sed, the
electoral commissioners withdrew, and the rebels retired behind
their fortifications. About five o'clock in the evening, just as the
negotiations were broken off, M. Aubry, an artillery captain who had
been sent with two hundred men to the depot of field artillery in the
country, returned with six pieces of ordnance, determined to make a
breach in the tower occupied by the conspirators, and from which they
were firing in safety at the soldiers, who had no cover. At six o'clock,
the guns being mounted, their thunder began, first drowning the noise of
the musketry and then silencing it altogether; for the cannon balls
did their work quickly, 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