Next day the Diet waited upon Bassompierre and informed him that they had decided to follow the advice which he had given them, namely, to demand the restoration of the Valtellina to the Grisons and “to refuse to whomsoever declined to acquiesce in this aid succour or passage through their country.” The marshal thanked the deputies very heartily, and, after they had taken their departure, could not resist the temptation of paying a visit to the Nuncio, who, having already been informed of the resolution of the Diet, was in a very bad temper and “quarrelled with him two or three times.” On the 16th the marshal sent to demand audience of the Catholic deputies, as he desired to have an opportunity of refuting the statements which Scapi had made to them two days before, “for the honour and interest of the King his master.” The Catholic deputies did him “the peculiar and unusual honour” of coming to his house to hear what he had to say to them, when he addressed them at great length and wiped the floor, so to speak, with the unfortunate Nuncio. This speech seems to have had a very good effect, for in the evening the Diet sent a deputation to inform him that they were prepared to offer a levy of 15,000 men to the King of France. Two days later the Nuncio, thoroughly discomfited, took his departure “in great anger,” and Bassompierre celebrated his victory by giving a sumptuous banquet to all the deputies of the Diet, during which “the gentlemen of Soleure came to perform a war-dance before his house.” After the banquet, a deputation from the Diet interviewed him on the vexed question of the debts which the Very Christian King owed the Swiss, upon which their spokesman, the _avoyer_, or chief magistrate, of Berne, waxed very eloquent. However, as this gentleman and his colleagues were all pretty mellow, Bassompierre succeeded in satisfying them perhaps more easily than he would have otherwise done, and the day concluded most harmoniously with a ballet, a ball, and “a very splendid collation” at the house of the French Ambassador. On the 21st the Diet dispersed, in high good-humour, since Bassompierre had not only defrayed all the expenses of the deputies on a very liberal scale, but liquidated a part of France’s debt to the Cantons, and a year’s arrears of all private pensions. A few days later Bassompierre paid a visit to Berne, into which he made a magnificent entry, and, after being shown all the sights of the town, was entertained to a most splendid banquet at the Hôtel de Ville. “Three hundred persons sat down to table,” he says, “and we remained there all day.”