Misfortune had not cast down the courage of the men of La Rochelle, and it is a matter of astonishment that Richelieu, who had the capacity to understand great things, should have done them so little justice. “The audacity that ever accompanies rebellion,” says he in his Memoirs, “was so deeply impressed upon the minds of these wretches, that although they were but the shadows of living men, and had no hope of life, except from the king’s clemency, of which they were unworthy, they nevertheless dared even then to propose to the cardinal that they would make a general treaty for the whole party of the Calvinists.” This proved that they were less careful, in their adversity, concerning their own fate than with reference to that of their co-religionists. A declaration of the king, published on the 10th November, ordained the re-establishment at La Rochelle of the exercise of the (Roman) Catholic religion, and the restitution to the clergy of their churches and their property. A place of worship was to be designated for the Reformers. The privileges of the town were abolished, its franchises annulled, and its fortifications demolished, except those facing the sea. The Cardinal de Richelieu and the bishop Henri de Sourdis, who had plied the trade of the soldier during the siege, celebrated the first mass at La Rochelle, after having purified the churches. Perhaps the hands which had just quitted the sword, ought to have been first purified themselves before touching the host of the _Prince of peace_. But the history of mankind is replete with such violent contradictions. There were great rejoicings at Rome upon the reduction of La Rochelle. Pope Urban VIII. sang a solemn _Te Deum_, made an extraordinary distribution of indulgences, and addressed to the king briefs of the most flattering kind. “Great prince,” he thus apostrophized Louis XIII., “God sits upon your right hand. May He ever aid and sustain the power and strength of your spear!” The Duke de Rohan kept the field in the south, until the middle of the following year. He displayed courage, constancy, and self-denial, worthy of a better fate. An assembly of provincial deputies, convoked at Nismes, energetically protested against the overthrow of the political guarantee of the Reformation. It was too late. The Calvinist party had ceased to exist. Each town and village refused obedience to the assembly, and claimed to transact its affairs by itself: then division, defections, and treason, completed the ruin of the general cause.