THE COASTS OF SAINTONGE. 261 



parties, although more especially by the royal army*, 

 while at the same time they enable us the better to 

 appreciate the result of the undertaking. This 

 mode of fighting left some chance to heroism, and 

 this chance had been in favour of the Rochellais. 



To imitate the Duke d'Anjou would have been 

 merely to have run the risk of encountering the same 

 obstacles and meeting with the same reverses. 

 Richelieu, who had determined to destroy in France 

 the Protestant party which he upheld in Germany, 

 followed from the first a totally different system of 

 tactics. In order to leave nothing to chance in this 

 terrible game of war, he changed the siege into a 

 blockade. By his order a trench six feet deep and 

 twelve feet wide was cut for a distance of twelve 

 miles around the suburbs of La Rochelle, terminating 

 at both extremities at the entrance of the bay. 

 Behind this trench rose a parapet, flanked by seven- 

 teen forts and a great number of redouts armed with 

 formidable artillery. Forty thousand chosen men, 

 under the command of the most skilful generals of 

 France, were encamped beyond those lines, with 

 orders not to fight excepting to repulse the sorties 

 of the besieged ; and the severe punishments which 

 were inflicted on those whose ardour led them to 



* The troops of the Rochellais amounted to about 3100 ; of these 

 about 1300 were killed in the course of the siege. The royal army 

 amounted to 40,000 men, of whom 22,000 were killed ; more than 

 10,000 fell in the trenches or in the different engagements that 

 took place between the besieged and the assailants. The loss on 

 both sides was therefore nearly proportional to their numbers, and 

 from these data it would appear that the siege cost the lives of 

 nearly half of those who took part in it. 



s 3 



