for the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, and for French colonial rule in Vietnam during the next seven decades. After his death, the Vietnamese public, without knowledge of his role in the resistance, vilified him for this role in the signing of the treaty. With the Treaty of Huế signed, French forces led by General Henri Roussel de Courcy arrived in Vietnam to take control of the country in mid-1885. de Courcy made demands that seemed to signal to the Vietnamese that his goal was to completely subjugate them: for example, he demanded to walk through the central doors of the palace, which only the Emperor could do. The Vietnamese, led by Phạm's fellow mandarins Tôn Thất Thuyết and Nguyễn Văn Tường, decided to launch a surprise attack against the French in a last-ditch effort for independence. Known as the "Huế ambush", it failed, and France seized the Huế royal palace. Phạm Thận Duật and other loyal mandarins fled with the young king Hàm Nghi to Tân Sở in Quảng Trị Province (where Phạm had previously advocated for the construction of a military base), and issued an edict calling upon Vietnamese people to rise up and "aid the king" (the English translation of "Cần Vương" is "aid the king"). This edict sparked the Cần Vương resistance, a large-scale insurgency against the French colonialists. The resistance had widespread support and was the strongest resistance the French had encountered since landing on Vietnamese soil in the 17th century. On July 29, 1885, while preparing to cross the sea and organize a resistance campaign in Tonkin, Phạm Thận Duật and his family were captured by the French. Afterward, Phạm Thận Duật was extradited to Huế. He refused bribery from the French colonialists, instead accepting a jail sentence in Côn Đảo. He was then later sentenced to exile in Tahiti. After 6 days on the ship on his way to Tahiti, suffering from diabetes, he died on October 23, 1885 in Malaysian waters. Death and tombstone Legend has it that his body, dressed in white clothing, was put in a bag, and dropped into the ocean. Only after a few years did his relatives and fellow villagers learn of his death; they erected a token tomb in his village to commemorate his life. The tombstone was inscribed by Vũ Kế Xuân telling of his deeds and achievements, but it was buried face down in