On the following day a deputation from the town came to make their submission to the King. The maréchaux de camp, Marillac and Le Hallier, met the deputies at the Porte Neuve of La Rochelle and conducted them to the entrance to the Royal lines, where Bassompierre was awaiting them. The marshal then conducted them to Laleu and presented them to the Cardinal, who, in his turn, presented them to the King, “to whom, throwing themselves on their knees, they made very humble submission. The King then spoke a few words to them, and the Keeper of the Seals at greater length, and finally the King pardoned them.”
On the 30th the town was occupied by the French and Swiss Guards. The sights they beheld were heartrending. The houses, the streets, the squares were encumbered with dead bodies which the living had not had the strength to bury; and as the troops passed along they were assailed by a crowd of living spectres, who, ravenous with hunger, snatched at the ammunition-bread suspended from the soldiers’ bandoliers. Nearly 15,000 people—that is to say, about half the population of La Rochelle—had perished; in all the town there were not 150 men capable of bearing arms.
The Cardinal made his entry the same day into the conquered town, preceded by a great convoy of provisions. Although ill and weak with fever, he had decided to make his entry on horseback, like a victorious general. Guiton, the man who had defied him for so many months, came, in his capacity as mayor, to receive him, escorted by six archers. The Cardinal sternly ordered him to dismiss his escort, as the office of Mayor of La Rochelle was henceforth abolished. Then he inquired of Guiton what he thought of the Kings of France and England. “I think,” was the reply, “that it is better to have for master the King who has taken La Rochelle than the King who was unable to defend it.”[119]
On November 1 Richelieu, transformed from the general into the priest, celebrated Mass in the Church of Sainte-Marguerite, assisted by his faithful lieutenant, Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux. Then he went to take the keys of the town to Louis XIII, who made his entry late in the day, the Cardinal riding “all alone before the King, as though to show to all that he was the second person in France.”
Some days later a royal declaration was issued, the preamble of which announced that the King had conquered by the aid of the Divine Providence, and by the “counsel, prudence, vigilance and toil” of the Cardinal. The mayoralty and all the other municipal offices of La Rochelle were abolished, the privileges of its citizens suppressed, and all its fortifications, save the three towers of La Lanterne, La Chaine and Saint-Nicholas and the ramparts facing the sea, were to be razed to the ground. The Pope was to be petitioned to make the town into a bishopric.
On the whole, however, it is impossible to deny that La Rochelle was treated with remarkable leniency. The town, it is true, lost its independence, which was, indeed, incompatible with the sovereignty of the King, but there was no vengeance taken, no victims sacrificed, no wanton mockery or insult offered to the vanquished. The lives and property of the inhabitants were spared, and their liberty of worship secured to them.
After the fall of La Rochelle, the Cardinal sent for Bassompierre and proposed to him that he should continue in command of the division of the army now serving under him, lead it to the Rhône, and there await orders to march into Italy to the relief of Casale. But the marshal begged his Eminence to excuse him, pointing out that though, in ordinary circumstances, he would be only too happy to have such a command, he had disbursed during the siege, largely in entertaining the King and other illustrious persons, no less a sum than 120,000 crowns, and that, in consequence, it was absolutely imperative that he should proceed to Paris, “for the purpose of putting his affairs in order.” The Cardinal accepted his excuses, and on November 18 Bassompierre set out with the King for Paris, into which Louis XIII made a triumphal entry, to celebrate his victory over the last great French town which was ever to stand up against the Monarchy, until in 1789 Paris rose and swept that ancient institution away.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Duc de Rohan and the Huguenots of the South continue their resistance—Opposition of Marie de’ Medici and the High Catholic party to Richelieu’s Italian policy—The Cardinal’s memorial to Louis XIII—Monsieur appointed to the command of the army which is to enter Italy—The King, jealous of his brother, decides to command in person—Twelve thousand crowns for a dozen of cider—Combat of the Pass of Susa—Treaty signed with Charles Emmanuel of Savoy—Problem of the reception of the Genoese Ambassadors—Anger of Louis XIII at a jest of Bassompierre—Peace with England—Campaign against the Huguenots of Languedoc—Massacre of the garrison of Privas—“La Paix de Grâce”—Surrender of Montauban—Richelieu and d’Épernon—Bassompierre returns to Paris with the Cardinal—Their frigid reception by the Queen-Mother—Richelieu proposes to retire from affairs and the Court, but an accommodation is effected.
Although the great bulwark of Protestantism had fallen, Richelieu did not have his hands entirely free. The obstinate Rohan, by great exertions, prevented the Huguenot party from dissolving beneath this staggering blow; and it was decided by a General Assembly which met at Nîmes not to submit unless their rights were preserved to them by a treaty guaranteed by the King of England. However, the continued resistance of the Huguenots of the South was not a matter of urgent importance, since the Royal troops already engaged there were well able to hold Rohan in check, until such time as the Cardinal was at leisure to undertake a vigorous offensive against him; and he therefore decided to bend all his energies to the more pressing task of relieving Casale.