Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

ather than court wholesale butchery, or
ignominiously yield, they resolved to fight like
men. Some of these cities were hard put to it in the
carrying out of this resolution. The sieges of La
Rochelle and Sancerre have a terribly tragic
interest. The latter, though a small town, held out
against the royal forces for more than ten months.
Greatly inferior to the enemy in numbers, the
citizens labored under the further disadvantage of
lacking arms. They appeared on the ramparts with
slings instead of fire-arms; but, unlike their
assailants, they defended their cause with hands
unstained with murder. "We light here," was the
withering taunt which they flung down upon the
myrmidons of Catherine --"We fight here: go and
assassinate elsewhere." Famine was more fatal to
them than the sword; for while the battle slew only
eighty- four of their number, the famine killed not
fewer than 500. The straits now endured by the
inhabitants of Sancerre recall the miseries of the
siege of Jerusalem, or the horrors of Paris in the
winter of 1870-71. An eye-witness, Pastor Jean de
Lery, has recorded in his Journal the incidents of
the siege, and his tale is truly a harrowing one.
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