he at once ordered that what had been taken should be
paid for, and that persons trespassing thereafter should be severely
punished. He found also the great nobles who commanded in the army
half-hearted and almost traitorous from sympathy with those of their own
caste on the other side of the walls of La Rochelle, and from their fear
of his increased power, should he gain a victory. It was their common
saying, that they were fools to help him do it. But he saw the true
point at once--He placed in the most responsible positions of his army
men who felt for his cause, whose hearts and souls were in it,--men not
of the Dalgetty stamp, but of the Cromwell stamp. He found also, as he
afterward said, that he had to conquer not only the Kings of England and
Spain, but also the King of France. At the most critical moment of the
siege Louis deserted him,--went back to Paris,--allowed courtiers to
fill him with suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life,
was in danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and
siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and then the
King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from his courtiers, and
went back to his master.

And now a Royal Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender.
But they were not yet half conquered. 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. They died in multitudes.

Guiton the Mayor kept a dagger on the city council-table to stab any man
who should speak of surrender; some who spoke of yielding he ordered
to execution as seditious. When a friend showed him a person dying of
hunger, be said, "Does that astonish you? Both you and I must come to
that." 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 people
yielded, and Richelieu entered the city as