The trenches were opened without any further disasters, but very little progress was made, for the enemy stubbornly disputed every yard of ground. The Italian engineer Gamorini was killed on the 11th, and his death was a severe loss to the besiegers. The same night the defenders made a fierce sortie, which was not repulsed until the work of several days had been destroyed. During the fighting a captain of the Navarre Regiment named Des Champs was surrounded by the enemy and would have been killed, had he not cried out: “I am Bassompierre; I am worth 20,000 crowns to you!” Upon which they spared his life and made him prisoner, thinking that they had secured a valuable prize. In the night of the 13th-14th, the besiegers attacked the advanced-works on the north side of the town in three places simultaneously, and carried them. This placed them in a favourable position for bringing their cannon to bear upon the main fortifications; but, on the advice of a young engineer named La Magne Chavannes, and notwithstanding the opposition of Bassompierre and other officers, Condé insisted that they should first concentrate their efforts against a ravelin situated between the two bastions. The task of approaching this work proved a most difficult one, as they were exposed to a heavy flanking fire from the town which repeatedly levelled their traverses, and to bombing-attacks, which did considerable execution; while one night the trenches were completely flooded by a violent storm. Meantime, the generals were devoting what time they could spare from their military duties to political intrigue. The Cardinal de Retz had died at the end of August, and the Keeper of the Seals, De Vic, in the first days of September, and their deaths had greatly weakened Condé’s party. He and Schomberg succeeded in replacing the former in the Council by their friend the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, and thus contrived to exclude Richelieu, though they could not prevent him being recommended for the vacant cardinal’s hat, which was immediately solicited for him by the Queen-Mother. Condé then pressed the King to confer the post of Keeper of the Seals upon d’Aligre, a Counsellor of State who was devoted to his interests, and would appear to have extracted a promise from his Majesty that he should be appointed. At any rate, when retiring to rest on the night of September 21, the King had told the courtiers who were present that it was his intention to make d’Aligre Keeper of the Seals, and they had informed Condé.