Bassompierre, although, for political reasons, he may, like most of the great nobles, have wished to spare the great stronghold of the Huguenot party, carried out the duties entrusted to him with his customary zeal and efficiency. Never probably had so much responsibility rested upon him. He had to see that the soldiers and labourers engaged upon the mole upon his side of the canal were promptly supplied with all they required, so that the work might not be interrupted even for an hour. He was responsible for the construction of all the forts and redoubts on the western and north-western side of La Rochelle, which appear to have been made from plans which he himself drew. He had constantly to be on the alert, by day and night, to repel the sallies which the garrison directed against the unfinished works, and to prevent the attempts which, until the lines of circumvallation had been completed, were constantly being made under cover of darkness to revictual the town.
One morning in January, 1628, the marshal received a visit from the Marquis de Grimault, who informed him that he had been sent by the King, who had gone to spend a few days at a château near Nantes, to express to him his Majesty’s displeasure to learn that he had been so negligent as to allow a large herd of cattle to be driven through his lines into the town. In great astonishment, Bassompierre inquired who had accused him of this, and was told that it was the Duc d’Angoulême, from whom the King had received a letter that morning. The marshal at once despatched one of his officers, named Lisle-Rouet, who was a noted huntsman and could be trusted to identify the track of any animal, to investigate the affair; but Lisle-Rouet could find no sign of a herd of cattle having passed through their lines. He then proceeded to examine the country on the other side of La Rochelle, where the main part of the Royal army under Angoulême and Schomberg lay, and, by good fortune, came upon the track of the cattle near the village of Périgny, to the south-east of the town. He returned and reported his discovery to Bassompierre, who at once despatched him to the King, to whom, says the marshal, “he expressed just resentment that I had been blamed for the faults of others, and that without having heard me or had the matter confirmed, the King should have not only judged but condemned me on the mere statement of my enemy”; and he offered to prove, if his Majesty would send someone who was a huntsman with him, that the cattle had entered the town through Angoulême’s and Schomberg’s lines.
Louis thereupon sent for the two commanders, before whom Lisle-Rouet repeated what he had told the King. They, of course, declared that the thing was impossible, upon which his Majesty suggested that they had better go and examine the ground over which the cattle were said to have passed themselves, and sent with them one of his gentlemen named Croysilles, who, like Lisle-Rouet, was an experienced huntsman. Croysilles confirmed the opinion of the other, and Angoulême and Schomberg were reluctantly obliged to acknowledge that it was with themselves, and not with Bassompierre, that the blame for a particularly gross piece of negligence lay.
It seems probable, however, that the admission of the cattle into La Rochelle was due to something worse than negligence, at least so far as Angoulême was concerned. Anyway, he was most severely reprimanded both by the King and the Cardinal, the latter being furiously indignant that the success of operations involving so much labour and such enormous expense should be compromised in this fashion. As for Bassompierre, the King, “satisfied him by many words of his esteem and affection for his person”; but it must, nevertheless, have been very galling to the marshal to find how ready his Majesty was to credit the most unfounded accusations against even his most intimate friends.
It was this very same unfortunate trait in Louis XIII’s character which was just then causing his great Minister the keenest anxiety. To assure his influence with the King it was necessary to be with him constantly, so as to be in a position to disabuse his gloomy and fickle mind of the suspicions which the enemies of the Cardinal were perpetually endeavouring to implant there. Well, Louis had grown weary of the monotony of the siege and had announced his intention of returning to Paris. The Cardinal was profoundly alarmed. To follow the King was to renounce La Rochelle, for no other than Richelieu was capable of finishing the work of Richelieu; to remain, to separate from the King, was to risk his political existence, for in Paris were his most dangerous enemies, who would not fail to take the fullest advantage of this opportunity his absence afforded them. How could he tell whether some malign influence might not succeed in undermining the inconstant monarch’s trust in him, and bringing the whole fabric of his ambition, upon which alone it was reared, crashing to the ground? For a moment he had almost determined to go with the King; but Père Joseph is said to have persuaded him to stay, pointing out that, if he went, the operations would almost certainly fail, and be followed by an outcry which would ruin him. Anyway, he decided to remain, and Louis, who appears to have recognised that his Minister’s resolution had something magnanimous about it, took his departure for Paris on February 10 with the promise that he would soon return, and left him with the title of “Lieutenant-General of the Army,” the marshals, Bassompierre and Schomberg, themselves being directed to take their orders from him.
“It was a singular spectacle,” says Henri Martin, “this general in the red hat, with his staff in mitre and cowl. But the Cardinal knew how to render terrible what so nearly touched the grotesque. He had acted up to then in the shadow of the King; he was henceforth general, admiral, engineer, munitioner, intendant, paymaster. He communicated the fire of his soul to all who surrounded him. The Bishop of Mende, who was directing under him the construction of the mole, died meanwhile, giving orders that his body was to be interred in La Rochelle. The spirit of the soldiery and of the lesser nobility, who did not share the mental reservations of the grandees, rose to the same pitch.”
Meantime, however, storms were gathering on various parts of the horizon, and all the enemies of France appeared to be striving to prevent her achieving her political unity. Threatening preparations for the relief of La Rochelle were going forward in the English ports; Wallenstein was carrying all before him in Germany, and the fainting princes of the North were sending despairing appeals for assistance; while, worst of all, the Spaniards from the Milanese and the Duke of Savoy had invaded the duchy of Mantua and the marquisate of Montferrato, to which Charles of Gonzaga, Duc de Nevers, had succeeded on the death of Vincenzo I, Duke of Mantua, in 1627, and were threatening Casale, on the Po, a fortress which it was of the most vital importance to France to save from falling into unfriendly hands.[112]
But, until La Rochelle was taken, France could do little or nothing to aid her hard-pressed ally, for all the troops which could be spared from the defence of the frontiers, save those engaged to hold Rohan and the Huguenots of the South in check, were concentrated before the Protestant stronghold; all the money which could be raised was being thrown into the mud of its canal. Recognising the impossibility of abandoning the siege, but sorely troubled by the news from Italy, Richelieu determined to make an attempt to take La Rochelle by surprise, although he was well aware that his chance of success was of the slightest. On March 11, accordingly, he sent for Bassompierre and informed him that that night he was sending Marillac to endeavour to blow up the Porte des Salines, and instructed the marshal to have 2,000 foot and 300 horse in readiness to support him. Bassompierre assembled his troops with all due secrecy at the place appointed, where he was joined by the Cardinal, with a force about equal to his own. They waited there all night, expecting every moment to hear the sound of the explosion; but nothing happened, and it subsequently transpired that Marillac and the men who were carrying the petard had lost their way in the darkness.
In the early morning of the 13th another attempt was made, this time on the south-eastern side of the town; but it failed completely, and more than forty men were killed and wounded.
After this second fiasco, Richelieu prudently abandoned the idea of taking La Rochelle by a coup de main, and, feeling very uneasy as to what was happening in Paris, wrote to the King pressing him to hasten his return to the army, in order to discuss with him the situation.