However, as the negotiators desired peace before all things, they
proposed that the three chiefs should surrender and place themselves in
the hands of the Electoral Assembly. This offer being refused, the
electoral commissioners withdrew, and the rebels retired behind their
fortifications. About five o'clock in the evening, just as the
negotiations were broken off, M. Aubry, an artillery captain who had been
sent with two hundred men to the depot of field artillery in the country,
returned with six pieces of ordnance, determined to make a breach in the
tower occupied by the conspirators, and from which they were firing in
safety at the soldiers, who had no cover. At six o'clock, the guns being
mounted, their thunder began, first drowning the noise of the musketry
and then silencing it altogether; for the cannon balls did their work
quickly, and before long the tower threatened to fall. Thereupon the
electoral commissioners ordered the firing to cease for a moment, in the
hope that now the danger had become so imminent the leaders would accept
the conditions which they had refused one hour before; and not desiring
to drive them to desperation, the commissioners advanced again down
College Street, preceded by a bugler, and the captains were once more
summoned to a parley. Froment and Descombiez came out to meet them, and
seeing the condition of the tower, they agreed to lay down their arms and
send them for the palace, while they themselves would proceed to the
Electoral Assembly and place themselves under its protection. These
proposals being accepted, the commissioners waved their hats as a sign
that the treaty was concluded.

At that instant three shots were fired from the ramparts, and cries of
"Treachery! treachery!" were heard on every side. The Catholic chiefs
returned to the tower, while the Protestants, believing that the
commissioners were being assassinated, reopened the cannonade; but
finding that it took too long to complete the breach, ladders were