"What does that mean, grandma?" asked Neddie.
"I will tell you sometime; perhaps while we are going up the river to-day," she answered in kindly tones. "I cannot do it now, for there is the breakfast bell."
They were all seated upon the Dolphin's deck very shortly after leaving the table, and in a few moments the yacht was steaming rapidly up the river. Then Neddie, going to his grandmother's side, claimed her promise to explain to him what was meant by an edict—particularly the one of which she had spoken.
"An edict," she said, "is a public decree that things shall be so and so. The Edict of Nantes said that the persecution of the Protestants must stop and they be allowed to worship God as they deemed right; the revocation of that edict gave permission to the Romanists to begin persecution again. Therefore, to save their lives, the Protestants had to flee to other lands."
"Where did they go, grandma?" asked Eric, who was listening with as keen an interest as Neddie himself.
"A great many to England and Germany and some to this country. It was really a great loss to France, for they were industrious and skilful artisans—manufacturers of silk, jewelry, and glass."
"I'm glad some of them did come here," said Eric. "The massacre of St.
Bartholomew was before that, wasn't it, grandma?"
"Yes; on the 26th of August, 1572; in that seventy thousand Protestants were butchered by the Papists in France, by the authority of the Pope and the king. From that time on, until 1598, there were terrible persecutions, stopped in that year by Henry IV.'s issue of the Edict of Nantes, allowing, as I have told you, Protestants to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. That edict remained in force for nearly a century, but was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV."
"Then the Protestants moved away to escape being killed?" asked Eric.
"Yes," replied Grandma Elsie, "and some of them came up this river and settled on its shores. They found it less hazardous to dwell beside the savage Indians than among the persecuting Papists."