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Germain-en-Laye on the 8th of August, 1570, and it was more equitable and better for the Reformers than the preceding treaties; for, besides a pretty large extension as regarded free exercise of their worship and their civil rights in the state, it granted "for two years, to the princes of Navarre and Conde and twenty noblemen of the religion, who were appointed by the king, the wardenship of the towns of La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and La Charite, whither those of the religion who dared not return so soon to their own homes might retire."
This party, which had been kept quiet by Henry's enlightened policy, now seized the opportunity to take up arms, and, under the command of some adventurous leaders, began to form themselves into a party within the state, and to fix on the strong and powerful town of Rochelle as the capital of their intended kingdom.
The Siege of La Rochelle was one of the great political events of the reign of Louis XIII, and one of the great military enterprises of the cardinal.
And it was on the Calvinist weavers and clothiers of Rochelle that the great Prince relied in the hour of danger as much as on his mountain chivalry. In England too, the seeds of liberty, wrapped up in Calvinism and hoarded through many trying years, were at last destined to float over land and sea, and to bear large harvests of temperate freedom for great commonwealths, which were still unborn.
The justice had no sooner concluded, than the bishop disappeared. A Dieppe Pilot. In August, 1777, a vessel from Rochelle, laden with salt, and manned by eight hands, with two passengers on board, was discovered making for the pier of Dieppe. The wind was at the time so high, and the sea so boisterous, that a coasting pilot made four fruitless attempts to get out, and conduct the vessel into port.
By the irony of fate he travelled up to town in the rear of the long procession that carried the commandeered Spanish gold. The plot thickened fast; for England was now on the brink of war with France over the secret aid Englishmen had been giving to the Huguenots at La Rochelle. But suddenly Elizabeth was all smiles and affability for France.
Speaking of Geneva, to which city, in spite of its rebellion, he always applied terms of compassion and affection, such as "my dear Geneva," or "my poor Geneva," he said to me more than once: "Would to God that these gentlemen had taken such small remains of my revenue as they have left to me, and that we had only as small a foothold in that deplorable city as the Catholics have in La Rochelle, namely, a little chapel in which to say Mass and perform the functions of our religion!
It yielded to the genius of Scipio, the conqueror of Africa, as La Rochelle, in later times, fell before Richelieu, but not until famine had done its work. The civilization of Spain was rapid after the fall of Numantia, and in the time of the Antonines was one of the richest and most prized of the Roman provinces.
"Aramis," he continued, "was intimate with a young needlewoman from Tours, a cousin of his, named Marie Michon." "Ah, I knew her!" cried the duchess. "It was to her he wrote from the siege of Rochelle, to warn her of a plot against the Duke of Buckingham." "Exactly so; will you allow me to speak to you of her?" "If," replied the duchess, with a meaning look, "you do not say too much against her."
So the Spaniard was polite to Elizabeth, Elizabeth was polite to the Spaniard, and in France the factions fought furiously round Rochelle or rested in temporary truce. The politeness was carried to very considerable lengths. Allen's seminary at Douay, where young English Catholics had been trained to go forth as missionaries and seek martyrdom in their native land, was ordered to remove itself.
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