[56] It was customary for Ambassadors Extraordinary to be lodged and entertained at the expense of the sovereigns to whom they were accredited, and we have seen how splendidly Bassompierre was treated at Madrid. Why this practice was departed from on the present occasion was no doubt due to the ill-feeling existing between the two Courts and to the fact that his mission was an unwelcome one, and not to any motive of economy, for in 1610 the Ambassador sent to announce to James I the accession of Louis XIII had been lodged in Lambeth Palace and most lavishly entertained. [57] It is singular that Bassompierre omits to mention where he lived during his stay in London. It might be supposed that it was at the house of the permanent Ambassador, the Marquis de Blainville, were it not that he states elsewhere that it was in a _maison de louage_. There was in those days no French Embassy in London, that is to say, a house purchased by the French Government for the accommodation of its representative, and the Ambassadors made their own arrangements. We do not know where Blainville lived, but his predecessor, Bassompierre’s brother-in-law, the Comte de Tillières, rented for a time Hunsdon House, in the Blackfriars. It was during his tenancy of this house, in October, 1623, that a most terrible accident occurred. Some three hundred Catholics had assembled there one evening to hear Mass, when the floor of the room in which the service was being held gave way, with the result that a great number of them were killed or severely injured. The bodies of nearly fifty are said to have been afterwards buried in the garden. This disaster was called the Fatal Vespers. “The Protestants,” observes Croker, “considered it as a judgment of Heaven; the Roman Catholics as a treachery of the Protestants, both sides overlooking in the blindness of bigotry the weakness of an old floor and the weight of the inordinate number of persons crowding upon it.” [58] François de Rochechouart, Knight of Malta, known also under the name of the Commandeur de Jars, third son of François de Rochechouart, Seigneur de Jars, and Anne de Monceaux. He had been exiled from the Court of France at the time of the arrest of Ornano, and had come to England, where he had been well received. [59] Buckingham was much incensed against the Court of France, owing to its refusal to receive him as Ambassador Extraordinary in the autumn of the previous year, though what else he could have expected after his audacious attempt to make love to Anne of Austria is difficult to understand. He had also, it appears, a personal grievance against Richelieu upon a point which was then considered of great importance--the right to the title of _Monseigneur_. The Cardinal had addressed letters to _Monsieur_ le Duc de Buckingham, and the omission of the _Monseigneur_ had given mortal offence to Buckingham.