In this attempt she, however, failed; the Duc de Bouillon being well aware that should the prescribed period be suffered to elapse without some pledge upon the part of the Government, the demand would be evaded by a declaration that the allotted time was past; and accordingly the Protestants persisted in their claim with so much pertinacity that the Regent found herself compelled to authorize their meeting at Saumur in the course of the ensuing year. Under these circumstances it is scarcely matter of surprise that despite the opposition of the finance minister, M. de Villeroy succeeded in effecting the establishment of a garrison at Lyons; and the misunderstanding was shortly afterwards renewed between the two functionaries by a demand on the part of the State Secretary that the maintenance of the troops should be defrayed from the general receipts of the city. The Orientals have a proverb which says, "it is the last fig that breaks the camel's back," and thus it was with Sully. Exasperated by this new invasion of his authority, he lost his temper; and after declaring that the citizens of Lyons were at that moment as competent to protect themselves as they had ever been, and that it was consequently unreasonable to inflict so useless an outlay upon the King, he accused the Chancellor, who had favoured the pretensions of Villeroy, of leaguing with him to ruin the Crown; a denunciation which, as it equally affected all the other ministers who had espoused the same cause, sealed his own overthrow.[92] Satisfied of a fact so self-evident, Sully resolved no longer to breast the torrent of jealousy and hatred against which he found himself called upon to contend, but without further delay to resign at once the cares and dignities of office; a design which was vehemently opposed not only by his own family, but also by his co-religionists, the whole of whom, save only such of their leaders as had private reasons for seeking his dismissal, were keenly sensible of the loss which their cause must necessarily sustain from the want of his support. The Duke, however, firmly withstood all their expostulations; wearied and disgusted by the inefficiency of his endeavours to protect the interests of the sovereign against the encroachments of extortionate nobles, and the machinations of interested ministers, he felt no inclination to afford a new triumph to his enemies by awaiting a formal dismissal; and he accordingly took the necessary measures for disposing of his superintendence of the finances, and his government of the Bastille (the most coveted because the most profitable of his public offices), in order that he might be permitted in his retirement to retain the other dignities which he had purchased by a long life of labour and loyalty.[93]