One of Henry’s first acts, after his accession, was to dismiss his father’s ministers, and place the management of affairs in the hands of Montmorency, conjointly with the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and Marshal St. André, who had been the king’s playmate. The constable was nearly sixty years of age when he was thus recalled from the retirement to which Francis I. had banished him. He was a man of harsh manners, ignorant,[40] greedy of money, and a bigot in religion; or, perhaps it may be truer to say, vain of his descent from Pharamond, and of being “the first Christian baron of France.” At times he could be exceedingly pompous and haughty, and though he had seen much service, he possessed but little military capacity. Some of the stories told of his ferocity have a certain grim humor about them, notwithstanding their brutality. While saying his prayers, he would break off suddenly and order this man to be whipped, or that to be hanged, or a village to be burned, and then continue (“tant il était consciencieux,” says Brantome) as if he had done the most natural thing in the world. These _paternosters_ had passed into a proverb, during his life-time. When he marched to Bordeaux, to put down an insurrection occasioned in the south-west of France by the severity with which the infamous _gabelle_ or salt-tax was levied, he told the citizens as they came out to present him with the keys of the gates: “Begone with your keys. I don’t want them. I will open your gates with mine (pointing to his cannon), and have you all hanged. I’ll teach you to rebel against your king.” And for five weeks terror reigned in the city. More than one hundred and forty persons were hanged, decapitated, burned alive, or otherwise put to death; not a few of them having been torn asunder by horses, impaled, or broken on the wheel. “It was an exemplary punishment,” says Brantome, “but _not so severe_ as the case required.” The country was laid waste far and wide by an ill-disciplined, unpaid soldiery--a course of treatment which did not increase the loyalty or orthodoxy of the inhabitants. Montmorency was a great favorite with the king, and his son Francis married Diana of Angoulême, Henry’s natural daughter.[41]