When the reverses suffered by the French armies in 1689, the disordered finances, and the exhausted resources of the kingdom, had reduced Louis XIV. to the greatest difficulties, Vauban alone had courage to propose the re-establishment of the edict of Nantes. In a manuscript addressed to Louvois, he says, “Forcible conversions, and the belief that they yield no faith to sacraments, the profanation of which they make a jest, have inspired an universal horror of the conduct of the clergy. If it is resolved to proceed, either the new Protestants must be exterminated as rebels, or banished as madmen: both execrable projects, opposed to every Christian virtue, dangerous to religion itself; for persecution propagates sects, as was proved when, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a new census showed that the Protestants had increased in number not less than 110,000.” He proposed, therefore, to re-establish, purely and simply, the edict of Nantes; to restore all civil rights to the Protestants and their clergy; to recall the one from exile; to deliver the others from the galleys; to leave their consciences free; and to permit the re-opening and rebuilding of their places of worship. After the fall of Mons, in 1691, Vauban greatly strengthened that fortress; placing outworks in the marshes, inaccessible to an enemy, and seeing in reverse all the points of attack. In 1692 Vauban directed the operations of the siege of Namur, where Coehorn commanded the stronghold of Fort William. The army watched with eagerness this struggle between the rival engineers, one of whom defended his own work. Fort William was soon taken, and the triumph rested with Vauban. The order of St. Louis, the first restricted to the reward of military distinction, was instituted before the campaign of 1693. It is said to have been suggested by Vauban, who was one of the seven Grand Crosses named at its creation. In 1693 he conducted, with his usual skill, the siege of Charleroi, a place which he had fortified, and of which he might well be supposed to know the weakest points; yet it was confidently believed among the besiegers that their celebrated engineer had at last made a mistake, in having selected the strongest fronts as points of attack. Vauban soon convinced them of their error, by the capture of Charleroi. The system of _ricochet_ firing, devised at Philisbourg, and employed with various success at subsequent sieges, was fully developed at the siege of Ath, in 1697, when Vauban placed his first batteries in the second parallel with such good effect as to reduce the place to surrender after only three days of open trenches.