The alarms and the frenzied preparations went on through the spring and far into the summer, and were at their height while the Bouteville affair and the death of Madame occupied the mind of Paris. On the day of the royal obsequies at Saint-Denis, the English fleet had already sailed from “Porsemus,” as Richelieu spells it, and ten or twelve days later it appeared off La Rochelle. Louis XIII. had already left Paris for the west coast. Monsieur was appointed lieutenant-general of the royal armies in Poitou, which were actually commanded by the King’s old cousin, the Duc d’Angoulême, with Louis de Marillac, brother of the Chancellor, as second in command, and by the Marshals de Schomberg and de Bassompierre. Later in the year, the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Montmorency were charged with checking the Duc de Rohan in Languedoc. By that time, Toiras being blockaded by the English in the Isle of Ré, and the attitude of La Rochelle being no longer doubtful, Richelieu had ceased to show patience and toleration of the King’s rebels. The day he had long foreseen had at last arrived. “Faut ruiner les Huguenots. Si Ré se sauve, facile. S’il se perd, plus difficile, mais faisable et nécessaire comme l’unique remède de la perte de Ré. Autrement les Anglois et Rochelois seroyent unis et puissans.” These notes form part of a report drawn up by the Cardinal’s secretaries of an interview between himself and Condé, which took place at Richelieu in the early autumn. The words may probably have been Condé’s: that foolish firebrand was in favour of setting the whole kingdom in a blaze of religious war, of persecuting the Protestants and pulling down their houses, in hopes that they might make such reprisals as would infuriate the country against them and lead to something like their extermination. These mad ideas were far enough from Richelieu; but he, equally with Condé, was now resolved to crush the rebel power, and to bring all Frenchmen under the King’s authority. But a long and difficult struggle lay before him. The King was ill when he left Paris, and after one day’s journey fever seized him so violently that he could go no farther. For weeks he lay between life and death at Villeroy, on the road to Orléans. He was there in the middle of July, when a courier arrived from the Marquis de Brézé, bringing news that the English had landed in Ré, and after sharp fighting, many precious lives being lost on both sides, had forced M. de Toiras to retire into the fort of Saint-Martin, where he was closely besieged. No one disputed the desperate courage of Toiras; but he earned great blame from the Cardinal for his rashness and want of foresight; the citadel being hardly in a state of defence, and provisioned for seven or eight weeks only. Boasting that he could drive off the English with one arm, he had indeed never faced the possibility of being shut up in Saint-Martin. The despised enemy was to teach him a sharp lesson.