result, even if his taking that step had not been so fully justified by his advancing years. Hence his opinions on the Roman Catholic and other great questions of his day never underwent any material variation; and so far from approving of sudden and extensive alterations, even where some change might be desirable, the opinion he held was, that where institutions had become defective, the rule of a statesman should be to preserve and improve.' Yet, unchangeable as he himself was, he could make generous and liberal allowances for others. I think it very uncharitable,' he once said, 'to condemn a man for expressing contrary opinions at different periods of his life, as we all know how continually new views of the same subject present themselves to the mind; and why should we blame others for expressing what we so often, ourselves, feel?' The principal modification observable in his opinions as he advanced in years is one which denotes his constantly expanding benevolence, and the increasing influence of Christian feelings. I used,' he said, when speaking of the wars in which England had been engaged during his time, I used to think all the sufferings of war lost in its glory; now I consider all its glory lost in its sufferings. So one's feelings change.'

"He always evinced an aversion to the spurious liberality of the day; by which, in his opinion, right and wrong were too often confounded, and the soundest and most valuable principles surrendered. So strong, indeed, was this dislike, that, in the eagerness of conversation on some much-controverted subject, he once said to a friend, ‘I hate liberality: nine times out of ten it is cowardice, and the tenth time it is want of principle.' The same feeling extended to the strained humanity of the age, which, when carried to the full extent of the mawkish sentiment prevalent at the period, tended, he thought, frequently to divert sympathy from its legitimate objects, the deserving and unfortunate, and to concentrate it upon the criminal and unworthy. When enlarging upon this topic, he usually concluded his observations with the following quotation from the poetry of the Antijacobin :

For the crushed beetle first, the widowed dove,
And all the warbled sorrows of the grove;
Next, for poor suffering guilt; and last of all,
For parents, friends, a king and country's fall.'"

Vol. 11. pp. 467 - 471.

1848.] Coquerel's History of Protestantism in France. 445

ART. VII. Histoire des Églises du Desert chez les Protestans de France depuis la Fin du Règne de Louis XIV. jusqu'à la Révolution Française. Par CHARLES COQUEREL. Paris. 1841. 2 vols. 8vo.

THE history of Protestantism in France may be divided into three distinct periods. The first is that which immediately followed the Reformation, and during which, under the reigns of Francis I. and Henry II., France was on the verge of becoming one of the great Protestant powers of Europe. The amount of misery and bloodshed which might have been spared that country, had those two monarchs espoused the cause of the Reformation, is incalculable. No violence would have been necessary, at that time, to spread the new form of Christianity throughout the country. France was then a half-Huguenot kingdom.* But Francis I. was too much occupied with his brilliant campaigns, his amours, and his taste for letters and the fine arts, to bestow much attention on religious matters; and the court of Henry II. was soon subjected to the Catholic influence of the Medici. Thus a glorious opportunity of giving to France a more enlightened form of religion was lost, and a long series of persecutions of the Protestants commenced.

The second period comprises the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., and terminates at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by which Henry IV. had granted religious liberty to his subjects in 1598. The third period embraces the reigns of Louis XV. and his successor, and ends at the French Revolution. During this last period, of which we are about to give a brief sketch, the Protestants who had remained in France were subjected to a constant and most severe persecution. There are few passages in modern history with which the general reader is so little acquainted as with the struggles of the French Protestants to secure the right of publicly professing their faith. The names of those who devoted all their energies to the cause of religious liberty, and who willingly laid down their lives for the sake of what they deemed the truth, are scarcely known. This should not surprise us. These noble-minded men labored

*The Papal nuncio at the court of Catharine de' Medici, in one of his secret reports, calls France questo regno mezzo-ugonotto.

not for the applause of the world; their ambition had a higher aim. They looked for immortality, not on earth, but in heaven. In this rapid survey of the sufferings, the labors, and the patient endurance of the Protestants of France, we shall therefore find few names already known and honored, but many which deserve to be remembered as those of martyrs who suffered in the noblest of causes, the defence of freedom of opinion. We may leave to others their admiration for the highly polished court and the brilliant exploits of Louis XIV., or for the witty, yet hollow, philosophy of the age that succeeded his, and turn to a darker picture, yet a far more interesting one to such as reverence truth and virtue as the highest attributes of humanity.

Louis XIV. expired on the 15th of September, 1715. No sooner were his eyes closed, than the last will of him who had been the most despotic monarch of Europe was destroyed. And when, according to the ancient custom of France, his remains were transferred to St. Denis for interment, it was amidst the hootings of the mob, ever ready to insult that which it never respected, but which it was for a time forced to obey. Of the general character of Louis XIV. as a monarch we are not now to speak. In reference to the subject before us, it is enough to say, that he was intolerant not only from bigotry, but also from political motives. He always viewed liberty of conscience as a protest against his despotism. He could brook no power but his own in the state. And yet, great as was his power, it proved ineffectual to eradicate heresy from his dominions. Thought was too powerful an enemy for the great monarch. The adherents to the new form of religion were not to be converted by the sword. Limited as they were in numbers, when compared with the Catholic population of the kingdom, they were full of strength and energy, because their convictions were deep and immovable. They were strong, too, because their cause was the cause of progress and of civilization throughout the world. Catholicism had said its say. Admirable as it was, with its outward display of pomp and ceremony, for the conversion of barbarians, it no longer contained any elements of progress. In protesting against Rome, Luther had also protested against every kind of tyranny. The Reformation contained the germs of those principles which, in less than a century after the death of

Louis XIV., were to change the whole political and social condition of France, and to give the watchword of freedom to the rest of the world.

Louis XIV. felt, undoubtedly, that it was this new and growing spirit of the Reformation which was to be feared, and not the forms of worship of a few Christians who had separated from the Romish Church. By persecution he thought to destroy the spirit of freedom in his dominions. Decree after decree was issued, during his long reign, against the unhappy Protestants, and finally he revoked the Edict of Nantes. It was on the 22d of October, 1685, that the memorable decree abolishing the liberal edict of Henry IV. was issued. It commenced by stating, "that the larger portion of his Majesty's subjects are Roman Catholics, and consequently it is ordered that all Protestant churches shall be destroyed. It is, moreover, forbidden to all members of that Church to assemble in whatsoever place it may be. All ministers of the Gospel shall either leave France, or be sent to the galleys; all children shall be educated in the Roman Catholic faith, and their parents shall be obliged to send them to church. It is, moreover, decreed, that the property of all such as have left the kingdom, and do not return within a period of four months, shall be confiscated, and that none shall be allowed to leave France, under the severest penalties." These are the principal features of a decree which Louis XIV. and his counsellors deemed sufficient for the ruin of Protestantism in France. The result proved how great was their error.

Harassed by this cruel legislation, thousands of Protestants left a country in which they could worship God only in the utmost secrecy and amidst constant danger, and sought for other and more tolerant climes. Many of the most prosperous districts of the kingdom were thus deprived of some of their most upright and enlightened citizens, who carried with them into exile those industrious habits for which the Huguenots were always distinguished; and it was long before those once flourishing provinces recovered from so heavy a blow. By this emigration were formed those colonies of French Protestants whose descendants are still found in Switzerland, Holland, and many parts of Germany, where they are, even at the present day, renowned for their uprightness, industry, and virtue. The spirit of loyalty, of attachment to the king, followed them, it is true, into exile. That, not

withstanding the persecutions to which they had been subjected by Louis XIV., they should have retained this loyalty for his person, is somewhat remarkable; yet it is clearly attested by the following passage in one of Saurin's eloquent sermons, preached at the Hague, in 1715, in which he apostrophizes the monarch thus:

"And thou, redoubtable prince, whom I once honored as my king, and whom I now respect as the Scourge of God, thou too shalt have a part in my prayers. These provinces which thou threatenest, these climes which thou hast filled with exiles, in whom, however, the spirit of charity is yet strong, these walls which contain thousands of martyrs whose death thou hast caused, but who have triumphed in their faith, all these shall yet resound with benedictions for thee. May God cause the fatal veil which hides truth from thine eyes to fall! May God forget the streams of blood which have been shed during thy reign, and with which thou hast covered the earth! May God efface from his sacred record the evil which thou hast done us, and recompense those who have suffered, whilst he pardons those who have caused their sufferings! God grant, that, after having been for us the minister of his wrath, thou mayest become the minister of his benedictions!"

But great as was the number of those who emigrated from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many remained in the country, and endeavoured to profess their religion in secret. Others, again, too weak to embrace either of these courses, nominally joined the Church of Rome. The conduct of these timid Christians was severely censured by the ministers of the Gospel, and Saurin expressed, in the most eloquent language, his indignation at this departure from those principles of unalterable devotion to their faith which had characterized their forefathers. — Such, then, were the results of the oppressive legislation of Louis XIV. Let us now see what was the condition of the Protestant churches of the kingdom at the time of the death of that monarch.

It was in the south of France, in that land where, as early as the thirteenth century, the standard of revolt had been raised against the Church of Rome by the Albigenses, that Protestantism predominated. This fact is contrary to the received opinion, that Protestantism is a form of religion suited only to the coldness of a northern climate. We do not deny that the Reformed faith very naturally became at