He found means of bearing down upon Dieppe another way, and of placing himself, says the latest historian of Dieppe, M.Vitet, between the king and the town, "hoping to cut off the king's communications with the sea, divide his forces, deprive him of his re-enforcements from England, and, finally, surround him and capture him, as he had promised the Leaguers of Paris, who were already talking of the iron cage in which the Bearnese would be sent to them.

"Henry IV.," continues M.Vitet, "felt some vexation at seeing his forecasts checkmated by Mayenne's manoeuvre, and at having had so much earth removed to so little profit; but he was a man of resources, confident as the Gascons are, and with very little of pig-headedness.

To change all his plans was with him the work of an instant.

Instead of awaiting the foe in his intrenchments, he saw that it was for him to go and feel for them on the other side of the valley, and that, on pain of being invested, he must not leave the Leaguers any exit but the very road they had taken to come." Having changed all his plans on this new system, Henry breathed more freely; but he did not go to sleep for all that: he was incessantly backwards and forwards from Dieppe to Arques, from Arques to Dieppe and to the Faubourg du Pollet.

Mayenne, on the contrary, seemed to have fallen into a lethargy; he had not yet been out of his quarters during the nearly eight and forty hours since he had taken them.
On the 17th of September, 1589, in the morning, however, a few hundred light-horse were seen putting themselves in motion, scouring the country and coming to fire their pistols close to the fosses of the royal army.
The skirmish grew warm by degrees.