M.d'Aygaliers then warmly pressed him to try it before rejecting it for ever, and in the end M.

de Baville withdrew his opposition.
M, d'Aygaliers hastened to the marechal, who finding himself no longer alone in his favourable opinion, made no further delay, but told the baron to call together that very day all the people whom he thought suitable for the required service, and desired that they should be presented to him the next morning before he set out for Nimes.
The next day, instead of the fifty men whom the marachal had thought could be gathered together, d'Aygaliers came to him followed by eighty, who were almost all of good and many of noble family.

The meeting took place, by the wish of the baron, in the courtyard of the episcopal palace.

"This palace," says the baron in his Memoirs, "which was of great magnificence, surrounded by terraced gardens and superbly furnished, was occupied by Monseigneur Michel Poncet de La Riviere.

He was a man passionately devoted to pleasures of all kinds, especially to music, women, and good cheer.