The minister intended that everything in France should lie helpless at the feet of royalty; that kingship should absorb into itself every source of power.

While Cromwell was tearing down a throne in England and leading a king to a scaffold, Richelieu, facing every class, current, and force, was making the throne impregnable in France, and preparing a magnificent inheritance for the infant Louis XIV., then in his cradle.
Queen-mother, nobles, parliaments, and Protestants must be taught to obey.

The Huguenots at the siege of La Rochelle, lasting fifteen months, learned their lesson.

The punishment for their revolt was the loss of every military and political privilege.

But although there were to be no more political assemblies, the edict of Nantes was to be rigidly enforced, and their rights and immunities under it made inviolable.