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

* Bartliolomew le Roux and others.

3S8 HISTORY OF THE

narrow passage in its centre, (of one hundred and fifty feet,) guarded by a flotilla of vessels.''^

*' The brave Rochellese manfully defended themselves amidst warfiire and starvation. They were reduced from over 27,000 to 5000, and out of a company of nearly 600 English allies, only 62 survived. 'Assure the Rochellese that 1 will not abandon them ;' was the message of Charles of England to the closely besieged city, and jnst as Buckingham was taking command of the desired expedition, he was assassinated. This event created further delay, and the expedition arrived too late to relieve the place. The citizens bore their trials most manfully, and with a perseverance seldom equalled. The bearer of a letter was arrested, and compelled by torture to confess that he had swallowed it concealed in a silver almond ; and he with the silver-smith who made the almond were both hanged. Two illustrious ladies, the Duchess of Rohan and her daughter, who were not named in the capitulation, are thus referred to by a writer of that day. ^ Rigor without precedent, that a person of her quality, at the age of seventy, on quitting a siege in which she and her daughter had lived for three months on horse flesh and four or five ounces of bread per day, should be held a captive, deprived of the exercises of religion.' ' Protestants were no longer allowed to reside in this ' city of refuge,' unless they had been inhabitants before the arrival of Bucking'iam's expedition.