Bassompierre prepared for the worst like a man of the world. "I rose early next day and proceeded to burn more than six thousand love-letters received from ladies to whom I had paid my addresses. I was afraid that if arrested my papers would be seized and examined and some of these letters might compromise my old friends." He entered his carriage and drove to Senlis where the King was in residence. Here he met the Duc de Gramont and others who told him he would certainly be arrested. Bassompierre again protested that he had nothing on his conscience. The King received him civilly enough and talked to him at length about the disagreement of the Queen Mother with Cardinal Richelieu, and then Bassompierre asked point blank whether the King owed him any grudge. "How can you think such a thing," replied the treacherous monarch. "You know I am your friend," and left him. That evening the Marshal supped with the Duc de Longueville and the King came in afterwards. "Then I saw plainly enough," says Bassompierre, "that the King had something against me, for he kept his head down, and touching the strings of his guitar, never looked at me nor spoke a single word. Next morning I rose at six o'clock and as I was standing before the fire in my dressing-room, M. de Launay, Lieutenant of the Body-Guard, entered my room and said, 'Sir, it is with tears in my eyes and with a bleeding heart that I, who, for twenty years have served under you, am obliged to tell you that the King has ordered me to arrest you.'
"I experienced very little emotion and replied: 'Sir, you will have no trouble, as I came here on purpose, having been warned. I have all my life submitted to the wishes of the King, who can dispose of me or my liberty as he thinks fit.'... Shortly afterwards one of the King's carriages arrived in front of my lodging with an escort of mounted musketeers and thirty light horsemen. I entered the carriage alone with De Launay. Then we drove off, keeping two hundred paces in front of the escort, as far as the Porte St.-Martin, where we turned off to the left, and I was taken to the Bastile. I dined with the Governor, M. du Tremblay, whom I afterwards accompanied to the chamber which had been occupied by the Prince de Condé, and in this I was shut up with one servant.