I've been baking bread for a while now and I've had some extremely succesful loaves and some not so succesful ones.  I make plain French bread and it has three rises at about 70 F. 

The other day I decided I would make bread in the evening, give it its first rise and then put it in the fridge for the second rise overnight.  The first rise went perfectly, rose to more than 3 times its initial volume.  I deflated it and put it in the fridge and woke up about 7 hours later to find it was only about 2 times the volume, which I expected, then I expected to let it spend about two hours warming back up and rising more to 3 times the volume.  But it didn't.  I put it in a warm place (nearly 80 F) to try to warm it up more quickly, but it just wouldn't rise any more.  So I decided to just deflate it and start the third rise but it still wouldn't rise any more, so I ended up with some very dense bread.  I baked it some 5 hours after it came out of the fridge (I expected it to be only 3 hours).

Is it possible that my fridge killed the yeast (dry active "rapid rise" yeast, by the way)?  Did it need even more time for them to come alive again?  Is some yeast better than others at being retarded in the fridge and then becoming active again?

Thanks!