"Louis," says the writer of whom I speak, "to excuse the timidity of his council, did not fail to repeat the statements made to him every day about the weakness of his kingdom, and to assert that by a firmer course he would run the risk of bringing wars upon his hands which he could not support. The prelate [Richelieu] overthrew all these objections, by showing the young monarch the resources of France,--her immense population, the bravery of her inhabitants, the fertility of her soil, the abundance and variety of her productions, her beautiful forests, her quarries, the riches of her mines,--above all, her wine and her salt, gifts of Nature which other nations are obliged to come to her and ask for; her rivers almost all navigable, so favorable to internal commerce; her happy position between two seas, favorable to external; the strength of her frontiers, defended by rivers and mountains, natural ramparts, or by cities which a little art would render impregnable; in fine, the very constitution of her government, which gave to a single man the power to put all these resources in action by one word and in one instant. "Richelieu then proceeded to assert that the principal cause of the depression of France amongst the nations was that she tolerated various religions in her bosom, and doubtless he had determined to root out that evil; but there was another which he clearly saw, but concealed from the king, and against which he afterward waged a continual war, by art, by arms, and by the axe: this was the independent power of the nobles, which, in fact, gave all its strength to religious faction." In that day, every high noble had his city or his castle, which he did not scruple, on slight pretexts, to garrison against his sovereign, and very often resisted the royal troops with so much success as to force the monarch to purchase his submission. Such was the case, but two or three years before the time of which I write, with the Marquis de la Force at Montauban; such the case with the Count de Coligni at Aïgues Mortes. A marshal's baton, a large sum of money, the government of a province, the revenues of an abbey, were the reward of acts which Richelieu resolved should in future be rewarded by exile or the axe.