A few days before the massacre Caumont de la Force had bought some horses of a dealer, who, chancing to be in the immediate neighbourhood when Admiral de Coligny was assassinated, hastened to inform his customer, well known as one of the Protestant leaders, of what had taken place. This nobleman and his two sons lived in the Faubourg St.-Germain, which was not yet connected with the right bank by any bridge. The horse-dealer, therefore, swam across the Seine to warn La Force, who, however, had already effected his escape. But as his children were not following him, he returned to save them, and had scarcely set foot in his house when the assassins were upon him. Their leader, a man named Martin, entered his room, disarmed both father and sons, and told them they must die. La Force offered the would-be murderers a ransom of 2,000 crowns, payable in two days. The chief accepted, and told La Force and his children to place in their hats paper crosses, and to turn back their right sleeves to the shoulder: such being the signs of immunity among the slaughterers. Thus prepared, Martin conveyed them to his house in the Rue des Petits Champs, and made La Force swear that neither he nor his children would leave the place until the 2,000 crowns were paid. For additional security, he placed some Swiss soldiers on guard, when one of them, touched with compassion, offered to let the prisoners escape. La Force, however, refused, preferring, he said, to die rather than fail in his word. An aunt of La Force's furnished him with the 2,000 crowns, and he was about to count them out to Martin, when a French nobleman came to inform La Force that the Duke of Anjou wished to speak to him. On this pretext the emissary conducted both father and sons from the house without their caps: with nothing, that is to say, to distinguish them from the victims of assassination. They were at once set upon. La Force's eldest son fell, crying out "_Je suis mort._" The father, pierced to the heart, uttered a similar exclamation; on which the youngest La Force had the presence of mind to throw himself to the ground as if dead. Supposed to be a corpse, he was gradually stripped of his clothes, until a man who intended to steal from him a pair of woollen stockings, of which he had not yet been divested, could not restrain, as he looked upon the boy's pallid face, some expression of sympathy. Seeing that the stranger had taken pity on him, young La Force whispered that he was not dead. He was told to keep quiet; and the man with a taste for woollen stockings wrapped him up in his cloak and carried him away. "What have you there?" asked an assassin. "My nephew," replied the man. "He went out last night and got dead drunk, and I mean, as soon as I get him home, to give him a good thrashing." Young La Force made his preserver a present of thirty crowns, and had himself conveyed in safety to the Arsenal, of which his uncle, Marshal de Biron, was governor.