Saint-Martin-de-Ré, identified in the narrative as the citadel of St. Martin, is the principal defensive stronghold on the Île de Ré during the opening phase of the struggle surrounding the Siege of La Rochelle. Its resistance prevents the English expedition from converting an initial landing into a decisive conquest, while its eventual relief becomes the first major demonstration of Cardinal Richelieu’s military and political strategy.

Setting and Strategic Importance

Saint-Martin-de-Ré stands within the island’s defensive system at a moment when La Rochelle is the last major stronghold of French Calvinism. The French crown seeks to destroy that remaining bulwark because religious dissent is entangled with civil revolt and foreign intervention. Protestant forces draw support from Spaniards, Englishmen, Italian malcontents, adventurers, and soldiers of fortune from across Europe, making the island and its neighboring port part of a conflict that extends well beyond local fortifications. The citadel is also crucial because the port of La Rochelle is the last harbor in France open to England. Control of the Île de Ré therefore has consequences for naval access, military reinforcement, and the broader balance between France and England. The fortress is not merely a shelter for a garrison; it is the barrier that stands between Buckingham’s expedition and the strategic isolation of La Rochelle.

The English Landing and the French Defense

Buckingham begins with a powerful advantage. He arrives unexpectedly before the Île de Ré with ninety vessels and nearly twenty thousand men, surprising the French commander, the Comte de Toiras. After a bloody conflict, the English succeed in landing on the island. The landing gives Buckingham possession of the island’s surrounding territory and allows his forces to press their attack against the French defenses. Toiras withdraws into Saint-Martin-de-Ré with his garrison rather than abandon the principal stronghold. He also places one hundred men in the smaller fort of La Pree, creating a linked defensive position. The retreat transforms the English success from a rapid conquest into a prolonged siege: Buckingham controls the island, but Saint-Martin-de-Ré remains in French hands and continues to deny him complete mastery.

The Siege and Its Material Pressures

The English continue to besiege both Saint-Martin-de-Ré and La Pree, but without success. Their position deteriorates through material hardship rather than through a single immediate reversal. The troops, accustomed to better provisions, are reduced to salt meat and bad biscuit, and many become invalids. At the same time, rough seas destroy small vessels along the coast, while wrecks of pinnacles, roberges, and feluccas accumulate on the shore between the point of l'Aiguillon and the trenches. These conditions make the fortress’s resistance part of a wider logistical struggle. Even if the French army remains inactive, Buckingham’s force cannot remain indefinitely in the island under such pressure. The English commander is driven by obstinacy and by his private vengeance, but the siege exposes the limits of a campaign sustained by inadequate food, unstable shipping, and difficult coastal weather.

Relief and the Collapse of the English Position

The danger becomes urgent when Toiras reports that the English are preparing a fresh assault. Louis XIII therefore orders a decisive action rather than waiting for hunger and the sea to complete the work. French forces attack, repel the English step by step, defeat them in repeated encounters, and rout them during the passage of the Isle of Loie. The English are forced to re-embark, leaving two thousand men on the battlefield, including five colonels, three lieutenant colonels, two hundred and fifty captains, and twenty gentlemen of rank. The French also capture four cannon and sixty flags, which are carried to Paris by Claude de St. Simon and displayed with ceremony in Notre Dame. Te Deums are sung first in the camp and then throughout France. With Buckingham’s army expelled from the island, Saint-Martin-de-Ré is relieved, and Richelieu is free to continue the siege of La Rochelle without an immediate English intervention.

Political Consequences and Narrative Significance

The fortress’s defense exposes the double motive behind the campaign. Publicly, Buckingham claims to defend the honor of England, while Richelieu presents the struggle as part of the suppression of rebellion and the consolidation of royal power. Privately, both men are pursuing vengeance connected with Anne of Austria; the narrative therefore makes a royal smile the intimate stake concealed beneath the movements of armies and fleets. The French victory also produces new danger. Montague, an envoy of Buckingham, is captured, and evidence emerges of a league linking the German Empire, Spain, England, and Lorraine against France. Papers discovered in Buckingham’s abandoned lodging further compromise Mme. de Chevreuse and, consequently, the queen. Saint-Martin-de-Ré thus marks more than a successful defensive episode: its survival allows the French siege to continue, but the retreating English leave behind political evidence that intensifies Richelieu’s surveillance and expands the conflict from battlefield operations into espionage and court persecution. At the level of structure, Saint-Martin-de-Ré concentrates the novel’s recurring contrast between private desire and public war. The fortress is held by soldiers, supplied or starved by maritime conditions, and contested by rival states, yet the campaign is repeatedly explained through the passions of Buckingham and Richelieu. Its walls preserve French strategic control while the surrounding war reveals how fragile that control remains: an island landing, a besieged citadel, failing provisions, wrecked vessels, intercepted messengers, and secret alliances all belong to the same chain of consequence.