Others of them being excluded from offices of state, and even of the municipal magistracy, had betaken themselves to arts and manufactures, agriculture and industry, a new title of recommendation to the protection of Colbert. But this great minister of state soon succumbed before the will of his master, for under Louis XIV. genius did not relieve any one from the duty of being a courtier. Together with the violence of the council and of the tribunals, the Reformed had to endure those puerile vexations and petty annoyances from which intolerance can never free itself. They were prohibited, among other things, from singing psalms either on land or water, in their workshops or at their house-doors. If a procession happened to pass while they were singing in their places of worship, they had to stop. Their burials could take place only at break of day, or at nightfall, and not more than ten persons were permitted to participate in the funeral, except at Castres, Montauban, Nismes, and in towns of the same order, where the presence of thirty persons was authorized. It was not lawful for the Reformed to marry unless at the times fixed by the canons of the (Roman) Catholic church; and the nuptial procession might not exceed, parents included, the number of twelve persons. The rich churches were interdicted from contributing to the support of ministers for the poor churches. It was considered a crime in the consistories to pronounce censures against those, who placed their children in the colleges of the Jesuits. The pastors lost the right of taking the title of doctors of theology, and the king forbade them, under penalty of a fine of three hundred livres, to wear the cassock and long robe elsewhere than in their places of worship. They might speak and pray in the hospitals only in whispers, lest they should offend the ears of the (Roman) Catholics. Notwithstanding all this, the bishop of Uzès, the orator of the general assembly of the clergy, declared to the king, in 1665, that “it behoved him to labour with greater ardour _for the entire extirpation_ (such were his words) _of the redoubtable monster of heresy_.” He asked, besides, that liberty of conscience should be taken away from the (Roman) Catholics, that is to say, that it should be no longer permissible for them to leave the Roman church, adding that twenty-two dioceses of Languedoc had demanded this from the provincial estates, and that all the dioceses of the kingdom were ready to seal that declaration with their blood.