For days the intrepid leader vainly endeavored to secure entrance into the city.[1558] Finally, on November 26 he was reluctantly admitted. During the cold and weary weeks of December, January, and February, while besieged and besiegers were lying on their arms upon the walls or in the trenches, La Noue alternately entreated and expostulated, urging the necessity of peace in the face of vilification, the Huguenot minister La Place even calling him “perfide traistre, déserteur de son parti.” “The word of the King,” said Catherine de Medici, to the deputies of the Reformed on one occasion, “ought to be sufficient for you.” “No,” replied one of them, “not since St. Bartholomew.”[1559] Even La Noue’s influence could not overcome the radical party in La Rochelle which imprisoned as many as advocated capitulation no matter what the terms might be. At last on March 12, 1573, the brave man gave up hope of persuading the zealot populace and returned to the King’s camp. Angry at the failure of these pacific overtures, the government forces redoubled their attacks. On March 22 the royal artillery opened a terrible fire upon the city, more than 1,500 cannon-balls being thrown. On April 7 there was a furious assault, even women fighting on the wall, and the attack was repeated on the 10th, 13th, and 14th, on the last day there being five separate attempts to take the city by storm. Montgomery, who had been sent to England for assistance,[1560] appeared with about seventy ships, and was on the point of giving battle in the bay, when a fleet of forty vessels from the ports of Brittany and Normandy hove in sight. These ships, with what Anjou could muster, made too great a body for Montgomery to risk an engagement, and so he retired to Belle-Ile, which was made a Protestant naval base.[1561] [Illustration: Plan de la Rochelle en M·D·LXXII. From _Histoire au siège de La Rochelle en 1573_, traduite du Latin de Philippe Cauriana (La Rochelle, 1856).] Meanwhile, the Swiss in camp had toiled in the trenches and “swamp angel” guns were established in the marshes to batter the port of St. Nicholas. On June 11 the supreme assault on La Rochelle was made and repulsed. The attacking force by an escalade gained possession of the rampart but found a mighty trench before them, so that they were constrained to beat their way along the rampart in the hopes of finding a place to cross it. Those in the camp, seeing their comrades gain the ramparts, cried, “ville gaignée!” But the Rochellois lured the enemy along the wall “and when they were entered set upon them both before and behind with such fury that they were all either slain or hurt, and the rest who were coming to succor the foremost were repulsed with great loss.”[1562]