rt, was at the same time collecting munitions and
victuals." It was announced that the king's army was advancing; and
reports were spread, with the usual exaggeration, of the deeds of
violence it was already committing. "At the news thereof, every nerve is
strained to advance the fortifications "there is none that shirks, of
whatever age, or sex, or condition; every other occupation ceases; night
serves to render the day's work bigger; the inhabitants are all a-sweat,
soiled with dust, laden with earth." Whilst the multitude was thus
working pell-mell to put the town substantially in a state of defence,
the warlike population, gentlemen and burgesses, were arming and
organizing for the struggle. They had chosen for their chief a younger
son of Sully's, Baron d'Orval, devoted to the Protestant cause, even to
the extent of rebellion, whilst his elder brother, the Marquis of Rosny,
was serving in the royal army. Their aged father, Sully, went to
Montauban to counsel peace; not that he exactly blamed the resistance,
but he said that it would be vain, and that a peace on good terms was
possible. He was listened to with respect, though he was not believed,
and though the struggle was all the while persisted in. The royal army,
with a strength of twenty thousand men, and commanded by the young Duke
of Mayenne, son of the great Leaguer, came up on the 18th of August,
1621, to besiege Montauban, with its population of from fifteen thousand
to twenty thousand. Besiegers and besieged were all of them brave; the
former the more obstinate, the latter the more hare-brained and rash.
The siege lasted two months and a half with alternate successes and
reverses. The people of the town were directed and supported by
commissions charged with the duty of collecting meal, preparing quarters
for the troops, looking after the sick and wounded, and distributing
ammunition. "Day and night, from hour to hour, one of the consuls went
to inspect these services. All was done without confusion, without a
murmur. Ministers of the Reformed church, to the number of thirteen,
were charged to keep up the enthusiasm with chants, psalms, and prayers.
One of them, the pastor Chamier, was animated by a zealous and bellicose
fanaticism; he was never tired of calling to mind the calamities
undergone by the towns that had submitted to the royal army; he was
incessantly comparing Montauban to Bethulia, Louis XIII. to
Nabuchodonosor, the Duke of Mayenn