have done; and afterwards, perceiving that some of those who accompanied him had drawn aside, he said to them: ‘What! Are you afraid that they will fire again? They will have to reload.’ I have witnessed many and various actions of the King in several perilous situations, and I can affirm, without flattery or adulation, that I have never seen a man, not to say a king, who was more courageous than he was. The late King, his father, though, as everyone knows, celebrated for his valour, did not display a like intrepidity.” It is not the degree, but the kind of courage, which is remarkable at his age. Bassompierre, however, relates an instance of equal coolness in a boy, who had not the same strong motive to self-possession as was furnished by the consciousness of being the object of the whole army’s attention: “The enemy had constructed a barricade in their fosse, on the side of the sea, and a palisade, which hindered us from being entirely masters of their fosse. I sent my volunteer, a young lad of sixteen, to reconnoitre it. This lad had, the previous year, executed with other camp-boys the most hazardous works at the siege of Montauban, which the soldiers refused to undertake. He had received several wounds, amongst others a musket-ball through the body, of which I got him cured. This young rogue undertook a number of dangerous works by the piece, and the camp-boys worked under him and made a great deal of money. He went to reconnoitre this barricade with the same bearing and as much boldness as the best sergeant in the army; and after getting a musket-ball through his breeches and another through the brim of his hat, returned to us and made his report, which was very judicious.” Royan capitulated on May 11, and shortly afterwards La Force surrendered the town of Sainte-Foy and returned to his allegiance, in return for the bâton of Marshal of France. Louis XIII, who had been given to understand that both Bassompierre and Schomberg were deeply mortified that a rebel should have been created a marshal before either of them, sent for the former and said to him: “Bassompierre, I know that you are angry that I am making M. de La Force Marshal of France, and that you and M. de Schomberg complain of it, and with reason; but it is not I who am the cause of it, so much as _Monsieur le Prince_, who counselled me to do it, for the good of my affairs, and in order to leave nothing behind me in Guienne which might prevent me passing promptly into Languedoc. Nevertheless, be sure that what you desire I shall do for you, whom I love and hold as my good and faithful servant.”