This wealthy and prosperous city stood upon an elevation rising from the river Somme.  It was surrounded by very extensive suburbs, ornamented with orchards and gardens, and including within their limits large tracts of a highly cultivated soil.  Three sides of the place were covered by a lake, thirty yards in width, very deep at some points, in others, rather resembling a morass, and extending on the Flemish side a half mile beyond the city.  The inhabitants were thriving and industrious; many of the manufacturers and merchants were very rich, for it was a place of much traffic and commercial importance.

Teligny, son-in-law of the Admiral, was in the city with a detachment of the Dauphin’s regiment; Captain Brueuil was commandant of the town.  Both informed Coligny of the imminent peril in which they stood.  They represented the urgent necessity of immediate reinforcements both of men and supplies.  The city, as the Admiral well knew, was in no condition to stand a siege by such an army, and dire were the consequences which would follow the downfall of so important a place.  It was still practicable, they wrote, to introduce succor, but every day diminished the possibility of affording effectual relief.  Coligny was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet, after such an appeal in behalf of the principal place in his government.  The safety of France was dependent upon that of St. Quentin.  The bulwark overthrown, Paris was within the next stride of an adventurous enemy.  The Admiral instantly set out, upon the 2d of August, with strong reinforcements.  It was too late.  The English auxiliaries, under Lords Pembroke, Clinton, and Grey, had, in the mean time, effected their junction with the Duke of Savoy, and appeared in the camp before St. Quentin.  The route, by which it had been hoped that the much needed succor could be introduced, was thus occupied and rendered impracticable.  The Admiral, however, in consequence of the urgent nature of the letters received from Brueuil and Teligny, had outstripped, in his anxiety, the movements of his troops.  He reached the city, almost alone and unattended.  Notwithstanding the remonstrances of his officers, he had listened to no voice save the desperate entreaties of the besieged garrison, and had flown before his army.  He now shut himself up in the city, determined to effect its deliverance by means of his skill and experience, or, at least, to share its fate.  As the gates closed upon Coligny, the road was blocked up for his advancing troops.

A few days were passed in making ineffectual sorties, ordered by Coligny for the sake of reconnoitring the country, and of discovering the most practicable means of introducing supplies.  The Constable, meantime, who had advanced with his army to La Fore, was not idle.  He kept up daily communications with the beleagured Admiral, and was determined, if possible, to relieve the city.  There was, however, a constant succession of disappointments.  Moreover, the