ought the flags of the enemy and a body of prisoners outnumbering his
own band, the citizens renounced their fears, accepted the omen as a
pledge of Divine assistance, and cast in their lot with their brethren of
La Rochelle.[1259]

[Sidenote: La Rochelle the centre of interest.]

For La Rochelle had now become the centre of interest, and Montauban,
Nismes, and even Sancerre, whose brave and obstinate siege will soon
occupy us, were for the time almost wholly dismissed from consideration.
The strongly fortified Protestant town, the only point upon the shores of
the ocean which during the former civil wars had defied every assault of
the papal leaders, was now the safe and favorite refuge of the Huguenots,
and the coveted prey of the enemy. Within a very short time after the
massacre, a stream of fugitives set in toward La Rochelle. It was not long
before her hospitable walls sheltered fifty of the Protestant nobles of
the neighboring provinces, fifty-five ministers, and fifteen hundred
soldiers, chiefly from Saintonge, Aunis, and Poitou. Among the new-comers
were not a few who had with difficulty escaped from the bloody scenes at
Paris.[1260] All were inspired with the same courage, all possessed by the
same determination to sell their lives as dear as possible; for the
successive accounts of the cruelties perpetrated in all parts of France
left no doubt respecting the fate of the Rochellois should they too
succumb.

[Sidenote: A spurious letter of Catharine de' Medici.]

And there were not wanting circumstances of an alarming nature. At
Brouage, then a flourishing port some twenty-five miles south of La
Rochelle, a considerable body of troops had been gathered under Philip
Strozzi, the chief officer of the French infantry, while a fleet was in
course of preparation under the well-known Baron de la Garde. This
occurred previously to the massacre. The force, it was given out, was
intended for a secret expedition against the Spaniards. While the
Huguenots of Coligny, forming a junction with the troops of William of
Orange, should attack Alva in Flanders, Strozzi and La Garde were to make
a diversion upon the coasts of Spain itself. But the inhabitants of La
Rochelle gave little credit to this explanation, and even the personal
assurances of the admiral had not entirely removed their fears that their
own destruction was intended. It is not strange, therefore, that they
accepted the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day as a