The marshal thought this barrier not so well fortified as the others and determined to break through it.  He dismounted twenty men to make a breach in the barricade, whilst he and others, remaining on their horses, were to protect the assailants.  The twenty men marched straight toward the barrier, but from behind the beams, from among the wagon-wheels and from the heights of the rocks a terrible fusillade burst forth and at the same time Planchet’s halberdiers appeared at the corner of the Cemetery of the Innocents, and Louvieres’s bourgeois at the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie.

The Marechal de la Meilleraie was caught between two fires, but he was brave and made up his mind to die where he was.  He returned blow for blow and cries of pain began to be heard in the crowd.  The guards, more skillful, did greater execution; but the bourgeois, more numerous, overwhelmed them with a veritable hurricane of iron.  Men fell around him as they had fallen at Rocroy or at Lerida.  Fontrailles, his aide-de-camp, had an arm broken; his horse had received a bullet in his neck and he had difficulty in controlling him, maddened by pain.  In short, he had reached that supreme moment when the bravest feel a shudder in their veins, when suddenly, in the direction of the Rue de l’Arbre-Sec, the crowd opened, crying:  “Long live the coadjutor!” and Gondy, in surplice and cloak, appeared, moving tranquilly in the midst of the fusillade and bestowing his benedictions to the right and left, as undisturbed as if he were leading a procession of the Fete Dieu.

All fell to their knees.  The marshal recognized him and hastened to meet him.

“Get me out of this, in Heaven’s name!” he said, “or I shall leave my carcass here and those of all my men.”

A great tumult arose, in the midst of which even the noise of thunder could not have been heard.  Gondy raised his hand and demanded silence.  All were still.

“My children,” he said, “this is the Marechal de la Meilleraie, as to whose intentions you have been deceived and who pledges himself, on returning to the Louvre, to demand of the queen, in your name, our Broussel’s release.  You pledge yourself to that, marshal?” added Gondy, turning to La Meilleraie.

“Morbleu!” cried the latter, “I should say that I do pledge myself to it!  I had no hope of getting off so easily.”

“He gives you his word of honor,” said Gondy.

The marshal raised his hand in token of assent.

“Long live the coadjutor!” cried the crowd.  Some voices even added:  “Long live the marshal!” But all took up the cry in chorus:  “Down with Mazarin!”

The crowd gave place, the barricade was opened, and the marshal, with the remnant of his company, retreated, preceded by Friquet and his bandits, some of them making a presence of beating drums and others imitating the sound of the trumpet.  It was almost a triumphal procession; only, behind the guards the barricades were closed again.  The marshal bit his fingers.