Blein, by
Guebriant.

The rebels connived and assembled during several evenings at the place
of a certain man named Frotet, sieur de La Lanbelle; they entered into
an understanding with a Scotch gunner, and one dark night they armed
themselves, went out to the rampart, let themselves down with ropes and
approached the foot of La Generale.

There they waited. Soon a rustling sound was heard on the wall, and a
ball of thread was lowered, to which they fastened their rope ladder.
The ladder was then hoisted to the top of the tower and attached to the
end of a culverin which was levelled in an embrasure of the battlement.

Michel Frotet was the first to ascend, and after him came Charles
Anselin, La Blissais and the others. The night was dark and the wind
whistled; they had to climb slowly, to hold their daggers between their
teeth and feel for the rungs of the ladder with their hands and feet.
Suddenly (they were midway between the ground and the top), they felt
themselves going down; the rope had slipped. But they did not utter a
sound; they remained motionless. Their weight had caused the culverin to
tip forward; it stopped on the edge of the embrasure and they slowly
resumed their ascension and arrived one after another on the platform of
the tower.

The sleepy sentinels did not have time to give the alarm. The garrison
was either asleep or playing dice on the drums. A panic seized the
soldiers and they fled to the dungeon. The conspirators pursued them and
attacked them in the hallways, on the staircase, and in the rooms,
crushing them between the doors and slaughtering them mercilessly.
Meanwhile the townspeople arrived to lend assistance; some put up
ladders, and entered the tower without encountering any resistance and
plundered it. La Perandiere, lieutenant of the castle, perceiving La
Blissais, said to him: "This, sir, is a most miserable night." But La
Blissais impressed upon him that this was not the time for conversation.
The Count of Fontaines had not made his appearance. They went in search
of him, and found him lying dead across the threshold of his chamber,
pierced by a shot from an arquebuse that one of the townspeople had
fired at him, as he was about to go out, escorted by a servant bearing a
light. "Instead of rushing to face the danger," says the author of this
account,[5] "he had dressed as leisurely as if he were going to a
wedding, without leaving one shoulder-knot untied."

This outbreak in S