CHAPTER IX.

THE HUGUENOTS AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION

OF 1688.

THE flight of the French Protestants exercised a highly important influence on European politics. Among its other effects, it contributed to establish religious and political freedom in Switzerland, and to render it in a measure the Patmos of Europe; it strengthened the foundations of liberty in the then comparatively insignificant electorate of Brandenburg, which has since become developed into the great monarchy of Prussia ; it fostered the strength and increased the political power and commercial wealth of the States of Holland; and it materially contributed to the success of the English Revolution of 1688, and to the establishment of the British Constitution on its present basis.

Long before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the persecutions of the French Protestants had excited the general commiseration of Europe, and Switzerland and the northern nations vied with each other in extending to them their sympathy and their help. The principal seats of Protestantism being in Languedoc, Dauphiny, and the south-western provinces of France, the first emigrants readily passed across the frontier of the Jura and Savoy into Switzerland, mostly

making for the asylum of Geneva. That city had been in a measure created by the organisation of Calvin, who had striven to make it a sort of Christian Sparta, and in a great degree succeeded. Under his regimen the place had become entirely changed. It had already emancipated itself from the authority of the Duke of Savoy, and established alliances with adjoining cantons for the purpose of ensuring its independence, when Calvin undertook the administration of its ecclesiastical policy, to which the civil power shortly became entirely subordinate. There can be no doubt as to the rigour as well as the severity of Calvin's rule; but Geneva was surrounded by ferocious enemies, and had to struggle for very life. The French historian Mignet has in a few words described the rapid progress made by this remarkable community :

"In less than half-a-century the face of Geneva had become entirely changed. It passed through three consecutive revolutions. The first delivered it from the Duke of Savoy, who lost his delegated authority in the attempt to convert it into an absolute sovereignty. The second introduced into Geneva the Reformed worship, by which the sovereignty of the bishop was destroyed. The third constituted the Protestant administration of Geneva, and the subordination to it. of the civil power. The first of these revolutions gave Geneva its independence of the ducal power; the second, its moral regeneration and political sovereignty; the third, its greatness. These three revolutions did not only follow each other; they were linked together. Switzerland was bent on liberty, the human mind on emancipation.

The liberty of Switzerland made the independence of Geneva, the emancipation of the human mind made its reformation. These changes were not accomplished without difficulties, nor without wars. But if they troubled the peace of the city, if

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they agitated the people's hearts, if they divided families, if they occasioned imprisonments, if they caused blood to be shed in the streets, they tempered characters, they awoke minds, they purified morals, they formed citizens and men, and Geneva issued transformed from the trials through which it passed. It had been subject, and it had grown independent; it had been ignorant, and it had become one of the lights of Europe; it had been a little town, and it was now the Capital of a great Cause. Its science, its constitution, its greatness, were the work of France, through its exiles of the sixteenth century, who, unable to realise their ideas in their own country, had carried them into Switzerland, whose hospitality they repaid by giving them a new worship, and the spiritual government of many peoples."*

Geneva having thus been established as a great Protestant asylum and stronghold, mainly through the labours of Frenchmen-Calvin, Farel, De Beza, D'Aubigny, and many more-the fugitive Protestants naturally directed their steps thither in the first place. In 1685, hundreds of them were arriving in Geneva daily;

*MIGNET--Memoires Historiques, Paris, 1854, pp. 385-7. In one of his letters to the Duke of Savoy in 1594, Francis de Sales urged the speedy suppression of Geneva as the capital of heresy and Calvinism. "All the heretics," said he, "respect Geneva as the asylum of their religion: this very year a person came out of Languedoc to visit it as a Catholic might visit Rome. There is not a city in Europe which offers more facilities for the encouragement of heresy, for it is the gate of France, of Italy, and Germany, so that one finds there people of all nations-Italians, French, Germans, Poles, Spaniards, English, and of countries still more remote. Besides, every one knows the great number of

ministers bred there. Last year it furnished twenty to France; even England obtains ministers from Ge

neva.

What shall I say of its magnificent printing establishments, by means of which the city floods the world with its wicked books, and even goes the length of distributing them at the public expense? .. All the enterprises undertaken against the Holy See and the Catholic princes have their beginning at Geneva. No city in Europe receives more apostates of all grades, secular and regular. From thence I conclude that Geneva being destroyed would necessarily lead to the dissipation of heresy."-Vie de Ste. François de Sales, par son neveu; Lyons, 1633, pp. 120-1.

but as the place was already crowded, and the accommodation it provided was but limited, the greater number of the new arrivals travelled onward into the interior cantons. Two years later, the refugees were arriving in thousands, mostly from Dauphiny and Lyons; the greater number of them being Protestant artizans. As the persecution began to rage in Gex, close upon the Swiss frontier, it seemed as if the whole population were flying. Geneva became so crowded with fugitives that they had to camp out in the public squares.

The stream of emigrants was not less considerable at Basle, Zurich, Berne, and Lausanne. The ambassador of Louis XIV. wrote to his royal master—“The fugitives continue to crowd to Zurich; I met a number of them on the road from Basle to Soleure." A month later he informed his court that all the roads were full of French subjects making for Berne and Zurich ; and a third dispatch informed Louis that carts laden with fugitives were daily passing through the streets of Basle. As the fugitives were mostly destitute, the Protestant cantons provided a fund* to facilitate the

The city of Geneva was superbly bountiful. In 1685, the citizens contributed 88,161 florins to the Protestant refugee fund. As the emigration increased, so did their bounty, until, in 1707, they contributed as much as 234,672 florins towards the expenses of the emigration. "Within a period of forty years," says Graverol, in his History of the City of Nismes (London, 1703), "Geneva furnished

official contributions towards the assistance of the refugees of the Edict of Nantes, amounting to not less than 5,143,266 florins." The sums expended by the cantons of Berne and Vaud during the same period exceeded 4,000,000 florins. This expenditure was altogether exclusive of the individual contributions and private hospitality of the Swiss people, which were alike liberal and bountiful.

transit of those whom the country was unable to maintain. And thus 15,591 persons were forwarded to Germany at the expense of the League.

Louis XIV. beheld with vexation the departure of so large a portion of his subjects, who perferred flight with destitution rather than French citizenship with "conversion;" and he determined to interpose with a strong hand, so as, if possible, to prevent their further emigration. Accordingly, when the people of Gex went flying into Geneva in crowds, Louis called upon the magistrates at once to expel them. The republican city was then comparatively small and unarmed, and unable to resist the will of a monarch so powerful and with such long arms as Louis. The magistrates, therefore, made a show of compliance with his orders, and directed the expulsion of the fugitives by sound of trumpet. The exiles left by the French gate in a long and sad procession; but at midnight the citizens went forth and led them round the walls, bringing them into Geneva again by the Swiss gate. On this proceeding being reported to him, Louis vowed vengeance upon Geneva for thus trifling with his express orders, and giving refuge to his contumacious subjects. But Berne and Zurich having hastened to proffer their support to Geneva, the French king's threats remained unexecuted. The refugees, accordingly, remained in Switzerland, and settled in the various Protestant cantons, where they founded many important branches of industry, which continue to flourish to this day.

The Protestant refugees received a like cordial wel