Rochelle

“ I followed this walk for some time, under the stunted trees, beside the grass-covered bastions; it is very charming, winding and wandering, always with trees. Beneath the rampart is a tidal river, and on the other side, for a long distance, the mossy walls of the immense garden of a seminary. Three hundred years ago, La Rochelle was the great French stronghold of Protestantism ”

“ The population of La Rochelle, swelled by the zealous Huguenots of the surrounding country, numbered at least thirty thousand souls—a race of fierce and intrepid corsairs, hardened to fatigue and danger, accustomed, for sixty years past, to live with restless vigilance in the perpetual state of siege which they had imposed on themselves in order to preserve their stormy liberties. ”

“ To go from Nantes to La Rochelle you travel straight southward, across the historic bocage of La Vendee, the home of royalist bush-fighting. The country, which is exceedingly pretty, bristles with copses, orchards, hedges, and with trees more spreading and sturdy than the traveller is apt to deem the feathery foliage of France. ”

“ The spirit of going through with what you undertake and not being stopped by a little mud that we first met with in Rochelle is here much intensified. In Illinois they prided themselves on surmounting obstacles; out here they are so imbued with the attitude of the men who live out on the plains and through the mountains—the pioneers whose adventures the most frivolous social leader knows by heart—that they don’t even recognize an obstacle when they see it. ”

“ During the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries La Rochelle, then an almost independent commune, was one of the great maritime cities of France. From its harbour in 1402 Jean de Béthencourt set out for the conquest of the Canaries, and its seamen were the first to turn to account the discovery of the new world. The salt-tax provoked a rebellion at Rochelle which Francis I. repressed in person ”

“ The city of La Rochelle, said to have become a walled place about 1126, had received many tokens of favor at the hands of its successive masters before the accession of Queen Alienor, or Éléonore, last Duchess of Aquitaine. It was by a charter of this princess, in 1199, that the municipality, or "commune," was established. (Arcère, Hist. de la Rochelle, ii., Preuves, 660, 661.) The terms of the charter are vague; but, as subsequently constituted, the "commune" consisted of one hundred prominent citizens, designated as "pairs," or peers, in whom all power was vested. ”

“ At the time when the beautiful and wealthy, the admired and accomplished, heiress of Aquitaine, presided over her courts of Love, now in one city of her extensive dominions, now in another, delighting and astonishing the whole troubadour world with her liberality, her taste, her learning, grace, and gaiety, lived, in the city of La Rochelle, a rich merchant, named Alexander Auffrédy, young, handsome, esteemed and envied. ”

“ Rochelle is going to be taken by the Catholics: that's clear to me."
"Unless the great Duke of Buckingham drive the Catholics beyond the Loire, it must be taken," answered the lad. "You can never stand against all France. But what makes you give up hope, Pierrot?"
"First, the King of France, and his devil of a Cardinal, are drawing together a great army all around us," answered Pierrot,—"a greater army than ever approached Rochelle before. That we could manage to resist, perhaps. ”

“ The full pleasure is to approach by stages and gradations; to observe the successive shades of difference by which it ceases to be the north. These shades are exceedingly fine, but your true south-lover has an eye for them all. If he perceive them at New York and Philadelphia, - we imagine him boldly as liberated from Boston, - how could he fail to perceive them at La Rochelle? The streets of this dear little city are lined with arcades, - good, big, straddling arcades of stone, such as befit a land of hot summers, and which recalled to me, not to go further, the dusky portions of Bayonne. ”

“ The Hôtel du Commerce at La Rochelle is the equal of the Hôtel de France at Niort, and has the added attraction of a glass-covered courtyard, where you may take your coffee and watch the household cats amusing themselves with the goldfish in the pool of the fountain which plays coolingly in the centre. ”

“ To say that I found any traces of the siege would be to misrepresent the taste for vivid whitewash by which La Rochelle is distinguished to-day. The only trace is the dent in the marble top of the table on which, in the hôtel de ville, Jean Guiton, the mayor of the city, brought down his dagger with an oath when in 1628 the vessels and regiments of Richelieu closed about it on sea and land. This terrible functionary was the soul of the resistance ”

“ We had been a week at La Rochelle; every morning enjoying our walk, for the weather was perfection, a warm, bright sun and fresh sea-breeze inspiriting us to take so very long a promenade twice a day, in order that we might lose nothing of the splendour of the sea. One day the sun deceived us; we set out as usual; but had not got half to the end of the ramparts, when a series of dark clouds came creeping over the [216] blue sky ”

“ LA ROCHELLE, a seaport of western France, capital of the department of Charente-Inférieure, 90 m. S. by E. of Nantes on the railway to Bordeaux. Pop. (1906) town 24,524, commune 33,858. La Rochelle is situated on the Atlantic coast on an inlet opening off the great bay in which lie the islands of Ré and Oléron. Its fortifications, constructed by Vauban, have a circuit of 31⁄2 m. with seven gates. Towards the sea are three towers, of which the oldest (1384) is that of St Nicholas. The apartment in the first storey was formerly used as a chapel. ”

“ The siege of La Rochelle is about to be resumed, monseigneur. I shall serve under the eye of your Eminence, and if I have the good fortune to conduct myself at the siege in such a manner as merits your attention, then I shall at least leave behind me some brilliant action to justify the protection with which you honor me. Everything is best in its time, monseigneur. ”

“ The City Hall of La Rochelle, an edifice that was almost wholly re-built nearly a century ago, in the year 1486, is one of the most beautiful monuments that patriotism and the love for one's city can boast. ”

“ La Rochelle is, however, infinitely less dull than the generality of French towns; and the quays and shipping, and the constantly-changing sea, prevent it from wearing the sad aspect which distinguishes France in her country places. Notwithstanding all that travellers are in the habit of saying about the liveliness of France, I never can cease to think that it is a dull country; for, except Paris in its season, there is no movement, no activity, no bustle, in its towns, save, now and then, the confusion of market-days. ”

“ La Rochelle and its Hôtel du Commerce are too good to be treated lightly or abruptly by any writer; but, for fear they may both become spoiled, no more shall be said here except to reiterate that they are both unapproachable in quaintness, comfort, and charm by anything yet found by the writer in four years of almost constant wanderings by road and rail up and down France.
Offshore four kilometres is the Ile de Ré, an isle thirty kilometres long, where the inhabitants wear the picturesque coiffe and costume which have not become contaminated with Paris fashions. ”

“ Meanwhile the distress of Rochelle had risen to the utmost extremity. That vast genius of Richelieu, which made him form the greatest enterprises, led him to attempt their execution by means equally great and extraordinary. In order to deprive Rochelle of all succor, he had dared to project the throwing across the harbor a mole of a mile’s extent in that boisterous ocean; and having executed his project, he now held the town closely blockaded on all sides. The inhabitants, though pressed with the greatest rigors of famine, still refused to submit ”

“ I have a friend who is a printer in La Rochelle, a fortified town, rich, industrious, well armed, wholly devoted to the Reformation, and so full of reliance on the power of her municipal franchise, her ramparts and the bravery of her numerous inhabitants, as confidently to defy our enemies. ”

“ The municipality replied that they thanked the King of England for his sympathy with the Protestants of France, but that La Rochelle was only one of the Reformed Churches and could not come to a decision except in concert with the others.
The middle classes, in fact, not only at La Rochelle, but in the other Huguenot towns of France, feared war. The party had now only two chiefs, Rohan and his brother Soubise. Bouillon was dead; Sully was old and less than ever disposed to revolt; La Force and Châtillon had accepted the bâton of marshal of France as the price of their loyalty ”

“ The season, we understood, had been particularly brilliant this year, and was scarcely yet over; though the ball-room and reading-rooms were less crowded than a few weeks before, when we were told that all that was gay and splendid in France [179] et l'Etranger was to be seen beneath the striped canopies of the sea-baths of La Rochelle. Certainly a more enjoyable place cannot be found anywhere; and I was not surprised that anything so rare and really comfortable and agreeable should meet with success. ”

“ On the 10th, General Foch made Fère his headquarters.
On leaving the town we come across fan-shaped [Pg 187] cross-roads and take the road farthest to the left. 200 yards along this, take the lane on the right, following the edge of the hill which dominates the Vaure.
REVIEW ON THE PLATEAU OF ROCHELLE
After climbing 21⁄2 km. the summit of the hill is reached. On the right of the road stretches the plateau of Rochelle, dotted with clumps of pine and covered with graves. Leave the car at the spot indicated in the photograph at foot of p. 186 and set out on foot towards the centre of the plateau. ”

“ The Rochellese, for defensive strength, had but 22 companies of refugees or inhabitants, making in all 3,100 men. The siege lasted from the 26th of February to the 13th of June, 1573; six assaults were made on the place. ... La Rochelle was saved. Charles IX. was more and more desirous of peace; his brother, the Duke of Anjou, had just been elected King of Poland; Charles IX. was anxious for him to leave France and go to take possession of his new kingdom. Thanks to these complications, the peace of La Rochelle was signed on the 6th of July, 1573. ”

“ The map, or any inhabitant of New York, will inform the reader that the principal road of communication between King's Bridge and Connecticut is through New Rochelle. That the whole tract of land south and southwest of Rochelle forms a peninsula, shut up on three sides by the North River and an arm of the sea called the East River. That there were only two roads by which the rebels at King's Bridge could escape out of this peninsula; the one due north towards Canada, and the other northeast through Rochelle towards Connecticut. ”

“ The scenes which took place at these periods have made this interesting town classic ground: there is not a wall, a tower, or a street, which has not some tale of heroism attached to it, and some noble trait may be recounted as having occurred in every quarter. [7]
There are no interesting churches in La Rochelle, the wars of religion having destroyed all the antique buildings of worship, both Catholic and Protestant. Nothing now remains of the extensive possessions of the Templars, or the Knights of Malta, who both had commanderies here. ”

“ La Rochelle is the seat of a bishopric and a prefect, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France; its educational establishments include an ecclesiastical seminary, a lycée and a training college for girls. Ship-building, saw-milling and the manufacture of briquettes and chemicals, sardine and tunny-preserving and petroleum-refining are among the industries. ”

“ He was about a month at home when his captain wrote to him, that his ship was ordered to Rochelle, from whence he was to sail for the West-Indies with some merchantmen. This was very agreeable to Misson and signior Caraccioli, who immediately set out for Marseilles. This town is well fortified, has four parish churches, and the number of inhabitants is computed to be about 120,000; the harbour is esteemed the safest in the Mediterranean, and is the common station for the French gallies. ”

“ The one thing to criticize is the backwardness of the lives of the good folk of the isle and their enormous pieds plats.
Northward from La Rochelle is a region, almost within sight of the Ile de Ré, where the women wear the most highly theatrical costumes to be seen anywhere in modern France, not even excepting the peasants of Brittany. ”

“ From mid-winter onward, the English fleet was preparing; through what enormous difficulties, readers of English history know. From week to week, all through the spring, more and more alarming reports crossed the Channel: the English were coming; any day might see their sails in the north-west, bearing down on the coast of France. La Rochelle was their destination; but they could not reach the Huguenot city without first seizing one or both of the islands, Ré and Oléron, which guard it from the sea. ”

“ Rochefort, Comte de, commonly known as Henri Rochefort, French journalist and violent revolutionary, who was deported for his share in the Commune in 1871, but escaped and was amnestied, and went back to Paris under eclipse; b. 1830.
Rochelle, La (23) , a fortified seaport of France, on an inlet of the Bay of Biscay, 95 m. NW. of Bordeaux; capital of the department of Charente-Inférieure; has a commodious harbour, noteworthy public buildings, a fine promenade and gardens; shipbuilding, glass-works, sugar-refineries, &c., are among its chief industries. ”