The Chancellor did not long survive this signal proof that his labours had been in vain. “I have lived too long,” he said, “since I have seen what has occurred in my last days,—a youth changed from a mild king into a merciless tyrant.” He died, March 13, 1573; and was buried in his parish church of Champmoteux. His monument is among those which have been collected at Paris, in the Musée des Petits-Augustins. Brantôme has described the person of L’Hôpital. He wore a long white beard; his face was pale, his demeanor grave, and he resembled the pictures of St. Jerome, by which name he was known at court. He and the Constable Montmorenci were famous as _rabroueurs_, or reprimanders, and were joint terrors to the idle courtiers; and this harshness, if we may trust his own representations, was not natural, but assumed as a necessary qualification for his office. His private habits were very simple and frugal, and he regarded the increase of luxury as the bane of France. Brantôme says that once, when he paid the Chancellor a visit with Maréchal Strozzi, their host gave them for dinner a single dish of _bouillie_, and that his whole stock of plate consisted of one silver saltcellar. He adds an amusing account of the way in which the Chancellor rated two newly appointed functionaries, who came to present themselves, and who could not pass satisfactorily through a legal examination, which he bestowed upon them. The leading objects of L’Hôpital’s political life were to obtain the reformation of abuses, to establish the independence of the Gallican church against the usurpations of Rome, and to procure toleration for the Protestants. He is, we believe, the first minister who laid down the principle of toleration, and proclaimed the impossibility and absurdity of making force the rule of reason; and he has thus gained an indefeasible title to the reverence, not only of his countrymen, but of mankind. “What laws,” he said, in his inaugurative speech to the Parliament of Paris, “have not been promulgated on this point of religion? What judgments and punishments, of which even the magistrates of the Parliament have been victims? To what purpose have served such continued armaments and combats in Germany, in England, and in Scotland? The ancient religion has been shaken by these combats, and the new confirmed. The mistake lies in treating the maladies of the mind as if they were those of the body. Experience teaches us that it is the force of reason, the gentle persuasion of words alone, which can win hearts, and cure diseased spirits.”