Meanwhile the townspeople arrived to lend assistance; some put up
ladders, and entered the tower without encountering any resistance and
plundered it. La Perandiere, lieutenant of the castle, perceiving La
Blissais, said to him: "This, sir, is a most miserable night." But La
Blissais impressed upon him that this was not the time for conversation.
The Count of Fontaines had not made his appearance. They went in search
of him, and found him lying dead across the threshold of his chamber,
pierced by a shot from an arquebuse that one of the townspeople had
fired at him, as he was about to go out, escorted by a servant bearing a
light. "Instead of rushing to face the danger," says the author of this
account,[5] "he had dressed as leisurely as if he were going to a
wedding, without leaving one shoulder-knot untied."
This outbreak in Saint-Malo, which so greatly harmed the king, did not
in the least benefit the Duke de Mercoeur. He had hoped that the people
would accept a governor from his hands, his son, for example, a mere
child, for that would have meant himself, but they obstinately refused
to listen to it. He sent troops to protect them, but they refused to let
them enter, and the soldiers were compelled to take lodgings outside of
the city.
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