In the meanwhile the war with France had taken a new aspect. The much vaunted Spanish invasion of France through Bayonne under the Duke of Nocera had turned out a ridiculous fiasco, and it was soon evident that Richelieu meant to make an effort to revenge the attempt by an invasion of Spain, as well as to retrieve the reverses he had sustained elsewhere in the previous year. Anna of Austria, the Queen Mother of France, did her best privately to persuade her brother and Olivares to terms of peace acceptable to her son; and she sent to Madrid for the purpose, in the summer of 1637, {335} a Minorite friar, who had many interviews with Olivares on the subject. But the war had now entered into a phase which involved the personal rivalry of two all-powerful statesmen, as well as the prestige of two great nations, so that it had to be fought to a finish. The blinded courtiers in Madrid, moreover, openly scoffed at the idea of making peace with France until Spain had asserted its incontestable superiority;[20] and all that the Minorite friar took back with him to France was the little finger of Saint Isidore the Husbandman, the patron of Madrid, which was secretly cut from the body of the saint in his church in the Calle de Toledo at midnight, to be sent as a venerated relic to Philip's sister Anna in Paris.[21] [Sidenote: Spain invaded] In the summer of 1638, Richelieu was ready to strike his blow on Spanish soil. Crossing the river Bidasoa at St. Jean de Luz, a French army rapidly captured Irun and the fine harbour of Pasages, and laid siege to Fuenterrabia both by sea and by land. The Prince of Condé (Henri de Bourbon) and the Duke de la Valette were in command on land, and the Bishop of Bordeaux at sea. An attempt was made by the French to storm the hill upon which the fortress stands, but the Admiral of Castile and the Marquis of los Velez, with 6000 men from Navarre and Guipuzcoa, eager to fight for their own provinces, came opportunely upon the scene. A dashing charge threw panic into the French camp, and the besiegers fled headlong to their boats. Spaniards were always ready enough to fight when well led, and they were fighting for their own {336} provincial frontiers; and though La Valette was accused by Richelieu of treachery, and condemned to death in his absence in England, whither he had fled to join Marie de Medici, his men on this occasion were fairly beaten by Spanish soldiers, who were irresistible when they were defending their own provinces. [Sidenote: The French repelled]