XII.
We now resume the chain of events, of which the picture will be both sad and sorrowful. We will soften the outlines, but not efface them; for we are writing history. We may collect the lesson, that intolerance stands upon a slippery precipice, from which, the moment she has made a slip, she is dragged from iniquity to iniquity, and from violence to violence, until she reaches the most atrocious excesses—a moral which perhaps is not absolutely useless, even at this day.
Mazarin died in 1661; his death was a loss to the Reformed. Although he inspired them with little confidence, and was not friendly to them, this cardinal preferred the use of stratagem to that of force; and as he sought to support his foreign policy by the Protestant power, he dared not impose too hard a yoke upon the French Calvinists.
After his decease, Louis XIV. resolved to govern alone, and persecution increased. Not that this prince was naturally cruel; had he been so, he would have restrained himself out of respect for his own greatness; but he had been educated in hatred of the Huguenots. Other motives, which we shall explain, intervened later to strengthen the prejudices of his childhood, and the obliteration of heresy was one of the fixed ideas of his reign. He may have varied as to the means, have faltered between the course of persuasion and that of persecution, have even seemed to retrace his steps, and to defer until more favourable opportunities the execution of this great undertaking; but through all these fluctuations and adjournments, his object never changed.
In 1661 commissioners were nominated in each province to examine into the real or pretended violation of the Edict of Nantes, and to re-establish peace between the two communions. One of these commissioners was a (Roman) Catholic, the other a Calvinist. This measure would have been excellent, if the agents for carrying it out had enjoyed the same rights, and the authority whose duty it was to decide ultimately, had been impartial between them. It was however quite otherwise, and that which was intended as a guarantee to the Reformed, became a fresh source of troubles and iniquities.
The (Roman) Catholic commissioner appointed to each general district, was generally a man of consideration, holding a seat in Parliament, or even in the king’s council, and was known for his entire devotion to the interests of the Romish church. The Calvinist commissioner, on the contrary, with very rare exceptions, was either some poor gentleman ignorant of business, or some ambitious individual secretly sold to the court, and nominated by the intendants, sometimes even by the bishops, expressly to betray his duty. The first had all the power that accompanies a state religion; the second, all the weakness of a religion scarcely tolerated. One spoke with authority, invoking the name of the king; the other spoke with humility, in the name of the poor oppressed, whose fears he shared.
The commissioners were instructed to ascertain the rights of exercising worship in the contested districts. But as many churches had no authentic titles, either because they had never supposed that these documents would become necessary, or because they had been lost during the religious wars, they could only maintain their right by actual possession and traditional notoriety. Constant quibbling was the consequence of this—in order to defeat the claims of the churches. The syndics of the (Roman) Catholic clergy were admitted to interfere in these disputes, and sought to invade everything; and when there was any disagreement between the two commissioners, the matter was decided by the council, whose aim was to restrict the Huguenots to the narrowest limits; or by the intendants, who had no other object than that of paying their court to Louis XIV.
It is impossible to count in how many districts the exercise of the Reformed religion was interdicted, how many places of worship were razed, schools suppressed, charitable establishments confiscated for the benefit of the (Roman) Catholics, and how many individuals also experienced crying injustice, however incontestable might be their rights. This would fill volumes.
Some Jesuits and others published lengthy writings, in which, under pretence of interpreting the Edict of Nantes, they demolished it piecemeal. The more skilful they showed themselves in the invention of new sophisms against the execution of the law, the more they thought they deserved from their church. The priest Soulier, author of an Explanation of the Edict of Nantes, unintentionally confesses this in his dedicatory epistle to the bishops: “I shall esteem myself too fortunate, sirs,” says he, “if I can second the zeal of your daily labours, after the example of the greatest of kings, for the extinction of heresy.” The explanation was at all events designed, right or wrong, to extinguish heresy.
These writings were sent to the council, to the parliaments, to the procurators-general, and the intendants, who, without approving the whole of their contents, furnished themselves with weapons out of these great arsenals of the Jesuit school, and never failed to use them when they could do so with any decency.
In 1663 the clergy obtained, at the instance of their General Assembly, a declaration against those who relapsed, that is to say, against those who returned to the Reformed communion, after having abjured. “These people could no longer pretend,” the preamble stated, “to the benefit of the Edict of Nantes, since they had renounced, and by returning to the heresy, had incurred the guilt of the enormous crime of profanation against the sacred mysteries of the (Roman) Catholic religion.” The ordinance consequently pronounced against them the penalty of perpetual banishment. This declaration is regarded by Rulhières, and other historians, as the first direct attack upon the Edict of Nantes, and the first decisive step in the path of revocation.
There were at that time a certain number of individuals, who went from the Reformed to the (Roman) Catholic communion, without well knowing why, and without any serious intention of remaining. Some gave way to threats, others to momentary seductions, others to weakness, or the natural inconstancy of their minds. It was, in the first place, a great error, to admit them so lightly into the Church of Rome, and some Jansenist bishops, more scrupulous than the others, complained of it. It was a still greater error to seek to retain them there by terror.
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.