He was called the mute captain.
There was need of a less conspicuous and more pronounced leader for that which was becoming a conspiracy.

And one soon presented himself in the person of Godfrey de Barri, Lord of La Renaudie, a nobleman of an ancient family of Perigord, well known to Duke Francis of Guise, under whose orders he had served valiantly at Metz in 1552, and who had for some time protected him against the consequences of a troublesome trial, at which La Renaudie had been found guilty by the Parliament of Paris of forging and uttering false titles.

Being forced to leave France, he retired into Switzerland, to Lausanne and Geneva, where it was not long before he showed the most passionate devotion for the Reformation.

"He was a man," says De Thou, "of quick and insinuating wits, ready to undertake anything, and burning with desire to avenge himself, and wipe out, by some brilliant deed, the infamy of a sentence which he had incurred rather through another's than his own crime.

He, then, readily offered his services to those who were looking out for a second leader, and he undertook to scour the kingdom in order to win over the men whose names had been given him.