Day after day, from the top of the ramparts, the famished citizens scanned the sea in the hope of catching sight of the approaching sails of the English fleet; day after day their hopes mocked them. The deputies of La Rochelle in England addressed to Charles I the most touching remonstrances in the name of their perishing city, but the King could do nothing until the necessary subsidies for the equipment of another expedition had been voted by Parliament, and even when these had been obtained, as the price of his surrender on the question of the Petition of Right, fresh obstacles arose to delay the departure of the fleet. And, meanwhile, the condition of La Rochelle was growing daily more terrible.
The markets were deserted, the shops closed, numbers of houses were unoccupied, every member of the families who had once occupied them having perished. Dead bodies were constantly found in the streets—the bodies of those who had wandered hither and thither in a vain search for food, and at last had lain down and died, too weak to crawl back to their homes. And there they often remained for days, since it was difficult for the authorities to procure men with enough strength left to carry them away and bury them.
Amid all the horrors of the famine there were numerous instances of heroic self-devotion. For a week a father kept his child alive by nourishing it with his own blood, and many preferred death to sharing what little food they could get with those whom they loved. The preachers went about amongst the people, exhorting them to faith in Heaven, and the old Duchesse de Rohan ably seconded their efforts. As for Guiton, he was as inflexible as ever; nothing could bend that iron will. “One of his friends,” writes Pontis, “pointed out to him a person of their acquaintance who was dying of hunger. ‘Are you astonished at that?’ he answered coldly. ‘It is what you and I will assuredly have to come to!’ And when another observed to him that the whole town was famishing to death, he replied with the same coldness: ‘If one man remains to close the gates, it is enough!’”
The garrison, for whom the scanty supplies of the town had been husbanded to the utmost, fared better than the citizens; but by the middle of August it was found necessary to reduce their rations to what barely sufficed to enable even the strongest to carry out their duties. Many of the soldiers, who were not sustained by the same religious zeal as the Rochellois, attempted to surrender to the enemy; but, for the reasons which had caused the refugees to be driven back, orders were issued that their surrender was not to be accepted.
“On Monday the 14th [August],” writes Bassompierre, “fifty soldiers of the town came out towards Fort Sainte-Marie and asked to speak to me. They wished to surrender and to bring two hundred others with two captains; but I refused them.”
And on the following day:—
“A number of soldiers from La Rochelle came again to demand to be allowed to leave; but it was in vain.”
A few days later a single soldier presented himself at Bassompierre’s quarters and asked to speak to him in private. The marshal granted his request, but took the precaution to have him searched first. It was well that he did so, for a loaded pistol was found under the man’s doublet. “I sent him back,” says Bassompierre, “being unwilling to do him any harm.” Which act of forbearance does him great credit, though it is open to question whether the poor, starving wretch would not have much preferred to be hanged.
The following night some of the garrison, rendered desperate by their sufferings, endeavoured to make their way through Bassompierre’s lines and killed one of his sentries. They were all shot down.
Although the money required for the expedition to La Rochelle had been obtained, the preparations for its departure were still far from complete, for the Navy was in a deplorable condition, the ships badly in need of repairs, the men without discipline, the officers without enthusiasm. Towards the middle of August, Charles I went down to Southwick, a country-house near Portsmouth, to supervise personally the fitting out of the fleet, leaving Buckingham, who was to take command of the expedition, in London to hasten the despatch of the supplies that were needed. No man in England believed any more in the duke or his undertakings, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could get his officers to carry out his orders. “I find nothing,” he wrote to Conway, “of more difficulty and uncertainty than the preparations for the service of Rochelle. Every man says he has all things ready, and yet all remain as it were at a stand.”