[Sidenote: =Administrative reforms.=] By the end of the year 1629 Richelieu might well look back with pride at the success which had attended his efforts to establish the unity of the nation by consolidating its forces under the power of the Crown. He had crushed a plot of the most formidable of his enemies at court. He had established his ascendency over the mind if not over the affections of the king. He had purified the financial administration so that a larger proportion of the taxes found their way into the treasury. He had put down a dangerous right of private war on a small scale under the guise of duelling. He had destroyed the castles and fortresses over large districts of France, notably in Brittany and the southern provinces. He had laid the foundation of the French navy. He had destroyed the political power and organisation of the Huguenots. But there was still much to be done. As long as the administration of the country and the raising and control of the army were in the hands or under the direction of the territorial nobility, all that he had hitherto accomplished was dependent upon his own precarious life and the still more precarious favour of the king. A successful court intrigue might destroy the whole structure at a blow, and throw France back into the slough of anarchy and peculation from which he had raised her. To obviate this danger he applied himself during the rest of his life, as far as internal politics were concerned, to two special objects, the establishment of a bureaucracy--a civil service under the direct control of the Crown--and the organisation of the army upon a professional basis. In carrying out this latter object he had to proceed very carefully, partly owing to financial considerations, and partly to the necessity he felt for providing in the army a sphere of activity for the nobility, whose political and administrative power he was taking away; and it was not till the time of Louvois that the French army became thoroughly professional. But the active and open warfare in which France became engaged after 1635, as well as the growing importance of the infantry, enabled him to do much in the way of raising and organising infantry regiments directly by the Crown, without the interposition of any noble as colonel, and of appointing and promoting officers such as Fabert and Catinat, who did not belong to the noble class. For many years the nobles considered it below their dignity to serve in infantry regiments, a fortunate prejudice which made it easier for the government to get direct control over that important department of the army. [Sidenote: =Illness of Louis XIII., 1630.=]