On a Sunday morning, Francis de la Caille came to Laudonniere’s quarters, and, in the name of the whole company, requested him to come to the parade-ground.  He complied, and, issuing forth, his inseparable Ottigny at his side, saw some thirty of his officers, soldiers, and gentlemen-volunteers waiting before the building with fixed and sombre countenance.  La Caille, advancing, begged leave to read, in behalf of the rest, a paper which he held in his hand.  It opened with protestations of duty and obedience; next came complaints of hard work, starvation, and broken promises, and a request that the petitioners should be allowed to embark in the vessel lying in the river, and cruise along the Spanish main in order to procure provision by purchase “or otherwise.”  In short, the flower of the company wished to turn buccaneers.

Laudonniere refused, but assured them, that, so soon as the defences of the fort should be completed, a search should be begun in earnest for the Appalachian gold-mine, and that meanwhile two small vessels then building on the river should be sent along the coast to barter for provisions with the Indians.  With this answer they were forced to content themselves; but the fermentation continued, and the plot thickened.  Their spokesman, La Caille, however, seeing whither the affair tended, broke with them, and, beside Ottigny, Vasseur, and the brave Swiss, Arlac, was the only officer who held to his duty.

A severe illness again seized Laudonniere and confined him to his bed.  Improving their advantage, the malecontents gained over nearly all the best soldiers in the fort.  The ringleader was one Fourneaux, a man of good birth, but whom Le Moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite.  He drew up a paper to which sixty-six names were signed.  La Caille boldly opposed the conspirators, and they resolved to kill him.  His room-mate, Le Moyne, who had also refused to sign, received a hint from a friend that he had better change his quarters; upon which he warned La Caille, who escaped to the woods.  It was late in the night.  Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth, knocked fiercely at the commandant’s door.  Forcing an entrance, they wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man’s bed.  Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to Laudonniere’s breast, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the Spanish islands.  The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him from his bed, put him in fetters, carried him out to the gate of the fort, placed him in a boat, and rowed him to the ship anchored in the river.

Two other gangs at the same time visited Ottigny and Arlac, whom they disarmed, and ordered to keep their rooms till the night following, on pain of death.  Smaller parties were busied, meanwhile, in disarming all the loyal soldiers.  The fort was completely in the hands of the conspirators.  Fourneaux drew up a commission for his meditated West-India cruise, which he required Laudonniere to sign.  The sick commandant, imprisoned in the ship, with one attendant, at first refused; but, receiving a message from the mutineers, that, if he did not comply, they would come on board and cut his throat, he at length yielded.