A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

Do we owe the Huguenots anything? Yes, the whole world is indebted to them. What France lost the other nations gained. The emigration of the Huguenots gave a death-blow to several great branches of French industry. The population of Nantes was reduced from eighty thousand to forty thousand, a blow to its prosperity from which it has not recovered to this day. Of twelve thousand artisans engaged in the manufacture of silk at Lyons, nine thousand went to Switzerland. The most skilled artisans, the wealthiest merchants, the bravest sailors and soldiers, the most eminent scholars and scientists went by thousands to Germany, Holland, England, enriching those lands in money and morals beyond computation.

The cause of civil and religious liberty is deeply indebted to the Huguenots. It was Oliver Cromwell, "the greatest prince that ever ruled England," who raised Britain to her present position of power and gave her the dominion of the seas. But it was William of Orange who completed Cromwell's work after the temporary reaction in favor of Rome and the Stuarts. It was the battle of the Boyne which finally decided that Great Britain and America were to be Protestant countries and not Romish. And do you know who it was that won the day for William on the banks of the Boyne? It was the three regiments of Huguenot infantry and the squadron of Huguenot cavalry hurled upon the Papists at the critical moment by the Huguenot, Marshal Schomberg. That is a part of your debt to the Huguenots for the civil and religious liberty which you enjoy to-day.

In the Franco-German War of 1870, many of the officers of the victorious army of invasion were descendants of the Huguenots whom Louis XIV. expatriated.

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all."

The King of England himself is of Huguenot blood, George I. having married Dorothea, granddaughter of the Marquis d'Olbreuse, who was one of the Huguenot refugees to Brandenburg after the Revocation. Time would fail me to tell of all the scholars, scientists and noblemen of England who have sprung from the same great stock, such as Grote, the historian of Greece, Sydney Smith, the Martineaus, Garrick the actor, and a great number of gifted clergymen of the Church of England.

Many of the French churches established in London and other parts of England by the exiles have contributed for centuries to the vigorous religious life of Britain. For three hundred and fifty years the Presbyterian Huguenots and the Episcopal Englishmen have worshipped in different portions of Canterbury Cathedral, and to this day the Huguenot Church at Canterbury continues to conduct its worship in the cathedral in French, singing the psalms to the old Huguenot tunes. But for the most part, the exiles have become merged with the English, and their names have been Anglicised. In every way Britain has been enriched and blessed by the infusion of Huguenot blood and genius.

Huguenot Strain in America.

What America owes to Huguenot immigration you know. Had the Huguenots given us only Hugh Swinton Legare, John Jay, Francis Marion, and Commodore Maury, "the pathfinder of the seas," we should have owed them an everlasting debt of gratitude. But when we remember what they have been in Virginia itself—the Maurys, Maryes, Michauxs, Flournoys, Dupuys, Fontaines, Moncures, Fauntleroys, Latanes, Mauzys, Lacys, Venables, Dabneys, and many others—we cannot fail to see that we are under great and lasting obligation to that heroic race, whose banishment, while it resulted in the moral ruin of France, resulted in the moral enrichment of America. And we should count it a privilege to do what we can to retrieve the religious ruin of misguided France by giving her once more the pure Huguenot gospel. From a statement published by the Rev. J. E. Knatz, B. D., Delegate of the Huguenot Churches of France to America, I take the following facts: