The only mode of escape which appeared to him at all practicable, was to attempt to ride through them.

He gave the command "to horse," and got so far himself as to mount into his saddle; but it was of no use, he was surrounded by a crowd of peasants before he got to the gate, and he soon found himself on foot again, and unarmed.

Some ten or twenty of his men, who were ready to jump into the saddle at the moment when they were first aware of the approach of the royalists, escaped, but the remainder in a few minutes found themselves prisoners in the chateau.
The peasants were headed by Father Jerome, the priest of St.Laud, and it was he who first mounted the steps leading up to the front door of the house.

"Thank God," said he, speaking more to himself than to those around him.

"Thank God!" and he stood up against the pedestal of one of the lions, the heavy wooden crucifix which he had carried in his hand as he marched, or rather ran, to the succour of his friends at Durbelliere; and then he took off his cap, and with the sleeve of his dusty grey coat he wiped the perspiration from off his brow.