I HAVE a confession to make: I was once a junior musketeer, a swashbuckling young scallywag with a glint in my eye and a swing in my step, or at least as much of a swing as it is possible to have when you are 11, distinctly portly and slightly short for your age.
It was all the fault of Alexandre Dumas and The Three Musketeers. It was Dumas who provided me with my first introduction to La Rochelle, the historic port on France's west coast. For Dumas, the 17th century siege of La Rochelle represented not only a pivotal moment in French history but also a focus for much of the action in The Three Musketeers.
At one point, D'Artagnan and the musketeers even held a picnic in the no man's land by the bastion of St Gervais between the besieging forces of Cardinal Richelieu and the occupiers of the city. The closest I ever came to a picnic in no man's land was swigging illicitly bought champagne cider by the fiats' near our house, a good way of getting your cider knocked off and, as it happens, getting your head knocked off as well.
Graphic scenes
Sadly, the only picture of La Rochelle I had ever seen was contained in my Inter Cert history book beside some graphic scenes of the St Bartolomew's Day Massacre, which we routinely examined during history class for stray glimpses of female breasts. The picture was Motte's famous depiction of Richelieu, the original Eminence Grise at La Rochelle his red cardinal's robes flowing over his battle arm our while ships burn before his eyes.
Approaching La Rochelle by sea it is possible to envisage the town as it might have appeared to Richelieu's fleet. Two towers, originally connected by an arch under which ships could pass, still guard the entrance to the Old Port as they have done for centuries. A chain could be stretched from tower to tower to prevent access to the port and both towers were capable of being heavily fortified. At, the top of the largest, the St Nicholas Tower, slits beneath the battlements enabled the defenders to drop sharp stones, oil and other painful welcoming devices on top of would be attackers.
Guidebooks traditionally refer to La Rochelle as a middleclass resort, but the presence of some 4,900 yachts.
In the port areas indicates that either "middleclass" has a whole different meaning in France or guidebook writers are being paid more money than any human being has a right to expect.
The Hotel De Ville in the old town centre provides a kind of potted architectural history of La Rochelle, with different parts dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries. A statue of the Huguenot Henri of Navarre overlooks the walls and his initials are inscribed into the building itself as decoration. Henri described himself as the "bien bori ami" of La Rochelle; as he was reputed to have had 22 mistresses, he was probably made him the bier bon am of lots of other people as well.
Backing the wrong side
Sadly, Henri's friendship was one of the reasons for the city's downfall. La Rochelle has suffered throughout its history from its, unfortunate penchant for backing the wrong, side. In the early 17th century its status as a bastion for the Huguenots after the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre earned it the hatred of Richelieu, de facto ruler of France under the boyking Louis. When the town eventually surrendered to Richelieu on October 30th, 1628, after years of siege, only 5,400 of the original population of 20,000 were still alive and most of the town centre had been flattened. Little remains from that pre 1628 era.
During the internal 17th century French dispute known as the Froride La Rochelle once again suffered unwanted military attentions. Dumas depicted the Fronde as a minor civil war between those who opposed the actions of the King and his Cardinal, Mazarin, but felt bad about doing so, and those who supported the King and by extension, Mazarin, but also felt bad about doing so. In the end both sides made up after the deaths of some minor members of the nobility and lots of common people carrying pikes (common people armed with impractical weapons like pikes being the ones who usually suffer most on these occasions).
La Rochelle's most notable involvement in the Fronde came about because of a character known as Besse the Banterer, a Frondist lieutenant who incurred the wrath of the royalist forces. Besse took refuge with his supporters in the St Nicholas Tower in 1651 a rather unfortunate decision since royal forces promptly surrounded it and blew off the top floor with cannon fire.
Base for "wolf packs"
At this point local history becomes a little murky, but somewhere between the sudden creation of an open plan top floor on the St Nicholas Tower and the eventual surrender of the garrison inside someone pushed Besse out of a window, thereby saving the King the trouble of killing him.
During the second World War La Rochelle provided a natural base for German Uboats, the "wolf packs", which preyed on Atlantic shipping convoys. Once again, the town became a magnet for shells and bombs, suffering Allied bombardments before and after the DDay landings. The socalled "wolf pens", the submarine bays, are still visible through the clear waters.
Unfortunately, La Rochelle's Museum of the Last War opens for only two months each ear in July and August. It stands next to a shop selling used erotica, which must provide an extra frisson of interest for veterans taking a nostalgic stroll through their war years.
There is also the prospect, of a pleasant if overlong ferry journey to the nearby Isle de Re, fortified by the Earl of Buckingham before the siege, of La Rochelle and now the site of some pretty houses and some pretty expensive restaurants.
Sadly, Dumas seemed to be a little under remembered in La Rochelle, especially to a visitor who had marvelled so much at the musketeers as a child. Perhaps his links with the town are too tenuous to merit more than a passing reference in a guide, book but La Rochelle was, in the end, somewhat musketeer free. Apart from me, of course, a musketeer at heart.