and him that receives."
[_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. iii. p. 398.] Marshal Schomberg took the
road to Marennes, whence he sent to the cardinal for boats to carry over
all his troops. "This took him greatly by surprise, and as his judgments
are always followed by the effect he intended, he thought that this great
following of nobility might hinder the said sir marshal from executing
his design so promptly. However, by showing admirable diligence,
doubling both his vessels and his provisions, he found sufficient to
embark the whole." [_Siege de La Rochelle. Archives curieuses de
l'Histoire de France,_ t. iii. p. 76.] By this time the king's troops,
in considerable numbers, had arrived in the island without the English
being able to prevent their disembarkation; the enemy therefore took the
resolution of setting sail, in spite of the entreaties which the Duke of
Soubise sent them on the part of the Rochellese, those latter promising
great assistance in men and provisions, more than they could afford. To
satisfy them, the Duke of Buckingham determined to deliver a general
assault before he departed.

The assault was delivered on the 5th and 6th of November, and everywhere
repulsed, exhausted as the besieged were. "Those who were sick and laid
up in their huts appeared on the bastions. There were some of them so
weak that, unable to fight, they loaded their comrades' muskets; and
others, having fought beyond their strength, being able to do no more,
said to their comrades, 'Friend, here are my arms for thee; prithee, make
my grave;' and, thither retiring, there they died." The Duke of
Buckingham wrote to M. de Fiesque, who was holding Fort La Pree, that he
was going to embark, without waiting for any more men to make their
descent upon the island; but the king, who trusted not his enemies, and
least of all the English, from whom, even when friends, he had received
so many proofs of faithlessness and falsehood, besides that he knew
Buckingham for a man who, from not having the force of character to
decide on such an occasion, did not know whether to fight or to fly,
continued in his first determination to transport promptly all those who
remained, in order to encounter the enemy on land, fight them, and make
them for the future quake with fear if it were proposed to them to try
another descent upon his dominions.

Marshal Schomberg, thwarted by bad weather, had just rallied his troops
which had been cast by the wi