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]