Several attempts were made to send the old men, women, and children out of the town; but Louis XIII, who had none of his father’s kindly heart, which had led him to have compassion on the fugitives at the time of the siege of Paris, gave orders for them to be driven back. Those who persisted in trying to pass through the Royal lines were taken and hanged. Guiton, more inflexible even than the King, ended by refusing to open the gates to the poor creatures whom he had expelled, and numbers of them perished miserably between the besieging army and the walls of the town. About the middle of July, a rising in favour of peace broke out amongst the least zealous inhabitants. It was, however, speedily put down by the fanatical party, and Guiton caused several of the leaders to be executed. Early in August, however, a more regular attempt was made in the council of the town itself. Several of the magistrates of the Présidial inclined to submission, and one of them declared that they ought to surrender, provided that the King would leave them their walls and their religious liberty, pointing out that if the English fleet had been unable to effect anything when the canal was only partially closed, it could not reasonably be expected to be more successful now that the mole was completed. Guiton did not make use of the poniard which still lay on the council-table against the speaker, but he struck him with his fist. Another councillor then struck the mayor, and this unseemly brawl terminated by the Council ordering the arrest of Guiton. The latter however, raised the people against the moderate party, and the two councillors who had offended him had to go into hiding to escape being torn to pieces by the mob, who had been persuaded that there was no mercy to hope for from the King, and that, if they opened their gates, the men would be massacred and the women abandoned to the soldiers. Day after day, from the top of the ramparts, the famished citizens scanned the sea in the hope of catching sight of the approaching sails of the English fleet; day after day their hopes mocked them. The deputies of La Rochelle in England addressed to Charles I the most touching remonstrances in the name of their perishing city, but the King could do nothing until the necessary subsidies for the equipment of another expedition had been voted by Parliament, and even when these had been obtained, as the price of his surrender on the question of the Petition of Right, fresh obstacles arose to delay the departure of the fleet. And, meanwhile, the condition of La Rochelle was growing daily more terrible.