royalty as did Buckingham in England. He was a Wolsey, not a _maire du palais_. But on the other hand Louis had the sense to see that if a king is fortunate enough to have a Richelieu for his minister he must give him a free hand. He held the scales of justice even between his minister and his court, he suffered no mean motives of jealousy to detract from the fulness of his confidence, and he was content to be classed by posterity among the makers of the French monarchy, because he had had the fortune to be the maker and master of the greatest of French ministers. [Sidenote: =Position of the Huguenots, 1622.=] The peace of Montpellier, concluded between Louis and the revolted Huguenots in October 1622, was one of those treaties which are not so much a conclusion of a struggle as a preliminary to its recommencement. It left the questions at issue not merely unsolved but intensified. Huguenotism, always quite as much a political as a religious movement, had derived its aspirations and drawn much of its strength from the desire of independence arising from the jealousy of the king of Paris, which was characteristic of the south of France, and from the jealousy of the French crown, which was characteristic of the French nobility. It was among the towns of the south of France and among the smaller nobility--the country seigneurs--that it spread with the greatest rapidity. Its strongly self-centred and individualistic creed fell in naturally with their passionate love for their privileges and their intense dread of the central government. Ever since the Huguenots became a power in the land, the tendency of their policy had been towards independence, all the more significant because it came about without any defined cry for separation. Aided by the weakness of the crown Huguenot towns, such as La Rochelle, Montauban and Nismes, during the civil troubles became self-governing communities independent of the French government, and had been practically recognised as such by various treaties during the wars, and by the Edict of Nantes. [Sidenote: =Their organisation.=] Huguenot organisations under the name of ‘circles’ parcelled France out into districts under regular officers for the purposes of defence and offence from end to end. In many parts of the country this organisation consisted merely upon paper, but in the north where the influence of the duke of Bouillon was great, and over large districts of the south it was a dangerous and menacing reality. In the strong words attributed to Richelieu, the Huguenots shared the government of France with the king. In the revolt of 1621, although the leaders probably never intended to do more than frighten the Crown and secure their own political position, many of the rank and file were openly fighting for independence. To the Crown therefore it had become essential to crush the power of the Huguenots if it wished to be supreme over France. To the Huguenots it was no