Richelieu, become a cardinal, ruled with wisdom and vigor. He treated high and low with equal impartiality, even causing the execution of some of the greatest nobles in the land for the breaking of the law which forbade dueling. The Place de Grève witnessed the punishment for the sport of the Place Royale. Legalized struggles by the Parliament in the palace on the Cité, underhand plots by men very near the throne--all were met and overthrown by the sagacious premier, and his every act tended to confirm the strength of the crown. He fought sturdily against the Huguenots and conquered them with the fall of La Rochelle, a conquest which the church of Notre Dame-des-Victoires was established to commemorate, the original building serving as the sacristy of the present edifice. He confirmed Henry of Navarre’s Edict of Nantes, however, giving to the Protestants religious liberty and civil rights. Abroad the cardinal’s policies brought territory and prestige to the crown. Louis lived but a scant half year longer than Richelieu. The king’s whole life was passed under the domination of a determined mother, Marie de Medicis, and a masterful prime minister. It would have required a stronger personality than his to make itself felt, though Rubens has recorded in a series of pictures now in the Louvre the quarrels and reconciliations of the royal family. His only interests were hawking, drilling soldiers, and craftsmanship in leather. He was terribly bored most of the time, apparently without any initiative toward remedying the situation. His court reflected his own disposition and was incredibly dull, though ordered in etiquette and brilliant in garb. It is to the regent and the cardinal and not to the king that Paris was indebted for the many embellishments of this reign and for any impetus that it gained toward the standards of art and literature which rose to their climax in the next reign.