Bassompierre did not long enjoy this return of favour. On October 12, 1646, his servants found him dead in his bed at Provins, where he had stopped for the night, while returning to Paris from a visit to the elder Bouthillier’s country-house. He had evidently passed away peacefully in his sleep, “as he was found in his customary position, one hand under the pillow at the place where his head rested, and his knees a little raised.”[151] His body was brought in a coach to Chaillot; the intestines, the tongue, and the brain were buried in the parish church before the high altar; the heart and the rest of the body were delivered by the curé to the Minims of Migeon, whose convent was close to the château, and deposited in a chapel to the left of the high altar, in the choir of their church. The Duc de Chevreuse and “other nobles and ladies of high quality, with a great number of bourgeois and inhabitants of Chaliot (_sic_),” assisted at the funeral ceremony. The Maréchal de Bassompierre left two sons; one by Marie d’Entragues, the other by the Princesse de Conti. The first, who was called Louis de Bassompierre, took Holy Orders, and, after being provided, doubtless through his father’s influence, with two rich abbeys, was consecrated Bishop of Oloron, a see which he subsequently exchanged for the more important one of Saintes. He was, in later years, appointed almoner to _Monsieur_, brother of Louis XIV; but this post he resigned, in order that he might reside continuously in his diocese, in which respect he set an example which other bishops would have done well to follow. The Bishop of Saintes was a pious and worthy man, beloved by the poor and esteemed by everyone. During the troubles of the Fronde he laboured to maintain in their allegiance to the Crown, or to bring back to their duty, the population of Saintes, Brouage and the surrounding country, and it was he who negotiated the accommodation of the Comte, afterwards the Maréchal, du Daugnon with the Court. He died in Paris, whither he had come on business connected with his diocese, on July 1, 1676. “_Hélas!_” writes Madame de Sévigné, “_à propos_ of sleeping, poor M. de Saintes has fallen asleep this night in the Lord in an eternal sleep. He had been ill for twenty-five days, bled thirteen times, and yesterday morning he was without fever. He talked for an hour with the Abbé Têtu (these kind of improvements are nearly always deceptive), and on a sudden he fell back in agony, and, in short, we have lost him. As he was extremely lovable, he is extremely regretted.” “The worthy prelate,” says the _Gazette de France_, “has left his friends sensibly afflicted, the poor of his diocese in the extremity of grief, and all those who knew him edified by the exemplary actions of his life, and his Christian resignation at death.” By a will, made the year before his death, he left all his property to the poor and the churches of his diocese.