Like many religious orders involved in the Catholic reformation in France, the Teresian Carmelite order offered a free space where mysticism became the rallying point of former League members and royal Catholics. The collaboration between the two parties on a common project made it possible to demonstrate to the King a common willingness to contribute, through the founding of a new order from Spain, to the effort of national 'reconciliation'. The founding of a Carmelite house in Pontoise in 1605 was representative of a frequently repeated schema. The population of Pontoise, massively Catholic and anti-Protestant, was engulfed in the League before submitting to Henry IV after repeated sieges.