suspected persons prisoners, or if needful, slay them as they stood. Crowds of prisoners poured into Amboise, tied together and driven like cattle to the shambles. Those who were known were reserved for a further purpose, the rest--the herd--were either hanged or drowned. The Loire was full of floating corpses. Condé, wary with the wariness of his race, ventured not again to Amboise. Coligni and his brother knew not how to oppose a power exercised in the royal name, but Jean Barri de la Renaudie, the ostensible leader of the conspiracy and a bold adventurer, alarmed at the mysterious disappearance of party after party of his followers, set out in rash haste towards Amboise. He too was watched for and expected among the wooded hills of the forest of Château Renaud. La Renaudie had encamped in the woods towards morning after advancing under cover of the night from Niort. Suddenly his detachment was approached by two or three horsemen, who, after reconnoitring for a few moments, retreated. These were evidently the advance guard of the royal forces. La Renaudie immediately broke up his camp and dashed on towards Amboise, concealed by the overhanging trees on the banks of a stream which flowed through a wild defile. In a hollow of the river, among beds of stone and sand, he was fallen upon by a regiment of royal troops who had tracked and finally caught him as in a trap. His own cousin Pardilliac commanded the attack, he recognised him by the flag. A deadly struggle ensued, in which both cousins fell. La Renaudie’s corpse, carried in triumph to Amboise, was hung in chains over the bridge. Then Condé, Coligni, and the other Calvinists came fully to understand what the edict of conciliation really meant. The Castle of Amboise during all this time had been strictly guarded; every door was watched, every gallery was full of troops; the garden and the walled plateau, within which stands the beautiful little votive chapel erected by Anne of Brittany, was like a camp. Silence, suspicion, and terror were on every face. Although the Queen-mother, with her crafty smiles and unruffled brow, affected entire ignorance and exhorted “la petite reinette,” as she called Mary, to hunt in the adjoining forest, and to assemble the Court in the state rooms with the usual banquets and festivities, Mary, pale and anxious, remained shut up with Francis in her private apartments. “My uncle,” said Francis to the Duc de Guise whom he met leaving the Queen-mother’s retiring-room, “I must know what all these precautions mean. Why are so many troops encamped about the castle, the guards doubled, and the gates closed? Why do you avoid me and the Queen? Uncle, I insist on knowing more.”