It was an awful looking place at which ha had to make his entrance there was certainly a considerable breach in the wall, and the fragments of it had fallen into the fosse, so as to lessen its width; but, nevertheless, there was full twenty feet of running water to cross, which had more the appearance of a branch of the river Loire, than of a moat round a town.
Henri saw that his men looked a little alarmed at what they had to go through; he had a light straw hat on his head, and taking it off, he threw it into the water, a little above the point he had to pass, and as the running water carried it down he said: "Whoever gives me that on the other side will be my friend for life." And as he spoke he himself leapt into the water, and swam across.
Jacques made a plunge for the hat: had it been in the middle of the Loire he would have gone after it under similar circumstances, though he couldn't swim a stroke; he did not go near the hat however, but went head over heels into the water; the impetus carried him through, and he was the second to scramble upon the broken mortar on the other side.

The Chevalier was more active; he leapt in and seized the hat as it was going down the stream, and swimming like a young duck, brought it back to its owner.
"Ah! Chevalier," said Henri, reproaching him playfully, and helping him up out of the water, "you have robbed some poor fellow of a chance; you, you know, cannot be more my friend, than you already are." The men quickly followed: they all got a ducking; some few lost their arms, one or two were slightly wounded by their comrades, but none of them were drowned.

Henri soon made his way over the ruins into the town, and carried everything before him.

The greater part of the garrison of the town were endeavouring to repulse the attack made by de Lescure; others had retired into the castle, in which the republican General thought that he might still hold out against the Vendeans.

Many were already escaping out of the town by the bridge over the Loire, and throwing down their arms, were hurrying along the road to Tours.
It was in this manner, and almost without opposition, that Larochejaquelin found himself, together with his brave followers, in the middle of Saumur; their own success astonished them; hardly a shot was fired at them in their passage; they went through the town without losing a man; the republican soldiers whom they did see threw down their arms and fled; the very sight of the Vendeans in the centre of the town overwhelmed them with panic.