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Updated: May 2, 2025
"They were employed Spanish-fashion," says Richelieu, "that is, to make an appearance so as to astound the Rochellese by the union of the two crowns." A few days after their arrival, at the rumor of assistance coming from England, the Spanish admiral, who had secret orders to make no effort for France, demanded permission to withdraw his ships.
M. de La Milliere, the agent of the Rochellese, wrote to one of his friends at the Duke of Rohan's quarters, "Sir, I am arrived from Villeroy, where the English are not held as they are at Paris to be a mere chimera. Only I am very apprehensive of the September tides, and lest the new grapes should kill us off more English than the enemy will.
"This news," says Vieilleville, in his contemporary Memoires, "grievously afflicted the king; and the Constable de Montmorency represented to him that it was not the first time that these people had been capricious, rebellious, and mutinous; for that in the reign of his lord and father, the late king, the Rochellese and surrounding districts had forgotten themselves in like manner.
At the end of February, 1573, he recognized the impossibility of his double commission, and he went away from La Rochelle, leaving the place in better condition than that in which he had found it, without either king or Rochellese considering that they had any right to complain of him. Biron first and then the Duke of Anjou in person took the command of the siege.
They brought up, it is said, forty thousand men and sixty pieces of artillery. The Rochellese, for defensive strength, had but twenty-two companies of refugees or inhabitants, making in all thirty-one hundred men.
The town had already been refused permission to get rid of useless mouths. "All the Rochellese shall go out together," was the answer returned to Madame de Rohan. She determined to undergo with her brethren in the faith all the rigors of the siege.
The Rochellese were rejoicing over the treaty they had just concluded with the King of England, who promised "to aid them by land and sea, to the best of his kingly power, until he should have brought about a fair and secure peace."
Great was the despair in La Rochelle: "This shameful retreat of the English, and their aid which had only been received by faith, as they do in the Eucharist," wrote Cardinal Richelieu, "astounded the Rochellese so mightily that they would readily have made up their minds to surrender, if Madame de Rohan, the mother, whose hopes for her children were all centred in the preservation of this town, and the minister Salbert, a very seditious fellow, had not regaled them with imaginary succor which they made them hope for."
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!
It was this impossibility of any aid that the cardinal attempted to impress upon the Rochellese by means of letters which he managed to get into the town, representing to them that Buckingham, their protector, was dead, and that they were allowing themselves to be unjustly tyrannized over by a small number amongst them, who, being rich, had wheat to eat, whereas, if they were good citizens, they would take their share of the general misery.
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