France with lack of bravery. The only
charge was that their bravery was almost sure to shun every useful form,
and to take every noxious form. The bravery which finds outlet in duels
they showed constantly; the bravery which finds outlets in street fights
they had shown from the day when the Duke of Orleans perished in a
brawl, to the days when the "Mignons" of Henry III fought at sight every
noble whose beard was not cut to suit them. The pride fostered by
lording it over serfs, in the country, and by lording it over men who
did not own serfs, in the capital, aroused bravery of this sort and
plenty of it. But that bravery which serves a great good cause, which
must be backed by steadiness and watchfulness, was not so plentiful. So
Richelieu found that the nobles who had conducted the siege before he
took command had, through their brawling propensities and lazy
propensities, allowed the besieged to garner in the crops from the
surrounding country, and master all the best points of attack.

But Richelieu pressed on. First he built an immense wall and earthwork,
nine miles long, surrounding the city, and to protect this he raised
eleven great forts and eighteen redoubts. Still the harbor was open, and
into this the English fleet might return and succor the city at any
time. His plan was soon made. In the midst of that great harbor of La
Rochelle he sank sixty hulks of vessels filled with stone; then, across
the harbor--nearly a mile wide and, in places, more than eight hundred
feet deep--he began building over these sunken ships a great dike and
wall; thoroughly fortified, carefully engineered, faced with sloping
layers of hewn stone.

His own men scolded at the magnitude of the work; the men in La Rochelle
laughed at it. Worse than that, the ocean sometimes laughed and scolded
at it. Sometimes the waves, sweeping in from that fierce Bay of Biscay,
destroyed in an hour the work of a week. The carelessness of a
subordinate once destroyed in a moment the work of three months.

Yet it is but fair to admit that there was one storm which did not beat
against Richelieu's dike. There set in against it no storm of hypocrisy
from neighboring nations. Keen works for and against Richelieu were put
forth in his day: works calm and strong for and against him have been
issuing from the presses of France and England and Germany ever since;
but not one of the old school of keen writers, or of the new school of
calm writers, is known