The History of England from the Accession of James II, vol 2 | Page 9

forward to the reassembling of the Houses, tidings, which increased the
prevailing excitement, arrived from France.
The long and heroic struggle which the Huguenots had maintained
against the French government had been brought to a final close by the
ability and vigour of Richelieu. That great statesman vanquished them;
but he confirmed to them the liberty of conscience which had been
bestowed on them by the edict of Nantes. They were suffered, under
some restraints of no galling kind, to worship God according to their
own ritual, and to write in defence of their own doctrine. They were
admissible to political and military employment; nor did their heresy,

during a considerable time, practically impede their rise in the world.
Some of them commanded the armies of the state; and others presided
over important departments of the civil administration. At length a
change took place. Lewis the Fourteenth had, from an early age,
regarded the Calvinists with an aversion at once religious and political.
As a zealous Roman Catholic, he detested their theological dogmas. As
a prince fond of arbitrary power, he detested those republican theories
which were intermingled with the Genevese divinity. He gradually
retrenched all the privileges which the schismatics enjoyed. He
interfered with the education of Protestant children, confiscated
property bequeathed to Protestant consistories, and on frivolous
pretexts shut up Protestant churches. The Protestant ministers were
harassed by the tax gatherers. The Protestant magistrates were deprived
of the honour of nobility. The Protestant officers of the royal household
were informed that His Majesty dispensed with their services. Orders
were given that no Protestant should be admitted into the legal
profession. The oppressed sect showed some faint signs of that spirit
which in the preceding century had bidden defiance to the whole power
of the House of Valois. Massacres and executions followed. Dragoons
were quartered in the towns where the heretics were numerous, and in
the country seats of the heretic gentry; and the cruelty and
licentiousness of these rude missionaries was sanctioned or leniently
censured by the government. Still, however, the edict of Nantes, though
practically violated in its most essential provisions, had not been
formally rescinded; and the King repeatedly declared in solemn public
acts that he was resolved to maintain it. But the bigots and flatterers
who had his ear gave him advice which he was but too willing to take.
They represented to him that his rigorous policy had been eminently
successful, that little or no resistance had been made to his will, that
thousands of Huguenots had already been converted, that, if he would
take the one decisive step which yet remained, those who were still
obstinate would speedily submit, France would be purged from the
taint of heresy, and her prince would have earned a heavenly crown not
less glorious than that of Saint Lewis. These arguments prevailed. The
final blow was struck. The edict of Nantes was revoked; and a crowd of
decrees against the sectaries appeared in rapid succession. Boys and
girls were torn from their parents and sent to be educated in convents.

All Calvinistic ministers were commanded either to abjure their
religion or to quit their country within a fortnight. The other professors
of the reformed faith were forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, in
order to prevent them from making their escape, the outports and
frontiers were strictly guarded. It was thought that the flocks, thus
separated from the evil shepherds, would soon return to the true fold.
But in spite of all the vigilance of the military police there was a vast
emigration. It was calculated that, in a few months, fifty thousand
families quitted France for ever. Nor were the refugees such as a
country can well spare. They were generally persons of intelligent
minds, of industrious habits, and of austere morals. In the list are to be
found names eminent in war, in science, in literature, and in art. Some
of the exiles offered their swords to William of Orange, and
distinguished themselves by the fury with which they fought against
their persecutor. Others avenged themselves with weapons still more
formidable, and, by means of the presses of Holland, England, and
Germany, inflamed, during thirty years, the public mind of Europe
against the French government. A more peaceful class erected silk
manufactories in the eastern suburb of London. One detachment of
emigrants taught the Saxons to make the stuffs and hats of which
France had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another planted the first
vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope.12
In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and of Rome would have
eagerly applauded a prince who had made vigorous war on heresy. But
such was the hatred inspired by the injustice and haughtiness of Lewis
that, when he became a persecutor, the courts