failure, and, on the twentieth of
March, the siege was changed to a blockade. Forts were erected in the most
advantageous spots, and a wide trench was dug around the entire
city.[1296] Sancerre was to be tried by the severe ordeal of hunger; and
certainly the most frightful among ancient sieges can scarcely be said to
have surpassed in horror that of this small city.[1297]

[Sidenote: The incipient famine.]

Did not the sufferings of the heroic inhabitants claim our sympathy, we
might read with entertainment the singular devices they resorted to in
grappling with a terrible foe whose insidious advances were more difficult
to oppose than the open assaults of the enemy. For the famine of Sancerre
boasts of a historian more copious and minute than Josephus or Livy. In
reading the narrative of the famous Jean de Lery[1298]--the same writer
to whom we are indebted for an authentic account of Villegagnon's
unfortunate scheme of American colonization--we seem to be perusing a
great pathological treatise. Never was physician more watchful of his
patient's symptoms than Lery with his hand upon the pulse of famishing
Sancerre. It would almost seem that the restless Huguenot, who united in
his own person the opposite qualifications of clergyman and soldier,
desired to make his little work a useful guide in similar circumstances,
for a portion of it, at least, has been appropriately styled "a cookery
book for the besieged."[1299]

Early in the siege, not without some qualms, the inhabitants made trial of
the flesh of a horse accidentally killed. Next an ass, and then the mules,
of which there was a considerable number, were brought to the shambles.
The butchers were now ordered to sell this new kind of meat, and a maximum
price was fixed. For a fortnight the supply of cats held out, after which
rats and mice became the chief staple of food. Dog-flesh was next
reluctantly tasted, and found, as our conscientious chronicler observes,
to be somewhat sweet and insipid.[1300] And so the spring of 1573 passed
away, and summer came; but no succor arrived for the beleaguered city. On
the contrary, there came the disheartening tidings from the west that a
peace had been concluded by the Huguenots of La Rochelle, in which no
mention was made of Sancerre.

[Sidenote: Losses of the royal army before La Rochelle.]

[Sidenote: Roman Catholic processions.]

So successful had been the defence of the citadel of Protestantism on the
shores of