At Moissac, where Louis XIII arrived in the first week in June, Condé approached Bassompierre and invited him to meet him “in a kind of chapel which is in the cloister of the abbey,” as he desired to confer with him on a matter of great importance. Thither Bassompierre repaired and found the prince in the company of his allies, Retz and Schomberg. All three forthwith began to inveigh against Puisieux, whose presumption, they declared, they were no longer able to endure. Although only a Secretary of State, he was admitted to greater intimacy with the King than _Monsieur le Prince_ himself, sought to prejudice his Majesty against those with whom he was not on good terms, conducted separate negotiations, which he declined to communicate to them, and prevented the execution of the decisions of the Council, if he had not previously approved of them. Since the death of the late Constable, they had, they said, endeavoured “to prevent the King from embarking in a new affection,” and they were of opinion that it would be better for his Majesty to have no favourite. “However, since they saw that his inclination was to be dominated by someone, they preferred that it should be by a brave man, of high birth and esteemed for his knowledge of the arts of peace as well as of those of war, rather than by a man of the pen like M. de Puisieux, who would turn everything upside down; and that they were all resolved to conspire to bring about his ruin, as they were to assist in the aggrandisement of my fortune, and to persuade the King, who was already favourably inclined towards me, to favour me entirely with the honour of his good graces, provided that I were willing to promise them two things: the one, to co-operate with them to ruin M. de Puisieux and to detach myself entirely from his friendship; the other, to associate myself entirely with them and combine our designs and counsels, in the first place, for the good of the King’s service, in the second, for our common interest and preservation. And they begged me to come to a prompt decision upon this matter and to acquaint them with it.” Bassompierre felt quite certain that the proposal which had just been made to him was nothing but a skilfully-baited trap, and that the intention of Condé and his friends was “to penetrate his design and then to reveal it to the King, and that they desired to make use of him to ruin M. de Puisieux, and afterwards with greater facility to ruin him.”