attached to the court made sallies all around Amboise to prevent any unexpected attack. “They caught a great many troops badly led and badly equipped. Many poor folks, in utter despair and without a leader, asked pardon as they threw down upon the ground some wretched arms they bore, and declared that they knew no more about the enterprise than that there had been a time appointed them to see a petition presented to the king which concerned the welfare of his service and that of the kingdom.” [_Memoires de Castelnau,_ pp. 49, 50.] On the 18th of March, La Renaudie, who was scouring the country, seeking to rally his men, encountered a body of royal horse who were equally hotly in quest of the conspirators; the two detachments attacked one another furiously; La Renaudie was killed, and his body, which was carried to Amboise, was strung up to a gallows on the bridge over the Loire with this scroll: “This is La Renaudie, called La Forest, captain of the rebels, leader and author of the sedition.” Disorder continued for several days in the surrounding country; but the surprise attempted against the Guises was a failure, and the important result of the riot of Amboise (_tumulte d’Amboise_), as it was called, was an ordinance of Francis II., who, on the 17th of March, 1560, appointed Duke Francis of Guise “his lieutenant-general, representing him in person absent and present in this good town of Amboise and other places of the realm, with full power, authority, commission, and special mandate to assemble all the princes, lords, and gentlemen, and generally to command, order, provide, and dispose of all things requisite and necessary.” [Illustration: Death of La Renaudie----283]