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The cardinal at the same time entered this city, which he had subdued by sheer perseverance; Guiton came to meet him with six archers; he had not appeared during the negotiations, saying that his duty detained him in the town. "Away with you!" said the cardinal, "and at once dismiss your archers, taking care not to style yourself mayor any more on pain of death."
He strengthened the works, and made soldiers of all the men in the city, and all the boys, too, for that matter. Everybody who could handle a weapon of any kind had to take his place in the ranks. England had promised to send help, and the only question, Guiton thought, was whether or not he could hold out till the help should come; so he laid his plans to resist as long as possible.
"After I had wandered for some time about these curious streets, I went aboard the black, rotund little steamboat which was to take me to the island of Re. It was called the Jean Guiton.
But the girl had given a muffled cry. "Look, Jean! Already they come for us." Through the little garden a man was running, running frenziedly from one wall to another when he found the place had no outlet save the gate through which he had scuttled. It was fat Guiton, the steward of the Duc de Puysange.
To say that I found any traces of the siege would be to misrepresent the taste for vivid whitewash by which La Rochelle is distinguished to-day. The only trace is the dent in the marble top of the table on which, in the hôtel de ville, Jean Guiton, the mayor of the city, brought down his dagger with an oath when in 1628 the vessels and regiments of Richelieu closed about it on sea and land.
The French in great numbers stormed the defences time after time; but the brave Rochellese always drove them back with great loss. It was clear from the first that Guiton would not give way, and that no column, however strong, could force the city gates. But there was an enemy inside the town which was harder to fight than the one outside. There was famine in Rochelle!
Guiton, the mayor, sat at his council-board with a bare dagger before him to warn the faint-hearted. The old Duchesse de Rohan starved with the populace. Salbert, the most eloquent of Huguenot pastors, preached that martyrdom was better than surrender. Meanwhile, Richelieu built his mole across the harbour, and Buckingham wasted the English troops to which the citizens looked for their salvation.
Even when they had seen two English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's dike, they still held out manfully. The Duchess of Rohan, the Mayor Guiton, and the Minister Salbert, by noble sacrifices and burning words, kept the will of the besieged firm as steel. They were reduced to feed on their horses, then on bits of filthy shell-fish, then on stewed leather.
"Better surrender to a king who could take Rochelle, than to one who couldn't succor her," said the mayor, "John Guiton, who was asked if he would not become an English subject.
Signed and sealed the same day, month and year aforesaid. Guiton, Bazancourt, Revier, Barrois, Rabbe, D'Autancourt, Captain Reporter; Molin, Captain Register; and Hulin president.
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