extreme passion that he entertained for _Madame la Connétable_ was converted into such hatred, that he warned her husband that the Duc de Chevreuse was in love with her. He told me that he had said this, upon which I said to him that he had done very ill, and that to make mischief between a husband and wife was to commit sin. ‘God will pardon me for it, if it pleases Him,’ he answered; ‘but I have felt great pleasure in avenging myself on her and of inflicting this mortification upon him.’ And he went on to say several things against him, and, amongst others, that before six months had passed, he would make him disgorge all that he had taken from him.” A few days after the siege of Montauban had been raised, the King’s other two confidants, the Jesuit Père Arnoux and Puisieux, the former of whom suspected Luynes of desiring to make peace with the Protestants on their own terms, joined forces to procure the downfall of the favourite. But they had underrated the power which habit and the fear of change exercised over the cold heart and indolent mind of Louis XIII. He betrayed them to Luynes, or, perhaps, the pusillanimous Puisieux may have betrayed his fellow-conspirator. Anyway, Luynes learned of the intrigue and insisted on the Jesuit’s disgrace; and “the first news that I had from him [the King],” says Bassompierre, “was that he had been constrained to abandon Père Arnoux to the hatred of the Constable.” The King added that Bassompierre “might be assured that there was nothing against him.” Nevertheless, says that gentleman, “I did not fail to be in great apprehension, although I could say that every time that the King had spoken to me on the subject I had warded off his blows, and that I had been infinitely distressed that he had ever made me the recipient of his confidence.” However, Bassompierre need not have been alarmed, as it was very soon to be beyond the power of Luynes to injure anyone. * * * * * On November 16 Bassompierre and his army encamped before Monheurt, and on the 18th the trenches were opened. A day or two later he had an exceedingly narrow escape of his life.