# Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Historical Introduction - section I

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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Section I.
THE PERSECUTION IN FRANCE FROM 1680 TO 1685.
The kingdom of France was not devoted to the Pope; and the liberties, which its Government maintained in opposition to Papal ambition, might have made the king and his ministers sympathise with the Huguenots in their love of toleration. Unfortunately, however, the very fact that French royalty could not please the Pope in some things, made it all the more willing to please him in other things. And the persecution of the Protestants was the one thing which the Pope clamorously asked and promptly received as an atonement for all insubordination. This violence pleased not only the Pope, but also the father-confessors, whose powers of absolution were in great demand with a dissolute king and court. Any apologies for this persecution, alleging that the Roman Catholic authorities had other motives than sheer bigotry or brutality, are either untruthful harangues, or mere exercises of ingenuity, dealing not with things but with phrases.
In 1681 the province of Poictou was the scene of the first experiment of employing dragoons as missionaries. The Marquis de Louvois, having dragoons under him, and being anxious to regain his former ascendancy over Louis XIV., was eager “to mix the soldiers up” with the work of converting heretics. Their intervention was not only a contribution of physical force, but had also a legal effect; because resistance to his Majesty’s troops was seditious. Before the introduction of the “booted missionaries,” conversions had not made any perceptible change in the statistics of Protestantism. In 1676 Locke, who resided fourteen months in Montpellier, made the following entry in his diary:— “They tell me the number of Protestants within the last twenty or thirty years has manifestly increased here, and does daily, notwithstanding their loss every day of some privilege or other.” The dragoons changed this to a great extent in 1681. At that date refugees in considerable numbers came to England, of whose reception I shall speak in a subsequent Section.
The climax was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes — that is, the repeal of the law or treaty made by Henri IV. — a repeal which left Louis XIV. under the dominion of the fearful clause of his coronation-oath on the extermination of heretics. Unqualified and exaggerated loyalty, without the menacing safeguards of a treaty, was thus no defence to the Protestants. The privileges of the edict had, during many years, been revoked one by one, first by explaining away the meaning of the phrases and clauses of that legal document, but latterly without any reason, and by the mere declaration of the king’s pleasure. “I am above the edict,” said Louis XIV. So the “revocation”" in 1685 was merely the destruction of the surviving sealing-wax, ink, and parchment.
​In the beginning of 1685 three pamphlets were printed, showing how in daily increasing numbers the Huguenots were being interdicted from earning their bread as well as from worshipping God. The third tract might seem to be chronologically the first; but it was a defence of the Huguenot’s projêt (or Resolution) of 1683, which an unreasoning malignity asserted to be a justification of all the severities against them. That Resolution was to meet for public worship in the open air, and on the ruins of their demolished temples, in order that the king, who had been deceived into the belief that the dragoons and other proselytisers had annihilated the Protestant population, might be undeceived. The very titles of the three pamphlets furnish a historical summary, thus:—
Première Partie. Etat des Reformés en France — ou l’on fait voir que les Edits de Pacification sont irrevocables — que neaumoins on les renverse entièrement, et que par la on a ôté aux Reformés tous les moyens de vivre et de subsister.
Seconde Partie. — Etat des Reformés en France — concernant la liberté de conscience et l’exercice de la Religion — ou l’on fait voir que contre la foi de l’Edit de Nantes, on prive les Reformés de la liberteé de conscience, de leurs temples, de leurs ministres, et de l’exercice public de leur Religion, et que l’on se propose d’ abolir entièrement la Reformation dans le Royaume.
La Suite. — Apologie du Projêt des Reformés de France fait au mois de Mai 1683.
The Dedication of the first tract to Louis XIV., if we may judge from its style, was written probably by the pasteur Du Bosc, and revised by the Marquis de Ruvigny. It begins thus:—
Au Roi.
Sire, — Vos très-humbles sujets de la Religion Pretendüe Reformée, accablés des maux qu’on leur fait souffrir, ont encore recours, avec toute l’humilité possible, à la justice et à la Bonté Royale et Paternelle de Votre Majesté. L’etat ou ils sont reduits est maintenant si deplorable, qu’il est bien difficile de trouver dans le monde quelque autre peuple plus malheureux. Leur conscience souffre une violence mortelle; ils ne peuvent plus ni parler, ni agir, ni servir Dieu selon leur Confession de Foi et selon les preceptes de l’Evangile. Les droits les plus sacres et les plus inviolables leur sont ravis . . . Tous les jours on traine leurs Ministres dans les prisons, on les tourmente, on les mine, on les proscrit. On demolit leurs temples, on interdit leurs exercices, sous les pretextes les plus vains et les plus frivoles. On les a depouillés de leurs Dignités, de leurs Charges, de leurs Emplois, et de tous les autres moyens de gagner leur vie. Les troupes les foulent encore de temps en temps, et devorent le peu qui leur restoit. Le peuple est reduit à mourir de faim; les chefs de famille voient perir de misère leurs femmes et leurs enfans; la plûpart sont constrains d’abandonner leur Patrie, leurs biens, et leurs maisons, pour éviter des calamités et des tourmens qui sont moins supportables que la mort même. ... Ils n’ont pourtant garde, sire, d’attribuer leurs maux à leur Auguste Monarque; ils sont persuadès de la Bonté et de l’Equité naturelle de votre Majesté, &c, &c
It is true that the French clergy were the leading instigators of persecution. Their Assemblée Generale, in the summer of 1680, had demanded from the king the complete suppression of Protestant liberties, and may be regarded as having set in motion the squadrons of dragoons of 1681. Encouraged by the achievements of the dragonnades and by very numerous recantations, the prelates and priests hoped to bring over the remainder of the French Protestants by an appearance of argumentative expostulation. Another General Assembly, in the end of 1682, concocted and printed an Avertissement pastoral, being emboldened by a royal decision that there must be only one religion in France. This Pastoral was supplemented by detailed instructions as to several methods for conviction and conversion, which might vary according to the temperament of each individual Huguenot. The whole budget was translated into English by Dr. Burnet (afterwards so famous as the Bishop of Salisbury), and was published with the title, “The Letter writ by the last Assembly-General of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their communion — together with the Methods proposed by them for their conviction. Translated into English and Examined, by Gilbert Burnet, D.D.” London, 1683. I give some extracts from the Doctor’s Preface:—
“The world hath been filled with the noise of the conversions lately made in France; but it has been generally given out that the violences of Monsieur de Marilliac and the souldiers, and the payments dispensed by Monsieur Pellisson, have been the most prevailing arguments hitherto made use of. That great king has indeed interposed in this matter with a zeal that, if it were well directed, might well become one who reckons these to be his most esteemed ​Titles— that he is the Most Christian King and the Eldest Son of the Church. But amidst all this noise of conversions, we have heard more of the temporal than spiritual sword; and, except in the violences and outrages of some of the clergy, we have not heard much of any share they have had in this matter. It is true the celebrated explication of their faith, written some years ago by the then Bishop of Condom, now of Meaux, and most of the conversions, are esteemed the effects of that book. But that explication, which may be well called a good plea, managed with much skill and great eloquence for a bad cause, has been so often and so judiciously answered, that I am confident such as have considered these Answers are no more in danger of being blinded with that dust which he has so ingeniously raised. His book deserves all the commendations that can be given it, for every thing except the sincerity of it.”
“Their great and glorious Monarch being now possessed with this maxime, That he will hare but one religion in his dominions, every one looks on the reducing of many of those they call Hereticks as a sure way to obtain his favour, and so to attain to great dignities in the Church. Therefore the Assembly General of their Clergy being called together (and being so much the more engaged to show their zeal against heresie that they might cover themselves from the reproaches of some that are more bigoted, for their compliance with the king in the matter of the Regale), hath now made an address to all the Calvinists of France, inviting them to return to their communion — to which they have added Directions to those that shall labour in these conversions, which they call Methods by which their minds are in general to be wrought upon, without entering into the details of the arguments by which the controversies have been hitherto managed.”
The heading of the letter, as translated by Burnet, was as follows:—
“The Archbishops, Bishops, and the whole Gallican Clergy, assembled at Paris by the King’s authority, wish to their Brethren of the Calvinist sect amendment, and a return to the Church and an agreement with it.”
The Huguenots never treated this so-called Pastoral as a reality. The real weapons of the persecuting church were the sword, the wheel, and the gibbet. In the view of both king and clergy the destruction of Protestant houses and the desolation and slaughter of Protestant people was “doing God service.” Had not the Saviour said, Compel them to come in? To increase what heretics called “persecution” was to make progress in zeal for universal salvation. So, after the Revocation, all the temples were demolished, and all the Protestant pastors were banished. The dragoons, commanded by gallant officers, were sent to butcher all the pastors that remained among their flocks; and to torture, ruin, and imprison those of the people who refused to be converted.
In 1685 the dragoons bore down with tenfold violence upon the Protestants of France, stupefied by the tale or the memory of the former brutalities of the troopers, and deluded into a life of unguarded and unvigilant security by the lying promise of toleration, embodied in the Edict of Revocation. Every Huguenot, who desired to continue peaceably at his trade or worldly calling, was forced to declare himself a proselyte to the Romish religion, or an inquirer with a view to such conversion. In the eye of the law they all were converts from Protestantism, and were styled New Converts, or New Catholics.
His Most Christian Majesty, Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, had issued the celebrated and infamous Edict forbidding all public exercise of the Pretended Reformed Religion in his kingdom, from Fontainbleau, 8th October 1685, registered in the parliament of Paris on 22d October, and afterwards in the other parliaments. The clause, from which it derived its best-known name, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, is the following:—
“We have, by this present perpetual and irrevocable Edict, suppressed and revoked, and we do now suppress and revoke, the edict of the king our grandfather given at Nantes in the month of April 1598 in its whole extent, together with those special articles ordained the second of May following, and the letters patent expedited thereupon, and the edict given at Nismes in the month of July 1629. We declare them void, and as if they had never been, together with all grants, made as well by them as by other edicts, declarations, and decrees, to those of the said Pretended Reformed Religion (of what kind soever they may be), which shall in like manner be reputed as if they had never been.” [“Nous . . . avons, par ce présent edit perpetuel et irrévocable, supprimé et revoqué, supprimons et revoquons l’edit du roy, notredit ayeul, donné à Nantes au mois d’avril 1598 en toute son étendue — ensemble les Articles particuliers arretez le 2 may suivant, et les lettres-patentes expediées sur iceux, et l’édit donné à Nismes au mois de juillet 1629 — les declarons nuls et comme non avenus, ensemble toutes les concessions faites tant per iceux que par d’autres édits, declarations, et arrêts aux gens de ladite R. P. R., de quelque nature qu’elles puissent être, lesquelles demeureront pareillement comme non avenues.”]
​In the History of His Own Time, Bishop Burnet mentions the promise contained in the Revocation Edict, that “though all the public exercises of the religion were now suppressed, yet those of that persuasion who lived quietly should not be disturbed on that account” — but how was that promise kept?
“Not only the dragoons, but all the clergy and the bigots of France broke out into all the instances of rage and fury against such as did not change, upon their being required in the king’s name to be of his religion (for that was the style everywhere). . . . I saw and knew so many instances of their injustice and violence, that it exceeded what even could have been imagined; for all men set their thoughts on work to invent new methods of cruelty. In all the towns through which I passed, I heard the most dismal account of those things possible. . . . One in the streets could have known the new converts, as they were passing by them, by a cloudy dejection that appeared in their looks and deportment. Such as endeavoured to make their escape, and were seized (for guards and secret agents were spread along the whole roads and frontier of France), were, if men, condemned to the galleys; and, if women, to monasteries. To complete this cruelty, orders were given that such of the new converts as did not at their death receive the sacrament, should be denied burial, and that their bodies should be left where other dead carcases were cast out, to be devoured by wolves or dogs. This was executed in several places with the utmost barbarity; and it gave all people so much horror that it was let drop.” “I went over the greatest part of France, while the persecution was in its hottest rage, from Marseilles to Montpellier, and from thence to Lyons, and so on to Geneva.”
British Christians heard the tidings with tears and forebodings. John Evelyn, in his Diary, under date 3d November, notes:—
“The French persecution of the Protestants, raging with the utmost barbarity, exceeded even what the very heathens used. . . . I was shewn the harangue which the Bishop of Valentia-on-Rhone made in the name of the clergy, celebrating the French king as if he was a god for persecuting the poor Protestants, with this expression in it, ‘That as his victory over heresy was greater than all the conquests of Alexander and Caesar, it was but what was wished in England; and that God seemed to raise the French king to this power and magnanimous action, that he might be in capacity to assist in doing the same there.’ This paragraph is very bold and remarkable.”
A few sentences in Lady Russell’s Letters give an affecting view of those times:—
I. Nov. 1685. — “I read a letter last night from my sister at Paris. She writes as everybody that has human affections must, and says that of 1,800,000, there is not more than 10,000 left in France; and they, I guess, will soon be converted by the dragoons, or perish.”
II. 15th Jan. 1686. — “The accounts from France are more and more astonishing; the perfecting the work is vigorously pursued, and by this time completed, ’tis thought, all, without exception, having a day given them. . . . ’Tis enough to sink the strongest heart to read the accounts sent over. How the children are torn from their mothers and sent into monasteries, their mothers to another, the husband to prison or the galleys.”
III. 5th Oct. 1687. — “I hear the French king, as a finishing stroke, is preparing an edict which all new converts shall sign — though so weak as to have signed before, yet they must now again — that they have been instructed, and are in their hearts convinced of the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church,” &c.
Perhaps the last extract refers to the following form of declaration:—
“I, _____, of the parish of _____, do certify unto all whom it may concern, that having acknowledged the falseness of the Pretended Reformed, and the truth of the Catholic religion, of my own free will, and without any compulsion, I have made profession of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion in the church of _____.”
The Protestant male prisoners were sent to the galleys among the criminal convicts. Their crimes were either refusing to be converted, and attempting to emigrate, or assisting their brethren to escape from France. In the galleys of Marseilles and Dunkirk, they not only had to suffer for the crime that brought them there, but were compelled to repeat the crime of refusing adoration to the Virgin, to ​images, to crucifixes, and to the consecrated wafer; and now vengeance fell unremittingly upon them.
Happily, three hundred thousand found refuge in England, in America, in Holland, in Switzerland, in Brandenburg, in Denmark, Sweden, and Russia These (including the fugitives of 1681 and some others) are the famous French refugees.
The social and commercial disasters which the Revocation Edict brought upon France have been chronicled by the Duc de Simon, whose observations are invaluable, being those of a cotemporary, a shrewd man of the world and no Protestant The Duc writes, as follows:—
“La revocation de l’edit de Nantes sans le moindre prétexte et sans aucun besoin, les diverses proscriptions plutôt que declarations qui la suivèrent, furent les fruits de ce complot affireux, qui depeupla un quart du royaume, qui ruina son commerce dans toutes ses parties, qui le mit si long-temps au pillage public et avoué des dragons, qui autorisa les tourmentes et les supplices dans lesquels ils firent mourir tant d’innocents de tout sexe et par milliers, qui ruina un peuple nombreux, dechira un monde de families, arma les parents [Anglicè relations] contre les parents pour avoir leurs biens et les laisser mourir de faim, qui fit passer nos manufactures aux étrangers, fit fleurir et regorgir leurs êtats aux depens de notre, et leur fit batir des nouvelles villes, leur donna le spectacle d’un prodigieux peuple proscrit, nu, fugitif, errant, sans crimes, cherchant asile hors de sa patrie, qui mit nobles, riches, vieillards, gens souvent très-estimés par leur piêté, savoir, vertus, ricliesses, foiblesse, delicatesse, à la rame et sous le nerf, pour cause unique de religion; enfin, qui pour comble de toutes les horreurs remplit toutes les provinces du royaume de parjures et sacrileges, ou tout retentissoit des huilements de ces infortunées victimes de l’erreur, pendant que tant d’autres, sacriliant les consciences pour conserver leurs biens et leur repos, achetoient l’un et l’autre par des abjurations simulées, d’ou sans intervalle ou les entrainoit à adorer ce qu’ils ne croyoient pas, et a recevoir reellement le divin corps du Saint des saints tandis qu’ils etoient persuadés qu’ils ne mangoient que du pain qu’ils devoient encore abhorrer. Telle fut l’abomination généralle enfantée par la flatterie et par la cruanté! De la torture à l’abjuration, et de çelle-çi à la communion, il n’y avoit pas souvent vingt-quatre heures de distance, et leurs bourreaux etoient leurs conducteurs et leurs témoins.
“Ceux, qui par la suite eurent l’air d’être changes, avec plus de loisir ne tardèrent pas par leur conduit de dementir leur pretendu retour. Presque tous les évêques se prêtèrent à cette pratique subite et impie, beaucoup y forcèrent, la plupart animèrent les bourreaux, forcèrent les conversions et ces étranges convertis à la participation des saints mystères, pour avoir le mérite d’avoir grossé le nombre de leurs conquêtes, dont ils envoyoient les états à la cour, pour en être d’autant plus considerès et approcher des recompences. Les intendants des provinces se distinguèrent aussi à l’envi à les seconder — eux et les dragons — et à se faire valoir aussi à la cour par leurs listes. Le très-peu de generaux de provinces qui s'y trouvèrent, et le petit nombre de seigneurs residans en leurs chateaux et qui purent trouver moyen de se faire valoir à travers les évêques et intendants, n’y manquèrent pas.
“Le roi recevoit de tous côtés des nouvelles et des details de ces horribles persécutions et conversions; c’étoit par milliers qu’on comptoit ceux qui avoient abjuré et communié, 2000 dans un lieu, 6000 dans un autre, tout à la fois et dans un instant. Le roi s’applaudissoit de sa puissance et de sa piété; il se croyoit au temps de la prédication des Apôtres et s’en attribuoit l’honneur. Les évêques lui écrivoient des panegyriques, les jesuites surtout faisoient retentir les chaires et les missions. Toute la France étoit remplie de confusion et d’horreur; jamais tant de triomphes, de joies, et de profusion de louanges. Le monarque ne doutoit pas de la sincérité de cette foule de conversions; les convertisseurs avoient grand soin de Ten persuader, et de le beatifier d’avance; il avaloit (le bon homme) à long traits cet agréable poison; il ne s’étoit jamais cru un si grand roi, ni si avancé en vertu, merite, courage, devant Dieu dans la reparation de ses péchés et du scandale de savie. Il n’entendoit que des eloges, tandis que les bons — les vrais catholiques, les évêques non courtisans. . . . gemissoient devant Dieu de ces horribles sacrileges . . .; tandis que nos voisins exultoient de nous voir affoiblir et détruire nous-mêmes — profitèrent de notre folie — batissoient des desseins sur la haine que nous nous attirions de toutes les puissances protestantes.”
“The Gallican Church, no doubt, looked upon it as a signal triumph, when she prevailed on Louis the Fourteenth to repeal the edict of Nantes, and to suppress the protestant religion. But what was the consequence? Where shall we look, after this period, for her Fenelons and her Pascals, where for the distinguished monuments of piety and learning which were the glory of her better days? As for piety, she perceived she had no occasion for it, when there was no lustre of christian holiness surrounding her; nor for learning, when she had no longer any opponents to confute, or any controversies to maintain. She felt herself at liberty to become as ignorant, as secular, and as irreligious as she pleased; and, amidst the silence and darkness she had created around her, she drew the curtains and retired to rest. The accession of numbers she gained by suppressing her opponents was like the small extension of length a body acquires by death; the feeble remains of life were extinguished, and she lay a putrid corpse, a public nuisance, filling the air with pestilential exhalations.” — (Hall’s Works, 12mo, vol. ii., p. 284.)
“It will not be thought a digression from the present subject [Toleration], to remark the consequences which followed in France from the repeal of the edict of Nantes. By that event France deprived herself of a million of her most industrious subjects, who carried their industry, their arts, and their riches into other countries. The loss which her trade and manufactures sustained by this event was, no doubt, prodigious. But it is not in that view my subject leads me to consider the ill consequences of that step. She lost a people whose simple frugal manners and whose conscientious piety were well adapted to stem the growing corruption of the times, while the zeal and piety of their pastors were a continual stimulus to awaken the exertions of her national clergy. If France had never had her Saurins, her Claudes, her Du Plessis Mornays, her national church had never boasted the genius of Bossuet and the virtues of Fenelon. From the fatal moment she put a period to the toleration of the protestants, the corruptions of the clergy, the abuses of the Church, the impiety of the people, met with no check, till infidelity of the worst sort pervaded and ruined the nation. When the remote as well as immediate effects of that edict which suppressed the protestants are taken into the account; when we consider the careless security and growing corruption which hung over the Gallican Church in consequence of it; it will not be thought too much to affirm, that to that measure may be traced the destruction of the monarchy and the ruin of the nation.” — (Hall’s Works, 12mo, vol. vi., p. 378.)
The Waldensian Pasteur, Jean Rodolphe Peyran (b. 1752, d. 1823), in a controversial letter, twitted the Roman Catholic clergy with La Mission Dragonne of the days of Louis XIV. His English editor (Rev. Thomas Sims) makes the following note on that phrase:—
“The persecution that followed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was attended with many cruelties to compel the Protestants to renounce their faith; amongst others, the dragoons of Louis XIV. were quartered upon the inhabitants, and permitted to harass them. It is due to the character of the excellent Fenelon that, when he went as a missionary to persuade the Protestants to become Roman Catholics, he refused to allow the presence of dragoons where he exercised his mission. Ambitious as Louis XIV. was in early, and superstitious in later, life, there is reason to conclude, from original State Papers, which have been since brought to light, that the cruelties of the persecution must be chietly laid to the charge, not only of the Jesuit La Chaise, the King’s confessor, but of the Ministers of State, who instigated the commission of atrocities, of the existence of which, to the full extent, the King himself was not aware. . . . The persecution has been followed by events that should instruct all rulers in Church and State to cherish sentiments of moderation towards their fellow Christians — for, first, the immediate loss to the French nation at the emigration of those industrious Protestants who fled to England, and other Protestant kingdoms, with skill in their manufactures, was immensely great. For proofs of the losses then sustained by the French nation, see Etât de la France, extrait par M. le Comte de Boulainvilliers des memoires dressées par les Intendans du royaume par l’ordre du roi Louis XIV., à la solicitation du Duc de Bourgogne, a work published in 1727. Secondly, the intolerance that marked the conduct of the Church of Rome at that period, and in the following century, was a subject of which Deists of the school of Voltaire and D’Alembert availed themselves to diffuse the principles of infidelity, and hatred not only to the Church of Rome but to Christianity itself — a circumstance that combined with several other causes to promote the terrific event of the French Revolution.”
One of the refugees in Holland, named Migault, spoke of forced abjurations thus:—
“Undoubtedly a considerable number of Protestants [in France] have abjured their ​religion, but is it possible our oppressors can hope that they have sincerely entered into their communion? The only boast in respect of these miserable apostates can be, that they have been driven out of every religion.”
M. Portalis, a tolerant Bonapartist statesman, repeats this plain colloquial statement in more academic language:—
“I am surprised” (he says) “that writers, in treating upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, should have regarded that event only in relation to the injury which it brought upon French commerce, without dwelling upon the moral consequences which it has produced in [French] society — consequences incalculable in their results. A numerous part of the nation were condemned to serve neither God nor their country. Was it wise by such measures to precipitate multitudes of men into the despair of a religious atheism, and into the danger of a sort of political atheism which threatened the State? Was it thought possible to depend upon men who were rendered impious by necessity, who were subjected by violence, and who were, at the same time, deprived of civil advantages, and even of the rights of nations? Was it not evident that these men, justly exasperated, would become powerful auxiliaries against the State in all times of complaint and murmur?”
The Rev. Thomas Cotton, M.A., in company with a young gentleman, his pupil, visited France and made frequent tours up and down in that country during 1684 and 1685. Mr Cotton left behind him many rcminiscenses of this period, which are peculiarly interesting in themselves, and as illustrating a community of dangers and interests pertaining to both French and British Protestants. Some of his notes I quote in the language of Mr Walter Wilson, an English barrister.
His first halt was at Paris. He attended with pleasure on the serious and useful preaching of Mr Wake in the English Ambassador’s chapel. In the spring of 1684 he made a short stay at Orleans, and spent the whole summer at Blois and Tours, where the Protestants had liberty of worship. In the winter of 1684-5, he was at Saumur. Speaking of his travels as a whole, he said that he witnessed many dreadful scenes of persecution, as the breaking up of large congregations, the demolishing of churches, the silencing of ministers, the banishment of some, the imprisonment of others, of whom some were made galley-slaves and others put to cruel deaths. He also saw numberless families utterly ruined, and the nearest relations cruelly rent from each other. He stayed the longest in those places where liberty of worship was still allowed, though he was sometimes detained by mere compassion, to sympathise with and assist the distressed Protestants, when they were expecting every Sabbath and every lecture to be their last.
After he had been for some time at Saumur, the Protestant temple was condemned, and orders were given to the governor of the castle to see it demolished. The most dreadful outrages were committed; the graves of Protestants were opened and the bodies treated with indignity. Mr Cotton and his companions appealed to the governor, who would give no redress, but, on the contrary, issued an order to all strangers to assist the Papists in their violent proceedings. The English in particular were made obnoxious to this order, being told that they must all shortly turn Roman Catholics, as King Charles II. was at the point of death, and his successor was known to be of that communion. Mr Cotton says they mentioned the death of that monarch with great confidence and insults at Saumur, five days before it happened. At Lyons the news of Monmouth’s defeat produced many new insults and threatcnings against Protestants. The last act of public worship at Saumur was most impressive. The congregation all in tears — the singing the last psalm — the pronouncing of the blessing — the people passing before the ministers to receive their benediction — presented a scene of indescribable solemnity. The ministers and the professors of the college being banished, Mr Cotton accompanied them to the barque and took leave of them in circumstances of great danger.
At Poictiers he was exceedingly moved at the vast numbers that appeared at their last public exercise, and the great difficulty with which the ministers pronounced the blessing, when they all burst forth into a flood of tears. At the inn, he saw an old gentleman of a very considerable family and large estate who, leaning upon his staff, cried out with emotion and tears, “Unhappy France! if I and mine were now entering some country of refuge and safety, where we might have liberty to worship God according to our consciences, I should think myself the happiest man in the world, though I had nothing but this staff in my hand.” On his leaving Poictiers, ​Mr. Cotton was very much affected by the judicious, affectionate piety of a very young man, who proved to be a candidate for the ministry. Overtaking several poor Protestants, who were mourning and lamenting their hard fate, this excellent youth addressed himself to them, condoled with and comforted them, with so much seriousness, prudence, and affection, as to occasion at once the greatest satisfaction and surprise.
Mr. Cotton was present also at the breaking-up of the church at Charenton. The vast assembly which he saw convened there was a most transporting sight. The thought of such numbers being devoted to banishment, slavery, and the most barbarous deaths, to which in some instances he was an actual witness, was more than he could bear. Many things were extremely affecting to him in the faith, courage, and devotion of the sufferers, particularly of some of little note from whom not much was expected, who stood firmly and suffered the loss of all; whilst others, reckoned eminent for religion, lost their courage and integrity, and fell in the day of trial. He had also the pleasure to witness some extraordinary deliverances wrought out for several of these good men, when they were actually appointed to execution. He recorded it with pleasure, and justice requires it to be here mentioned, that there were several of the Roman Catholics themselves who showed great humanity and tenderness towards the Protestants in their sufferings. Some did not scruple to say that they should be undone when the Protestants were gone, and that they were inclined to take their lot with them wherever they went. Mr Cotton was well acquainted with a priest in London, who had been very useful in assisting several Protestants to make their escape from France, which, being known to the French government, he was obliged to remain in this country, although in very narrow circumstances, because he did not dare to return home. [Mr. Cotton was a native of Yorkshire, and M.A. of the University of Edinburgh; he became Presbyterian minister of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. His preaching was founded on the best foreign models. Having been greatly affected by the manner in which psalmody was performed in the Foreign Reformed Churches, he became much attached to that part of divine worship. He died at Hampstead in 1730, aged seventy-seven.]
Under the heading, “Emigration of the Laity,” Smedley’s History of the Reformed Religion in France gives the following statements (on the authority of Benoist):—
“No vigilance could be sufficiently alert, no cordon of gaolers sufficiently numerous, to close every outlet from so extensive a frontier as that which bounded France. . . . The fears of the government were excited by the perilous and rapid depopulation; and force and artifice were equally employed in order to prevent its continuance. Armed peasants scoured the roads and guarded the most obvious passes; and in remoter districts gold was lavishly scattered to corrupt the fidelity of the guides to whom the fugitives entrusted themselves. . . . Scarcely a vessel quitted any port in France without some contraband lading of emigrants. When other places of concealment failed, the miserable exiles secreted themselves under bales of merchandise, in empty casks, or amid heaps of stores; and if securer means of transport were not at hand, an open boat or the skiff of a fisherman was eagerly coveted for the performance of some hazardous voyage. The Count of Marancé and his lady, personages of distinction in Lower Normandy, formed part of a crew of forty souls, among which were several women with children at the breast, who entered a vessel of seven tons burthen, in the very depth of winter, wholly without provisions, and exposed to a stormy sea; their sole refreshment during a long passage to the English coast was a little melted snow, with which, from time to time, they moistened their fevered lips, until after sufferings which appeared to debar hope, this piteous company gained the opposite shore, and found a hospitable reception.”
As to fugitives to North America, I quote the following sentences from Bancroft’s History of the United States, chapter xiii.:—
1685. The Edict of Nantes was formally revoked. . . . The loss of lives cannot be computed. How many thousands of men, how many thousands of children and women perished in the attempt to escape, who can tell? Every wise government was eager to offer a refuge to the upright men who would carry to other countries the arts, the skill in manufactures, and the wealth of France. . . . In our American colonies they were welcome everywhere. The religious sympathies of New England were awakened; did any arrive in poverty, having barely escaped with life? the towns of Massachusetts contributed liberally to their support and provided them with lands. Others repaired to New York; but the warmer climate was more inviting to the exiles of Languedoc, and South Carolina became the chief resort of the Huguenots. What though the attempt to emigrate was, by the law of France, a felony? In spite of every precaution of the police, five hundred thousand souls escaped from their country. The unfortunate were more wakeful to fly, than the ministers of tyranny to restrain. “We quitted home by night, leaving the soldiers in their beds, and ​abandoning the house with its furniture,” said Judith, the young wife of Pierre Manigault, “we contrived to hide ourselves for ten days at Romans, in Dauphiny, while a search was made for us; but our faithful hostess would not betray us.” Nor could they escape to the seaboard, except by a circuitous journey through Germany and Holland, and thence to England, in the depths of winter. “Having embarked at London, we were sadly off. The spotted fever appeared on board the vessel, and many died of the disease; among these, our aged mother. We touched at Bermuda, where the vessel was seized. Our money was all spent; with great difficulty we procured a passage in another vessel. After our arrival in Carolina, we suffered every kind of evil. In eighteen months, our eldest brother, unaccustomed to the hard labour which we were obliged to undergo, died of a fever. Since leaving France, we had experienced every kind of affliction — disease, pestilence, famine, poverty, hard labour. I have been for six months without tasting bread, working the ground like a slave; and I have passed three or four years without having it when I wanted it. And yet God has done great things for us, in enabling us to bear up under so many trials.” . . . When the struggle for independence arrived, the son of Judith Manigault entrusted the vast fortune he had acquired, to the service of the country that had adopted his mother. The Hall in Boston where the eloquence of New England rocked the infant spirit of independence was the gift of the son of a Huguenot [Peter Faneuil].
* ↑ Anno 1680. On manifesta dans le même temps deux Declarations facheuses, l’une qui defend aux Catholiques d’embrasser notre religion, l’autre qui exclut des Fermes do Roi et des Finances ceux qui en font profession. Le Chancelier parlant au Roi de la première de ces deux Declarations comme étant contraire à l’Edit. le Roi repondit qu’il etoit au-dessus de Edit. — Vie de Mr. Du Bosc, page 110. There was a Royal Order in Council, dated 5th January 1683, forbidding the consistories of the Reformed to assist each other by contributing either to the support of ministers or pensions to their widows, so that each consistory must bear its own charges without any extraneous help whatever. — Rouhereau MSS. To the above I may add, that it had for many years been the constant endeavour of the French Government to diminish the number of Protestant temples by decreeing the most minute prohibitions, the penalty in any case of disobedience being the shutting up (or demolition) of a temple. Every pasteur, when writing a sermon, might be in terror lest it should be his last, on account of some alleged illegality in an expression or allusion. In the hope of emptying churches, it was decreed with comic tyranny that no Protestant temples might have seats. In 1679 Bayle wrote to his brother that this decree was enforced with such severity at Rouen that not a seat was allowed even to members of the consistory.
* ↑ This may have been the Representation, dated March 1684, as to which see my vol. i. p. 335.
* ↑ I have given some more particulars as to this document in my chapter on the Marquis De Ruvigny.
* ↑ “A day was appointed for the conversion of a certain district, and the dragoons made their appearance accordingly. They took possession of the Protestants’ houses; destroyed all that they could not consume or carry away; turned the parlours into stables for their horses; treated the owners of the houses with every species of cruelty, depriving them of food, beating them, burning some alive, half-roasting others and then letting them go; tying mothers securely to posts, and leaving their sucking infants to perish at their feet; hanging some upon hooks in the chimneys, and smoking them with wisps of wet straw till they were suffocated. Some they dipped in wells; others they bound down, and poured wine into them through funnels, until reason was destroyed. And many other tortures were inflicted even more horrible than the above named.” — See Claude’s Complaints.
* ↑ Competent scholars have averred that many clever essayists and writers of smart political articles are ignorant of history; their friends must furnish them with facts, and their undertaking is to clothe the facts in words. It is not their business to ascertain whether the “facts” are, or are not, correctly stated. Hence we occasionally meet with ludicrous paragraphs, such as the following, which might be introduced into an Examination Paper, to be corrected by studious youth:— “The Huguenots were long a persecuted body in France. ‘When they were many and strong, they strove to regain their rights by the sword; when they were few and weak, by secret and patient machination. Thus they were whilst excluded; they ceased to be so when restored to their natural station and function as citizens. They were twice excluded and twice restored, and at each trial the result was the same; until finally a just and healing policy gave to their great men, to their Condé, Catinat, and Turenne, the privilege of employing their talents for their country’s glory, and, in part, repaired the mischiefs which the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had caused her by dooming her protestant subjects, soldiers, artisans, and statesmen to exile, or to disgust and alienation at home.” — A plain statement in support of the Political Claims of the Roman Catholics, in a Letter to the Rev. Sir George Lee, Bart., by Lord Nugent, M.P., for Aylesbury (London, 1826), page 56.
* ↑ OEuvres, tom. 2.
* ↑ “Historical Defence of the Waldenses,” by Peyran, edited by Sims, London, 1826, page 437.
* ↑ See my volume second, book third, chapter xviii.
* ↑ Wilson’s “History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches in London,” vol. iv. This author has not observed chronological order; in fact he gives no dates; and has failed to observe that many of the incidents happened before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.