Vendome, intending to support them in case of their success.  When the first uprising ended by a brief skirmish, in which the flower of the nobility beguiled by Calvin perished, the prince arrived, with fifty noblemen, at the chateau of Amboise on the very day after that fight, which the politic Guises termed “the Tumult of Amboise.”  As soon as the duke and cardinal heard of his coming they sent the Marechal de Saint-Andre with an escort of a hundred men to meet him.  When the prince and his own escort reached the gates of the chateau the marechal refused entrance to the latter.

“You must enter alone, monseigneur,” said the Chancellor Olivier, the Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the portcullis.

“And why?”

“You are suspected of treason,” replied the chancellor.

The prince, who saw that his suite were already surrounded by the troop of the Duc de Nemours, replied tranquilly:  “If that is so, I will go alone to my cousin, and prove to him my innocence.”

He dismounted, talked with perfect freedom of mind to Birago, the Cardinal de Tournon, the chancellor, and the Duc de Nemours, from whom he asked for particulars of the “tumult.”

“Monseigneur,” replied the duke, “the rebels had confederates in Amboise.  A captain, named Lanoue, had introduced armed men, who opened the gate to them, through which they entered and made themselves masters of the town—­”

“That is to say, you opened the mouth of a sack, and they ran into it,” replied the prince, looking at Birago.

“If they had been supported by the attack which Captain Chaudieu, the preacher’s brother, was expected to make before the gate of the Bon-Hommes, they would have been completely successful,” replied the Duc de Nemours.  “But in consequence of the position which the Duc de Guise ordered me to take up, Captain Chaudieu was obliged to turn my flank to avoid a fight.  So instead of arriving by night, like the rest, this rebel and his men got there at daybreak, by which time the king’s troops had crushed the invaders of the town.”

“And you had a reserve force to recover the gate which had been opened to them?” said the prince.

“Monsieur le Marechal de Saint-Andre was there with five hundred men-at-arms.”

The prince gave the highest praise to these military arrangements.

“The lieutenant-general must have been fully aware of the plans of the Reformers, to have acted as he did,” he said in conclusion.  “They were no doubt betrayed.”

The prince was treated with increasing harshness.  After separating him from his escort at the gates, the cardinal and the chancellor barred his way when he reached the staircase which led to the apartments of the king.

“We are directed by his Majesty, monseigneur, to take you to your own apartments,” they said.

“Am I, then, a prisoner?”

“If that were the king’s intention you would not be accompanied by a prince of the Church, nor by me,” replied the chancellor.