At the end of February, 1573, he recognized the impossibility of his double commission, and he went away from La Rochelle, leaving the place in better condition than that in which he had found it, without either king or Rochellese considering that they had any right to complain of him.
Biron first and then the Duke of Anjou in person took the command of the siege.

They brought up, it is said, forty thousand men and sixty pieces of artillery.

The Rochellese, for defensive strength, had but twenty-two companies of refugees or inhabitants, making in all thirty-one hundred men.

The siege lasted from the 26th of February to the 13th of June, 1573; six assaults were made on the place; in the last, the ladders had been set at night against the wall of what was called Gospel bastion; the Duke of Guise, at the head of the assailants, had escaladed the breach, but there he discovered a new ditch and a new rampart erected inside; and, confronted by these unforeseen obstacles, the men recoiled and fell back.

La Rochelle was saved.