reaching the southern bank of the Loire—roughly speaking, the Huguenot bank—and taking refuge in some town, Rochelle or St. Jean d’Angely, where the Huguenots were strong, and whence he might take steps to set himself right with his own side.
But to cross the great river which divides France into two lands widely differing he must leave the city by the east gate; for the only bridge over the Loire within forty miles of Angers lay eastward from the town, at Ponts de Cé, four miles away. To this gate, therefore, past the Rue Toussaint, he whirled his party daringly; and though the women grew pale as the sounds of riot broke louder on the ear, and they discovered that they were approaching instead of leaving the danger—and though Tignonville for an instant thought him mad, and snatched at the Countess’s rein—his men-at-arms, who knew him, galloped stolidly on, passed like clockwork the end of the street, and, reckless of the stream of persons hurrying in the direction of the alarm, heedless of the fright and anger their passage excited, pressed steadily on. A moment and the gate through which they had entered the previous evening appeared before them. And—a sight welcome to one of them—it was open.
They were fortunate indeed, for a few seconds later they had been too late. The alarm had preceded them. As they dashed up, a man ran to the chains of the portcullis and tried to lower it. He failed to do so at the first touch, and, quailing, fled from Badelon’s levelled pistol. A watchman on one of the bastions of the wall shouted to them to halt or he would fire: but the riders yelled in derision, and thundering through the echoing archway, emerged into the open, and saw, extended before them, in place of the gloomy vistas of the Black Town, the glory of the open country and the vine-clad hills, and the fields about the Loire yellow with late harvest.
