While the court gave the Reformers satisfaction upon a few secondary points, it prepared a formidable expedition against their last stronghold. The Cardinal de Richelieu, who became a member of the council in the year 1624, planned the establishment of the absolute authority of the king upon the ruins of La Rochelle. The design was no longer concealed. Louis XIII. announced it to the pope, who had exhibited great vexation at the news of the new treaty with the Huguenots. The priests published the near triumph of the (Roman) Catholic faith, and the archbishop of Lyons wrote to Richelieu, “We must lay siege to La Rochelle, and chastise, or to speak plainly, exterminate the Huguenots, whatever else be left undone.” The commune of La Rochelle enjoyed privileges far anterior to the period of the Reformation. Eléonore d’Aquitaine had in the twelfth century conferred important liberties upon it. The burgesses governed themselves. They named a town council, consisting of the mayor, twenty-four aldermen, and seventy-five peers. These hundred magistrates, or _prud’hommes_, had troops, a navy, a treasury of their own, and very extensive rights of jurisdiction. La Rochelle was rather annexed than united to France, and its position resembled that of the free towns of Germany. To justify its pretensions, it declared that it had given itself freely to Charles V., with the express reservation of all its franchises and immunities, and the people of La Rochelle remembered with pride, that they had exacted from Louis XI. the solemn sanction of their rights. “Louis XI.,” says the historian of that city, “made his entry into La Rochelle the 24th of May (1472). He swore to preserve the privileges of the town; he took the oath on bended knees, with one hand upon the cross and the other upon the Holy Gospel, which the mayor held before him.”[78] A governor resided at La Rochelle in the name of the king, but the burghers did not allow him to introduce a strong garrison, nor to build a citadel. Its real chief was the mayor, who was chosen every year. The inhabitants were rich, industrious, intelligent, and excellent seamen; they numbered from twenty-five to thirty thousand souls. The Reformation was certain of finding an easy entrance into their town; for wherever there were intelligence and freedom, the gates were opened to them beforehand. From the year 1557, it was known at La Rochelle. “This first beginning was so favoured of God,” says Theodore de Bèze, “that in a short time a great part of the town abandoned the superstitions of the Romish church, the Lord preparing thenceforth this place whereby to sustain on a future day the direst efforts of His adversaries.”[79]