Paul de Gondy, who subsequently became celebrated during the Fronde as the Cardinal de Retz, was instructed to apprise their friends in Paris of the contemplated revolt, and to urge their co-operation.  The Duc de Guise meanwhile proceeded to Liege, in order to levy troops for the reinforcement of the rebel army; the several envoys having been instructed to declare that the Princes were still devoted to their sovereign, and that they merely took up arms to protect themselves against the violence and perfidy of the Cardinal-Minister.  Anxious to strengthen their faction at home, Soissons, confiding in the frequent professions of attachment which had been lavished upon him by Gaston d’Orleans, wrote to that Prince to explain their motives and purposes, and to induce him to join in the conspiracy.  For once, however, Monsieur, much as he delighted in feuds and factions, declined to take any part in their meditated resistance to the ministerial authority, his own position having been rendered so brilliant through the policy of the Cardinal that he feared to sacrifice the advantages thus tardily secured; while, moreover, not satisfied with returning evasive answers to M. de Soissons, which induced that Prince to pursue the correspondence under the belief that his arguments would ultimately induce Monsieur to join their party, he had the baseness, in order to further his personal interests with the all-powerful minister, to communicate to him the several letters of the Count immediately that they reached him.

Irritated by the contemptuous epithets applied to him in these unguarded epistles, and anxious to avert a danger which the delay of every succeeding hour tended to render still more threatening, Richelieu determined at once to attack the stronghold of his enemies; and an army under the command of the Marechal de Chatillon was accordingly despatched against Sedan.  The result of the expedition proved, however, inimical to the interests of the Cardinal, as the royal general was utterly defeated, and more than two thousand of the King’s troops, together with the artillery and the treasure-chest, fell into the hands of the rebels.  The battle, fatal as it was in the aggregate, nevertheless afforded one signal triumph to Richelieu in the death of the Comte de Soissons, who was killed by the pistol-ball of a gendarme, to whom, as a recompense for the murder of his kinsman, Louis XIII accorded both a government and a pension.  Dispirited by the fate of the young Prince, to whom he was tenderly attached, Bouillon attempted no further resistance, but tendered without delay his submission to the sovereign, and received in return a free pardon, together with all those individuals who had joined his banner, save the Duc de Guise, who, not having been included in the treaty, was condemned par contumace.[232]