There was hesitation at the king's council in choosing between Marshal Rantzau and M.de Gassion to command the forces ordered to march into Normandy.

"That country yields no wine," said the king "that will not do for Rantzau, or be good quarters for him." And they sent Colonel Gnssion, not so heavy a drinker as Rantzau, a good soldier and an inflexible character.

First at Caen, then at Avranches, where there was fighting to be done, at Coutances and at Elbeuf, Gassion's soldiery everywhere left the country behind them in subjection, in ruin, and in despair.

They entered Rouen on the 31st of December, 1639, and on the 2d of January, 1640, the chancellor himself arrived to do justice on the rebels heaped up in the prisons, whom the Parliament dared not bring up for judgment.

"I come to Rouen," he said, on entering the town, "not to deliberate, but to declare and execute the matters on which my mind is made up." And he forbade all intervention on the part of the archbishop, Francis de Harlay, who was disposed, in accordance with his office of love as well as the parliamentary name he bore, to implore pity for the culprits, and to excuse the backward judges.