Meanwhile the fifty foragers returned with some twenty ladders. Everything was quiet within the fortification; the sentinel paced up and down, and the ends of the musket-barrels and the peaked hats could still be seen over the parapet. The king's household marched forward, led by the marshal in person. It was composed of about four hundred men in all, half of whom made ready to carry the outwork by assault, and the other half to cover the operation. The king, the queen, and their suite followed the movements of the little troop from afar, with keen anxiety. The queen seemed to have lost all her assurance. In order to have a better view of what was taking place, she caused her carriage to be partly turned, so that it stood side wise to the fortification. The assailants had taken but a few steps when the sentinel came to the outer edge of the rampart. "Qui vive?" he cried in a stentorian voice. "Make no reply," said Monsieur de La Meilleraie, "but march on." "Qui vive?" cried the sentinel a second time, putting his musket to his shoulder. "Qui vive?" the challenge rang out a third time, and the sentinel levelled his weapon. "Fire on the villain!" said Monsieur de La Meilleraie. Instantly the royalist ranks poured forth a volley; the sentinel staggered, dropped his musket, which rolled down into the moat, and fell, crying:-- "To arms!" This beginning of hostilities was answered by a single cannon-shot. The ball whistled over the heads of the first rank, ploughed through the second and third, killed four men, and eventually disembowelled one of the horses attached to the queen's carriage. A cry of alarm went up from the party in attendance upon their Majesties; the king was forced to fall back still farther; Anne of Austria was near fainting with rage, and Mazarin with fear. The traces of the dead horse were cut, and those of the living horses as well, for they threatened to wreck the carriage with their terrified plunging and rearing. Eight or ten of the guards took their places, and drew the queen out of range. Meanwhile the governor unmasked a battery of six pieces. When Monsieur de La Meilleraie saw that battery, which would be likely to make short work of his three companies, he thought that it would be injudicious to proceed further with the attack, and ordered a retreat. The moment that the king's household took its first backward step, the hostile preparations exhibited in the fortress disappeared. The marshal returned to the queen, and requested her to select some spot in the neighborhood for her headquarters. Thereupon the queen, looking about, espied the small house on the other side of the Dordogne, standing by itself among the trees. "Ascertain to whom yonder house belongs," she said to Guitaut, "and request accommodations for me therein."