Richelieu’s first care was to finish the great dyke or mole by means of which alone the harbour of La Rochelle could be barred against all entrance from the sea. Two famous workmen from Paris, Métezeau and Tiriot, engineer and master-mason, undertook this tremendous piece of work, at which the regiments laboured in turn. Several times, in the early winter, the great beams and blocks of stone were swept away by furious seas, but Richelieu only began again: the two arms of the mole were well advanced in spring, and the Rochellois could watch from their ramparts the growing of those cruel prison walls against which Atlantic waves tumbled in vain. The narrow passage in the centre was blocked by sunken ships laden with stones, and then the doomed city was in the hands of her enemies: they had only to wait for her surrender. We may see Cardinal de Richelieu as artists have fancied him, standing on the wet rugged stones of the great mole, green water washing and foaming almost round his feet. Immense hulls of English ships loom in the offing, and small boats full of armed men are dancing on the waves. The gigantic beams of the _chevaux de frise_ protecting the mole are splintered by cannon-balls. A fresh breeze is blowing: the Cardinal’s scarlet cloak falls back from his slight steel-clad shoulders; he wears a sword; he is bare-headed, except for a skull-cap. He stands in his high boots, with folded arms, looking out to sea, unmoved, confident in his defences; while a group of soldiers and ecclesiastics, some yards behind him, talk and stare excitedly. The Cardinal’s mole and his other fortifications were too much for the English fleet when it returned in May: it hardly even attempted an attack, but sailed away in a week, leaving La Rochelle a prey to famine, though not yet to despair. The story of that terrible summer has often been told: how fresh English promises, with the desperate heroism of Guiton, the famous mayor, encouraged the town to hold out to the last; how the weak died by thousands, and the strong lived on grass, shell-fish, stewed hides and leather and worse food still; how old men, women and children, driven out of the city as useless mouths, were not allowed, even at the request of Madame de Rohan, to pass through the royal lines, but were forced to turn back, so that many, the gates being shut upon them, died miserably between the walls and the camp.