"Then where did you join the force that, as we hear, cut up the townspeople of Niort as they were massacring our people in the villages round, and afterwards obtained from the town the freedom of those who had been cast into prison, and permission for all Huguenots to leave the town?"
"There was no other force, sir. We had just the sixty men from Laville, commanded by my cousin Francois. When the news arrived of the doings at Niort, there was no time to send round to gather our friends; so we mounted the men-at-arms at the chateau and rode with all speed, and were but just in time. Had we delayed another half hour, to gather a larger force, we should have been too late."
"Tell us all about it," the prince said.
"This seems to have been a gallant and well-managed affair, Admiral."
Philip related the whole circumstances of the affair; how the townspeople had been heavily punished, and the chief men taken as hostages, and the peasants compelled to assist to convey the property of the Huguenots to Laville; also the subsequent negotiations, and the escape of all the Huguenots from Niort; and how the troop under him had smartly repulsed, with the loss of over thirty men, the men-at-arms from the city.
"A gallant enterprise," the prince said. "What think you, Admiral?"
"I think, indeed, that this young gentleman and his cousin, the young Count of Laville, have shown singular prudence and forethought, as well as courage. The matter could not have been better managed, had it been planned by any of our oldest heads. That they should, at the head of their little bodies of men-at-arms, have dispersed the cowardly mob of Niort, is what we may believe that any brave gentleman would have done; but their device of taking the priests and the other leaders as hostages, their boldness in summoning the authorities of Niort, under the threat of hanging the hostages and capturing the town, is indeed most excellent and commendable. I heard that the number of fugitives from Niort was nearly six hundred, and besides these there were, I suppose, those from the villages."
"About two hundred set out from the villages, sir."
"Eight hundred souls. You hear that, gentlemen? Eight hundred souls have been rescued, from torture and death, by the bravery and prudence of these two young gentlemen, who are in years but youths. Let it be a lesson, to us all, of what can be done by men engaged in a good work, and placing their trust in God. There is not one of us but might have felt proud to have been the means of doing so great and good a work, with so small a force; and to have saved eight hundred lives, without the loss of a single one; to say nothing of the sharp lesson given to the city mobs, that the work of massacre may sometimes recoil upon those who undertake it.
"Our good friend De la Noue has, more than once, spoken very highly to the prince and myself respecting the young count, and this young English gentleman; and they certainly have more than borne out his commendations."