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Updated: October 26, 2025
This coast is as flat as a turtle! But start away at ten minutes to five, as I tell you, and at half-past seven you will be again aboard of the Jean Guiton, which will put you down this same evening on the quay at La Rochelle. "I thanked the captain and I went and sat down in the bow of the steamer to get a good look at the little city of Saint-Martin, which we were now rapidly approaching.
DUC DE PUYSANGE, a true Frenchman, a pert, railing fribble, but at bottom a man of parts. MARQUIS DE SOYECOURT, a brisk, conceited rake, and distant cousin to de Puysange. CAZAIO, captain of brigands. DOM MICHEL FREGOSE, a lewd, rascally friar. GUITON, steward to de Puysange. PAWSEY, Ormskirk's man. ACHON, a knave. MICHAULT, another knave.
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 hotel 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 table and chair of Jean Guiton have been restored, Iike everything else, and are very elegant and coquettish pieces of furniture, incongruous relics of a season of starvation and blood. I believe that Protestantism is somewhat shrunken to-day at La Rochelle, and has taken refuge mainly in. the haute societe and in a single place of worship.
When another told him that multitudes were perishing, he said, "Provided one remains to hold the city-gate, I ask nothing more." But at last even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than a year, after five thousand were found remaining out of fifteen thousand, after a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood, the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him.
The cardinal, when he wrote these words, knew nothing of the wicked proposals made to Guiton and to Salbert. "Couldn't the cardinal be got rid of by the deed of one determined man?" it was asked: but the mayor refused; and, "It is not in such a way that God willeth our deliverance," said Salbert; "it would be too offensive to His holiness." And they suffered on.
The Jean Guiton passed over it, rolling a little from habit, dividing the smooth, dark blue water and leaving behind a few waves, a little splashing, a slight swell, which soon calmed down. "I began to talk to the captain, a little man with small feet, as round as his boat and rolling in the same manner. I wanted some details of the disaster on which I was to draw up a report.
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.
"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.
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