“_Monsieur_[15] having refused to suffer _Monsieur le Comte_[16] to ride with him, _Monsieur le Comte_ did the same to M. de Guise, who withdrew. It happened also that the Provost of the Merchants[17] claimed the right to march immediately before the King, on the ground that it was not an entry, but a joyous arrival, for which the marshals of France felt such contempt that they declined even to contest the point, and did not take part in the procession.” A few days after the King’s return to Paris, Schomberg was deprived of the post of _Surintendant_ of Finance and banished the Court. Since the Treaty of Montpellier Puisieux had been busily intriguing against him, in company with La Vieuville, a sworn enemy of Schomberg, and had accused him of gross mismanagement of the finances, if not worse. That he had mismanaged them was true enough, though how any other result could have been expected, when he was required to combine the duties of _Surintendant_ with those of Grand Master of the Artillery on active service, it is difficult to see. However, his hands appear to have been perfectly clean, otherwise Richelieu would scarcely have recalled him to office so soon as he came into power, and, though he had committed a grave error in attaching himself to Condé and the war party, he was a more honest, as well as an abler, man than those who had brought about his fall. Bassompierre, who had taken no part in this intrigue, and had, indeed, endeavoured to protect Schomberg, now proposed to the King to reappoint Sully to the office which he had filled so ably under Henri IV, a suggestion which did him much honour, since he and the old statesman had never been on friendly terms. But Puisieux and his father, the Chancellor Brulart de Sillery, objected, on the score of Sully’s religion, and La Vieuville was made _Surintendant_. La Vieuville was a man of some ability, but he was rash, corrupt and an unscrupulous intriguer; and no sooner was he admitted to the King’s Council than he began to conspire, first, to get rid of the Chancellor and Puisieux, his benefactors, then, of all those whom the King admitted to his intimacy, and particularly of Bassompierre, of whom he appears to have conceived the bitterest jealousy.