en, unlooked
for, the 17th, in the morning, about four of the clock, there arrived a
company of 150 horsemen well appointed, who approached the court gates,
and shot off their pistolets at the church of the Bonhommes, whereupon
there was such an alarm and running up and down in the court, as if the
enemies being encamped about them had sought to make an entry into the
castle: and there was crying, _To horse, to horse_.... This continued an
hour and a half,"[827] etc.

La Renaudie had actually established himself within six leagues of
Amboise on the second of March, and had made his arrangements for the
vigorous execution of his plans a fortnight later. The Guises were to be
seized by a party that counted upon gaining secret admission to the
castle, and opening the gates to comrades concealed in the neighborhood.
But another act of treachery on the part of a confederate enabled the
cardinal and his brother to frustrate a project so sagaciously laid and
offering fair promise of success. The parties of cavaliers, who had
succeeded, as by a miracle, in eluding the spies and agents of their
enemies, posted in every important city of France, and had reached the
very vicinity of the court without discovery, were caught in detail at
their rendezvous. Companies of fifteen or twenty men thus fell into the
hands of the troops hastily assembled by the urgent commands of the
king's ministers.

[Sidenote: Treacherous capture of Castelnau.]

[Sidenote: Death of La Renaudie.]

A more powerful detachment of malcontents could not be so easily
stopped, and threw itself into the castle of Noizay. It seemed more
feasible to overcome them by stratagem than by open assault. The Duke of
Nemours, having been sent to reduce the place, allowed Baron de
Castelnau, commander of the insurgents, a personal interview. Here the
Huguenot defended his adherents against the imputation of having
revolted against their lawful monarch, and maintained that, on the
contrary, they had come to uphold his honor and free him from the
intrigues of the Guises. Seeing, however, the hopelessness of resisting
the superior force of his enemy, Castelnau consented to capitulate,
after exacting from the Duke of Nemours his princely word that he and
his followers should receive no injury, and be permitted to have free
access to the king, in order to lay before him their grievances. The
pledge thus given was redeemed in no chivalrous manner. No account was
made of the t