The King gave the Seals to d’Aligre, who, it will be remembered, would have received them in the autumn of 1622 but for Bassompierre’s intervention. In consequence, the marshal was somewhat apprehensive that he might cherish a grudge against him, and went to offer him his congratulations with considerable misgivings as to how they would be received. To his surprise, however, d’Aligre greeted him with marked cordiality. “At this,” he says, “the others who had come to felicitate him were dumfounded, but I said to them aloud: ‘Do not be astonished, gentlemen, at the cordiality with which the new Keeper of the Seals has received me; for I am the cause of the King having given them to him to-day.’ ‘I was not aware, Monsieur,’ said he, ‘that I was under this obligation to you; I beg you to tell me why.’ ‘Monsieur,’ I answered, ‘but for me, you would not have had them to-day, but a year ago.’ Whereat he began to laugh and told me that it was true, but that I had done my duty; for, since I had not been solicited by him, with whom I was hardly acquainted, I was obliged to use my influence on behalf of my friend M. de Caumartin. Then he told me that he begged me to love him, and that he would swear before these gentlemen to be faithfully my servant and friend, as he had assuredly shown himself to be on every occasion that has arisen.” But if Bassompierre had nothing to fear from the good-natured d’Aligre, he had everything to apprehend from the jealous and unscrupulous La Vieuville. “By this means [the disgrace of the Brûlarts] La Vieuville was in supreme favour, and from that time worked openly for my ruin, since he had not been able to compel me to abandon my friends and to bind myself to him in a close alliance, as he had begged me earnestly to do before Christmas.” However, the marshal did not allow any fear of approaching ruin to interfere with his enjoyment of the Fair of Saint-Germain and the other gaieties of that winter, during which the negotiations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I.) with the Infanta Maria Anna, sister of Philip IV, having been definitely broken off, the Earl of Holland arrived in Paris to sound the French Court on the question of an alliance between the prince and Henriette-Marie. The King and Queen each organised a grand ballet. In his Majesty’s, which was entitled _les Voleurs_, Louis XIII represented a Dutch captain, M. de la Roche-Guyon a Dutch lady, and the Ducs de Chevreuse and de Luxembourg and the Maréchaux de Créquy and de Bassompierre impersonated pirates. Bassompierre had to recite the following verses:-- “Enfin malgré les flots me voici de retour, La mer se promettait de noyer mon amour, Dont la constance luy fait honte; Mais elle est bien loin de son compte: Caliste, vos appas ont rompu son dessein, Les flots où je me perds sont dedans vostre sein.”