But the clergy went farther; they set themselves to invent, and to

create backsliders. Attendance at mass for three or four Sundays, the

blessing of a priest in a mixed marriage, a confidential avowal to

a (Roman) Catholic of a leaning towards his religion, a conjecture,

an appearance, a hearsay, or some mention of abjuring fifteen or

twenty years before—all these were transformed into acts of (Roman)

Catholicism, and if the pretended convert placed foot again within a

heretic place of worship, he was dragged before the tribunals as a

relapsed person.

So many abuses, and such grave troubles resulted from this, that a

new declaration, published in 1664, decreed the nullity of all the

procedures begun upon the subject. Yet the law was only suspended;

and it was afterwards resumed with the addition of cruel aggravations.

In the month of May, 1665, an ordinance of the council authorized the

curates, and all the ecclesiastics of the Romish church generally,

to present themselves with a magistrate at the domicile of sick

persons, to ask if they were willing to die in their heresy, or to

be converted to the true religion. It is easy to imagine the double

scenes of grief and scandal that would ensue, whenever the priest was

a fanatic and the magistrate compliant. It was no longer possible to

live or to die in peace, out of the Roman communion.

Paternal authority was also destined to be severely attacked. Without

speaking of the crimes of abduction that were committed in many

places, frequently with the most complete impunity, children were

declared, by a decree of the 24th of October, 1665, to be capable of

embracing (Roman) Catholicism; boys at fourteen years of age, girls

at twelve, and parents were under the obligation of providing them

with an alimentary allowance to maintain them out of their houses.

The Reformed complained bitterly of this law, and what was more

strange, the bishops and commissioners-general of the clergy

complained of it also. They told the chancellor that their conscience

did not permit them to allow so much power to the hands of heretic

fathers, and that children, being responsible for their acts before

the age of fourteen or of twelve years, it ought to be permitted to

receive them into the true church as soon as they desired it. The

chancellor discussed the matter with them for form’s sake; and at the

conclusion of the audience said to them: “The king has done his duty,

you will do yours.”

The abjurations of many children were in fact received before

the specified age; and when the parents had recourse to legal

proceedings, the advocates-general decided that there was a great

difference between exciting by “inducing” children to change

religion, and receiving them with open arms, when they presented

themselves by a sort of inspiration from heaven. Some years after, a

new law, of which we shall speak, sanctioned these attacks against

the most sacred rights of families.

The ordinances against blasphemers, and in particular against those

accused of outraging the honour, the purity, and the holiness of the

Virgin Mary, were confirmed. This gave rise to a host of prosecutions

as extravagant as they were barbarous.

The sermons of the pastors were collected by spies in the pay of the

Jesuits, and if there were found any terms, however slight, against

the teachings of (Roman) Catholicism, these pastors were cited before

the tribunals under the accusation of blasphemy. Many individuals

were exposed to the same treatment, and (Roman) Catholics who were

at law with the Reformed, were often found to tax them with some

blasphemy, for the purpose of gaining an undue advantage over the

adverse party.

It daily became more difficult for the Reformed to obtain admission

to public offices. They had been at first kept out of high

employments; access to the less important places was next closed, and

by degrees they were debarred from the very smallest, unless in the

towns and cantons where they still retained the majority. In many

provinces, a profession of the (Roman) Catholic faith was exacted

from simple artisans before they could obtain a license to pursue

their calling.

Even the corporation of laundresses at Paris laid a remonstrance

before the council, that their community having been instituted

by Saint Louis, could not admit heretics, and this reclamation

was gravely confirmed (singular monument of folly!) by a decree

of the 21st of August, 1665. It was thereupon remarked that these

washerwomen had in their corporation many abandoned women, of whom

they did not complain, and that they disturbed themselves much more

about heresy than about evil manners. The example had been set them,

it is true, by the priests, by the court, and particularly by Louis

XIV.

Colbert, however, persisted in employing the Reformed in financial

employments. A Protestant from Germany, Bartholomew Herward, had been

appointed intendant of the finances under the ministry of Mazarin,

notwithstanding the opposition of the commissioners of the clergy,

authentically signified to the chancellor. Herward next became

comptroller-general. “He favoured those of his religion,” says Elie

Benoit; “the finances became the refuge of the Reformed, to whom

all other employments were refused. They entered into the farms and

commissions, and made themselves so necessary in affairs of this

nature, that even Fouquet and Colbert could not dispense with them,

and were forced to retain them as people of proved fidelity, and of

acknowledged capacity.”[86]

Colbert, in fact, relied upon their spirit of order, economy, and

probity, and cared very little about their religion, provided the

people in his service were but honest. Rulhières has a curious remark

upon this subject in his _Eclaircissements historiques_: “The fact

is, that the financiers then enjoyed general esteem for the first

time; they were not attacked either by Molière, Lafontaine, or

Boileau. This silence of the satirists about the financiers, during

the period, in which the greatest number of these offices were filled

by Protestants,” Rulhières adds, “is it not infinitely honourable to

them?”[87]

Others of them being excluded from offices of state, and even

of the municipal magistracy, had betaken themselves to arts and

manufactures, agriculture and industry, a new title of recommendation

to the protection of Colbert. But this great minister of state soon

succumbed before the will of his master, for under Louis XIV. genius

did not relieve any one from the duty of being a courtier.

Together with the violence of the council and of the tribunals, the

Reformed had to endure those puerile vexations and petty annoyances

from which intolerance can never free itself. They were prohibited,

among other things, from singing psalms either on land or water, in

their workshops or at their house-doors. If a procession happened

to pass while they were singing in their places of worship, they

had to stop. Their burials could take place only at break of day,

or at nightfall, and not more than ten persons were permitted to

participate in the funeral, except at Castres, Montauban, Nismes, and

in towns of the same order, where the presence of thirty persons was

authorized. It was not lawful for the Reformed to marry unless at the

times fixed by the canons of the (Roman) Catholic church; and the

nuptial procession might not exceed, parents included, the number of

twelve persons.

The rich churches were interdicted from contributing to the support

of ministers for the poor churches. It was considered a crime in the

consistories to pronounce censures against those, who placed their

children in the colleges of the Jesuits. The pastors lost the right

of taking the title of doctors of theology, and the king forbade

them, under penalty of a fine of three hundred livres, to wear the

cassock and long robe elsewhere than in their places of worship. They

might speak and pray in the hospitals only in whispers, lest they

should offend the ears of the (Roman) Catholics.

Notwithstanding all this, the bishop of Uzès, the orator of the

general assembly of the clergy, declared to the king, in 1665,

that “it behoved him to labour with greater ardour _for the entire

extirpation_ (such were his words) _of the redoubtable monster of

heresy_.” He asked, besides, that liberty of conscience should be

taken away from the (Roman) Catholics, that is to say, that it should

be no longer permissible for them to leave the Roman church, adding

that twenty-two dioceses of Languedoc had demanded this from the

provincial estates, and that all the dioceses of the kingdom were

ready to seal that declaration with their blood.

The council could not yet proceed to extremities, [and] refused [to

do so]. But in the following year it passed a most comprehensive act,

by sanctioning, under the form of a general law, all the decrees

that had been made upon particular cases by the courts of justice.

The preamble stated that this law had been accorded on the demand of

the assembly of the clergy. It comprised fifty-nine articles, which

all tended to restrict the liberties that the Edict of Nantes had

declared perpetual and irrevocable.

The first emigration dates from this epoch. The Reformed hoped no

longer to meet with either justice or repose in their native land,

and preferred the sufferings of exile to those of persecution.

The Protestant powers of Europe began to be moved. The elector of

Brandenburg, one of the most faithful and useful allies of Louis

XIV., wrote to him in favour of the Reformed. The king replied that

he permitted them to live on an equality with his other subjects. “I

am bound to do so,” said he, “by my royal word, and by the gratitude

I feel for the proofs they have given of their fidelity during the

late disturbances (of the Fronde), in which they bore arms in my

service.”

These were but diplomatic phrases, that deceived no one. England

and Sweden, whose neutrality was necessary to Louis XIV. after

the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, expressed also their solicitude for

the fate of the Reformed of France. Emigration continued; and all

these circumstances induced the council to publish, in 1669, a kind

of retractation of the preceding decrees. Nine articles of the

declaration of 1666 were suppressed and twenty-one softened. Although

this was but half-justice, the poor oppressed people esteemed

themselves fortunate [in obtaining it].

Shortly afterwards the celebrated edict was published, which

prohibited the king’s subjects, under pain of confiscation of

liberty and property, from going to establish themselves in foreign

countries without express permission, and particularly from taking

service in the quality of ship-builders or sailors. This law struck

all Frenchmen in their ancient liberties; but it was enforced only

against those who emigrated on account of their religion.

The Marshal de Turenne had just abjured (1669). This conversion

had all the importance of a general act. Turenne had resisted the

invitations of Mazarin and Louis XIV., and had not even been dazzled

by the offer of the constable’s sword. He changed all at once, when

no one any longer expected it, and why, has never been made known.

Some (Roman) Catholic writers say that he had become enlightened by

Bossuet’s _Exposition of the Doctrines of the Catholic Church_,—a

book, indeed, well arranged, soberly penned, and of wonderful skill,

in which the author hides the greatest errors of doctrine and

practice of (Roman) Catholicism under the artifices of deeply-studied

diction. It is possible that the old soldier did not investigate

very narrowly, and that his limited information upon controversial

questions might have failed to protect him against the subtilties of

the theologian.

The Reformed historians explain the matter otherwise. They relate

that Turenne, who was at all times lax in his religion, had only been

retained in it by his wife and his sisters, Mesdames de Duras and

de la Trémoille, both very zealous for the Reformed belief. When he

was left alone, and had surrendered himself to gallantries little

compatible with the faith, he accepted the reasoning of Bossuet.

This is the place to observe that the greater part of the court

nobility,—the families of Bouillon, Châtillon, Rohan, Sully, La

Trémoille,—regulating themselves by the will of the monarch, had

one by one re-entered the (Roman) Catholic church. Their licentious

manners had also prepared them for abjuration; these were not less

inordinate than those of the rest of the courtiers, according to the

testimony of Tallemant des Réaux, who was himself a Calvinist by

birth.

Among the people of importance, who had remained faithful to the

Reformation, we may cite the Count de Schomberg, who had been

commander-in-chief of the armies; the Duke de la Force and his

house; a younger branch of the family of La Rochefoucault; several

descendants of Duplessis-Mornay; the Marquises de Ruvigny, of

whom one was minister-plenipotentiary at London, and the other

deputy-general of the churches. The lesser nobility in the provinces

had been more firm than the great noblemen. Languedoc, Guienne,

Quercy, Saintonge, Poitou, Normandy, still reckoned thousands of

gentlemen devoted to the faith of their fathers, and who, in return

for the good services they rendered to the king in his armies and his

fleets, asked only for a little justice and protection.

XIII.

The abjuration of Turenne renewed the projects of reunion, which

had never been entirely abandoned since the attempt of Cardinal de

Richelieu. The Prince de Conti, governor of Bas-Languedoc, desirous

of making himself agreeable to Louis XIV., had already renewed the

endeavour in 1661. The provincial synod of Nismes answered him, in

the rude language of the period, by the mouth of their moderator

Claude, that the Reformed would be guilty of unpardonable cowardice

if they consented to “_unite light with darkness, Christ with

Belial_.”

The project assumed a more serious turn from 1670 to 1673. The

Marshal de Turenne took it up with the approbation of the king, and

tried to obtain the adhesion of the pastors. An agent of the court

visited one after another those who were dependent upon the national

synod of Charenton; and partly by threats of the king’s displeasure,

and partly by the promise of accomplishing the reunion upon an

equitable basis, this emissary succeeded in extorting from several

ministers the verbal or written promise of supporting the plan in the

next synodal assembly.

It was stated that the king was disposed to extirpate the abuses in

the Romish church, which most shocked the Reformed; that the worship

of images, purgatory, prayers for the dead, the invocation of saints,

would be either suppressed or at least sensibly corrected; that

theologians freely chosen from both sides, would have the mission of

contriving a mutual understanding upon the doctrine of the Lord’s

Supper; that the use of the cup would be restored to the laity, and

the religious service would be celebrated in the vernacular; finally,

that if the pope sought to oppose these changes, the king would go

further, having the word of forty-two bishops upon these articles,

and knowing the means of bringing the others to the same opinion.

This was evidently a falsehood. Louis XIV. could not execute what

the subaltern agents promised in his name; and if the bishops had

refused to make this concession at the colloquy of Poissy, when the

Reformation was widely extended throughout the whole kingdom, how

could one among them have made such concessions to a small minority,

shut up in its places of worship, without political authority, shorn

of all power of religious expansion, and well-nigh extirpated?

Nor did the wisest of the Reformed fall into the snare; for they knew

that Rome uses two very different languages: the first, when she

wishes to gain over heretics; the second, when she has them under her

hoof. They knew, moreover, that the accord would, in the end, be

limited to an entire submission on their part, followed by a merciful

pardon on the other. For this reason, the provincial synod convoked

at Charenton, in the month of May, 1673, opposed the new project of

reunion with an energetic refusal, and the five pastors, who had

promised to support it, solemnly declared their determination against

it.

The same attempts produced the like results in Saintonge, Languedoc,

and the Vivarais. The court and the clergy at length recognised

that there was no rational hope of reducing the Reformed in this

direction, and were driven to seek other means for the extermination

of heresy.

Two methods, very different in their principle and line of action,

were indicated by the adversaries of the Huguenots. The Jansenists,

and the most enlightened and most pious of the (Roman) Catholics

generally, proposed to convert them by persuasion, fair treatment,

and good examples, thinking that it was better to leave the erring

without the pale of the Church than to force hypocrites to enter it.

The Jesuits and their friends said, on the contrary, that it was

incumbent to use both the authority of the king and the Parliaments

without reserve, to exact acts of Catholicity at any price, and then

to retain folks by the fear of executions, upon the fundamental

maxim, that if the new (Roman) Catholics had little faith, their

children would have more, and their grandchildren still more. The

court balanced a long time between these two systems, which serves to

explain its alternatives of mildness and rigour. But in the end, the

advice of the Jesuits prevailed.

Ordinances, declarations, decrees, and other acts of the council

followed, striking the heretics blow upon blow. Their number was so

great that it is impossible to indicate even the substance of them.

The Reformed were successively forbidden to raise supplies for the

maintenance of their ministers, and the expense of sending them to

the synods; to except against suspected judges, although this right

was preserved to other Frenchmen; to print religious books without

the authorization of the magistrates of the Romish communion; to

suborn and corrupt, that is to say, to seek to convert (Roman)

Catholics, under pain of a fine of a thousand livres; to celebrate

their worship in the places and on the days when the bishops made

their tours; to have more than one school and one master in each

of the districts where they exercised their religion; to teach by

this master anything else than writing, reading, and the elements of

arithmetic; and so on. The Reformed were oppressed in their religious

faith, their civil person, their political rights, their domestic

condition, the education of their children, and each iniquity

necessarily produced others. Thus evil ever begets evil.

Some pastors, having held unlawful meetings upon the ruins of

their places of worship, which had been unjustly pulled down, were

condemned to do penance with a rope round their neck, and were then

banished the kingdom. The demolitions spread, and were multiplied

for the most trivial motives, upon the denunciations of a bishop, or

of some other member of the clergy, upon the quibbles of a (Roman)

Catholic commissioner, or simply, as the faithful of Saint Hippolyte

experienced, upon the accusation of having manifested disrespect for

a curate bearing the holy sacrament along the street.

There were in Béarn ninety-six places of worship, and forty-six

churches of residence. A lawsuit, which lasted seven years, reduced

the number of places of worship to twenty, and fettered these in

every possible way. It was nearly the same in all the provinces of

the kingdom. If the council sometimes used precaution, and imposed

upon the intendants some reserve, the pastor Claude presumes, in

his _Plaintes des Protestants de France_, that it was to induce the

belief that justice was regarded, and that the condemned churches had

not good titles.

The mind feels some relief, amidst these persecutions, in dwelling

upon the paper wars which were fought at the same epoch between the

most eminent pastors of the two religions. Here at least material

violence did not intervene; here the contest was equal; and when men

of great powers attacked the Reformation, it did not want solid and

skilful champions for its defence.

The Jansenists were so accustomed to the strife, that they could not

desist from it; and peace having been concluded between them and the

Jesuits, through the intermission of Clement IX., they turned their

arms against the Huguenots. They imported into the conflict all the

greater zeal, that they were themselves taxed with being no more

than disguised Calvinists.

Arnault and Nicole therefore published their famous _Perpétuité de

la Foi sur l’Eucharistie_ (1664-1676), in which they endeavoured

to establish, from the text of the Fathers of the Church, and by

certificates brought from the East, that the dogma of the real

presence has been at all times admitted in Christianity. Claude

replied that they had wrongly interpreted the sense of the Fathers,

and certificates procured from poor Greek popes by the ambassador

of France, who was their protector against the Turks, were but of

little value. His answer had extraordinary success; and the Jesuits

themselves did their best to disseminate it, as Arnault complains in

one of his letters, because they were quite as much interested in

humiliating the Jansenists as in destroying the Reformed.

Nicole re-entered the lists with his _Préjugés légitimes contre

les Calvinistes_. His argumentation was sadly wanting in caution.

He maintained that before quitting the Church of Rome, the meanest

artisan is bound to assure himself of the authenticity of the

holy writings, to compare the translations with the original, to

examine all the various readings, to weigh all the interpretations

of the texts, to compare them with the decisions of the councils,

to perform in a word an immense labour that the most erudite dare

hardly undertake. These arguments, every one knows, have been turned

by Rousseau against (Roman) Catholicism and even against the Gospel.

Claude, Jurieu, and Pajon answered Nicole.

Arnault came to the succour of his friend in a book upon the

_Renversement de la Morale de Jesus Christ par les Erreurs des

Calvinistes_. It astonished every one that a doctor who agreed with

Calvin upon the dogma of predestination, had constructed all the

scaffolding of his polemics upon this consequence, that _grace cannot

be lost_; and this was judiciously objected to him, not only by

Bruguier, pastor of Nismes, but by theologians of his own communion.

Bossuet’s _Exposition_ also provoked numerous replies. La Bastide, a

member of the consistory of Charenton, and David Noguier, a pastor of

Languedoc, proved that this work was wanting in truth, and that the

author has constructed an ideal Catholicism totally unlike the real.

Pierre Jurieu proved it better than any one in his _Preservatif

contre le Changement de Religion_, and resumed the same question in

his _Politique du Clergé de France_. “Here is a man,” he says, “who

transports us into another country. There is no worship of images,

no invocation of saints in this new religion; they are only implored

just as we beg the faithful on earth to pray to God for us. Until

now, I had thought that the devotions to the Virgin and to the other

saints was an important thing; I see that the majority of devotees

think them of great consequence; and these people say they are

nothing, they may be dispensed with, and that it is sufficient to

invoke God and Jesus Christ!”

Claude had a celebrated conference with Bossuet in 1678, upon the

invitation of Mademoiselle de Duras. The two adversaries have

published the report of their debate. Bossuet had pledged himself to

make Claude avow that it may happen that a simple individual, however

ignorant he may be, understands the Scriptures better than all the

councils and all the rest of the Church together—a proposition which

he styled as absurd. Claude answered that the question was not so

simple, and that before asking if an artisan may be right in spite

of all the councils and the Church, it should be shown that there is

a single article, upon which the Church and all the councils have

constantly agreed.

Ten years afterwards, the bishop of Meaux (Bossuet) re-entered the

arena with his _Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes_.

His attacks were made upon the absentees and the proscribed, whose

books of refutation were not permitted to pass from Holland into

France.

To speak alone was a privilege a man like Bossuet ought to have

repudiated.

XIV.

The jubilee of the year 1676 brought about what certain historians

call the _conversion_ of Louis XIV. This prince experienced deep

remorse that he had caused so much scandal at court and in his

kingdom by his public adulteries. He resolved, so he promised his

spiritual directors, not to revisit Mademoiselle de Montespan. But

he had not the firmness to keep his word. His conscience became

thereupon disturbed, and he had troubles of mind and of heart, which

were skilfully turned against the heretics by Father La Chaise,

who had been promoted about a year before to the office of the

king’s confessor. The Reformed were made to atone for the faults of

the monarch, and to reconcile him with his offended God by their

abjuration, or their ruin.

The religion of Louis XIV. was of this kind. If he had not sufficient

piety to conquer his passions, he had enough bigotry to imagine that

he could expiate his errors by the reduction of heretics to the Roman

unity. Louis XIV. received his first religious ideas from a Spanish

mother, who, very ignorant herself, had impressed his mind with many

petty scruples, and but little enlightenment on faith and Christian

morality. The Jesuits had continued her work, by inspiring their

pupil with sentiments, which might subserve for the accomplishment of

their designs.

Having understood at a later period how badly he had been educated,

he remodelled his education as to those matters which most interested

the dignity and authority of his crown. Unhappily, he remained just

where he was in respect of religious matters, and his habits were

no better than his spiritual convictions. “He never had a proper

idea of his duties,” says M. de Sismondi. It was not only his amours

which deserve censure, although the scandal of their publicity, the

dignities to which he raised the children of his adultery, and the

constant humiliation to which he subjected his wife, add greatly to

his offence against public morality. He made himself besides deeply

guilty by the merciless cruelty with which he shed blood, at one time

by such executions as those he inflicted upon the Bretons to punish

them for having defended their privileges, at another by the ruin of

entire populations. No respect for engagements, no notion of right

or wrong, regulated either his public or his private conduct. He

violated treaties just as he violated his domestic engagements; he

seized the property of his subjects, as well as that of his cousin,

Mademoiselle de Montpensier. He acknowledged in his judgments, and in

his rigour towards his people, no rule but his own will. At the very

moment that his subjects were dying of famine, he retrenched nothing

from his prodigalities. Those, who boasted of having converted

him, had never represented to him more than two duties, that of

renouncing his incontinence, and that of extirpating heresy in his

dominions.[88]

Rulhières confesses these errors of mind and conduct, while he

strives to elevate the character of Louis XIV. in a memoir, which was

intended for the perusal of Louis XVI.: “During these alternatives

of dissoluteness and scruples,” says he, “while he passed from

error to remorse, and from remorse to error, he hoped to redeem

his transgressions and merit more decisive grace from heaven, by

labouring with greater fervour for these conversions.”[89]

One of the means that Louis XIV. employed with this view, was the

purchase of consciences for money; a fresh proof of the detestable

religious education he had received from his mother and the Jesuits.

He consecrated to this vile traffic the third of the _économats_ or

benefices, which fell to the crown during vacancy. The amount was not

large; but it was increased afterwards by leaving benefices vacant

expressly to pay for the abjurations of the heretics.

Pellisson had the administration of this fund. Although born

in the Reformed communion, he had embraced (Roman) Catholicism

very opportunely for his fortune, and from a convert had become

a converter. Doubly an object of suspicion to the king from his

Huguenot origin, and his connection with the superintendent Fouquet,

he perceived that he must do much to gain the favour of Louis. Nor

did he spare his efforts.

The establishment opened by Pellisson was a bank, or commercial

house, organized according to the rules of [establishments of] the

kind, with its correspondents, who were generally priests or bishops,

its tariff, its letters of change, its provincial agents, and its

regular balance-sheets of expenditure; and it was made necessary to

send certificates of abjuration duly signed, and acquittances in

proper form, indicating the sum disbursed for each person, or for

each family of proselytes.

The object of this bank was naturally to procure conversions at

the lowest figure: they cost from five to six livres, sometimes

one or two pistoles, and, in extraordinary cases, from eighty to

one hundred francs. There is a curious letter on this subject from

Pellisson extant, which is the circular of a consummate merchant.

“Although you may go to the extent of a hundred francs,” [he writes,]

“you are not thereby to understand that this sum is to be always

given, since it is requisite that the utmost economy should be

observed; first, in order that this beneficent dew may be dispersed

over the greatest number of persons; and secondly, because, if a

hundred francs is given to persons of low rank without any family

following them, those who have ever so little position, or draw after

them a number of children, will demand much larger sums. This will

not, however, prevent, where important strokes may be effected, on

my being first advised thereof, larger remittances to be furnished,

accordingly as his majesty shall, on representation made to him,

think proper.” (June 12th, 1677.)

Pellisson regularly presented lists of six and eight hundred converts

with the certificates to the king, and caused his miracles to be

inserted in the _Gazette_. He took care, however, not to publish that

they were nearly all folks belonging to the dregs of the people, or

rogues who made a trade of their consciences, or wretches who took

the money that they might have the wherewithal to buy a piece of

bread, without any intention of renouncing their religion. The king

was greatly astonished at his conquests; the prelates applauded; the

Jesuits triumphed; but sensible people put no faith in them.

In effect, frauds multiplied to such an extent, that it could no

longer be concealed from the king. Instead, however, of giving up

this unworthy traffic, he published, through his council, in the

month of March, 1679, a law of greater severity against those who

relapsed. “We have been informed,” he says in the preamble, “that

in several provinces of our kingdom, there are many persons, who,

after having abjured the pretended Reformed religion, in the hope of

participating in the sums that we have caused to be distributed to

the new converts, return to it again.” And the law pronounced against

them, besides the former penalty of banishment for life, was that of

public recantation and forfeiture of property.

What a mass of injustice and contradictions! In buying souls it could

not but be supposed that they believed in nothing, and after having

bought them, they were punished for changing anew,—as if they had

believed in anything. What should so degraded a devotion inspire in

the minds of all respectable people? Is it pity or contempt? It is

both the one and the other.

The peace of Nimeguen, concluded with all the powers of Europe

in 1679, was the apogee of the fortunes of Louis XIV. He [then]

received the surname of “the Great.” Courtiers and men of letters

were profuse in [offering] the most humble adulations, and treated

him as a demigod. This incense completed his intoxication—he regarded

himself really as the sole and rightful owner of all the territory

of his kingdom, the sole legislator and supreme judge, the living

impersonation of the whole state! He ended by thinking that the

minds of his subjects were as much his slaves as their bodies, and

considered every conscientious opposition to his sovereign will to

be a crime of high treason. Unfortunate prince! He never so debased

himself as when he carried the excess of his pretensions so high.

Madame de Maintenon [now] began to assume a stronger dominion over

him. The grand-daughter of Agrippa d’Aubigné, one of the firmest

defenders of the Calvinist faith, and herself deeply devoted to her

religion in childhood, she had abandoned it in 1651, when sixteen

years of age. When the Reformed saw her growing in the confidence and

intimacy of Louis XIV., they imagined that she would remember the

communion of her grandfather, and use her influence to protect it.

But having been “_born ambitious_,” as she confesses in one of her

letters, she felt, even more than Pellisson, the necessity of causing

her heretic origin to be forgotten, and hoped to retain the king’s

heart by fostering in him a strict devotion.

Gifted with much cleverness and still more tact, she had easily

discovered Louis XIV.’s profound repugnance for the heretics, and

tried to conform herself to it. It appears, nevertheless, that she

had some compunctions of pity for the oppressed. We read in the

_Memorial of Saint Cyr_, that the king said to her one day: “I fear,

madam, that the moderation you would have me display for the heretics

arises from some remains of affection for your old religion.” And she

writes elsewhere: “Ruvigny is intractable; he has told the king that

I was born a Calvinist, and that I was one until my coming to court.

This compels me to approve of things quite opposite to my sentiments.”

This avowal is the clue to her conduct. Madame de Maintenon, if left

to herself, would have employed only mildness and charity, as she

recommended to her brother; but being desirous above all things of

pleasing Louis XIV., she joined with Father La Chaise in devising

every means for the ruin of heresy.

The plan of destruction became systematic and invariable after

the peace of Nimeguen. Governors, commandants, intendants,

soldiers, lawyers, finding that Louis had finally decided upon the

extirpation of the Huguenots, became animated with a great desire

for proselytism, and undertook in their turn to become missionaries

and converters. Their chief care was to despatch long lists of

abjurations to the court, or at least reports of worship interdicted,

of places of worship razed, and of flocks dispersed. The privy

council was sometimes alarmed at so much zeal; notwithstanding

which it dared not arrest it, lest the victims might be encouraged

in their resistance; and soon, itself drawn along by the force of

circumstances, it transformed into a general declaration what it had

blamed at first.

Whenever a councillor or a magistrate more humane than the others,

deplored these extreme measures, the only answer was, “God uses all

means for His ends.”

The populace, as might have been expected, acted its part in these

persecutions. In the towns of Blois, Alençon, and in other places,

bands of wretches invaded the places of worship, tore the holy books,

broke the pulpits and the benches, and set fire to the buildings: the

authorities, instead of suppressing these riots, sanctioned them by

the interdiction of worship and the exile of the pastors.

Louis XIV. persisted, nevertheless, in talking to the Protestant

powers of Europe of his respect for the Edict of Nantes. We read in

a declaration so late even as 1682, that he was resolved upon doing

nothing contrary to the edicts, by virtue of which the pretended

Reformed religion was tolerated in his kingdom! Under the Valois,

persecution was cruel, but freely avowed; under Louis XIV. it cloaked

itself for a long time in hypocrisy: the Jesuits were the moving

power.

XV.

As we gradually approach [the period of] the revocation, the

ordinances already so numerous, as we have seen, multiplied with

striking features of aggravation. We will class the most important

under distinct heads.

_Public Offices._—The exclusions were extended by degrees to all

employments without exception. The Reformed were disabled from being

councillors, judges, assessors, treasurers, clerks in the financial

departments, consuls, municipal magistrates, advocates, notaries,

procurators, serjeants, ushers, physicians, apothecaries, librarians,

printers, _employés_ in the post [offices], and public conveyances,

members of corporations, &c. &c. Even midwives of the religion

were no longer permitted, “because they did not believe,” said the

ordinance of 1680, “baptism to be necessary, and could not christen

children on emergency.”

In certain cantons it was physically impossible to execute these

edicts; for how could the Reformed be excluded from all employments

and every office in those places where they formed nearly the whole

of the population? It was necessary to select consuls and municipal

councillors from adventurers living in the suburbs, and from people

of no character, which caused inexpressible disorder.

_Civil Rights._—There were no longer any guarantees in the courts

of justice. The chambers of the Edict, at Paris and Rouen, had been

abolished in 1669. The mixed chambers of the Parliaments of Toulouse,

Grenoble, and Bordeaux were abolished in 1679; “seeing,” said the

preamble, “that all animosity was extinct!” Derision was added to the

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes!

It was not an unfrequent occurrence to hear the (Roman) Catholic

party invoke this argument, in affairs purely civil: “I plead against

a heretic;” and when a member of the Reformed faith complained of an

unjust sentence, he was coolly answered: “You have your remedy in

your hands; why do you not become a Catholic?”

_Marriage and Paternal Authority._—Alliances were no longer permitted

between the Reformed and (Roman) Catholics, even in the case of

former relations that marriage had legitimized. The Reformed were not

allowed to have (Roman) Catholic valets, for fear the latter should

be seduced; and soon, by an inverse excess, they were prohibited

from having any other than (Roman) Catholics, because such could be

employed as spies. The nearest relations were prohibited from being

guardians or curators. Fathers and mothers were forbidden to send

their children into foreign countries before the age of sixteen.

It was ordered that all illegitimate children, of every age and

condition, should be held as (Roman) Catholics, and educated in that

religion: and as this ordinance was made to act retrospectively,

results flowed from it as ridiculous as they were odious. Persons of

sixty and eighty years of age were summoned to enter the church of

Rome, because their illegitimate condition had legally rendered them

(Roman) Catholics.

Matters even went further than this. An edict of the 17th of June,

1681, declared that the children of the Reformed might abjure at the

age of _seven_. “We will, and it pleaseth us,” said the ordinance,

“that our said subjects of the pretended Reformed religion, as well

male as female, having attained the age of seven years, may, and it

shall be lawful for them to, embrace the Catholic, Apostolic, and

Roman religion, and, for this end, that they be received to make

abjuration, without their fathers and mothers and other relatives

offering _the least impediment_, under any pretext whatsoever!”

These children were free to withdraw themselves whenever they liked,

and the parents were bound to provide them with a pension for their

maintenance.

Fearful consequences attended [the passing of] this law. Every family

was disturbed. Friends, (Roman) Catholic neighbours, servants,

the slightest mark of kindness to their children on the part of a

stranger, were mistrusted. A priest, an envious acquaintance, an

enemy, a discontented talebearer, might declare before a justice

that such and such a child had made the sign of the cross, or kissed

an image of the Virgin, or desired to enter a (Roman) Catholic

church; and this was often sufficient to justify their abduction,

particularly of those who were rich enough to pay an allowance, and

to shut them up in some convent under the direction of monks, nuns,

and the [secular] clergy.

Even Madame Maintenon made use of this abominable law. Having vainly

endeavoured to convert her relation, the Marquis de Villette, who

had replied to her: “It would take me a hundred years to believe in

infallibility, twenty years to believe in the real presence,” and

so on, she deprived him of his children; among others of a little

girl, who afterwards became the Marchioness de Caylus. We read in the

Memoirs of this lady: “I cried a great deal, but I found next day the

royal mass so beautiful that I consented to be a (Roman) Catholic,

on condition that I should hear it every day, and that I should be

insured from all whipping. This was all the controversy employed, and

the only abjuration I made.”

_Contracts and Imposts._—The newly-converted were permitted to delay

the payment of their debts for the space of three years, which

attracted all involved or dishonest debtors to (Roman) Catholicism.

These same converts were also exempt for two years from imposts and

military quarterings; while a double imposition of billets, taxes,

or arbitrary contributions, called _office taxes_, were inflicted

upon the refractory, so that the treasury might not suffer by its

liberality. Colbert complained in vain of the disorder and confusion

which this caused; religion, however, took the precedence of

financial regularity.

_Attacks upon Property._—All the funds, rents, and other property of

every kind which belonged to the condemned churches, were confiscated

in favour of the (Roman) Catholic hospitals: so likewise were all

those destined to the poor of the religion, even in the places where

its exercise had not been interdicted; and testamentary dispositions

containing charitable legacies for the consistories were annulled.

We shall see, as we proceed, to what point the attack upon private

property was (also) carried.

_Liberty of Conscience and of Worship._—Physicians, surgeons,

and others, who should assist the sick of the Reformed religion,

were commanded to give notice thereof to the magistrates of the

locality, under penalty of a fine of five hundred livres; and the

latter—consuls, judges, or magistrates—were required to visit the

sick, willingly or by force, with or without a priest, to ask them if

they would abjure.

The pastors were forbidden to speak of the _misfortune of the times_

in their sermons, to attack the Romish church directly or indirectly,

to reside at a distance of less than six leagues from the places

of interdicted worship, and of less than three leagues from the

places of contested worship. The people were forbidden to assemble

in their places of worship under pretence of prayer and singing

psalms, except at the usual hours. The conferences were definitively

interdicted; and the consistories were obliged to admit a (Roman)

Catholic commissioner. It was prohibited to contribute alms for the

maintenance of the sick of the Reformed religion, or to take care

of them in private houses; the order was to transfer them to the

hospitals, where they fell under the action of Roman proselytism.

The crowning measure of oppression was the prohibition to receive any

new converts in the places of worship, under pain of banishment and

forfeiture of property, as regarded the pastors, and of privation

of religious exercises, as regarded the flocks. At this last blow

the Reformed were ready to abandon themselves to despair. Many

deliberated whether they ought not to renounce all public service,

and confine themselves to the adoration of God within their own

houses. What refinement of barbarity! To force them themselves to

watch the door of their places of worship, and to drive away the

brethren, who had doubtless quitted them, but who returned perhaps

with tears of repentance! Besides, by what signs was a new convert

distinguished? How was it possible to know all those who had abjured?

Might not one traitor procure the condemnation of an entire church?

The places of worship at Bergerac, Montpellier, Saint Quentin, and

Montauban, were demolished in this way: the same fate threatened all

the others.

It appeared as if the condition of the Reformed could not become

worse. It did so, however, by the intervention of the Marquis de

Louvois, who wanted, according to the expression of Madame de Caylus,

to mix up the soldiery with the affair. He was annoyed that he was,

after the peace of Nimeguen, no longer necessary to his master, and

saw with displeasure devotion replacing gallantry in the heart of

Louis. He tried long and fruitlessly to bring the king back to Madame

de Montespan; but when he was convinced that his intrigues were

useless, and that the sole means of pleasing Louis was to second his

efforts for the conversion of the Huguenots, he entered into them

with all the violence of his character, being only too happy to play

the first part with the help of the troops at his disposal. What

miseries, what shameful calculations in that court, so renowned, and

all under the mask of Catholic piety!

Louvois wrote to Marillac, intendant at Poitou, in the month of

March, 1681, that he was about to send a regiment of horse into

that province. “His majesty,” he said, “has heard with much joy of

the great number of persons, who continue to be converted in your

department. He wishes you to persist in your endeavours, and desires

that the greater number of horsemen and officers should be billeted

upon the Protestants. If, according to a just distribution, ten

would be quartered upon the members of the Reformed religion, you

may order them to accommodate twenty.” Louvois also enjoined that

the communication of his orders should be made to the mayors and

authorities, not by writing, but by word of mouth, so that it might

not be said that the king used violence towards the Huguenots.

Such was the origin of those _dragonnades_, which have left an

indelible stain of disgrace upon the reign of Louis XIV., and of

horror in the mind of the inhabitants. The march of Marillac’s troops

was ordered, as if they were in an enemy’s country, exacting arrears

of taxes, exempting those who became converts, and throwing all the

burden upon the obstinate. From four to ten dragoons were billeted

in the houses, with directions not to kill the inhabitants, but

with authority to do anything short of that, in order to extort an

abjuration. Curates followed the soldiers in the towns and villages,

shouting: “Courage, gentlemen, it is the will of the king.”

Without a check upon their passions, the military committed horrible

excesses: a horde of brigands had penetrated into the heart of

the kingdom. The _Journal of Jean Migault_, published in these

later times, will give an idea of their barbarities. Devastations,

pillages, tortures, cruelties [prevailed; in fact,] they hesitated at

nothing.

Elie Bénoit has filled page after page of his _History of the Edict

of Nantes_ [with a narrative of these cruelties]; we will only

extract one or two passages: “The horsemen,” he writes, “fastened

crosses to the mouth of their musquetoons to compel the people to

kiss them by force, and when they met with any resistance, they

thrust their crosses into the face and stomach of their unhappy

victims. They spared children as little as persons of more advanced

age, and without the slightest regard for their years; they loaded

them with blows with the flat of their swords, or with the butt-end

of their musquetoons; such was their violence that in many instances

many were crippled for life. These infamous wretches took a pleasure

in maltreating women. They beat them with whips; they struck them in

the face with canes in order to disfigure them; they dragged them by

their hair in the mud and over the stones. Sometimes the soldiers,

meeting labourers on the road, or with their carts, drove them to the

(Roman) Catholic churches, pricking them like cattle with their own

spurs, to hasten their unwilling march....”[90]

Crowds of unfortunates fled to the woods; others hid themselves in

the houses of their friends; many determined to fly the kingdom

at all hazards; and there might be seen men, women, and children,

half-dead, stretched upon the stones or rugged rocks. Many at length

consented to abjure under the sabre of the soldier; but what an

abjuration! Numbers went mad, or died of grief, or put an end to

their days in paroxysms of remorse and despair. There were some who,

flinging themselves upon the road, beat their breasts and filled the

air with wailings. “When any two of these unfortunate converts met,”

still further relates Bénoit, “when one beheld the other at the foot

of an image, or in any other act of Catholic devotion, their cries

redoubled, and their grief burst out anew. The labourer, abandoned to

his reflections during his work, felt the sharp stimulus of remorse,

and quitting his waggon in the midst of his fields, threw himself

upon his knees, and while prostrate on the earth, sought for pardon,

and took all nature to witness that it was violence alone that he had

obeyed.”[91]

Madame de Maintenon wrote to her brother, who was about to receive

a gratuity of eight hundred thousand francs: “I beg of you carefully

to use the money you are about to receive. Estates in Poitou may be

got for nothing; the desolation of the Huguenots will drive them to

sell more. You may easily acquire extensive possessions in Poitou.”

(September 2nd, 1681.)

The emigration, suspended in 1669, recommenced upon a vaster scale,

and thousands of families quitted France. The Protestant countries,

England, Switzerland, Holland, and Denmark, offered them shelter by

official declarations. The court became alarmed, above all when the

heads of the administration of the navy complained of the desertion

of a great number of sailors, who, having readier means of flight,

escaped _en masse_. Marillac was recalled, and the other intendants

received orders to act with less severity.

The ordinances, which interdicted departure from the kingdom, were

again put in force, with the addition of the penalty of perpetual

imprisonment at the galleys against the heads of families, a fine of

three thousand livres for those who should encourage them to fly,

and the nullification of all contracts of sale made by the Reformed

one year before their emigration. This last article overturned all

private transactions, and it became necessary to supply a remedy on

its execution.

The laws against emigrants and those who relapsed, placed a

double-edged sword in the hands of the persecutors. If the new

converts re-entered a place of worship, they were stricken with a

terrible punishment, and they were equally so if they endeavoured to

quit the kingdom. The government would consider them only as (Roman)

Catholics in France; on the frontier they were seized as heretics.

Rulhières, always led by a desire to justify the memory of Louis

XIV., says that “the misfortunes of the Reformed were principally

due to the combination of these two laws, of which their originator,

Father La Chaise, boasted, as master-pieces of genius.”

The assembly of the clergy, who had to secure the pardon of the

Roman See for the temerity of the four propositions of 1682, sent a

_pastoral notice_ to all the consistories of France, in which it was

said that the bishops looked upon the Huguenots as strayed sheep, and

would welcome them with open arms, but that they would be discharged

from the care of their souls, if the heretics were not convinced by

these charitable words. “This last error,” the prelates wrote, “will

be more criminal in you than all the others, and you must expect

misfortunes incomparably more dreadful and disastrous than all those

your revolt and schism have drawn upon you at present.”

This notice of the clergy was read in the consistories by the express

command of the king. It converted nobody; but every one foresaw fresh

sufferings; for those who uttered the prediction had influence enough

to work its accomplishment.

XVI.

It is evident how intolerable the condition of the Reformed must have

become. They had no longer rights of any kind, guarantees or safety;

their persons, their children, their property, were all at the

mercy of the oppressor; the sword of proscription hung incessantly

suspended over their heads. What race in the Christian world was ever

more unhappy than this?

A multitude of fugitives already filled Europe with their complaints

and their wailings. Jurieu, who had found an asylum in Holland, wrote

in 1682, in his book upon the _Politique du Clergé de France_, “We

are treated as if we were enemies of the Christian name. In places

where the Jews are tolerated, they have all kinds of privileges;

they encourage the arts and commerce; they are physicians; they

are consulted; they are intrusted with the health and lives of

Christians. And we, as if we were infamous, are forbidden to approach

newborn children; we are banished from the bar and the faculties;

we are kept from the presence of the king; we are despoiled of our

offices; we are forbidden the use of all the means of providing

against perishing of hunger; we are abandoned to the hatred of

the populace; we are deprived of that precious liberty that we

have bought with so many services; our children, who are a part of

ourselves, are torn from us.... Are we Turks? Are we infidels? We

believe in Jesus Christ; we believe Him to be the eternal Son of God,

the Redeemer of the world; the maxims of our morality are so pure

that none dare gainsay them; we respect kings; we are good subjects,

good citizens; we are as much Frenchmen as Reformed Christians.”[92]

Jurieu spoke in vain. The books of heretics could not pass the

frontier. It was even attempted in the interior of the kingdom to

destroy the ancient works which attacked (Roman) Catholicism. The

archbishop of Paris drew up a catalogue comprising the names of five

hundred authors, and domiciliary visits were paid in the houses of

the ministers and the elders, in order to burn all the condemned

books that might be found in their libraries.

The Reformed transmitted petition after petition to the court, the

council, and to the king himself. Their cause was pleaded by the

deputy-general, or by special delegates. Sometimes they recapitulated

their grievances in general requests, conjoining the most humble

protestations of obedience and respect.

All was useless. The ministers of state disputed the best-supported

facts, and threatened the petitioners with still direr treatment. The

king closed his palace, or when, after long remonstrance, they were

admitted, his words were cold and constrained. The deputy-general

Ruvigny, having represented to him the great misery of more than two

millions of Frenchmen, Louis XIV., it is said, answered him that to

“bring all his subjects back to the Catholic unity, he would give one

of his arms, or would cut off one of his hands with the other.” This

saying filled the Reformed with the darkest presentiments.

Nevertheless, they persisted in believing that Louis XIV., the

grandson of the Béarnese, would have compassion upon them, if he

knew the extent of their sufferings, and filled with this idea, they

resolved to make a last effort.

Sixteen deputies from Languedoc, Cevennes, Vivarais, and Dauphiny,

met secretly at Toulouse, in the spring of 1683, and drew up a draft

in eighteen articles, destined to restore their liberty of conscience

and of worship, without, however, doing the slightest act which could

bear the appearance of rebellion. After enjoining repentance, prayer,

and union among the faithful, they decided that on the 27th of June

following, all the interdicted assemblies should recommence at the

same time, without ostentation, but also without mystery, with open

doors, or upon the ruins of the razed places of worship. Those who

had performed a forced abjuration were to assemble separately, for

fear of furnishing the pretext for fresh persecutions. On the 4th of

July, a solemn fast was to be celebrated in all the churches. The

pastors were exhorted to remain courageously in the midst of their

flocks, and not to quit them, but with the leave of a conference, or

in the most imminent peril. Lastly, the deputies framed a petition to

the chancellor and all the ministers of state, in which they pledged

their obedience to the king in everything that was not absolutely

contrary to their duty to God. “What is our situation?” they said;

“if we obey, it is pretended that we are converted, and our very

submission is made use of to deceive the king.”

The chief object of this bold measure was to prove to Louis XIV.

that the abjurations _en masse_, which were recounted to him, were

unworthy fabrications. Unhappily, there was not sufficient unanimity

among the oppressed. The prudent, the timid, those who had not

suffered so much as others, those who saw danger only when it was

upon them, determined to abstain from the enterprise, and stood apart.

On the appointed day, however, a great many houses of worship were

reopened, the assemblies were reconstituted, and religious service

was again performed in many places where it had been interdicted.

The military governors and the intendants immediately took alarm;

they believed, or feigned to believe, that a general insurrection was

taking place, and troops were sent against these poor peasants, who,

pleading the solemn promises of the Edict of Nantes, had met together

to read the Bible and to pray.

The Marquis d’Aguesseau, the father of the illustrious chancellor of

the same name, and intendant of Languedoc, advised that a stop should

be put to the barbarities of the soldiers; but Louvois refused, and

ordered frightful executions. The peasants were tracked in the woods,

and slaughtered by hundreds. “_It was a butchery without a combat_,”

says Rulhières. “Their places of worship were thrown down, and their

houses razed. Pardon was offered to the prisoners on condition that

they should abjure: they would not comply, and were hanged!”

The Reformers of Vivarais and Dauphiny, reduced to despair, sought

to defend themselves by force. Louvois promised them an amnesty, but

his promise was derisive. All the ministers and fifty other prisoners

were exempted from it, without counting those that were sent to the

galleys. The pastor, Isaac Hornel, an old man of seventy-two, who

was accused of having fomented the disturbances, was condemned to be

broken alive on the wheel, although the most inveterate criminals

were never subjected to so terrible a punishment in those times. The

executioner, who made himself drunk for the task, inflicted more than

thirty blows upon him before he killed him, accompanying the torture

with dastardly insults. Hornel died with the constancy of a martyr

(16th of October, 1683).

In several provinces there were left no more than one or two places

of worship, and these were interdicted under the least pretext. The

church of Marennes, in Saintonge, for instance, which still remained,

was soon suppressed in its turn, with accompanying circumstances of

an odious nature. This church comprised from thirteen to fourteen

thousand persons; but because, as was pretended, some who had

relapsed, and some children of new converts had entered the places of

worship, their services were prohibited by a decree notified at the

very last moment, on the night before Sunday (1684).

On the sabbath, more than ten thousand of the faithful arrived

before the doors of their place of worship, and among them were

twenty-three children, who had been brought a distance of seven

leagues for baptism. As the weather was extremely inclement, several

died on the way. “The people, as they withdrew,” says Elie Bénoit,

“loudly expressed their grief. Nothing was heard but cries, and

weeping, and wailing. There was no restraint either in the streets

or in the country. Parents and friends embraced in tears and without

uttering a word. Men and women, with clasped hands, and eyes raised

to heaven, clung to the holy place whither they had come, regardless

of the severity of the season, to find consolation in praying to God;

and yet, amidst so sad a scene, it was necessary that they should

be watchful to give no new hold to their persecutors, by remaining

in such numbers upon a spot where the decree against the pastors

rendered such meetings unlawful.”[93]

It is gratifying to add, that if the persecution was great, the

very sufferings of the people strengthened their piety. There were

provinces where the faithful made a journey of fifty and even sixty

leagues to be present at the religious service; and not only did men

in the vigour of manhood, but old men of eighty took the road, on

foot, with staff in hand, enduring all the fatigues and dangers of

the journey, in order that they might have the consolation of praying

together with their brethren for the last time. The first-comers

found an asylum in the place of worship, while the others halted

around it, singing psalms or reading prayers. And as these assemblies

would have been esteemed unlawful without the presence of a minister,

the preacher passed the night with them, exhorting them by his tears

as much as by his discourses, to remain steadfast in the faith.

Elsewhere, as all the ministers had been exiled or imprisoned, the

intendants were under the necessity of summoning pastors from other

places, to baptize the children, and to celebrate marriages, “without

the addition of any sermon, exhortation, or service of the pretended

Reformed religion.” These pastors were kept under guard, as if they

were pest-smitten, and they were taken back as soon as they had given

to the acts of the heretics the civil sanction, which in those times

was confounded with the religious blessing.

The court was not yet satisfied. Louis XIV., who had just contracted

a secret marriage with Madame de Maintenon, had passed from ignorant

devotion to outrageous bigotry. He was irritated by the obstacles

that delayed the general conversion of the Reformers, and, governed

by the triumvirate of Father La Chaise, Madame de Maintenon, and the

Marquis de Louvois, his mind gradually familiarized itself with the

idea of altogether abrogating the Edict of Nantes.

The Marquis de Châteauneuf, who had the charge of ecclesiastical

affairs, was opposed to precipitating matters, saying, that “it was

unwise to put too much fuel upon the fire.” Louvois himself seemed

for a moment to incline towards moderation. The other secretaries

of state were of the contrary opinion; and the aged chancellor

Letellier,—a false and unfeeling man, of whom the Count de Grammont

said, when he saw him come from an interview with the king, “I

see a ferret licking his muzzle, bloody with the slaughter of

fowls,”—wanted the work to be accomplished before his death.

Madame de Maintenon thus wrote on the 13th of August, 1684: “The

king is prepared to do everything that shall be judged useful for

the welfare of religion. This undertaking will cover him with glory

before God and man.” Glory! She did not foresee that, far from

increasing the glory of Louis, the Edict of Revocation would impress

an indelible stain upon his reign, and that posterity would inquire

whether he had not, by this single act, more injured the material

power and the policy of France than he had benefited it by his

conquest of Flanders, Alsatia, and Franche-Comté.

In the month of May, 1685, the clergy held a general assembly,

and complimented the king upon the admirable success, which had

attended his efforts to extirpate heresy. Louis was extolled above

the greatest princes of Christian antiquity. The bishop of Valence

and the coadjutor of Rouen said, “he had found the (Roman) Catholic

church cast down and enslaved; but he had re-established it by his

zeal; he had _without violence and without arms_ induced all rational

persons to abandon heresy, had subdued their minds by winning their

hearts with his favours, and had led back wanderers, who _would

perchance never have returned to the bosom of the Church, had it not

been for the flowery path he had thrown open to them_.” We copy these

words as they were actually spoken, and will add nothing to them!

Rulhières, who was permitted to search the state papers, when

speaking of the intervention of the priests in the Revocation of

the Edict of Nantes, says, “I hold in my hands a collection of the

letters of the clergy, some of which cause me to shudder.”

XVII.

Troops had been encamped in Béarn, in 1685, to watch the movements of

the Spanish army; and as Spain had sought a truce, Louvois, mindful

of the plan adopted by Marillac in Poitou, obtained the king’s

permission to despatch some regiments to the districts inhabited by

the Huguenots.

The Marquis de Boufflers, commander of the troops, and the intendant

Foucault received, in July, the order to complete the conversion of

the Béarnese. The latter brought a refined and systematic cruelty to

his task, and perfected more than one species of torture. This was

the recommencement of the _dragonnades_, which were soon to spread

over all France.

Foucault announced that the king commanded all the Huguenots to

return to the (Roman) Catholic unity, and to make a beginning of the

business, drove some hundreds of Béarnese into a church by force,

where the bishop of Lescar officiated. The doors were closed, and

the unfortunate people were made to kneel by the force of blows, in

order to receive the bishop’s absolution from heresy: they were then

admonished that if they returned to the Protestant church, they would

be punished for relapsing.

The Reformed fled to the fields, the forests, the wildernesses, and

the caverns of the Pyrenees. Foucault ordered them to be pursued like

wild beasts; and when they were brought back to their dwellings, he

loaded them with military billetings. The horrors committed in Poitou

were renewed and even surpassed.

The dragoons or other soldiers (for troops of all kinds were

employed), entered the houses of the Reformers with drawn swords,

shouting: “_Kill! kill!_ or let them become _Catholics_!” They wasted

provisions, spoiled furniture, and destroyed or sold everything that

fell into their hands to the peasants of the neighbourhood. Nor were

the persons of the Calvinists spared. “Among other secrets taught

them by Foucault,” says the historian of the Edict of Nantes, “he

ordered them to keep strict guard over those, who would not succumb

to other tortures. The faithful executioners of these furious orders

watched in relays, that they might not themselves sink under the

torments they inflicted upon others. The sound of drums, blasphemies,

shouts; the crashing of furniture, or throwing them one upon another;

the agitation in which they kept these poor folks, to compel them to

remain standing, and to keep their eyes open, were the means they

employed to deprive them of repose. Pinching, pricking, buffeting,

and suspending them with ropes, blowing tobacco smoke into their

nostrils and mouths, and a hundred other cruelties, were the sport of

these ruffians, who by such means reduced their hosts to a condition

of not knowing what they did, and of promising everything to rid

themselves of such barbarians. The women were forced to suffer

indescribable indignities.... The monsters never showed signs of pity

until they saw some one ready to die, and fainting with exhaustion.

Then, with cruel compassion, they restored the sufferer to sense, in

order that renewed strength might preserve their victim for fresh

violence. Their whole study and endeavour was to invent torments

which should be painful without being mortal, and to afflict these

unhappy objects of their fury with every [suffering], which the human

body could endure without dying.”[94]

They had been forbidden to kill [their victims]. Alas! how often was

even this limit outstepped! How many unfortunates perished under

this frightful treatment, not slain, it is true, but more cruelly

immolated, than if they had fallen by the blade of the dagger!

Impelled by their fears, the Béarnese hastened to the priests in

crowds to abjure. Of twenty-five thousand Reformers that had been

counted in this province up to that time, not a thirtieth part

remained. The clergy celebrated their triumph by a high mass,

at which the Parliament were present in a body, and by general

processions, in which the new converts were dragged along.

This success encouraged the court to employ the same means of

conversion elsewhere; and in less than four months, Languedoc,

Guienne, Saintonge, Aunis, Poitou, Vivarais, Dauphiny, Cevennes,

Provence, and Gex, were scoured by similar _dragonnades_. A little

later, the system was extended to the centre of the north of France,

but with more precaution, lest the cries of the victims should

trouble Versailles, where, as Madame de Sévigné relates, brilliant

carousals, with promotions of the knights of the Holy Ghost, were

held that year.

The most creditable historians are agreed respecting the excesses

that accompanied these _dragonnades_. It was almost the same scene

everywhere as at Béarn. Neither sex, age, nor degree was spared. Aged

cavaliers, who had shed their blood for their country, had to suffer

the same outrages. Even those, who were of high birth, and hoped to

find a refuge in Paris or at the court, were maltreated or thrown

into prison by _lettres de cachet_.

If any Huguenots held out against all this torture, they were, after

being despoiled and ruined, flung into dungeons, whilst the women

were immured in convents! Missionaries for the former, and Sisters of

Mercy for the latter, who left their prisoners no single moment of

peace until they had promised to abjure, followed upon the heels of

the soldiers.

If, sinking under these persecutions, they fell into a state of

stupor, imbecility, or insanity, they were made to sign mechanically

a piece of paper containing an abjuration, or to pronounce words, of

which they no longer knew the meaning, and then they were reputed to

be (Roman) Catholics. Or again, they were drawn into an ambush, as

happened to the barons de Montbeton, de Meauzac, and de Vicose, and

people, posted for the purpose, forced them down upon their knees,

that the bishop might give them absolution.

The abjuration of the head of the house was not sufficient; he was

not exempt from the billeting of soldiers until he had induced his

wife, children, and servants to follow his example; and if any fled,

the father of the family was responsible for them until they were

recaptured.

The Reformers were summoned to a general meeting, before the arrival

of the soldiers; at which, according to the time and the intention,

the commanding officer of the troops, the bishop or some other

authority, announced that the king would no longer suffer heretics in

his dominions, and that all must, willingly or unwillingly, embrace

(Roman) Catholicism immediately. Care was always taken to gain over

some persons beforehand, who by their station or advice, might help

to influence the rest.

When the poor folks answered that they were ready to sacrifice

their property and even their life for the king, but not their

conscience, then the dragoons were brought on the scene. After a few

days, there was a new convocation, a new appeal, and generally all

resistance ceased. The terror became at length so great that the

mere announcement of the approach of the military, was sufficient

to drive the Reformed people, conscious of their helplessness, to

pronounce the formula of abjuration. It was the opinion of many that

it might be lawful to bend before violence, provided their internal

faith remained intact; many also abjured, to secure the opportunity

of flight.

It is also to be remarked that the formulas of recantation were often

drawn up in such a way that they did not bind the conscience very

strictly. What the public officers and the priests were most desirous

of, was a large number of proselytes. Many of the Reformers simply

said: “I rejoin.” Others were even authorized to frame their act of

abjuration in these terms: “I acknowledge and confess the Catholic

and Apostolic church of Rome, as it was in the time of the apostles;”

or, “conformably to the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ;” or,

again, “while loving God and Jesus Christ, and adoring Him only with

the fitting worship.”

But this was, at least on the part of the priesthood, only a

concession for the moment. “They were soon revisited after a few

days,” says the pastor Claude in his _Plaintes des Protestants de

France_, “and did not escape until they had signed another formulary,

whereby they were entirely committed; and what was most impudent,

is, that they were obliged at the same time to acknowledge that they

embraced the Romish religion of their own free will, and without

any inducement through fear, or other extraneous cause. If, after

that, they made any difficulty about going to mass, if they did not

communicate, if they were not present at processions, if they did not

confess, if they did not tell their beads, if they allowed a sigh or

a murmur of complaint to escape them, they were chastised with fines,

and with a recommencement of the billeting of soldiers upon them.”[95]

What made a particular impression upon the population was the

material fact of the _dragonnades_. The spiritual circumstance of the

compulsory communions could but strike the thinking and the pious man

much more forcibly. To open, one may say, the mouths of the heretics

with the point of the bayonet, and to thrust the host into them,—that

sacred host of which the (Roman) Catholic church teaches that he who

receives it unworthily is guilty in the highest degree—[could but do

so]; and thus was a crime enjoined even by those who proclaimed [an

unworthy communion] to be the greatest of crimes! Is there at this

day a bishop, or a priest, who does not recoil with horror from the

bottom of his heart from the thought? The Spanish Inquisition had

at least the decency to prevent its prisoners from receiving the

communion, and being present at mass. There were, indeed, some noble

and pious protests [offered] in the era of Louis XIV., in particular

by those of the Jansenist party, to whom we shall have to refer; but

the majority of the clergy, led on by the Jesuits, compelled the

unfortunate beings to take the host, “whose pallor and tremblings,”

writes Basnage, “showed that their whole soul revolted from the act.”

The king’s council, which cared only for external acts, were no

less astonished than rejoiced at the innumerable abjurations.

Louvois wrote to his father, the chancellor, about the beginning of

September, 1685: “Sixty thousand conversions have been made in the

district of Bordeaux, and twenty thousand in that of Montauban. So

rapid is the progress, that before the end of the month ten thousand

Reformers will not be left in the district of Bordeaux, where there

were one hundred and fifty thousand on the 15th of last month.”

The Duke de Noailles informed Louvois, at the same time, of the

conversions at Nismes, Uzès, Alais, Villeneuve, &c. “The most

influential people of Nismes,” said he, “abjured in the church, the

day following my arrival. There was a slackening afterwards, but

matters soon assumed a proper face, with the help of some billetings

upon the dwellings of the most obstinate.... The number of Reformers

in this province is about two hundred and forty thousand; I believe

that all this will be expedited before the termination of the month.”

It was thought necessary to make these abjurations more secure by a

legal measure; Louis XIV.—surrounded and besieged by his chancellor

and his minister of war; ill-informed, perhaps, of what was passing

in his kingdom—for he lived in the midst of favourites, like an

Asiatic sultan in the seclusion of his palace—Louis XIV., to whom

Louvois and La Chaise had promised that the work should not cost one

drop of blood; having also consulted, it is said, the archbishops

Harlay and Bossuet—Louis XIV. signed the Revocation of the Edict of

Nantes on the 18th of October, 1685. God still permitted him to sit

thirty years longer upon the throne, that he might bear the burden of

the crime he had committed.

The preamble of the act of Revocation bears testimony to the

monstrous lie, with which the king’s mind had been abused: “We

now see,” it says, “with that just gratitude we owe to God, that

our endeavours have terminated as we proposed, since the better

and the greater portion of our subjects of the pretended Reformed

religion have embraced Catholicism, and the Edict of Nantes therefore

remaineth useless.”

Here is a recapitulation of the Revocatory Edict: Prohibition for the

future of all lawful exercise of the Reformed worship in the kingdom.

Exile of the pastors after the lapse of fifteen days, and, in the

interim, prohibition to perform their functions, under penalty of

the galleys. The promise to the pastors who recanted, of a pension

greater by one-third than that they before enjoyed, with a reversion

of one-half to their widows. Dispensation from academic studies for

those of the pastors, who were desirous of entering the profession of

the law. Parents were prohibited from instructing their children in

the Reformed religion, and were enjoined to have them baptized and

sent to (Roman) Catholic churches, under penalty of a fine of five

hundred livres. All the refugees were ordered to return to France

within four months, or to suffer confiscation of their property. The

Reformers were forbidden to emigrate, under pain of the galleys for

the men, and imprisonment for life for the women. Finally, the laws

against those who relapsed, were confirmed.

The last article gave rise to a cruel mistake. It ran in these words:

“At the most is it lawful for the said persons of the pretended

Reformed religion, pending the pleasure of God to enlighten them,

to dwell in the towns and places of our kingdom ... without being

molested or troubled, under pretext of the said Reformed religion, on

condition, as aforesaid, that there shall be no exercise of worship.”

It would, therefore, appear that liberty of conscience at home,

within the bosom of a family, was respected. The Reformed rejoiced

at this relief amidst their misfortunes, and some even suspended

their preparations for departure; but never was hope more bitterly

disappointed.

The event showed, that these words, “_pending the pleasure of God

to enlighten them_,” signified, pending their conversion by the

dragoons, like their co-religionists. Louvois wrote to the provinces:

“His majesty desires that the severest rigour should be shown to

those who will not conform to his religion, and those who seek the

foolish glory of wishing to be the last, must be pushed to the utmost

extremity.”

The 18th of October, 1685, must be counted among the darkest days

of France. It brought trouble, poverty, and humiliation upon many a

generation.

The policy of Henry IV., of Richelieu, Mazarin, and even of Louis

XIV. himself, was struck to the core. It was no longer possible to

preserve the natural allies of France in Protestant Europe, when

the world resounded with the piteous cries of the Reformed. All

Protestantism rose against Louis XIV.: it found a leader in the

prince of Orange, and the Parliamentary revolution of 1688 was the

answer to the royal attempt of 1685.

Less powerful abroad, the country was weakened within. Emigration, of

which we shall speak in the next book, assumed immense proportions.

The wise Vauban wrote, only a year after the Revocation, that “France

had lost a hundred thousand inhabitants, sixty millions of money,

nine thousand sailors, twelve thousand tried soldiers, six hundred

officers, and its more flourishing manufactures.” The Duke de

Saint-Simon says in his memoirs, that “commerce was ruined in every

branch, and a quarter of the kingdom was sensibly depopulated.”

From this moment (as all historians have remarked), the fortunes

of Louis XIV. declined; and some years after, beaten at Blenheim,

Ramilies, and Malplaquet, this king, so fortunate and so superb in

the beginning of his reign, humbly sued to Europe for peace: and

hard, indeed, were the conditions which he obtained at Utrecht.[96]

Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, the kingdom bore

the pain of this humiliation; and even down to our own times, at the

Congress of Vienna.

The prestige of royalty was deeply wounded by the same blow. If

there still remained the appearance of submission and respect, the

mind began to revolt against the omnipotence of the monarch. It was

asked, whether nations ought to confide every right and every power

to a single man, who might be governed by a female favourite, by a

confessor, by a foolish or a senseless passion for personal glory.

In England, and in Holland, popular liberty had vehement apologists.

In France, the pious Fénélon took the initiative, and was followed

by Massillon, Montesquieu, Rousseau, the Abbés Mablay and Raynal,

the Protestant Necker, and Mirabeau. These men, although of such

different origin, ideas, and objects, all belong to the same family.

This was the political side of the question. In a social and moral

point of view, the edicts promulgated from 1660 to 1685, the

_dragonnades_, the Revocation, and the acts which were its inevitable

consequence, attacked the very foundations, as it concerned two or

three millions of Frenchmen, of the sacred and inviolable principles

of all human society, religion, family, and property. The Socialists

of modern times have never carried their theories to such an extent,

as did Louis XIV., the Jesuits, the (Roman) Catholic priesthood, and

the magistracy against the Reformed. Let every one of these, then,

take their share of the responsibility.

Finally, in a religious point of view, properly speaking, M.

de Châteaubriand’s sentence respecting the massacre of Saint

Bartholomew,[97] which we have already mentioned elsewhere, has at

this point a new and striking application. Beholding the narrow and

pernicious bigotry of the king, the hideous profanations sanctioned

by the body of the [Roman Catholic] clergy, the military transformed

into missionaries, mourning and blood mingled with religion, all

laws, human and divine, trodden underfoot by those, whose especial

duty it was to defend them, beholding all this, the upper classes of

the nation threw themselves into the wildest scepticism. On the death

of Louis XIV. the court was full of unbelievers, and Voltaire sprung

ready armed from the bosom of that generation.

It has been pretended that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

was popular. If this were true, it would be the most overwhelming

accusation against the Church of Rome, that it had thus educated

and fashioned France. But it is only half true. The Revocation

was popular among the priests, who, by the mouths of Fléchier and

Bossuet, exhorted their hearers to make the heavens resound with

their thanksgivings and their acclamations. It was popular with

courtiers, the Marquis Dangeau and Madame de Sévigné, who worshipped

the very footsteps of the monarch. It was popular with the lowest

classes of the country, particularly in the southern provinces, who

blindly obeyed the inspirations of their spiritual guides. Perhaps,

at the furthest, it was popular with some ministers and government

officials, who saw no hope for civil and political unity, but through

religious unity. But was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

popular among the officers of the army and navy, among the provincial

nobility, even among the court nobility, who had not entirely

sacrificed their independence of mind, or even among the middle

classes, destined to rise in influence in the eighteenth century,

and to govern in the nineteenth? Good reason for doubting it may be

gathered from what we have stated above; and if we can now perceive

but few traces of their opposition, it is because it was difficult to

utter a single word freely under Louis XIV.

To sum up all in one word—everything suffered by the Revocation;

royalty suffered; the political strength of France suffered; national

wealth, industry, and morality suffered; the spirit of religion

suffered; nay, even the (Roman) Catholic clergy suffered. Thus evil

begets nothing but misfortune!