such an one,” he said, “as he could have desired, but such as he must make the best of.”  The King of England had granted his aid and promised not to relax until the Reformers had firm repose and solid contentment, provided that they seconded his efforts.  “I bid you thereto in God’s name,” he added, “and for my part, were I alone, abandoned of all, I am determined to prosecute this sacred cause even to the last drop of my blood and to the last gasp of my life.”  The assembly fully approved of their chief’s behavior, accepting “with gratitude the King of England’s powerful intervention, without, however, loosing themselves from the humble and inviolable submission which they owed to their king.”  The consuls of the town of Milhau were bolder in their reservations.  “We have at divers time experienced,” they wrote to the Duke of Rohan, whilst refusing to join the movement, “that violence is no certain means of obtaining observation of our edicts, for force extorts many promises, but the hatred it engenders prevents them from taking effect.”  The duke was obliged to force an entrance into this small place.  La Rochelle had just renounced her neutrality and taken sides with the English, “flattering ourselves,” they said in their proclamation, “that, having good men for our witnesses and God for our judge, we shall experience the same assistance from His goodness as our fathers had aforetime.”

M. de La Milliere, the agent of the Rochellese, wrote to one of his friends at the Duke of Rohan’s quarters, “Sir, I am arrived from Villeroy, where the English are not held as they are at Paris to be a mere chimera.  Only I am very apprehensive of the September tides, and lest the new grapes should kill us off more English than the enemy will.  I am much vexed to hear nothing from your quarter to second the exploits of the English, being unable to see without shame foreigners showing more care for our welfare than we ourselves show.  I know that it will not be M. de Rohan’s fault nor yours that nothing good is done.

“I forgot to tell you that the cardinal is very glad that he is no longer a bishop, for he has put so many rings in pawn to send munitions to the islands, that he has nothing remaining wherewith to give the episcopal benediction.  The most zealous amongst us pray God that the sea may swallow up his person as it has swallowed his goods.  As for me, I am not of that number, for I belong to those who offer incense to the powers that be.”  It was as yet a time when the religious fatherland was dearer than the political; the French Huguenots naturally appealed for aid to all Protestant nations.  It was even now an advance in national ideas to call the English who had come to the aid of La Rochelle foreigners.