Bassompierre had received orders to enter the town with the Guards the moment the garrison evacuated it. On his way thither, he saw great numbers of disbanded soldiers of different regiments, _landsknechts_ and Swiss as well as French, lingering about, and felt sure that their presence boded no good, and that they were meditating an attack upon the baggage. He accordingly decided not to allow the garrison to leave until he had ridden back to the Royal camp to warn Praslin, whom he advised to take measures to prevent any such attempt. But the marshal replied that “he was not a child, and that he understood his business, and that if he [Bassompierre] would only give the necessary orders within the town, he would do the same without.” Bassompierre returned to the town and directed the garrison to march out with their baggage, after which he entered with his troops, and gave orders that the gates should be closed and the breach which the besiegers’ cannon had made strongly guarded, as he thought it not improbable that an attempt might be made to enter and pillage the place. “There was some degree of order in the departure of the enemy,” he says, “until the baggage came in sight; but, when that appeared, all the disbanded soldiers of our army rushed upon it, before it was possible for the marshal or Portes or Marillac to prevent them, and plundered these poor soldiers, 400 of whom they inhumanly butchered.” Bassompierre, however, had the satisfaction of executing rigorous justice upon some of these ruffians:-- “Eight soldiers, of different countries and regiments, presented themselves at the gates of Lunel, with more than twenty prisoners, whom they brought tied together, with the intention of entering the town. Their swords were stained with the blood of those whom they had massacred, and they were so laden with booty that they could hardly walk. Finding the gate of Lunel shut, they called to the sentries to go and tell me to give orders for them to be let in. I went to the gate in consequence of what I heard, which I found to be true. I let them in and then ordered these eight fine fellows to be bound with the same cords with which they had bound the twenty prisoners. After giving these men the booty of the eight soldiers, whom, without any form of trial, I caused to be hanged before their eyes on a tree near the bridge of Lunel, I had them escorted by my carabiniers so far as the road to Cauvisson. On the morrow, _Monsieur le Prince_ was very pleased with what I had done and thanked me.” Two or three days after the Royal troops had taken possession of Lunel, the town narrowly escaped being destroyed, with everyone within its walls.