[Sidenote: The flight of the prince and the admiral.]
[Sidenote: Proves wonderfully successful.]
Having despatched "this testimony of the innocence, integrity, and faith" of himself and of his associates, "to be transmitted to posterity in everlasting remembrance," the Prince of Condé set out on the same day (the twenty-third of August) from Noyers. Coligny had joined him, bringing from Tanlay his daughter, the future bride of Téligny--and, after that nobleman's assassination on St. Bartholomew's Day, of William of Orange, the hero of the revolt of the Netherlands--and his young sons, as well as the wife and infant son of his brother D'Andelot. Condé was himself accompanied by his wife, who was expecting soon to be confined, and by several children. His own servants and those of the admiral, with a few noblemen that came in from the neighborhood, swelled their escort to about one hundred and fifty horse.[582] With such a handful of men, and embarrassed in their flight by the presence of those whom their age or their sex disqualified for the endurance of the fatigues of a protracted journey, Condé and Coligny undertook to reach the friendly shelter of the walls of La Rochelle. It was a perilous attempt. The journey was one of several hundred miles, through the very heart of France. The cities were garrisoned by their enemies. The bridges and fords were guarded. The difficulties, in fact, were apparently so insurmountable, that the Roman Catholics seem to have expected that any attempt to escape would be made in the direction of Germany, where Casimir, their late ally, would doubtless welcome the Protestant leaders. This mistake was the only circumstance in their favor, for it diminished the number and the vigilance of the opposing troops.
The march was secret and prompt. Contrary to all expectation, an unguarded ford was discovered not far from the city of Sancerre,[583] by which, on a sandy bottom, the fugitive Huguenots crossed the Loire, elsewhere deep and navigable as far as Roanne.[584] If the drought which had so reduced the stream as to render the passage practicable was justly regarded as a providential interposition of Heaven in their behalf, the sudden rise of the river immediately afterward, which baffled their pursuers, was not less signal a blessing.[585] Other dangers still confronted them, but their prudence and expedition enabled them to escape them, and on the eighteenth of September[586] the weary travellers, with numbers considerably increased by reinforcements by the way, entered the gates of La Rochelle amid the acclamations of the brave inhabitants.