de La Rochelle.  Archives eurieuses de l’Histoire de France, t. iii. p. 102.] “We recognize no other sheriffs and governors than ourselves,” answered the sergeant on guard to the improvised herald sent by the king; “nobody will listen to you; away at once!” It was at last announced that the re-enforcements so impatiently expected were coming from England.  “The cardinal, who knew that there was nothing so dangerous as to have no fear of one’s enemy, had a long while before set everything in order, as if the English might arrive any day.”  Their fleet was signalled at sea; it numbered thirty vessels, and had a convoy of twenty barks laden with provisions and munitions, and it was commanded by the Earl of Denbigh, Buckingham’s brother-in-law.  The Rochellese, transported with joy, “had planted a host of flags on the prominent points of their town.”  The English came and cast anchor at the tip of the Island of Re.  The cannon of La Rochelle gave them a royal salute.  A little boat with an English captain on board found means of breaking the blockade; and “Open a passage,” said the envoy to the Rochellese, “as you sent notice to us in England, and we will deliver you.”  But the progress made in the works of the mole rendered the enterprise difficult; the besieged could not attempt anything; they waited and waited for Lord Denbigh to bring on an engagement; on the 19th of May, all the English ships got under sail and approached the roads.  The besieged hurried on to the ramparts; there was the thunder of one broadside, and one only; and then the vessels tacked and crowded sail for England, followed by the gaze “of the king’s army, who returned to make good cheer without any fear of the enemy, and with great hopes of soon taking the town.”

Great was the despair in La Rochelle:  “This shameful retreat of the English, and their aid which had only been received by faith, as they do in the Eucharist,” wrote Cardinal Richelieu, “astounded the Rochellese so mightily that they would readily have made up their minds to surrender, if Madame de Rohan, the mother, whose hopes for her children were all centred in the preservation of this town, and the minister Salbert, a very seditious fellow, had not regaled them with imaginary succor which they made them hope for.”  The cardinal, when he wrote these words, knew nothing of the wicked proposals made to Guiton and to Salbert.  “Couldn’t the cardinal be got rid of by the deed of one determined man?” it was asked:  but the mayor refused; and, “It is not in such a way that God willeth our deliverance,” said Salbert; “it would be too offensive to His holiness.”  And they suffered on.

Meanwhile, on the 24th of May, the posterns were observed to open, and the women to issue forth one after another, with their children and the old men; they came gliding towards the king’s encampment, but “he ordered them to be driven back by force; and further, knowing that they had sown beans near the counterscarps of their town, a detachment was sent out to cut them down as soon as they began to come up, and likewise a little corn that they had sown in some dry spots of their marshes.”  Louis the Just fought the Rochellese in other fashion than that in which Henry the Great had fought the Parisians.