The Cardinal was wise enough to give the King the credit of all his own marvellous doings at this time. It was practicable to blockade La Rochelle by land; but as long as the harbour and channel were open, it was impossible to hinder the city from receiving supplies by sea. At the same time, the difficulties connected with the land siege were considerable enough; and the army regulations carried out by Richelieu, mentioned in his letter to Marie de Médicis, were as stern as they were necessary. Three leagues of circumvallation, strengthened by forts and redoubts, had to be held by a host of more or less undisciplined men, whose careless commanders thought more of their own interests and their own quarrels than of the service of the King. Before Louis and the Cardinal arrived on the scene, the Duc d’Angoulême had been negligent or humane enough to allow the Rochellois to come out into their fields and gather in their harvest; and after the siege had really begun, he allowed a hundred and twenty oxen to be smuggled one night into the city. It might have cost a lesser man his head. [Illustration: LOUIS XIII] Richelieu once in full authority, no more such weakness was shown; but if implacably stern towards the besieged, he showed himself just and benevolent towards both the King’s soldiers and the poor peasants of that unhappy land, who had dragged on miserable lives through generations of religious wars. The soldiers were forbidden to rob the peasants, or to interfere with their field work. The army was regularly paid and provided with food and clothing, while the officers found themselves reinforced and overshadowed by a crowd of warlike ecclesiastics, the Bishops of Maillezais, of Mende, of Nîmes, and others, not to mention Père Joseph and his train of friars, who fought and fortified, preached and prayed, besieging the heretics in the spirit of crusaders and waging a holy war for Richelieu’s political ends.