Wherever you go in Dauphiny, you come upon the footmarks of this great soldier. At Grenoble there is the Constable's palace, now the Prefecture; and the beautiful grounds adjoining it, laid out by himself, are now the public gardens of the town. Between Grenoble and Vizille there is the old road constructed by him, still known as "Le chemin du Connétable." At St. Bonnet, in the valley of the Drac, formerly an almost exclusively Protestant town, known as "the Geneva of the High Alps," you are shown the house in which the Constable was born; and a little lower down the same valley, in the commune of Glaizil, on a hill overlooking the Drac, stand the ruins of the family castle; where the Constable was buried. The people of the commune were in the practice of carrying away the bones from the family vault, believing them to possess some virtue as relics, until the prefect of the High Alps ordered it to be walled up to prevent the entire removal of the skeletons. In the early part of his career, Lesdiguières was one of the most trusted chiefs of Henry of Navarre, often leading his Huguenot soldiers to victory; capturing town after town, and eventually securing possession of the entire province of Dauphiny, of which Henry appointed him governor. In that capacity he carried out many important public works--made roads, built bridges, erected fourteen fortresses, and enlarged and beautified his palace at Grenoble and his château at Vizille. He enjoyed great popularity during his life, and was known throughout his province as "King of the Mountains." But he did not continue staunch either to his party or his faith. As in the case of many of the aristocratic leaders of those times, Lesdiguières' religion was only skin deep. It was but a party emblem--a flag to fight under, not a faith to live by. So, when ambition tempted him, and the Constable's baton dangled before his eyes, it cost the old soldier but little compunction to abandon the cause which he had so brilliantly served in his youth. To secure the prize which he so coveted, he made public abjuration of his faith in the church, of St. Andrew's at Grenoble in 1622, in the presence of the Marquis de Crequi, the minister of Louis XIII., who, immediately after Lesdiguières' first mass, presented him with the Constable's baton.