estroy was
the political party; he did not want to drive the Reformers to extremity,
nor force them to fly the country; happy had it been if Louis XIV. could
have listened to and borne in mind the instructions given by Richelieu to
Count de Sault, commissioned to see after the application in Dauphiny of
the edicts of pacification: "I hold that, as there is no need to extend
in favor of them of the religion styled Reformed that which is provided
by the edicts, so there is no ground for cutting down the favors granted
them thereby; even now, when, by the grace of God, peace is so firmly
established in the kingdom, too much precaution cannot be used for the
prevention of all these discontents amongst the people. I do assure you
that the king's veritable intention is to have all his subjects living
peaceably in the observation of his edicts, and that those who have
authority in the provinces will do him service by conforming thereto."
The era of liberty passed away with Henry IV.; that of tolerance, for the
Reformers, began with Richelieu, pending the advent with Louis XIV. of
the day of persecution.

CHAPTER XLI.----LOUIS XIII., CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

France was reduced to submission; six years of power had sufficed for
Richelieu to obtain the mastery; from that moment he directed his
ceaseless energy towards Europe. "He feared the repose of peace," said
the ambassador Nani in his letters to Venice; "and thinking himself more
safe amidst the bustle of arms, he was the originator of so many wars,
and of such long-continued and heavy calamities, he caused so much blood
and so many tears to flow within and without the kingdom, that there is
nothing to be astonished at, if many people have represented him as
faithless, atrocious in his hatred, and inflexible in his vengeance.
But no one, nevertheless, can deny him the gifts that this world is
accustomed to attribute to its greatest men; and his most determined
enemies are forced to confess that he had so many and such great ones,
that he would have carried with him power and prosperity wherever he
might have had the direction of affairs. We may say that, having brought
back unity to divided France, having succored Italy, upset the empire,
confounded England, and enfeebled Spain, he was the instrument chosen by
divine Providence to direct the great events of Europe."

The Venetian's independent and penetrating mind did not mislead him;
everywhere i