of April, 1638. His body was removed to
Geneva amidst public mourning. A man of distinguished mind and noble
character, often wild in his views and hopes, and so deeply absorbed in
the interests of his party and of his church, that he had sometimes the
misfortune to forget those of his country.

Meanwhile the king had set out for Paris, and the cardinal was marching
on Montauban. Being obliged to halt at Pezenas because he had a fever,
he there received a deputation from Montauban, asking to have its
fortifications preserved. On the minister's formal refusal, supported by
a movement in advance on the part of Marshal Bassompierre with the army,
the town submitted unreservedly. "Knowing that the cardinal had made up
his mind to enter in force, they found this so bitter a pill that they
could scarcely swallow it;" they, nevertheless, offered the dais to the
minister, as they had been accustomed to do to the governor, but he
refused it, and would not suffer the consuls to walk on foot beside his
horse. Bassompierre set guards at the doors of the meeting-house, that
things might be done without interruption or scandal; it was ascertained
that the Parliament of Toulouse, "habitually intractable in all that
concerned religion," had enregistered the edict without difficulty; the
gentlemen of the neighborhood came up in crowds, the Reformers to make
their submission and the Catholics to congratulate the cardinal; on the
day of his departure the pickaxe was laid to the fortifications of
Montauban; those of Castres were already beginning to fall; and the
Huguenot party in France was dead. Deprived of the political guarantees
which had been granted them by Henry IV., the Reformers had nothing for
it but to retire into private life. This was the commencement of their
material prosperity; they henceforth transferred to commerce and,
industry all the intelligence, courage, and spirit of enterprise that
they had but lately displayed in the service of their cause, on the
battle-field or in the cabinets of kings.

"From that time," says Cardinal Richelieu, "difference in religion never
prevented me from rendering the Huguenots all sorts of good offices, and
I made no distinction between Frenchmen but in respect of fidelity." A
grand assertion, true at bottom, in spite of the frequent grievances that
the Reformers had often to make the best of; the cardinal was more
tolerant than his age and his servants; what he had wanted to d