At any rate Richelieu, 'a man in the grand style, if ever man was,' had decided that New France should no longer languish, and the Company of One Hundred Associates was the result. In 1627 he abolished the office of viceroy, deprived the De Caens of their charter, and prepared to make Canada a real colony. The basis of the plan was an association of one hundred members, each subscribing three thousand livres. Richelieu's own name heads the list of members, followed by those of the minister of finance and the minister of marine. Most of the members resided in Paris, though the seaboard and the eastern provinces were also represented. Nobles, wealthy merchants, small traders, all figure in the list, and twelve titles of nobility were distributed among the shareholders to help in the enlistment of capital. The company received a {123} monopoly of trade for fifteen years, and promised to take out three hundred colonists annually during the whole period covered by the grant. It also received the St Lawrence valley in full ownership. One notable provision of the charter was that only Roman Catholics should be sent to New France, and the company was placed under special obligation to maintain three priests in each settlement until the colony could support its own clergy. Champlain was now sixty years of age, and he had suffered much. Suddenly there burst forth this spontaneous enthusiasm of Richelieu the all-powerful. Was Champlain's dream of the great city of Ludovica to come true after all? Alas, like previous visions, it faded before the glare of harsh, uncompromising facts. The year in which Richelieu founded his Company of New France was also the year of a fierce Huguenot revolt. Calling on England for aid, La Rochelle defied Paris, the king, and the cardinal. Richelieu laid siege to the place. Guiton, the mayor, sat at his council-board with a bare dagger before him to warn the faint-hearted. The old Duchesse de Rohan starved with the populace. {124} Salbert, the most eloquent of Huguenot pastors, preached that martyrdom was better than surrender. Meanwhile, Richelieu built his mole across the harbour, and Buckingham wasted the English troops to which the citizens looked for their salvation. Then the town yielded.