Bassompierre did not confine his literary activity to his _Mémoires_; he wrote also the history of his embassies to Spain, Switzerland, and England, which was first published in 1668. In 1802 an octavo volume, bearing the title of _Nouveaux Mémoires du Maréchal de Bassompierre, recueillis par le président Hénault et imprimés sur le manuscrit de cet académicien_, appeared; but the best authorities on the period are agreed in regarding this work as apocryphal. * * * * * The years passed, and Bassompierre still remained in the Bastille. So far from uttering complaints, he sought rather, by his words and acts, to disarm the enmity of the all-powerful Minister. He protested vigorously whenever he learned that the malcontents or the enemies of Richelieu claimed him as one of their number; he lent his house at Chaillot to the Cardinal every time that he asked for it; and, what does him more honour, when in 1636 France was invaded, he offered to serve as a simple volunteer. All was useless. The most distinguished personages solicited his liberty; the poets interested themselves in his fate and attested by their verses a courageous gratitude for the favours which the marshal had bestowed upon them in the days of his prosperity. Richelieu remained deaf to all appeals. “A rumour ran,” writes Bassompierre in 1638, “that the King had said to the Cardinal that he had it on his conscience to keep me so long a prisoner, and that, as there was nothing to allege against me, he could not detain me any longer. To which the Cardinal replied that, since the time of my being imprisoned, so many things had passed through his mind, that he could not now recollect the causes which had led the King to imprison me or him to advise it; but that he had them among his papers, and would look for them and show them to the King. I know not if this be true, but the rumour was current in Paris.” It is little wonder that, if the question of his liberty, after more than eight years of detention, was treated in this fashion, the hapless victim of the vindictive Minister and the cold-hearted King was sometimes plunged into the depths of despair. “I know not,” he writes, “whether those who conduct the King’s affairs hate me or wish to overwhelm me with affliction that they have detained me so long in the Bastille, where I can do nothing but pray to God that He will put an end to my long sufferings by my liberty or my death. What can I write concerning my life, since I pass it always in the same manner, save that from time to time some fatal accident happens to me?--For good fortune deserted me from the time I was deprived of my freedom.” In this state of depression we can well understand the bitter grief which the death of a little dog, which was his constant companion, appears to have occasioned him:--