"We have been waiting three months for the effect of the excellent letters we received from the King of Great Britain," wrote Guiton on the 24th of August, to the deputies from La Rochelle who were in London, "and, meanwhile, we cannot see by what disasters it happens that we remain here in misery without seeing any sign of succor; our men can do no more, our inhabitants are dying of hunger in the streets, and all our families are in a fearful state from mourning, want, and perplexity; nevertheless, we will hold out to the last day, but in God's name delay no longer, for we perish." This letter never reached its destination; the watchmaker, Marc Biron; who had offered to convey it to England, was arrested whilst attempting to pass the royal lines, and was immediately hanged.

La Rochelle, however, still held out.

"Their rabid fury," says the cardinal, "gave them new strength, or rather the avenging wrath of God caused them to be supplied therewith in extraordinary measure by his evil spirit, in order to prolong their woes; they were already almost at the end thereof, and misery found upon them no more substance whereon it could feed and support itself; they were skeletons, empty shadows, breathing corpses, rather than living men." At the bottom of his heart, and in spite of the ill temper their resistance caused in him, the heroism of the Rochellese excited the cardinal's admiration.
Buckingham had just been assassinated.

"The king could not have lost a more bitter or a more idiotic enemy; his unreasoning enterprises ended unluckily, but they, nevertheless, did not fail to put us in great peril and cause us much mischief," says Richelieu "the idiotic madness of an enemy being more to be feared than his wisdom, inasmuch as the idiot does not act on any principle common to other men, he attempts everything and anything, violates his own interests, and is restrained by impossibility alone." It was this impossibility of any aid that the cardinal attempted to impress upon the Rochellese by means of letters which he managed to get into the town, representing to them that Buckingham, their protector, was dead, and that they were allowing themselves to be unjustly tyrannized over by a small number amongst them, who, being rich, had wheat to eat, whereas, if they were good citizens, they would take their share of the general misery.

These manoeuvres did not remain without effect: the besieged resolved to treat, and a deputation was just about to leave the town, when a burgess who had broken through the lines arrived in hot haste, on his return from England; he had seen, he said, the armament all ready to set out to save them or perish; it must arrive within a week; the public body of La Rochelle had promised not to treat without the King of England's participation; he was not abandoning his allies; and so the deputies returned home, and there was more waiting still.
On the 29th of September, the English flag appeared before St.Martin de Re; it was commanded by the Earl of Lindsay, and was composed of a hundred and forty vessels, which carried six thousand soldiers, besides the crews; the French who were of the religion were in the van, commanded by the Duke of Soubise and the Count of Laval, brother of the Duke of La Tremoille, who had lately renounced his faith in front of La Rochelle, being convinced of his errors by a single lesson from the cardinal.
"This armament was England's utmost effort, for the Parliament which was then being holden had granted six millions of livres to fit it out to avenge the affronts and ignominy which the English nation had encountered on the Island of Re, and afterwards by the shameful retreat of their armament in the month of May." But it was too late coming; the mole was finished, and the opening in it defended by two forts; and a floating palisade blocked the passage as well.