THE SEIGE OF LA ROCHELLE

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. It is, then,

interesting and even necessary that we should say a few

words about it, particularly as many details of this siege

are connected in too important a manner with the story we

have undertaken to relate to allow us to pass it over in

silence.

The political plans of the cardinal when he undertook this

siege were extensive. Let us unfold them first, and then

pass on to the private plans which perhaps had not less

influence upon his Eminence than the others.

Of the important cities given up by Henry IV to the

Huguenots as places of safety, there only remained La

Rochelle. It became necessary, therefore, to destroy this

last bulwark of Calvinism--a dangerous leaven with which the

ferments of civil revolt and foreign war were constantly

mingling.

Spaniards, Englishmen, and Italian malcontents, adventurers

of all nations, and soldiers of fortune of every sect,

flocked at the first summons under the standard of the

Protestants, and organized themselves like a vast

association, whose branches diverged freely over all parts

of Europe.

La Rochelle, which had derived a new importance from the

ruin of the other Calvinist cities, was, then, the focus of

dissensions and ambition. Moreover, its port was the last

in the kingdom of France open to the English, and by closing

it against England, our eternal enemy, the cardinal

completed the work of Joan of Arc and the Duc de Guise.

Thus Bassompierre, who was at once Protestant and Catholic--

Protestant by conviction and Catholic as commander of the

order of the Holy Ghost; Bassompierre, who was a German by

birth and a Frenchman at heart--in short, Bassompierre, who

had a distinguished command at the siege of La Rochelle,

said, in charging at the head of several other Protestant

nobles like himself, "You will see, gentlemen, that we shall

be fools enough to take La Rochelle."

And Bassompierre was right. The cannonade of the Isle of Re

presaged to him the dragonnades of the Cevennes; the taking

of La Rochelle was the preface to the revocation of the

Edict of Nantes.

We have hinted that by the side of these views of the

leveling and simplifying minister, which belong to history,

the chronicler is forced to recognize the lesser motives of

the amorous man and jealous rival.

Richelieu, as everyone knows, had loved the queen. Was this

love a simple political affair, or was it naturally one of

those profound passions which Anne of Austria inspired in

those who approached her? That we are not able to say; but

at all events, we have seen, by the anterior developments of

this story, that Buckingham had the advantage over him, and

in two or three circumstances, particularly that of the

diamond studs, had, thanks to the devotedness of the three

Musketeers and the courage and conduct of D`Artagnan,

cruelly mystified him.

It was, then, Richelieu`s object, not only to get rid of an

enemy of France, but to avenge himself on a rival; but this

vengeance must be grand and striking and worthy in every way

of a man who held in his hand, as his weapon for combat, the

forces of a kingdom.

Richelieu knew that in combating England he combated

Buckingham; that in triumphing over England he triumphed

over Buckingham--in short, that in humiliating England in

the eyes of Europe he humiliated Buckingham in the eyes of

the queen.

On his side Buckingham, in pretending to maintain the honor

of England, was moved by interests exactly like those of the

cardinal. Buckingham also was pursuing a private vengeance.

Buckingham could not under any pretense be admitted into

France as an ambassador; he wished to enter it as a

conqueror.

It resulted from this that the real stake in this game,

which two most powerful kingdoms played for the good

pleasure of two amorous men, was simply a kind look from

Anne of Austria.

The first advantage had been gained by Buckingham. Arriving

unexpectedly in sight of the Isle of Re with ninety vessels

and nearly twenty thousand men, he had surprised the Comte

de Toiras, who commanded for the king in the Isle, and he

had, after a bloody conflict, effected his landing.

Allow us to observe in passing that in this fight perished

the Baron de Chantal; that the Baron de Chantal left a

little orphan girl eighteen months old, and that this little

girl was afterward Mme. de Sevigne.

The Comte de Toiras retired into the citadel St. Martin with

his garrison, and threw a hundred men into a little fort

called the fort of La Pree.

This event had hastened the resolutions of the cardinal; and

till the king and he could take the command of the siege of

La Rochelle, which was determined, he had sent Monsieur to

direct the first operations, and had ordered all the troops

he could dispose of to march toward the theater of war. It

was of this detachment, sent as a vanguard, that our friend

D`Artagnan formed a part.

The king, as we have said, was to follow as soon as his Bed

of Justice had been held; but on rising from his Bed of

Justice on the twenty-eighth of June, he felt himself

attacked by fever. He was, notwithstanding, anxious to set

out; but his illness becoming more serious, he was forced to

stop at Villeroy.

Now, whenever the king halted, the Musketeers halted. It

followed that D`Artagnan, who was as yet purely and simply

in the Guards, found himself, for the time at least,

separated from his good friends--Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

This separation, which was no more than an unpleasant

circumstance, would have certainly become a cause of serious

uneasiness if he had been able to guess by what unknown

dangers he was surrounded.

He, however, arrived without accident in the camp

established before La Rochelle, of the tenth of the month of

September of the year 1627.

Everything was in the same state. The Duke of Buckingham

and his English, masters of the Isle of Re, continued to

besiege, but without success, the citadel St. Martin and the

fort of La Pree; and hostilities with La Rochelle had

commenced, two or three days before, about a fort which the

Duc d`Angouleme had caused to be constructed near the city.

The Guards, under the command of M. Dessessart, took up

their quartered at the Minimes; but, as we know, D`Artagnan,

possessed with ambition to enter the Musketeers, had formed

but few friendships among his comrades, and he felt himself

isolated and given up to his own reflections.

His reflections were not very cheerful. From the time of

his arrival in Paris, he had been mixed up with public

affairs; but his own private affairs had made no great

progress, either in love or fortune. As to love, the only

woman he could have loved was Mme. Bonacieux; and Mme.

Bonacieux had disappeared, without his being able to

discover what had become of her. As to fortune, he had

made--he, humble as he was--an enemy of the cardinal; that

is to say, of a man before whom trembled the greatest men of

the kingdom, beginning with the king.

That man had the power to crush him, and yet he had not done

so. For a mind so perspicuous as that of D`Artagnan, this

indulgence was a light by which he caught a glimpse of a

better future.

Then he had made himself another enemy, less to be feared,

he thought; but nevertheless, he instinctively felt, not to

be despised. This enemy was Milady.

In exchange for all this, he had acquired the protection and

good will of the queen; but the favor of the queen was at

the present time an additional cause of persecution, and her

protection, as it was known, protected badly--as witness

Chalais and Mme. Bonacieux.

What he had clearly gained in all this was the diamond,

worth five or six thousand livres, which he wore on his

finger; and even this diamond--supposing that D`Artagnan, in

his projects of ambition, wished to keep it, to make it

someday a pledge for the gratitude of the queen--had not in

the meanwhile, since he could not part with it, more value

than the gravel he trod under his feet.

We say the gravel he trod under his feet, for D`Artagnan

made these reflections while walking solitarily along a

pretty little road which led from the camp to the village of

Angoutin. Now, these reflections had led him further than

he intended, and the day was beginning to decline when, by

the last ray of the setting sun, he thought he saw the

barrel of a musket glitter from behind a hedge.

D`Artagnan had a quick eye and a prompt understanding. He

comprehended that the musket had not come there of itself,

and that he who bore it had not concealed himself behind a

hedge with any friendly intentions. He determined,

therefore, to direct his course as clear from it as he could

when, on the opposite side of the road, from behind a rock,

he perceived the extremity of another musket.

This was evidently an ambuscade.

The young man cast a glance at the first musket and saw,

with a certain degree of inquietude, that it was leveled in

his direction; but as soon as he perceived that the orifice

of the barrel was motionless, he threw himself upon the

ground. At the same instant the gun was fired, and he heard

the whistling of a ball pass over his head.

No time was to be lost. D`Artagnan sprang up with a bound,

and at the same instant the ball from the other musket tore

up the gravel on the very spot on the road where he had

thrown himself with his face to the ground.

D`Artagnan was not one of those foolhardy men who seek a

ridiculous death in order that it may be said of them that

they did not retreat a single step. Besides, courage was

out of the question here; D`Artagnan had fallen into an

ambush.

"If there is a third shot," said he to himself, "I am a lost

man."

He immediately, therefore, took to his heels and ran toward

the camp, with the swiftness of the young men of his

country, so renowned for their agility; but whatever might

be his speed, the first who fired, having had time to

reload, fired a second shot, and this time so well aimed

that it struck his hat, and carried it ten paces from him.

As he, however, had no other hat, he picked up this as he

ran, and arrived at his quarters very pale and quite out of

breath. He sat down without saying a word to anybody, and

began to reflect.

This event might have three causes:

The first and the most natural was that it might be an

ambuscade of the Rochellais, who might not be sorry to kill

one of his Majesty`s Guards, because it would be an enemy

the less, and this enemy might have a well-furnished purse

in his pocket.

D`Artagnan took his hat, examined the hole made by the ball,

and shook his head. The ball was not a musket ball--it was

an arquebus ball. The accuracy of the aim had first given

him the idea that a special weapon had been employed. This

could not, then, be a military ambuscade, as the ball was

not of the regular caliber.

This might be a kind remembrance of Monsieur the Cardinal.

It may be observed that at the very moment when, thanks to

the ray of the sun, he perceived the gun barrel, he was

thinking with astonishment on the forbearance of his

Eminence with respect to him.

But D`Artagnan again shook his head. For people toward whom

he had but to put forth his hand, his Eminence had rarely

recourse to such means.

It might be a vengeance of Milady; that was most probable.

He tried in vain to remember the faces or dress of the

assassins; he had escaped so rapidly that he had not had

leisure to notice anything.

"Ah, my poor friends!" murmured D`Artagnan; "where are you?

And that you should fail me!"

D`Artagnan passed a very bad night. Three or four times he

started up, imagining that a man was approaching his bed for

the purpose of stabbing him. Nevertheless, day dawned

without darkness having brought any accident.

But D`Artagnan well suspected that that which was deferred

was not relinquished.

D`Artagnan remained all day in his quarters, assigning as a

reason to himself that the weather was bad.

At nine o`clock the next morning, the drums beat to arms.

The Duc d`Orleans visited the posts. The guards were under

arms, and D`Artagnan took his place in the midst of his

comrades.

Monsieur passed along the front of the line; then all the

superior officers approached him to pay their compliments,

M. Dessessart, captain of the Guards, as well as the others.

At the expiration of a minute or two, it appeared to

D`Artagnan that M. Dessessart made him a sign to approach.

He waited for a fresh gesture on the part of his superior,

for fear he might be mistaken; but this gesture being

repeated, he left the ranks, and advanced to receive orders.

"Monsieur is about to ask for some men of good will for a

dangerous mission, but one which will do honor to those who

shall accomplish it; and I made you a sign in order that you

might hold yourself in readiness."

"Thanks, my captain!" replied D`Artagnan, who wished for

nothing better than an opportunity to distinguish himself

under the eye of the lieutenant general.

In fact the Rochellais had made a sortie during the night,

and had retaken a bastion of which the royal army had gained

possession two days before. The matter was to ascertain, by

reconnoitering, how the enemy guarded this bastion.

At the end of a few minutes Monsieur raised his voice, and

said, "I want for this mission three or four volunteers, led

by a man who can be depended upon."

"As to the man to be depended upon, I have him under my

hand, monsieur," said M. Dessessart, pointing to D`Artagnan;

"and as to the four or five volunteers, Monsieur has but to

make his intentions known, and the men will not be wanting."

"Four men of good will who will risk being killed with me!"

said D`Artagnan, raising his sword.

Two of his comrades of the Guards immediately sprang

forward, and two other soldiers having joined them, the

number was deemed sufficient. D`Artagnan declined all

others, being unwilling to take the first chance from those

who had the priority.

It was not know whether, after the taking of the bastion,

the Rochellais had evacuated it or left a garrison in it;

the object then was to examine the place near enough to

verify the reports.

D`Artagnan set out with his four companions, and followed

the trench; the two Guards marched abreast with him, and the

two soldiers followed behind.

They arrived thus, screened by the lining of the trench,

till they came within a hundred paces of the bastion.

There, on turning round, D`Artagnan perceived that the two

soldiers had disappeared.

He thought that, beginning to be afraid, they had stayed

behind, and he continued to advance.

At the turning of the counterscarp they found themselves

within about sixty paces of the bastion. They saw no one,

and the bastion seemed abandoned.

The three composing our forlorn hope were deliberating

whether they should proceed any further, when all at once a

circle of smoke enveloped the giant of stone, and a dozen

balls came whistling around D`Artagnan and his companions.

They knew all they wished to know; the bastion was guarded.

A longer stay in this dangerous spot would have been useless

imprudence. D`Artagnan and his two companions turned their

backs, and commenced a retreat which resembled a flight.

On arriving at the angle of the trench which was to serve

them as a rampart, one of the Guardsmen fell. A ball had

passed through his breast. The other, who was safe and

sound, continued his way toward the camp.

D`Artagnan was not willing to abandon his companion thus,

and stooped to raise him and assist him in regaining the

lines; but at this moment two shots were fired. One ball

struck the head of the already-wounded guard, and the other

flattened itself against a rock, after having passed within

two inches of D`Artagnan.

The young man turned quickly round, for this attack could

not have come from the bastion, which was hidden by the

angle of the trench. The idea of the two soldiers who had

abandoned him occurred to his mind, and with them he

remembered the assassins of two evenings before. He

resolved this time to know with whom he had to deal, and

fell upon the body of his comrade as if he were dead.

He quickly saw two heads appear above an abandoned work

within thirty paces of him; they were the heads of the two

soldiers. D`Artagnan had not been deceived; these two men

had only followed for the purpose of assassinating him,

hoping that the young man`s death would be placed to the

account of the enemy.

As he might be only wounded and might denounce their crime,

they came up to him with the purpose of making sure.

Fortunately, deceived by D`Artagnan`s trick, they neglected

to reload their guns.

When they were within ten paces of him, D`Artagnan, who in

falling had taken care not to let go his sword, sprang up

close to them.

The assassins comprehended that if they fled toward the camp

without having killed their man, they should be accused by

him; therefore their first idea was to join the enemy. One

of them took his gun by the barrel, and used it as he would

a club. He aimed a terrible blow at D`Artagnan, who avoided

it by springing to one side; but by this movement he left a

passage free to the bandit, who darted off toward the

bastion. As the Rochellais who guarded the bastion were

ignorant of the intentions of the man they saw coming toward

them, they fired upon him, and he fell, struck by a ball

which broke his shoulder.

Meantime D`Artagnan had thrown himself upon the other

soldier, attacking him with his sword. The conflict was not

long; the wretch had nothing to defend himself with but his

discharged arquebus. The sword of the Guardsman slipped

along the barrel of the now-useless weapon, and passed

through the thigh of the assassin, who fell.

D`Artagnan immediately placed the point of his sword at his

throat.

"Oh, do not kill me!" cried the bandit. "Pardon, pardon, my

officer, and I will tell you all."

"Is your secret of enough importance to me to spare your

life for it?" asked the young man, withholding his arm.

"Yes; if you think existence worth anything to a man of

twenty, as you are, and who may hope for everything, being

handsome and brave, as you are."

"Wretch," cried D`Artagnan, "speak quickly! Who employed

you to assassinate me?"

"A woman whom I don`t know, but who is called Milady."

"But if you don`t know this woman, how do you know her

name?"

"My comrade knows her, and called her so. It was with him

she agreed, and not with me; he even has in his pocket a

letter from that person, who attaches great importance to

you, as I have heard him say."

"But how did you become concerned in this villainous

affair?"

"He proposed to me to undertake it with him, and I agreed."

"And how much did she give you for this fine enterprise?"

"A hundred louis."

"Well, come!" said the young man, laughing, "she thinks I am

worth something. A hundred louis? Well, that was a

temptation for two wretches like you. I understand why you

accepted it, and I grant you my pardon; but upon one

condition."

"What is that?" said the soldier, uneasy at perceiving that

all was not over.

"That you will go and fetch me the letter your comrade has

in his pocket."

"But," cried the bandit, "that is only another way of

killing me. How can I go and fetch that letter under the

fire of the bastion?"

"You must nevertheless make up your mind to go and get it,

or I swear you shall die by my hand."

"Pardon, monsieur; pity! In the name of that young lady you

love, and whom you perhaps believe dead but who is not!"

cried the bandit, throwing himself upon his knees and

leaning upon his hand--for he began to lose his strength

with his blood.

"And how do you know there is a young woman whom I love, and

that I believed that woman dead?" asked D`Artagnan.

"By that letter which my comrade has in his pocket."

"You see, then," said D`Artagnan, "that I must have that

letter. So no more delay, no more hesitation; or else

whatever may be my repugnance to soiling my sword a second

time with the blood of a wretch like you, I swear by my

faith as an honest man--" and at these words D`Artagnan made

so fierce a gesture that the wounded man sprang up.

"Stop, stop!" cried he, regaining strength by force of

terror. "I will go--I will go!"

D`Artagnan took the soldier`s arquebus, made him go on

before him, and urged him toward his companion by pricking

him behind with his sword.

It was a frightful thing to see this wretch, leaving a long

track of blood on the ground he passed over, pale with

approaching death, trying to drag himself along without

being seen to the body of his accomplice, which lay twenty

paces from him.

Terror was so strongly painted on his face, covered with a

cold sweat, that D`Artagnan took pity on him, and casting

upon him a look of contempt, "Stop," said he, "I will show

you the difference between a man of courage and such a

coward as you. Stay where you are; I will go myself."

And with a light step, an eye on the watch, observing the

movements of the enemy and taking advantage of the accidents

of the ground, D`Artagnan succeeded in reaching the second

soldier.

There were two means of gaining his object--to search him on

the spot, or to carry him away, making a buckler of his

body, and search him in the trench.

D`Artagnan preferred the second means, and lifted the

assassin onto his shoulders at the moment the enemy fired.

A slight shock, the dull noise of three balls which

penetrated the flesh, a last cry, a convulsion of agony,

proved to D`Artagnan that the would-be assassin had saved

his life.

D`Artagnan regained the trench, and threw the corpse beside

the wounded man, who was as pale as death.

Then he began to search. A leather pocketbook, a purse, in

which was evidently a part of the sum which the bandit had

received, with a dice box and dice, completed the

possessions of the dead man.

He left the box and dice where they fell, threw the purse to

the wounded man, and eagerly opened the pocketbook.

Among some unimportant papers he found the following letter,

that which he had sought at the risk of his life:

"Since you have lost sight of that woman and she is now in

safety in the convent, which you should never have allowed

her to reach, try, at least, not to miss the man. If you

do, you know that my hand stretches far, and that you shall

pay very dearly for the hundred louis you have from me."

No signature. Nevertheless it was plain the letter came

from Milady. He consequently kept it as a piece of

evidence, and being in safety behind the angle of the

trench, he began to interrogate the wounded man. He

confessed that he had undertaken with his comrade--the same

who was killed--to carry off a young woman who was to leave

Paris by the Barriere de La Villette; but having stopped to

drink at a cabaret, they had missed the carriage by ten

minutes.

"But what were you to do with that woman?" asked D`Artagnan,

with anguish.

"We were to have conveyed her to a hotel in the Place

Royale," said the wounded man.

"Yes, yes!" murmured D`Artagnan; "that`s the place--Milady`s

own residence!"

Then the young man tremblingly comprehended what a terrible

thirst for vengeance urged this woman on to destroy him, as

well as all who loved him, and how well she must be

acquainted with the affairs of the court, since she had

discovered all. There could be no doubt she owed this

information to the cardinal.

But amid all this he perceived, with a feeling of real joy,

that the queen must have discovered the prison in which poor

Mme. Bonacieux was explaining her devotion, and that she had

freed her from that prison; and the letter he had received

from the young woman, and her passage along the road of

Chaillot like an apparition, were now explained.

Then also, as Athos had predicted, it became possible to

find Mme. Bonacieux, and a convent was not impregnable.

This idea completely restored clemency to his heart. He

turned toward the wounded man, who had watched with intense

anxiety all the various expressions of his countenance, and

holding out his arm to him, said, "Come, I will not abandon

you thus. Lean upon me, and let us return to the camp."

"Yes," said the man, who could scarcely believe in such

magnanimity, "but is it not to have me hanged?"

"You have my word," said he; "for the second time I give you

your life."

The wounded man sank upon his knees, to again kiss the feet

of his preserver; but D`Artagnan, who had no longer a motive

for staying so near the enemy, abridged the testimonials of

his gratitude.

The Guardsman who had returned at the first discharge

announced the death of his four companions. They were

therefore much astonished and delighted in the regiment when

they saw the young man come back safe and sound.

D`Artagnan explained the sword wound of his companion by a

sortie which he improvised. He described the death of the

other soldier, and the perils they had encountered. This

recital was for him the occasion of veritable triumph. The

whole army talked of this expedition for a day, and Monsieur

paid him his compliments upon it. Besides this, as every

great action bears its recompense with it, the brave exploit

of D`Artagnan resulted in the restoration of the tranquility

he had lost. In fact, D`Artagnan believed that he might be

tranquil, as one of his two enemies was killed and the other

devoted to his interests.

This tranquillity proved one thing--that D`Artagnan did not

yet know Milady.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 577