In 1624, Cardinal Richelieu, who was Louis XIII of France’s Prime Minister at the time, devised a naval policy that provided for the development of the dockyards in order to give France sufficient maritime power to rival that of England. This policy was implemented from 1631, with the creation of the Ponant fleet in the Atlantic and the Levant fleet in the Mediterranean, the Brest dockyards and the extension of the Toulon dockyards, created under Henri IV.[2]