Scarcely six months having elapsed, in August, 1568, the third religious war broke out.  The written guarantees given in the treaty of Longjumeau for security and liberty on behalf of the Protestants were misinterpreted or violated.  Massacres and murders of Protestants became more numerous, and were committed with more impunity than ever:  in 1568 and 1569, at Amiens, at Auxerre, at Orleans, at Rouen, at Bourges, at Troyes, and at Blois, Protestants, at one time to the number of one hundred and forty or one hundred and twenty, or fifty-three, or forty, and at another singly, with just their wives and children, were massacred, burned, and hunted by the excited populace, without any intervention on the part of the magistrates to protect them or to punish their murderers.  The contemporary Protestant chroniclers set down at ten thousand the number of victims who perished in the course of these six months, which were called a time of peace:  we may, with De Thou, believe this estimate to be exaggerated; but, without doubt, the peace of Longjumeau was a lie, even before the war began again.

During this interval Conde was living in Burgundy, at Noyers, a little fortress he possessed through his wife, Frances of Orleans, and Coligny was living not far from Noyers, at Tanlay, which belonged to his brother D’Andelot.  They soon discovered, both of them, not only what their party had to suffer, but what measures were in preparation against themselves.  Agents went and sounded the depth of the moats of Noyers, so as to report upon the means of taking the place.  The queen-mother had orders given to Gaspard de Tavannes to surround the Prince of Conde at Noyers.  “The queen is counselled by passion rather than by reason,” answered the old warrior; “I am not the sort of man to succeed in this ill-planned enterprise of distaff and pen; if her Majesty will be pleased to declare open war, I will show how I understand my duty.”  Shocked at the dishonorable commands given him, Tavannes resolved to indirectly raise Conde’s apprehensions, in order to get him out of Burgundy, of which he, Tavannes, held the governorship; and he sent close past the walls of Noyers bearers of letters containing these words:  “The stag is in the toils; the hunt is ready.”  Conde had the bearers arrested, understood the warning, and communicated it to Coligny, who went and joined him at Noyers, and they decided, both of them, upon quitting Burgundy without delay, to go and seek over the Loire at La Rochelle, which they knew to be devoted to their cause, a sure asylum and a place suitable for their purposes as a centre of warlike operations.  They set out together on the 24th of August, 1568.  Conde took with him his wife and his four children, two of tender age.  Coligny followed him in deep mourning; he had just lost his wife, Charlotte de Laval, that worthy mate of his, who, six years previously, in a grievous crisis for his soul as well as his cause, had given him such energetic counsels:  she had