The edict of Nantes retained, at first for eight years and then for four more, in the hands of the Protestants the towns which war or treaties had put in their possession, and which numbered, it is said, two hundred.

The king was bound to bear the burden of keeping up their fortifications and paying their garrisons; and Henry IV.

devoted to that object five hundred and forty thousand livres of those times, or about two million francs of our day.

When the edict thus regulating the position and rights of Protestants was published, it was no longer on their part, but on that of the Catholics, that lively protests were raised.

Many Catholics violently opposed the execution of the new law; they got up processions at Tours to excite the populace against the edict, and at Le Mans to induce the Parliament of Normandy to reject it.