But Buckingham was flippant and careless; Richelieu, careful when there was need, and daring when there was need.  Buckingham’s heavy blows were foiled by Richelieu’s keen thrusts, and then, in his confusion, Buckingham blundered so foolishly, and Richelieu profited by his blunders so shrewdly, that the fleet returned to England without any accomplishment of its purpose.  The English were also driven from that vexing position in the Isle of Rhe.

Having thus sent the English home, for a time at least, he led king and nobles and armies to La Rochelle, and commenced the siege in full force.  Difficulties met him at every turn; but the worst difficulty of all was that arising from the spirit of the nobility.

No one could charge the nobles of France with lack of bravery.  The only charge was, that their bravery was almost sure to shun every useful form, and to take every noxious form.  The bravery which finds outlet in duels they showed constantly; the bravery which finds outlet in street-fights they had shown from the days when the Duke of Orleans perished in a brawl to the days when the "Mignons" of Henry III. fought at sight every noble whose beard was not cut to suit them.  The pride fostered by lording it over serfs, in the country, and by lording it over men who did not own serfs, in the capital, aroused bravery of this sort and plenty of it.  But that bravery which serves a great, good cause, which must be backed by steadiness and watchfulness, was not so plentiful.  So Richelieu found that the nobles who had conducted the siege before he took command had, through their brawling propensities and lazy propensities, allowed the besieged to garner in the crops from the surrounding country, and to master all the best points of attack.

But Richelieu pressed on.  First he built an immense wall and earthwork, nine miles long, surrounding the city, and, to protect this, he raised eleven great forts and eighteen redoubts.

Still the harbor was open, and into this the English fleet might return and succor the city at any time.  His plan was soon made.  In the midst of that great harbor of La Rochelle he sank sixty hulks of vessels filled with stone; then, across the harbor,—­nearly a mile wide, and, in places, more than eight hundred feet deep,—­he began building over these sunken ships a great dike and wall,—­thoroughly fortified, carefully engineered, faced with sloping layers of hewn stone.  His own men scolded at the magnitude of the work,—­the men in La Rochelle laughed at it.  Worse than that, the Ocean sometimes laughed and scolded at it.  Sometimes the waves sweeping in from that fierce Bay of Biscay destroyed in an hour the work of a week.  The carelessness of a subordinate once destroyed in a moment the work of three months.