In the constant warfare between the provost and the people the latter did not hesitate to attack the prison fortress of the Châtelet. In 1320 a body of insurgents collected under the leadership of two apostate priests who promised to meet them across the seas and conquer the Holy Land. When some of their number were arrested and thrown into the Châtelet, the rest marched upon the prison, bent on rescue, and, breaking in, effected a general gaol delivery. This was not the only occasion in which the Châtelet lost those committed to its safe-keeping. In the latter end of the sixteenth century the provost was one Hugues de Bourgueil, a hunch-back with a beautiful wife. Among his prisoners was a young Italian, named Gonsalvi, who, on the strength of his nationality, gained the goodwill of Catherine de Medicis, the Queen Mother. The Queen commended him to the provost, who lodged him in his own house, and Gonsalvi repaid this kindness by running away with de Bourgueil's wife. Madame de Bourgueil, on the eve of her elopement, gained possession of the prison keys and released the whole of the three hundred prisoners in custody, thus diverting the attention from her own escapade. The provost, preferring his duty to his wife, turned out with horse and foot, and pursued and recaptured the fugitive prisoners, while Madame de Bourgueil and her lover were allowed to go their own way. After this affair the King moved the provost's residence from the Châtelet to the Hôtel de Hercule. References are found in the earlier records of the various prisoners confined in the Châtelet. One of the earliest is a list of Jews imprisoned for reasons not given. But protection was also afforded to this much wronged race, and once, towards the end of the fourteenth century, when the populace rose to rob and slaughter the Jews, asylum was given to the unfortunates by opening to them the gates of the Châtelet. About the same time a Spanish Jew and an habitual thief, one Salmon of Barcelona, were taken to the Châtelet and condemned to be hanged by the heels between two large dogs. Salmon, to save himself, offered to turn Christian, and was duly baptised, the gaoler's wife being his godmother. Nevertheless, within a week he was hanged "like a Christian" (_chrétiennement_), under his baptismal name of Nicholas.