The creation of a navy was his most popular measure. No longer should the King of France be forced to borrow ships where he could, to protect French coasts and French merchant vessels against “pirates of all nations.” Michel de Marillac, if he had secretly opposed Richelieu in the affair of the Spanish treaty, was heartily with him here, and he was one of those whose eloquence led the Notables to vote with enthusiasm the building or purchase of forty-five battle-ships. The sea-going trade of France, its enormous losses and dangers under the present system, was the text which inspired Marillac. “We have everything we need,” he cried, “to make us strong at sea. We have wood and iron for ship-building, linen and flax for sails and cordage; sailors in abundance, who will serve our neighbours if not employed at home; the best ports in Europe ... and yet our neighbours rob us of our fishing ... pirates ravage our coasts and carry off the King’s subjects captive to Barbary.” It was time, he said, that France should wake from her lethargy of many years. The words of Marillac on this occasion were the thoughts of Richelieu, and he set about carrying them out in his own way. He had already taken to himself supreme power over naval affairs, by buying out the Duc de Montmorency and presenting himself with letters patent which conferred the new office of Grand Master and Superintendent-General of Navigation and Commerce. Authority over the army--which he made almost entirely from small and chaotic beginnings till it became the force that conquered at Rocroy--was gained by Richelieu through the abolition of the old office of Constable of France. The Duc de Lesdiguières, its last holder, died in 1626, and military supremacy under the King passed into the hands of a War Minister--that is to say, into those of Richelieu himself. Equally difficult with the creation of army and navy were the necessary reforms in the Church, in finance, in local government, and the establishment throughout France of order and the royal authority. The Cardinal shrank from nothing. Many of the details of his projected work were never carried out, and it has been well said that he was a more successful statesman abroad than at home, where a mass of privileges and vested interests, with the growing necessity for heavy taxes, were millstones hung round a financial reformer’s neck. Richelieu’s success in crushing the great nobles brought no benefit to the common people; it was all for the advantage of the King. Among his early dreams were those of encouraging agriculture and manufactures after the example of Henry IV. and Sully; but he did little good of this kind, except in the way of colonisation. Under his protection new French commercial companies, after a long struggle with England, gained a more secure footing in Canada and the West Indies.