CHAP. V.]

THE DRAGONNADES.

139

self into the cause of persecution, and effected conversions by means of his own department. Converted Protestants were exempted from military billets; while the additional charge which would thus have been thrown on Catholic householders was diverted by billeting on the richer Hugonots twice the number of soldiers that fell legally to their share. 15

Flight was the only mode of escaping these persecutions. In spite of the surveillance exercised by the police on the frontiers and in the ports, emigration took place on a great scale. England, Holland, Denmark offered hospitality to the emigrants, and were enriched by their industry, skill, and capital. The French Government endeavoured to stop the emigration by forbidding Hugonot families to leave France under the penalty for the heads of them of perpetual relegation to the galleys (May 1682). The stoppage of this outlet occasioned an explosion within. The Hugonots began to band together in the south of France. Their prohibited provincial synods were replaced by secret unions; they began to arm, and in some places it was necessary to suppress their movements by force and bloodshed. After the death of the wise and moderate Colbert in 1683, these persecutions assumed new vigour. The influence of Louvois, now uncontrolled, was displayed in a multitude of the most rigorous edicts (1684-1685).16 Troops 17 were despatched into the southern provinces, where the Hugonots were chiefly seated; and though the soldiers were publicly forbidden to use any violence, their brutalities were secretly connived at. By these means the Protestants of Béarn, estimated at 22,000, were converted, within a few hundreds. Terror harbingered the approach of the dragoons, at whose appearance whole towns hastened to announce their submission. The same method was used with success in Guienne, the Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, Languedoc, and Dauphiné. Conversions were announced by the thousands; though the value of such a conversion is easily estimated. Louis was quite intoxicated with his success. It seemed as if he was as great a conqueror over men's souls as over their bodies and worldly possessions; that he had but to speak the word, and all those proud and obstinate heretics, who had once almost dictated the law to his ancestors, must fall down and yield to his infallible genius; a thought at once gratifying to his bigotry and his pride. And now when the Hugonots were reduced, in

15 Martin, Ibid. p. 627.

16 The particulars of them will be found in the Anciennes Lois Françaises, t. xix.

p.

464 8qq.; and in the Hist, de l'Edit de Nantes, t. v. liv. 21, 22, and App.

17 Dragoons were chiefly used in this service, as being most adapted to it from their serving both on foot and horseback. Hence these military persecutions were called Dragonnadıs.

140

REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

[BOOK V.

appearance at least, to a small fraction of their former number-— and if the fathers were insincere, the children at all events would be good Catholics-Louis conceived that the time had arrived when he might strike the final blow by repealing the Edict of his grandfather Henry IV. The REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, drawn up by the aged Chancellor le Tellier, father of Louvois, was signed by the King, October 17th 1685. It went, of course, to the complete future annihilation of Calvinism in France. All Protestant churches were to be immediately demolished; the reformed worship was forbidden on pain of confiscation and perpetual imprisonment; the ministers who refused to be converted were to quit the kingdom in a fortnight; the children of Protestant parents were to be baptised by the curé of the parish, and instructed in the Roman Catholic faith. Only by the last article some indulgence was shown to those who still remained unconverted. They were permitted, "till such time as it should please God to enlighten them like the rest," to remain in France, and to exercise their callings and professions, without let or molestation on account of their religion.18 Such was the text; but the practice hardly corresponded with it. In fact, Louvois instructed the leaders of the dragonnades to disregard the last article of the Declaration, and to treat with the extremity of rigour all those who should have the absurd vanity of persisting in a religion which differed from that of His Majesty the King! Louvois gave the order to let the soldiery live "licentiously." Everything was permitted to them except murder and violation; but a good deal may be done short of these crimes, nor did the soldiery always abstain even from these. The most horrible tortures were resorted to. Those Hugonots who had the most influence with their brethren, either from their character or their social position, were sent to the Bastille or other state prisons; and some were even buried in sultry or freezing dungeons, the remains of feudal barbarism. From Dauphiné the dragonnades were extended to the Vaudois inhabiting the Alpine valleys between that province and Piedmont. At the command of Louis, the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II., joined in their persecution; the ministers, or barbes, of the Vaudois, their schoolmasters, and the French Protestants who had taken refuge among them, were ordered, under pain of death, to quit the ducal territories in a fortnight; while their worship was prohibited, and their schools were ordered to be closed under the same penalty (Feb. 1686). The Vaudois 18 Hist. de l'Édit de Nantes, t. v. Preuves, p. 185.

10 Ibid. p. 868.

19

CHAP. V.]

EMIGRATION OF THE HUGONOTS.

111

attempted to defend their liberties by arms against the French troops led by Catinat, a brave soldier and enlightened man, who performed the task with reluctance. Many thousands of the Vaudois perished in this massacre, in which neither age nor sex was spared. A remnant of them who had managed to defend themselves in the more inaccessible parts of the mountains, obtained, through the intervention of the Protestant Powers, and especially of the Swiss, permission to emigrate.2

20

Emigration

These cruelties naturally produced a reaction. became more vigorous than ever, in spite of all the endeavours of the Government to prevent it, and though seamen or others assisting the emigrants were threatened with fine and corporal punishment, the galleys, and even death. It is computed that between the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the end of the century between 200,000 and 300,000 persons left France for the sake of their religion. These too, from their wealth and character, were amongst the most valuable citizens of France, and included many men of high literary reputation: as Basnage, the historian of the United Netherlands; Lenfant, historian of the Councils of Basle and Constance; Beausobre, author of the History of Manicheism; Rapin, author of the History of England, and others. It was no w that whole colonies of French established themselves at London, at Berlin, in Holland, and other places, and planted there the silk manufacture and other arts and trades.

It happened singularly enough that while Louis was engaged in this crusade against the Protestants, he was also involved in a warm dispute with Pope Innocent XI. (Benedict Odescalchi) respecting the Régale, in some of the southern provinces. The matter belongs to the domestic history of France, and is chiefly remarkable as having produced Bossuet's celebrated Declaration of the Clergy of France, which forms an epoch in the French Church (March 1682). The substance of it is, that the Pope has no power in temporal affairs; that, as decreed by the Council of Constance, the Pope's spiritual authority is subordinate to that of a General Council; that the constitutions of the Gallican Church may not be subverted; and that though the Pope has the first voice in questions of faith, his judgment is not irrevocable unless confirmed by the Church.. This declaration was converted into a law by a royal edict.

These

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes excited unbounded sorrow and indignation in all the Protestant states of Europe. feelings were nowhere more conspicuously manifested than in the

20 Hist. de l'Edit de Nantes, t v. p. 926; Mémoires de Catinat, t. i. p. 20 sq., and Préces Just. p. 256 (Paris, 1819).

142

FRENCH PROTESTANTS IN BRANDENBURG.

[Book V. Electorate of Brandenburg. Frederick William, a zealous Calvinist, even overstepped the bounds of Christian moderation by publishing a retaliatory Edict against his Catholic subjects; but the steps which he took for the protection of the French refugees were of a nobler character. Partly out of compassion for his fellow-religionists, partly also perhaps with the politic view of encouraging arts and manufactures in his dominions, he granted to the French emigrants more privileges than were enjoyed even by his own subjects; he gave them ground and materials for building; he supplied them with money to open manufactories, pay their clergy, and erect their own consistories, tribunals, schools, and churches.21 Sweden, the ancient ally of France, participated in the feeling now awakened against that kingdom both on religious grounds, and from the personal injury which Charles XI. had sustained, as already related, at the hands of the French monarch with regard to his duchy of Zweibrücken. In the spring of 1686, a secret treaty was concluded between the King of Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg, lately such bitter enemies, for mutual defence and for the protection of the empire against the attacks of France. In the United Netherlands, Louis completely alienated, through his persecutions of the Hugonots, the goodwill of the party that had supported him, and the ancient adherents of the De Witts now went over to the Prince of Orange. The anger of the commercial portion of the Dutch nation had been further excited because Louis, in his indiscriminate hatred of the Calvinists, had not spared the persons and property of Dutch merchants naturalised in France, and had thus almost annihilated the trade between that kingdom and Holland.22 Thus by an infatuated policy, the French King, besides weakening his own kingdom, and alienating a large portion of his subjects, who subsequently fought against him under the banners of his enemies, had also incurred the hostility of every Protestant country of Europe; while Spain and the Catholic states of the Empire were provoked and alarmed by his grasping ambition, and even the Pope himself, irrevocably alienated by the contempt which he displayed for the apostolic chair.

There was one prince whose keen and penetrating glance saw all these mistakes, and whose hatred of the French king and nation incited him to take advantage of them. Among the earliest reminiscences of the Dutch Stadtholder, William III., were the injuries which his country had received at the hands of Louis XIV. At his entrance into public life, William had found himself reduced 21 Menzel, Neuere Gesch. der Deutschen, B. iv. S. 482 sq.

22 Van Kampen, B. ii. S. 295.

CHAP. V.

WILLIAM III.'S HATRED OF LOUIS.

143

to choose between submitting to the haughty conqueror, or half ruining his country, perhaps abandoning it altogether, in order to escape the vassalage of France. These things had engendered in him an inextinguishable enmity which recent occurrences had served still further to inflame. Although a Calvinist, William was a friend of toleration; and, like the rest of his countrymen, had beheld with disgust the recent persecutions in France. This feeling had been increased by a private injury. Louis had recently seized his principality of Orange, properly an imperial fief, and had united it to the French crown. William had publicly declared that he would make Louis repent the outrage, and had refused to retract his words when called upon by D'Avaux, the French minister in Holland, for an explanation.23 Thus, by all his steps at this juncture, Louis was not only embittering the enmity which the Prince of Orange entertained against him, but also preparing those events which ultimately enabled William to curb his power and humble his pride. From this period the Dutch Stadtholder must be regarded as the chief opponent of French ambition, as the man on whose counsels the destiny of Europe hung. It is in this character, as Lord Macaulay justly remarks, 24 and not as King of England, that William's conduct as a statesman should be viewed and estimated. His plans for wresting the English sceptre from the hands of his popish fatherin-law were only part of his grand scheme for humiliating Louis. He wished to reign in England chiefly, if not solely, in order that he might wield her power against the French King. In this struggle the principles of Rome and those of the Reformation are still in presence, however mixed up with political events and secular ambition. The bigoted Louis XIV., though at enmity with the actual Pope, is still the representative of those ancient monarchical traditions which leaned for support on the Church of Rome; while the Calvinist William, the child and heir of the Reformation, is the champion of religious toleration and civil liberty. Nature had admirably qualified him for the part which he had assumed; in which defeat and disappointment were often to be endured without discouragement, and success at last achieved by long and complicated combinations, pursued with indomitable perseverance and unflinching courage.

It was some fresh symptoms of aggression on the part of Louis that enabled the Stadtholder to unite the greater part of Europe in a league against him. The Duke of Orléans, the French King's "See Négociations du comte d'Avaux, 24 Hist. of England, chap. vii. September to December 1682.