Siege of La Rochelle (1627–1628): Richelieu Crushes the Huguenots

The Siege of La Rochelle (1627–1628) was a fourteen-month blockade of France’s main Protestant stronghold by the army of Louis XIII, directed above all by Cardinal Richelieu. Cut off from the sea by an enormous dyke and abandoned by its English allies, the starving Atlantic port surrendered on 28 October 1628. Its fall ended the Huguenots’ existence as an armed, semi-independent power inside France.

Background: a state within the state

The Huguenots, as French Calvinists were known, had won legal toleration in the Edict of Nantes of 1598 after decades of religious war. Besides freedom of worship in many places, Henry IV granted them around 150 “places of safety”, towns where they could keep garrisons paid partly by the crown. La Rochelle, a wealthy, well-fortified port on the Bay of Biscay, was the most important of them.

To many royal ministers this looked like a state within the state. After Henry IV’s assassination in 1610, tensions grew again. Louis XIII restored Catholic worship in Béarn in 1620, and a series of Huguenot revolts followed in the 1620s, led by Henri, Duke of Rohan, and his brother Benjamin, Duke of Soubise.

The Peace of Montpellier (1622) left La Rochelle intact but the crown kept Fort Louis, a royal fortress built just outside the walls, which the city saw as a direct threat. Richelieu, who became the king’s chief minister in 1624, was determined to end Huguenot military independence, although he did not intend to abolish their religious rights. His wider career is covered in the article on Cardinal Richelieu as chief minister.

The English expedition to Ré

The crisis of 1627 was triggered from abroad. Relations between France and England had soured, and Charles I’s favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, led an expedition of roughly 80–100 ships and some 6,000–8,000 men to support the Huguenots. In July 1627 the English landed on the Île de Ré, an island guarding the approaches to La Rochelle.

Buckingham besieged the citadel of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, defended by Jean de Saint-Bonnet, marquis de Toiras. The garrison held out, French boats slipped supplies through, and royal reinforcements crossed to the island. After a failed assault and a costly retreat in early November 1627, Buckingham withdrew to England, having lost perhaps half his force.

La Rochelle had hesitated but in September 1627 it openly sided with the English. Royal troops had already begun to surround the city, and the first shots were exchanged in early September. From then on the siege was a full-scale operation.

The siege and the great dyke

On land, the royal army built a ring of entrenchments and forts about 12 kilometres long around the city. The Duke of Angoulême commanded at first, but Richelieu increasingly directed operations in person, especially when the king left the camp for Paris in early 1628. Royal forces grew to around 25,000–30,000 men.

The real problem was the sea. As long as ships could reach the harbour, the city could be supplied. From late 1627 royal engineers, usually credited to the architect Clément Métezeau and the master mason Jean Thiriot, built a dyke across the channel leading to the port. It was roughly 1.4 kilometres long, made of stone-filled sunken hulks, timber piles and rubble, with a narrow gap to let the tide flow, guarded by artillery and moored ships.

The dyke was largely complete by March 1628. Inside, the city was led by its mayor, Jean Guiton, elected in April 1628, a former admiral of the Rochelais fleet who refused to consider surrender while there was any hope of English help.

Failed relief fleets and famine

England sent two more fleets. In May 1628 the Earl of Denbigh arrived with around 50–60 ships, found the dyke and the royal batteries too strong, and sailed home after only brief skirmishing. Buckingham prepared to lead a third expedition himself, but on 23 August 1628 (Old Style) he was stabbed to death in Portsmouth by John Felton, a discontented army officer.

The fleet finally sailed under the Earl of Lindsey and attacked in late September and early October 1628. Fireships and bombardments failed to break the barrier, and the English could not reach the city.

By then famine was extreme. Contemporary accounts describe people eating horses, dogs, leather and grass. The population, usually estimated at 25,000–28,000 before the siege, fell to about 5,000–6,000 by the end; the great majority died of hunger and disease. On 28 October 1628 La Rochelle surrendered, and Louis XIII entered the city on 1 November.

Key people

• Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642): the king’s chief minister, who organised supplies, pay and the dyke, and made the siege his personal project.
• Louis XIII (1601–1643): king of France, present in the siege camp for long periods.
• Jean Guiton (1585–1654): mayor of La Rochelle and leader of its resistance; he was later allowed to live in the city and served the crown at sea.
• George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628): leader of the failed English expedition of 1627.
• Henri, Duke of Rohan (1579–1638): the main Huguenot military leader, who fought on in Languedoc until 1629.

Consequences

The terms were surprisingly lenient towards individuals: the survivors received a royal pardon and kept their freedom of worship. But the city lost its privileges and self-government, its walls were demolished except on the sea side, and Catholic worship was restored.

Rohan’s revolt in the south collapsed the next year. The Peace of Alès (sometimes called the Grace of Alès) of June 1629 confirmed the religious clauses of the Edict of Nantes but abolished the Huguenots’ fortified towns, garrisons and political assemblies. Protestants remained a tolerated minority, now entirely dependent on royal goodwill.

The victory freed Richelieu to turn French power outward, against the Habsburgs. Within a few years France was subsidising Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War and, from 1635, fighting Spain directly.

Legacy

The siege became a symbol of royal authority triumphing over a privileged corporate body, a theme later associated with the absolutism of Louis XIV. For French Protestants the outcome proved fragile: once their military power was gone, they had no defence when Louis XIV withdrew toleration altogether in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

The episode also entered popular culture through Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers (1844), where the siege and Buckingham’s expedition form an important backdrop. Remains of the dyke can sometimes be seen at very low tide near the harbour of La Rochelle.

Timeline

• 1622, October: Peace of Montpellier ends an earlier Huguenot revolt; Fort Louis remains outside La Rochelle.
• 1627, July: Buckingham’s English expedition lands on the Île de Ré.
• 1627, September: Fighting begins between La Rochelle and the royal army; the city sides with England.
• 1627, November: Buckingham withdraws from Ré after a failed assault; work on the dyke begins.
• 1628, March: The dyke across the harbour approach is essentially complete.
• 1628, May: The Earl of Denbigh’s relief fleet fails and returns to England.
• 1628, 23 August (Old Style): Buckingham is assassinated in Portsmouth.
• 1628, late September–October: The Earl of Lindsey’s fleet fails to break the blockade.
• 1628, 28 October: La Rochelle surrenders; Louis XIII enters on 1 November.
• 1629, June: The Peace of Alès ends the Huguenots’ political and military privileges.

Why it matters

The Siege of La Rochelle ended the last great Huguenot challenge to the French crown and closed the era of the French Wars of Religion. It strengthened royal centralisation under Richelieu and allowed France to play a leading role in the European wars that followed.