Three days after the imprisonment of the magistracy, a strong Catholic rally was made in their behalf in the Fishmarket, the ubiquitous Prior of Saint Vaast flitting about among the Malcontents, blithe and busy as usual when storms were brewing.  Matthew Doucet, of the revolutionary faction—­a man both martial and pacific in his pursuits, being eminent both as a gingerbread baker and a swordplayer—­swore he would have the little monk’s life if he had to take him from the very horns of the altar; but the Prior had braved sharper threats than these.  Moreover, the grand altar would have been the last place to look fox him on that occasion.  While Gosson was making a tremendous speech in favor of conscience and fatherland at the Hotel de Ville, practical John Sarrasin, purse in hand, had challenged the rebel general, Ambrose to private combat.  In half an hour, that warrior was routed, and fled from the field at the head of his scarecrows, for there was no resisting the power before which the Montignys and the La Mottes had succumbed.  Eloquent Gosson was left to his fate.  Having the Catholic magistracy in durance, and with nobody to guard them, he felt, as was well observed by an ill-natured contemporary, like a man holding a wolf by the ears, equally afraid to let go or to retain his grasp.

His dilemma was soon terminated.  While he was deliberating with his colleagues—­Mordacq, an old campaigner, Crugeot, Bertoul, and others—­ whether to stand or, fly, the drums and trumpets of the advancing royalists were heard.  In another instant the Hotel de Ville was swarming with men-at-arms, headed by Bourgeois, the veteran who had expressed so alighting an opinion as to the prowess of Captain Ambrose.  The tables were turned, the miniature revolution was at an end, the counter-revolution effected.  Gosson and his confederates escaped out of a back door, but were soon afterwards arrested.  Next morning, Baron Capres, the great Malcontent seignior, who was stationed with his regiment in the neighbourhood, and who had long been secretly coquetting with the Prior and Parma, marched into the city at the head of a strong detachment, and straightway proceeded to erect a very tall gibbet in front of the Hotel de Ville.  This looked practical in the eyes of the liberated and reinstated magistrates, and Gosson, Crugeot, and the rest were summoned at once before them.  The advocate thought, perhaps, with a sigh, that his judges, so recently his prisoners, might have been the fruit for another gallowstree, had he planted it when the ground was his own; but taking heart of grace, he encouraged his colleagues—­now his fellow-culprits.  Crugeot, undismayed, made his appearance before the tribunal, arrayed in a corslet of proof, with a golden hilted sword, a scarf embroidered with pearls and gold, and a hat bravely plumaged with white, blue, and, orange feathers—­the colors of William the Silent—­of all which finery he was stripped, however, as soon as he entered the court.