had been at first averse to the project of disturbing the Calvinists in their religion, lest it should divert his master from the schemes of grandeur and ambition where his own services were wanted. But, when he found the King irrevocably bent on the extirpation of heresy, his next object was to make himself necessary in the execution of the plan, and to bring it to a conclusion as speedily as possible. The war department was his particular province; between which, and the conversion of heretics, it seemed difficult to establish a connexion. But obstacles that would have deterred a less ambitious minister, had no effect upon. Louvois. On pretence of encouraging conversions, he procured an order, that new converts should be exempt from the billeting of soldiers; and, as a measure of constraint, not repugnant to the system then pursued, he obtained permission, in his secret instructions to the Intendants, to direct, that a greater proportion of soldiers should be quartered on Calvinists than on members of the Established Church. So trifling a boon on the one hand, and so slight a burthen on the other, would determine, it was said, many Hugonots to abjure a religion to which they were attached only by habit. The King appears at first to have given his consent to this measure, without anticipating the consequences that ensued; for, when complaints were made to him of the excesses committed by the soldiers on their hosts, he withdrew the order and recalled the troops. It was not till some years afterwards, when the order for conversions had become stronger, that this mode of propagating the faith was revived and extended over France. It happened that a large force was assembled in Bearn, for the purpose of overawing the Spaniards, at a time when the rage for extirpating heresy was at its height. The troops having nothing to do, the Intendant of the province, a brutal and fanatical Catholic, thought they might be usefully employed in making converts; and so speedily and effectually was the business done, that in a few weeks not a Calvinist was left in Bearn. The troops were then marched into Guienne, Languedoc, and other provinces, with the same mission and the same success. The praises bestowed at Court on the Intendant of Bearn, roused the activity, and excited the emulation of other governors. Louvois, rejoicing to see the conversions fall into his hands, sent troops whenever they were wanted, and before they were even demanded. Whole districts were converted as it were by magic. Wherever the dragoons appeared, the Calvinists hurried to church to perform their abjurations. No instructions were given to them; no proofs of the sincerity of their conversion were required; the principles of the Jesuits

prevailed in the church; and, among the Protestants, casuists had arisen, who taught that abjurations extorted by force were not binding on the conscience. The hard situation to which the Calvinists were reduced, affords some excuse for their weakness and duplicity. There was no escape from their persecutors. Those who had the means of leaving their country, were detained in it by force. Emigration was prohibited by law, and had been made impracticable in fact. No remedy but a pretended conversion, could protect their persons from violence, or secure their families from insult and brutality.

Louis, deceived by the false and flattering accounts transmitted to him, and assured by his ministers and courtiers that, in a few weeks, not a Hugonot would remain in France, ventured at length, in opposition to his original design, to adopt the hasty and inconsiderate resolution of formally revoking the edict of Nantz, and of interdicting the public exercise of the reformed religion within his dominions. He was pleased, however, at the same time to declare, from his tender regard to the rights of conscience, that Hugonots, who had not abjured their faith, might retain their religion undisturbed, and exercise it in private without molestation.

The fatal effects of these violent and inconsistent measures were soon experienced. The Hugonots were divided into two classes; those who had abjured, and those who had resisted abjuration. The former were subject to the Church; the latter exempt from her jurisdiction. To separate the two classes was found to be difficult. Many who had abjured from terror of the dragoons, were inclined to retract and deny their weakness, when the danger was over. The Church, uncertain of the extent of her conquests during the hurry and confusion of victory, but unwilling to release any of her victims, was disposed to multiply their number beyond the truth. The new converts were, besides, only Catholics in name, internally detesting the religion they had been compelled to adopt. It was necessary to eradicate the remains of heretical depravity from their hearts, before the salutary work was completed; and by what means this change could be most effectually wrought, became a subject of dispute between the two religious parties that still divided the Church and Court of France. The Jansenists recommended instruction and good example. But the lower clergy, to whose care the new converts must necessarily be committed, were at that time little qualified in France, by their morals or acquirements, to solve their doubts, remove their objections, or attach them to the professors of their new religion. The Jesuits, more anxious about the external unity of the Church than

the internal faith of its members, urged perseverance in the system that had been already productive of such effects. The King, alternately swayed by his ministers and confessors, fluctuated between the two opinions, and adhered steadily to neither. Under the influence of the Jesuits, the new converts were compelled to attend assiduously the offices of the Church, and to perform all the external duties she requires. If a converted Calvinist died without confession, or submitting to the ceremonies enjoined by his new religion, his memory was declared infamous, his property confiscated, and his remains, drawn on a hurdle, were thrown into the common sewer, and denied the rites of Christian sepulture. When the Jansenists prevailed, these horrors were suppressed; the new Converts were left to their own discretion; and, if they presented themselves to receive the sacraments, they were not admitted to the holy mysteries without a previous examination, which convinced the pastor that they were qualified to partake of them without profanation.

Towards the close of his reign, Louis XIV. fell again under the dominion of the Jesuits; and, at the instigation of Pere Le Tellier, he revived the law against heretics dying in a state of relapse, which Cardinal de Noailles, when in favour, had prevailed on him to revoke. In renewing this law, a phrase was introduced into the preamble, probably without the knowledge of the King, who was then in his dotage, but attended with the most fatal consequences to the Calvinists. The revocation of the edict of Nantz, while it prohibited the public exercise of their religion, allowed them to remain undisturbed in France; and many subsequent edicts and declarations had recognised them as still existing in the kingdom.* In the preamble of the new edict, it was alleged that there were none of the ancient Hugonots who had not abjured their faith, and reconciled themselves to the Church; and, consequently, that they and their descendants were to be deemed Catholics, and liable as such to the provisions of the edict. + The assertion was notoriously false; but it was taken by the Parliaments for what they called a présomption légale; and for seventy years it was held to be the law of France that there were no Calvinists in the kingdom.

The French Protestants were now approaching to the last and extreme term of their sufferings. During the regency of the Duke of Bourbon, an unskilful attempt was made to consolidate the various provisions respecting them. No longer ac

Rulhière, v. 183, 294, 361, 371.

+ Ib. v. 323, 458.

knowledged under the name of Calvinists, but distinguished by the appellation of New Converts, they were treated as Catholics by the State, and as Hugonots by the Church. They were subjected to heavy penalties if they refused the sacraments, and to rigorous examinations when they applied for them. The system of the Jesuits was followed, in enforcing the offices of religion; the scruples of the Jansenists indulged, in requiring trials, at the discretion of the pastor, before they could be administered. Certificates of Catholicism were at once made indispensable and unattainable. As the law held there were none but Catholics in France; so it declared, that no marriages could be legally contracted, except in the manner prescribed for Catholics, and according to the rites of the Catholic Church. But marriage is a sacrament in the Romish religion; and though, in their eagerness to inveigle heretics within the pale of the Church, the clergy had not hesitated to administer their sacraments to converted Calvinists, who had nothing of Catholicism but the name, now that they had them fast within the fold, they scrupled to continue the same profanation, refused them' the nuptial benediction, unless their examinations were satisfactory, and withheld from the dying the sacraments which they had formerly compelled them to receive. *

The situation of the ancient Calvinists and their families was now deplorable. The Jesuits had demanded rigorous mea-. sures against them from the Government, but permitted and encouraged a system of laxity in the Church. The Jensenists had regarded the laxity of the Church as a scandalous profanation, but recommended mildness on the part of the Government. The new system, combining strictness in the Church with rigour in the State, drove them to despair. The Parlia ments, insisting they were Catholics, because they were so term ed in a royal edict, required the clergy to marry them without making difficulties. The clergy refused, saying they knew them to be Hugonots, who hardly condescended to disguise their religion, when they applied to the Church for the use of her sacraments in their civil concerns. The Parliaments, tenacious of their présomption légale, and not unwilling to encroach on ecclesiastical jurisdiction, persisted in their requisitions, and never once suggested the obvious expedient of abrogating or amending an absurd and impracticable law. The clergy, confiding in the limited and fluctuating policy of the Court, were equally obstinate in their refusal. The Calvinists, wearied with their dissentions, and ashamed of living in a state of concubin-.

*Rulhière, v. 326–332.

age, had recourse to pastors of their own, by whom they were married, au desent, according to the rites of the reformed Church. These marriages for some time were connived at, but the bigotry of the inferior tribunals brought them at length into question; and as they were clearly illegal by the edict of 1724, the courts were compelled to annul them, and bastardize their issue. The husbands were sent to the galleys for life, the wives shut up in penitentiaries as abandoned women; and, with a mockery of beneficence not unexampled in the history of persecution, the inheritance of the children was distributed to hospitals. Even where the marriage of the parents was not annulled by a judicial sentence, the children were frequently stigmatized as bastards. If a Calvinist sent his child to be baptized in a Catholic church, in order to preserve a record of its birth, the priest, if he had not solemnized the marriage of the parents, entered the child as illegitimate in his register. When a Calvinist died, he was privately interred by his family, who were liable to punishment for not having summoned a priest to disturb his last moments with fruitless controversy; and if the place of his sepulture was discovered, his remains were liable to be disinterred, and made the sport of a fanaticable rabble. The result of this system, at the close of the American war, when the situation of the Protestants attracted the serious consideration of the Government, was the confession of the fact, that a million of Calvinists were concealed in France, without civil privileges or acknowledged existence, without means of establishing by legal evidence their births, marriages or deaths,-husbands without lawful wives, fathers without legitimate children; unable to quit their country or to remain in it without profaning its religion or disobeying its laws; compelled, at the hour of death, either to violate their conscience, or to leave their property liable to confiscation, and their bodies exposed to insult.

We have said nothing of the penalties against the Protes tants for preaching, or attending meetings for religious worship. A minister, convicted of preaching, marrying, or administering the sacraments, was punished with death, and all his hearers and communicants, without exception, sent to the galleys, or imprisoned for life. Latterly, it is true, these unmerciful laws were but rarely executed,-thanks to the spirit of tolerance and philosophy, now so much decried; but it was no fault of the clergy if they were not enforced with the utmost rigour; for, at every convocation they held, they never ceased their earnest protestations against the mischievous lenity shown to heretics. So late, however, as 1762, La Rochette, a Protestant clergyman, was condemned and executed by sentence of the Parlia I

VOL. XXXVI, No. 71.