Monsieur le Tellier laid his left hand upon my shoulder as I read, and, pointing with his right to the words concerning the pension, he repeated, "Three thousand crowns!--that is, when you can get them, my young friend;" and laughing gaily, he added, "which will not be till the country is quiet, and these rebels put down. So go, and do your best against them; and God send that we may soon be delivered from their company altogether!" "Amen!" replied I; and I doubt not that Monsieur le Tellier devoutly believed that it was the prospect of my three thousand crowns which gave such fervency to my aspirations; but it was perhaps that I was heartily tired of civil wars, having seen little else ever since I was born; and I certainly did long to be in one good stricken field, between nations of different tongues and dwelling-places, if it were but for a change. I said nothing, however, to undeceive the minister; but taking my leave, with many thanks for honours and rewards, which I felt very sure had been obtained for me fully as much by interest as by merit, I withdrew with the letters patent of a barony in my pocket, but very little else besides. CHAPTER XXIX. It was with great difficulty that I made my way back to the army, for by this time Condé had effected his junction with the Duke of Loraine, and Turenne had encamped between Limei and the Yeres river, resting on the Seine on one side and on a thick wood on the other. The enemy's force, amounting to three times his own, straitened the marshal's camp in every direction; and, shut in the angle formed by the confluence of the Seine and the Yeres, there seemed no possibility of escape for Turenne and his army. I know not to the present day if this position was or was not taken up through an oversight on the part of Turenne; and I am rather inclined to think it was, as at the time there were not provisions in the camp for four days, and the horses were almost entirely without forage; but if it was a fault, it was one of those glorious ones which sometimes to a man of genius prove more advantageous than the best laid plan. The result is well known. Turenne planted himself there between the enemy and Paris, threw bridges across the Seine, opened a communication with the neighbouring country, obtained provisions and forage notwithstanding all the efforts of his adversaries to prevent him, and kept a force of treble the number of his own army at bay during six weeks.