ickly, and before long the tower threatened to fall. Thereupon the
electoral commissioners ordered the firing to cease for a moment, in the
hope that now the danger had become so imminent the leaders would accept
the conditions which they had refused one hour before; and not desiring
to drive them to desperation, the commissioners advanced again down
College Street, preceded by a bugler, and the captains were once more
summoned to a parley. Froment and Descombiez came out to meet them, and
seeing the condition of the tower, they agreed to lay down their arms and
send them for the palace, while they themselves would proceed to the
Electoral Assembly and place themselves under its protection. These
proposals being accepted, the commissioners waved their hats as a sign
that the treaty was concluded.

At that instant three shots were fired from the ramparts, and cries of
"Treachery! treachery!" were heard on every side. The Catholic chiefs
returned to the tower, while the Protestants, believing that the
commissioners were being assassinated, reopened the cannonade; but
finding that it took too long to complete the breach, ladders were
brought, the walls scaled, and the towers carried by assault. Some of the
Catholics were killed, the others gained Froment's house, where,
encouraged by him, they tried to organise a resistance; but the
assailants, despite the oncoming darkness, attacked the place with such
fury that doors and windows were shattered in an instant. Froment and his
brother Pierre tried to escape by a narrow staircase which led to the
roof, but before they reached it Pierre was wounded in the hip and fell;
but Froment reached the roof, and sprang upon an adjacent housetop, and
climbing from roof to roof, reached the college, and getting into it by a
garret window, took refuge in a large room which was always unoccupied at
night, being used during the day as a study.

Froment remained hidden there until eleven o'clock. It being then
completely dark, he got out of the window, crossed the city, gained the
open country, and walking all night, concealed himself during the day in
the house of a Catholic. The next night he set off again, and reached
the coast, where he embarked on board a vessel for Italy, in order to
report to those who had sent him the disastrous result of his enterprise.

For three whole days the carnage lasted. The Protestants losing all
control over themselves, carried on the work of death