[301] His enemies, while still unready, learned with dismay that he had taken the field in person at the head of his nobility.

On no occasion had that gallant aristocracy appeared with more splendour in his train.

A single circumstance may suffice to give a notion of the pomp and luxury of his camp.

Among the musketeers of his household rode, for the first time, a stripling of seventeen, who soon afterwards succeeded to the title of Duke of Saint Simon, and to whom we owe those inestimable memoirs which have preserved, for the delight and instruction of many lands and of many generations, the vivid picture of a France which has long passed away.

Though the boy's family was at that time very hard pressed for money, he travelled with thirty-five horses and sumpter mules.