After having been a page of M. d'Aubeterre, father-in-law of the Huguenot leader Soubise, Merey, at the beginning of the civil war, had been sent by the daughter of D'Aubeterre to her husband, then with Conde at Orleans. Subsequently he had accompanied Soubise on his adventurous ride with a few followers from Orleans to Lyons, when the latter assumed command in behalf of the Huguenots. Soubise appears to have valued him highly as one of those reckless youths that court rather than shun personal peril, while he shared the common impression that the lad was little better than a fool. True, for years--ever since the tumult of Amboise, where his kinsman, La Renaudie and another relative had been killed--Merey had been constantly boasting to all whom he met that he would kill the Duke of Guise; but those who heard him "made no more account of his words than if he had boasted of his intention to obtain the imperial crown."[238] He had given expression to his purpose at Lyons, in the presence of M. de Soubise, the Huguenot governor, and again to Admiral Coligny before he started on his expedition to Normandy. But the Huguenot generals evidently imagined that there was nothing in the speech beyond the prating of a silly braggart. Soubise, indeed, advised him to attend to his own duties, and to leave the deliverance of France to Almighty God; but neither the admiral nor the soldiers, to whom he often repeated the threat, paid any attention to it. In short, he was regarded as one of those frivolous characters, of whom there is an abundance in every camp, who expect to acquire a cheap notoriety by extravagant stories of their past or prospective achievements, but never succeed in earning more, with all their pains, than the contempt or incredulity of their listeners. Still, Poltrot was a man of some value as a scout, and Coligny had employed him[239] for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the enemy's movements, and had furnished him at one time with twenty crowns to defray his expenses, at another with a hundred, to procure himself a horse. The spy had made his way to the Roman Catholic camp, and, by pretending to follow the example of others in renouncing his Huguenot associations, had conciliated the duke's favor to such an extent that he excited no suspicion before the commission of the treacherous act. [Sidenote: Execution of Poltrot.]