Two factions in the state aroused the cardinal's ire--one the Huguenots, and the other the nobles--for both threatened the autocracy which he was bent upon erecting. Both factions suffered defeat and humiliation at his hands. Richelieu, though a cardinal of the Roman Church, was more politician and statesman than ecclesiastic; though living in an age of religious fanaticism, he was by no means a bigot. As we shall presently see, this Catholic cardinal actually gave military support to Protestants in Germany--for political purposes; it was similarly for political purposes that he attacked the Protestants in France. As has already been pointed out, French Protestantism meant an influential political party as well as a religion. Since Henry IV had issued the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenots had had their own assemblies, officers, judges, and even certain fortified towns, all of which interfered with the sovereign authority and impaired that uniformity which thoughtful royalists believed to be the very cornerstone of absolutism. Richelieu had no desire to deprive the Huguenots of religious freedom, but he was resolved that in political matters they should obey the king. Consequently, when they revolted in 1625, he determined to crush them. In spite of the considerable aid which England endeavored to give them, the Huguenots were entirely subdued. Richelieu's long siege of La Rochelle, lasting nearly fifteen months, showed his forceful resolution. When the whole country had submitted, the Edict of Alais was published (1629), leaving to the Protestants freedom of conscience and of worship but depriving them of their fortifications and forbidding them to hold assemblies. Public office was still open to them and their representatives kept their judicial posts. "The honest Huguenot retained all that he would have been willing to protect with his life, while the factious and turbulent Huguenot was deprived of the means of embarrassing the government." The repression of the nobles was a similar statesmanlike achievement, and one made in the face of redoubtable opposition. It had long been customary to name noblemen as governors of the various provinces, but the governors had gradually become masters instead of administrators: they commanded detachments of the army; they claimed allegiance of the garrisons in their towns; they repeatedly and openly defied the royal will. The country, moreover, was sprinkled with noblemen's castles or _châteaux_, protected by fortifications and armed retainers, standing menaces to the prompt execution of the king's orders. Finally, the noblemen at court, jealous of the cardinal's advancement and spurred on by the intrigues of the disaffected Marie de' Medici or of the king's own brother, hampered the minister at every turn. Of such intolerable conditions, Richelieu determined to be quit.