Louis then sounded a retreat, and fixed his camp a short distance from the walls.
The following days were employed in secret negotiations between the Count de la Marche and St.Louis, which ended in their reconciliation, and the Count's abandonment of the English monarch.

Meantime Henry, with his usual carelessness, after the first trouble was over, blindly deceived himself into security, and resolved to spend the heats of the month of August in quiet and enjoyment, forgetting that he was little better than a prisoner in Saintes, and taking no heed of the treachery of his friends without.

Four days he allowed to pass as if no enemy were at his gates; he even made parties of pleasure, and seemed resolved to think no more of the war, when he was suddenly roused from his false security by his brother, Richard, who had been warned of the dangers which threatened them by a French knight, whose life he had saved in Palestine.
By this means the self-deceiving monarch learnt that preparations were being made by Louis to invest the town with all his forces, and that the next day at day-break the siege was to commence.

When this intelligence reached Henry he was just about to sit down to table; at the same time he learnt that the citizens of Saintes proposed to treat with his foes; and he had not an instant to lose.

He promptly gave orders that the houses of the _bourgeois_ should _be set on fire_, and, mounting his horse, set out, hungry and fatigued as he was after a day's excursion of amusement, towards Blaye, as fast as speed could take him.