which La Rochelle is distinguished to-day. The only
trace is the dent in the marble top of the table on
which, in the _hotel de ville_, Jean Guiton, the mayor of
the city, brought down his dagger with an oath, when
in 1628 the vessels and regiments of Richelieu closed
about it on sea and land. This terrible functionary
was the soul of the resistance; he held out from
February to October, in the midst of pestilence and
famine. The whole episode has a brilliant place
among the sieges of history; it has been related a
hundred times, and I may only glance at it and pass.
I limit my ambition, in these light pages, to speaking
of those things of which I have personally received an
impression; and I have no such impression of the
defence of La Rochelle. The hotel de ville is a
pretty little building, in the style of the Renaissance
of Francis I.; but it has left much of its interest in
the hands of the restorers. It has been "done up"
without mercy; its natural place would be at Rochelle
the New. A sort of battlemented curtain, flanked
with turrets, divides it from the street and contains
a low door (a low door in a high wall is always
felicitous), which admits you to an inner court, where
you discover the face of the building. It has statues
set into it, and is raised upon a very low and very
deep arcade. The principal function of the deferential
old portress who conducts you over the place is to call
your attention to the indented table of Jean Guiton;
but she shows you other objects of interest besides.
The interior is absolutely new and extremely sump-