Some days later a royal declaration was issued, the preamble of which announced that the King had conquered by the aid of the Divine Providence, and by the “counsel, prudence, vigilance and toil” of the Cardinal. The mayoralty and all the other municipal offices of La Rochelle were abolished, the privileges of its citizens suppressed, and all its fortifications, save the three towers of La Lanterne, La Chaine and Saint-Nicholas and the ramparts facing the sea, were to be razed to the ground. The Pope was to be petitioned to make the town into a bishopric. On the whole, however, it is impossible to deny that La Rochelle was treated with remarkable leniency. The town, it is true, lost its independence, which was, indeed, incompatible with the sovereignty of the King, but there was no vengeance taken, no victims sacrificed, no wanton mockery or insult offered to the vanquished. The lives and property of the inhabitants were spared, and their liberty of worship secured to them. * * * * * After the fall of La Rochelle, the Cardinal sent for Bassompierre and proposed to him that he should continue in command of the division of the army now serving under him, lead it to the Rhône, and there await orders to march into Italy to the relief of Casale. But the marshal begged his Eminence to excuse him, pointing out that though, in ordinary circumstances, he would be only too happy to have such a command, he had disbursed during the siege, largely in entertaining the King and other illustrious persons, no less a sum than 120,000 crowns, and that, in consequence, it was absolutely imperative that he should proceed to Paris, “for the purpose of putting his affairs in order.” The Cardinal accepted his excuses, and on November 18 Bassompierre set out with the King for Paris, into which Louis XIII made a triumphal entry, to celebrate his victory over the last great French town which was ever to stand up against the Monarchy, until in 1789 Paris rose and swept that ancient institution away. CHAPTER XXXVIII