The battle began the following day [13th May] in Rouaix square where [Captain] Saux had advanced at about 10 o'clock the night before with a strong contingent of heretic infantry along with the merchant Jean Robert from the Town Hall. They wanted to take the Carmelite convent, protected by a high wall and houses, through an assault and from there to launch an attach on the Palace [of Justice]. They were repulsed by Captain Montmaur and Robert was killed.
No sooner had they retreated than the Puits-Clos alley, through which they had come, was blocked off by a huge wall of stacked-up bales of wool and the house of Jacques Bordes, a bourgeois, adjoining it was reinforced by catholic arquebusiers. They were pounded by the enemy's muskets and culverines from the Saint-Pantaléon convent, which had been amonst the first to be seized and ransacked.
The following day the Huguenots, seeing this route blocked off, divided into two contingents, one setting off down the chemin de La Pierre, and the other by St Etienne to get towards the Palace. The first was repulsed by Delpuech's forces . . . and forced to retreat. The other managed to make it through the Place St-Georges without meeting any resistance under the leadership of Captain Sauxens. There they ransacked and drank a good deal of wine and then pillaged the church property around, took down the church bells and took them back to the Town Hall along with the remainder of the wine.
As they pressed on, Cardailhac, the great bell of the cathedral St Etienne, sounded to warn catholics of the coming assault. The count of Carmain . . . [and numerous other local gentry] came forth diligently, half-armed with whatever forces they had so far assembled at the Palace and, at the first moment of conflict, pushed them back to the Hôtel du Buet, one of the councillors in the Parlement, at the corner of the rue de la Pomme. Savignac, Ricault and a soldier from the Montmaur contingent were killed fighting, hit by the fire from the tower and windows of heretic houses, from which stones, musket and arquebus-fire and similar torments of war rained down on them. The count of Carmain, Verniolle, Gardouche, Monmaur and two other soldiers were wounded and the batallion so badly mauled that it caused great regret and astonishment to our side.
They nevertheless took up courage once more and charged so forcefully that they chased the enemy right back along the street to the house of Cadillac, the Maître des ponts et passages, a valliant and generous citizen who had contributed to the costs of garrisoning the churches. Only the coming of nightfall put an end to the skirmishing with the Place St-Georges remaining in the hands of the rebels. After two further days of fighting, they [the protestants] found that small firearms were not sufficient to take Cadillac's house and they brought out the canon from the Town Hall. When Cadillac saw the canons pointed at his door he took flight amongst the neighbouring houses. He saw his wife give herself up to Captain Saux with his young children, promising loyalty to him with many tears. They took refuge in Rouaix square in the house of the President of the Parlement, Daffis, at that point deserted and uninhabited since Daffis had taken refuge with his family in the house of his brother-in law Tornoer, closer to the Palace, not being sure of his safety in his own home . . .
When Saux returned [from the fighting beyond the place St Georges], instead of finding himself congratulated and thanked for his despatch was roundly criticized by the minister for having let the Maître des ponts [Cadillac] escape on payment of a ransom and telling Ducèdre and Mandinelli that he had always been a wicked traitor. Despite this, he returned to the fray against us . . . during which his companions in arms, disturbed by such talk, began to share the same opinion, drawing on their suspicion that a poor lady from the rue Villeneuve, once a nurse to the son of Pierre Saluste, a councillor in the Court [of Parlement] had been to see him and give him greetings from a notable lady, the mother of M. Pierre Gargas, a catholic judge, a relative of M. Thomas Forey, also a judge, and mother-in-law of Saluste's . . . . They accused him of having secret intelligence with, and receiving rewards from, the Court [of Parlement] to surrender . . . and put everyone to the sword with the loss of the new religion . . . .
The Capitouls, who up until that moment had been silent, captive to, and in the power and grip of the people, incapable of reason, where they had no oversight of affairs, in the hands of others, deprived of the dear company of ther wives and children, they bitterly regretted the unfortunate unfolding of their unhappy enterprise. They contested with one another like savages in a cage, reproaching one another for their bad advice. They even set about one another with fists, and blamed their womenfolk, and became confused in themselves, . . . deep in the abyss of their octocratic tyranny ['ochlocratique tyrannie'] . . . .
The protestants, for their part, looked to their own defence and erected a good many fortifications of barrels and other things in various places, namely one just by the well known as the Trois Carrières, a second towards the house of the legal clerk Pelissier, behind la Pomme, a third on the great rue des Changes, close by the St Rome church, a fourth towards Pecolières, not far from the house of Sacalé, a fifth towards the Najac tower, on the corner of the street looking towards the tower, a sixth on St George's corner, a seventh on the corner by the Bazacle, near the house of Suberne, an eighth towards St Sernin, and a ninth towards the Périgord College.
The catholics, on the other hand, built up fortifrications in the steeples of the churches and numerous other town houses in various parts of the city, preparing themselves for the assault. Such, at least, was what happened amongst those who did not demand the killing and pillaging of the enemy, since this was what was endlessly sought after and propounded by the seditious and bloodthirsty judges of the Parlement. A good number of the notables, however, along with an infinite number of poor ordinary folk, rent the air with cries for peace, for the honour of God . . . .
So it was that, at 10 o'clock in the morning the fighting began with the advance of [a catholic contingent] under Lamezan the elder and his son, leading 200 men around the Najac tower. But they were swiftly repulsed. The same thing happened to those who tried to enter the rue de la Pomme and around Perolières and at the St Rome church. A large contingent [of catholics] advanced towards the Matabiau gate to try and take it, but they were repulsed. At this, the protestants took heart and decided to try a frontal assault on the palace [of the Parlement] which was the stronghold of their enemies. But Captain Saux, who had engaged in talks the day before with some of the enemies and committing treason (as became clear later on) stopped their engagement from taking place . . . .
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