Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/94

56 and in a paroxysm of jealousy and alarm he and the rest fell on Guyard and killed him. Then they entered into communication with S. Vidal, and surrendered on February 3rd, the day on which the baron received the news of his nomination by the King to be governor of Le Velay. Le Puy itself had undergone a siege by the Huguenots twelve years before this.

In 1562 the terrible Baron des Adrets, who was in Dauphiné stamping out every spark of Catholicism, deputed his lieutenant, Blacons, to secure Le Puy. Blacons was a man as ruthless as his commander, but without his military genius. It was settled that Blacons should assemble an army at Pont-en-Peyrat, a village on the borders of Forez and Velay. Thither accordingly gathered the Calvinists and a horde of adventurers thirsting for the pillage of the wealthy city and the shrine of the Madonna. The consuls of Le Puy sent the brother of their seneschal, Christopher d'Allègre, with 20,000 livres to treat with Blacons, and offer this sum if he would divert his column on some other town. Christopher d'Allègre, who was himself a Calvinist, and had been selected for the embassy on that ground, pocketed the money without intimating to Blacons the purpose for which it had been confided to him, and was instant in urging the Huguenot captain to capture and sack the city. The consuls, bishop, and chapter met in consultation and armed all the male inhabitants of the place, and hastily repaired the fortifications.

On August 4th arrived the citizens of S. Paulien, escaping with their goods and chatels from the Calvinists with terrible stories of outrage and murder committed by them. The alarm-bells pealed; a message was sent