The mother sent word to the Duke of Rohan, her son, that he was to put no faith in her letters, since she might be made to write them by force, and that no consideration of her pitiable condition should make her flinch to the prejudice of her party, whatever harm she might be made to suffer." [_Memoires du Duc de Rohan,_ t.i.

p.

395.] Worn out by so much suffering, the old Duchess of Rohan died in 1631 at her castle Du Pare: she had been released from captivity by the pacification of the South.
With La Rochelle fell the last bulwark of religious liberties.
Single-handed, Duke Henry of Rohan now resisted at the head of a handful of resolute men.

But he was about to be crushed in his turn.

The capture of La Rochelle had raised the cardinal's power to its height; it had, simultaneously, been the death-blow to the Huguenot party and to the factions of the grandees.