It was here they issued their famous declaration stating the affair to be one of unheard of cruelty, and bidding defiance to their enemies the house of Guise. " And it was here they armed and fortified themselves, trusting in a just cause and to the favor of Heaven. For nine months they fought most gallantly in defence of La Rochelle, killing 40,000 of their enemies, who besieged them with the strongest and mightiest army of France without success. It was however in 1627, that this city made its last and ever memorable stand for the cause of the Huguenots.

" And it may safely be said, that this mighty city would never have fallen (such was the undaunted heroism of the Rochellese themselves) had it not been for the powerful minded genius of Cardinal Richelieu, who planned and executed such a mighty work against it, that in gigantic extent it has been compared by historians to the similiar one executed by Alexander the Great, for Tyre. The powerful mind of Richelieu saw at a glance that it was useless to carry on the longest siege against the city of La Rochelle, whilst a free communication remained open to the sea, on which the town was situated. He therefore closed the mouth of their channel by the erection of a prodigious mole, 4482 feet across the harbor, with a central opening. The frame work of this mole consisted of huge piles which was filled up with stones, and sixty hulks sunk with the same material, for the purpose of buttresses. One arm of this immense dyke overlapped the other, so that the entrance instead of being in front was lateral. A stockade of piles, interlaced with chains effectually stopped the passage. This work he completed and defended by 45,000 men, while forty pieces of cannon on the one shore, and twenty-five on the other, flanked the approaches ; and the narrow passage in its centre (of one hundred and fifty feet) guarded by a flotilla of vessels.""