A governor resided at La Rochelle in the name of the king, but the burghers did not allow him to introduce a strong garrison, nor to build a citadel. Its real chief was the mayor, who was chosen every year. The inhabitants were rich, industrious, intelligent, and excellent seamen; they numbered from twenty-five to thirty thousand souls.
The Reformation was certain of finding an easy entrance into their town; for wherever there were intelligence and freedom, the gates were opened to them beforehand. From the year 1557, it was known at La Rochelle. “This first beginning was so favoured of God,” says Theodore de Bèze, “that in a short time a great part of the town abandoned the superstitions of the Romish church, the Lord preparing thenceforth this place whereby to sustain on a future day the direst efforts of His adversaries.”[79]
La Rochelle was several times besieged during the religious wars, without having been ever taken. Condé, Coligny, Jeanne d’Albret, and Henry of Béarn, found within its walls a secure refuge. The political assemblies were held there in the most troublous times. It was, in a word, the firmest rampart and the great stronghold of the French Reformation, since the north and the centre of the kingdom could afford it a rallying-point no longer.
The independence of La Rochelle was even important for the noblemen of the (Roman) Catholic party, because it offered them a means of driving the crown to buy of them more dearly the succour they lent it, and of keeping the last remains of their feudal prerogatives safe. “We shall not be so foolish,” said one of them, “as to take La Rochelle;” and the Cardinal de Richelieu made this remark: “The greatest difficulty that I see in the design, is that most of them will labour by way of acquittal and with little affection.”
After the peace of 1622, the court had ordered the construction of a fort near La Rochelle, notwithstanding the petitions of the inhabitants, and the promise which had been given them, that their privileges should be respected. Out of this, continual collisions by sea and land had arisen, which produced no decisive result until the year 1627.
Richelieu at length sought to strike a great blow, by employing all the power of his genius and all the resources of the crown. He staked his political fortune upon the capture of La Rochelle, persuaded that if he succeeded in this expedition, he should break up the Huguenot party, reduce the first houses of the kingdom, and leave in France one dominant power alone—royalty.
VI.
The siege of La Rochelle began in 1627, and lasted more than a year before attentive Europe. The king of England promised to the inhabitants both his aid and credit. Thrice his fleet appeared in sight of the port; but the first time it could not take the citadel of the Isle of Ré; the second time it did not succeed in relieving the place, and the third, it seemed to have come only to assist at the ruin of the town. It was suspected that the duke of Buckingham had betrayed the cause of the Reformed communion, and that Charles I. shared in these disloyal manœuvres under the influence of his wife, Henrietta of France. The Puritans of England did not forget this grievance, when they drew up the account of the acts of that unfortunate prince in 1649.
The Cardinal de Richelieu constructed a dike in the sea, as Alexander did before Tyre, and shut up the besieged in an inclosure continually narrowing. He was at the same time admiral, chief engineer, and generalissimo; he superintended and directed everything, leaving to Louis XIII. only the vain pleasure of the chase, or of touching the sick at the grand fêtes of the Church. People cited the miracles of the king with admiration; those of the cardinal were more authentic and more useful to the monarchy.