The weather had been for some time dry, and they were enabled, with much difficulty, to effect a crossing; a circumstance which was regarded by the Huguenots as a special act of Providence, the more so as heavy rain fell the moment they had crossed, and the river rose so rapidly that when, a few hours later, the cavalry of Tavannes arrived in pursuit, they were unable to effect a passage.
The party had many other dangers and difficulties to encounter but, by extreme caution and rapidity of movement, they succeeded in baffling their foes, and in making their way across France.
On the evening of the 16th of September, a watchman on a tower of the chateau of Laville shouted, to those in the courtyard, that he perceived a considerable body of horsemen in the distance.

A vigilant watch had been kept up for some time, for an army had for some weeks been collected, with the ostensible motive of capturing Rochelle and compelling it to receive a royal garrison; and as, on its approach, parties would probably be sent out to capture and plunder the chateaux and castles of the Huguenot nobles, everything had been prepared for a siege.
The alarm bell was at once rung, to warn the neighbourhood of approaching danger.

The vacancies, caused in the garrison during the war, had been lately filled up; and the gates were now closed, and the walls manned; the countess herself, accompanied by her son and Philip, taking her place on the tower by the gateway.

The party halted, three or four hundred yards from the gate, and then two gentlemen rode forward.
"The party look to me more like Huguenots than Catholics, mother," Francois had said.

"I see no banners; but their dresses look sombre and dark, and I think that I can see women among them." A minute later, Philip exclaimed: "Surely, Francois, those gentlemen who are approaching are Conde and the Admiral!" "Impossible!" the countess said.