depicting those violent governors of the provinces, who slaughtered the people recklessly, committed rapes and swept in gold, like D’Epernon, an atrocious tyrant in Provence and a perfumed courtier at the Louvre; like Montluc, who strangled Huguenots with his own hands, or Baligui, the king of Cambrai, who read Machiavel in order to copy the Valentinois, and whose wife went to war on horseback, wearing a helmet and a cuirass.

One of the forgotten men of the period, or at least one of those whom most historians mention only slightly, is the Duke of Mercoeur, the intrepid enemy of Henri IV, who defied him longer than Mayenne, the Ligue, and Philip II.  Finally he was disarmed, that is, won over and appeased (by terms that were such that twenty-three articles of the treaty were not disclosed); then, not knowing what to do, he enlisted in the Hungarian army and fought the Turks.  One day, with five thousand men, he attacked a whole army, and, beaten again, returned to France and died of the fever in Nuremberg, at the age of forty-four.

Saint-Malo put me in mind of him.  He always tried to get it, but he never could succeed in making it his subject or his ally.  They wished to fight on their own account, and to do business through their own resources, and although they were really ligueurs, they spurned the duke as well as the Bearnais.

When De Fontaines, the governor of the city, informed them of the death of Henri III, they refused to recognize the King of Navarre.  They armed themselves and erected barricades; De Fontaines intrenched himself in the castle and everybody kept upon the defensive.  Little by little, the people encroached upon him; first, they requested him to declare that he was willing to maintain their franchises.  De Fontaines complied in the hope of gaining time.  The following year (1589), they chose four generals who were independent of the governor.  A year later, they obtained permission to stretch chains.  De Fontaines acceded to everything.  The king was at Laval and he was waiting for him.  The time was close at hand when he would be able to take revenge for all the humiliations he had suffered, and all the concessions he had been forced to make.  But he precipitated matters and was discovered.  When the people of Saint-Malo reminded him of his promises, he replied that if the king presented himself, he (De Fontaines) would let him enter the city.  When they learned this, they decided to act.

The castle had four towers.  It was the highest one, La Generale, the one on which De Fontaines relied the most, which they climbed.  These bold attempts were not infrequent, as proved by the ascension of the cliffs of Fecamp by Bois-Rose, and the attack of the Chateau de 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.