CHAPTER IV 1627-1628 Two famous edicts--The tragedy of Bouteville and Des Chapelles--The death of Madame and its consequences--War with England--The Siege of La Rochelle. Richelieu had triumphed. Monsieur was safely married; for the moment contented and _rangé_. The restless, foolish, unhappy Chalais was dead; the Maréchal d’Ornano had died in prison, not without a suspicion of poison which seems unjustified; the Vendôme brothers were securely bolted into the damp dungeons of Vincennes; the Comte de Soissons had fled to Savoy; Madame de Chevreuse, banished from the Court, had taken refuge with Duke Charles of Lorraine; Queen Anne was in disgrace. Conspiracy was scotched, if not killed; the storm had blown over, and the highest in France, it seemed, lay at the Cardinal’s mercy. By two popular edicts he pursued his plan of crushing the nobles and making the King supreme. One destroyed, first in Brittany, then all over France, every feudal stronghold that was not needed for the defence of province or kingdom. Such a measure was something of a revolution, for it struck sharply at the local strength and independent authority of the nobles, great and small. Peasants and townspeople were delighted to help the royal officials in smashing gates and tearing down tall watch-towers and walls six feet thick, which had threatened their liberty for so many centuries. As is usual in revolutions, a good deal of injustice was done; many proprietors suffered for the sins of a few; promised indemnities were not paid. And after all, Richelieu or no Richelieu, civilisation was in fact advancing. Manners were changing. Every year widened the difference between the centuries, left Henry IV. farther behind and brought Louis XIV. nearer. Richelieu, in his dealing with the great men, their fortresses and their governments, only hurried the inevitable march. But he also gained his own immediate ends. The other famous edict forbade duels. They had long been forbidden, under the severest penalties; but the passions of men and the usages of society had been too strong for the law, which had become almost a dead letter. The nobles of France fought each other “by day and night, by moonlight, by torchlight, in the public streets and squares,” and on the slightest quarrel. The Church protested, the law threatened, without avail. Richelieu once more brought forward the royal authority, forbidding duels on pain of death, with the firm intention of making an example of any man who should dare to disobey. The occasion was not long in coming. François de Montmorency, Comte de Bouteville, was one of the best-known duellists in France--or in Europe, for that matter. At twenty-seven he had already fought twenty-two duels. Fighting was his passion. “If you want to fight,” said the Président de Chevry to a punctilious gentleman, “go and pull a hair out of Bouteville’s beard; _il vous fera passer votre envie_.”