266 KAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



his garrison was reduced to seventy-four Frenchmen 

 and sixty-two Englishmen, Guiton felt that he had 

 done enough, and had exacted from his compatriots 

 all that was humanly possible ; he therefore now 

 came forward and entreated them to surrender to the 

 king, and laying aside all personal feeling went and 

 himself liberated from prison one of his greatest 

 enemies, the assessor Raphael Colin, and entrusted 

 to him the command of the city, in order the more 

 effectually to facilitate the conclusion of the treaty. 



The conditions were extremely severe ; for although 

 life, property, and liberty of conscience were granted 

 to the few surviving Rochellais, all the privileges of 

 the city were annulled, and it was stipulated that 

 the ramparts and other defences of La Rochelle 

 were to be entirely destroyed.* The mayor and ten 



Rochelle a sentiment of animosity against France, or at all events 

 against the king, which they were very far from entertaining. 

 Buckingham probably hoped by the aid of religious dissensions to 

 bring back those times when England possessed one of the finest 

 districts of France. These hopes were, however, frustrated by the 

 cordial patriotism of the Rochellais, and when the fact was once 

 ascertained, a marked coolness was exhibited towards them by the 

 English. The armaments which had been promised to them, and 

 the reinforcements on which they had relied, never reached them. 

 Finally, the want of success which attended the expedition conducted 

 by Buckingham himself on the island of Re, in 1627 (in which he 

 was repulsed by Toiras, and defeated by Schomberg), thoroughly 

 disgusted him with the war, and he concluded a separate peace with 

 France without informing his allies of the step he had taken. 



* These conditions which were granted by Richelieu when all 

 further resistance was absolutely impossible, exhibit the real cha- 

 racter of this struggle. It is evident that it was more especially of 

 a political character, at least in the eyes of the leaders of the oppo- 

 site parties. If the Cardinal had acted in accordance with the 



