History of the Protestants of France, from the commencement of the Reformation to the present time

by G. de Félice

From this moment (as all historians have remarked), the fortunes of Louis XIV. declined; and some years after, beaten at Blenheim, Ramilies, and Malplaquet, this king, so fortunate and so superb in the beginning of his reign, humbly sued to Europe for peace: and hard, indeed, were the conditions which he obtained at Utrecht.[96] Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, the kingdom bore the pain of this humiliation; and even down to our own times, at the Congress of Vienna.

The prestige of royalty was deeply wounded by the same blow. If there still remained the appearance of submission and respect, the mind began to revolt against the omnipotence of the monarch. It was asked, whether nations ought to confide every right and every power to a single man, who might be governed by a female favourite, by a confessor, by a foolish or a senseless passion for personal glory. In England, and in Holland, popular liberty had vehement apologists. In France, the pious Fénélon took the initiative, and was followed by Massillon, Montesquieu, Rousseau, the Abbés Mablay and Raynal, the Protestant Necker, and Mirabeau. These men, although of such different origin, ideas, and objects, all belong to the same family.

This was the political side of the question. In a social and moral point of view, the edicts promulgated from 1660 to 1685, the dragonnades, the Revocation, and the acts which were its inevitable consequence, attacked the very foundations, as it concerned two or three millions of Frenchmen, of the sacred and inviolable principles of all human society, religion, family, and property. The Socialists of modern times have never carried their theories to such an extent, as did Louis XIV., the Jesuits, the (Roman) Catholic priesthood, and the magistracy against the Reformed. Let every one of these, then, take their share of the responsibility.

Finally, in a religious point of view, properly speaking, M. de Châteaubriand’s sentence respecting the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,[97] which we have already mentioned elsewhere, has at this point a new and striking application. Beholding the narrow and pernicious bigotry of the king, the hideous profanations sanctioned by the body of the [Roman Catholic] clergy, the military transformed into missionaries, mourning and blood mingled with religion, all laws, human and divine, trodden underfoot by those, whose especial duty it was to defend them, beholding all this, the upper classes of the nation threw themselves into the wildest scepticism. On the death of Louis XIV. the court was full of unbelievers, and Voltaire sprung ready armed from the bosom of that generation.

It has been pretended that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was popular. If this were true, it would be the most overwhelming accusation against the Church of Rome, that it had thus educated and fashioned France. But it is only half true. The Revocation was popular among the priests, who, by the mouths of Fléchier and Bossuet, exhorted their hearers to make the heavens resound with their thanksgivings and their acclamations. It was popular with courtiers, the Marquis Dangeau and Madame de Sévigné, who worshipped the very footsteps of the monarch. It was popular with the lowest classes of the country, particularly in the southern provinces, who blindly obeyed the inspirations of their spiritual guides. Perhaps, at the furthest, it was popular with some ministers and government officials, who saw no hope for civil and political unity, but through religious unity. But was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes popular among the officers of the army and navy, among the provincial nobility, even among the court nobility, who had not entirely sacrificed their independence of mind, or even among the middle classes, destined to rise in influence in the eighteenth century, and to govern in the nineteenth? Good reason for doubting it may be gathered from what we have stated above; and if we can now perceive but few traces of their opposition, it is because it was difficult to utter a single word freely under Louis XIV.

To sum up all in one word—everything suffered by the Revocation; royalty suffered; the political strength of France suffered; national wealth, industry, and morality suffered; the spirit of religion suffered; nay, even the (Roman) Catholic clergy suffered. Thus evil begets nothing but misfortune!

BOOK IV.
FROM THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES UNTIL THE EDICT OF TOLERATION.
(1685-1787.)

I.

Two opposite influences divided this period: the traditional spirit of persecution, which still excited cruel violence and frightful executions during the latter half of the eighteenth century; and the new spirit of toleration, which, passing from the conscience of men of worth into the writings of philosophers, from these writings into the convictions of the intelligent classes, from these classes into the legislature and councils of the king, at length acquired an irresistible authority, and compelled even the priesthood to bow before maxims more true, more moral, more Christian than their own.