From mid-winter onward, the English fleet was preparing; through what enormous difficulties, readers of English history know. From week to week, all through the spring, more and more alarming reports crossed the Channel: the English were coming; any day might see their sails in the north-west, bearing down on the coast of France. La Rochelle was their destination; but they could not reach the Huguenot city without first seizing one or both of the islands, Ré and Oléron, which guard it from the sea. Of these, Ré was now the strongest, new royal forts having been built there since the last Huguenot revolt, to overawe the town. Convinced that the English “could do nothing there,” Richelieu threw himself with fiery energy into the task of strengthening Oléron and the forts on the mainland. His letters, written during those months to the governors of towns and castles on the coast, especially to M. de Guron, governor of Marans, M. de Launay-Razilly, commanding in Oléron, M. de Toiras and others, including his brother-in-law the Marquis de Brézé, and his friend and lieutenant M. de Sourdis, Bishop of Maillezais, afterwards Archbishop of Bordeaux--kinsman and successor of his enemy Cardinal _Sordido_--are a really wonderful study. Few great statesmen have shown such a genius for detail. As the danger approached his letters flew to all parts of the coast, and in reading them one may almost hear the heavy strokes of the axe in Breton forests, the hammering of ship-builders, the creaking of cordage, the clank of arms and the rolling of cannon-balls, the rumbling of waggons laden with tools, powder, provisions for the islands. M. de Guron, through those months of March, April and May, can have slept but little. He had to understand “at half a word.” He had to cope with the angry tempers of the men who worked under him; he had to consider the poor people of the islands and to take care that the soldiers did not oppress them. Over and over again Richelieu writes in the interest of the peasants; they must not be taxed or tormented. In fact, they were neighbours of his old Luçon days; a very few miles to the north, the spire of his cathedral rose over the marshes; almost every letter shows his familiarity with every inch of that coast.