CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCLUSION-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

WHILE such were the results of the settlement of the Protestant refugees in England, let us briefly glance at the effect of their banishment on the countries which drove them forth.

The persecutions in Flanders and France doubtless succeeded after a sort. Philip II. crushed Protestantism in Flanders as he did in Spain, to the temporary ruin of the one country and the debasement of the other. Flanders eventually became lost to the Spanish crown, though it has since entered upon a new and prosperous career under the constitutional government of Belgium; but Spain sank until she reached the very lowest rank among the nations of Europe. The Inquisition flourished, but the life of the nation decayed. Spain lost her commerce, her colonies, her credit, her intellect, her character. She became a country of émeutes, revolutions, pronunciamentos, repudiations, and intrigues. We have only to look at Spain now. If it be true that in the long run the collective character of a nation is fairly represented by its government and its rulers, the character of Spain must have fallen very low indeed.

And how fared it with France after the banishment

of her Huguenots? So far as regarded the suppression of Protestantism, Louis XIV. may also be said to have succeeded. For more than a century, that form of religion visibly ceased to exist in France. The Protestants had neither rights nor privileges, and not even a vestige of liberty, for they were placed entirely beyond the pale of the law. Such of them as would not be dragooned into conformity to the Roman Catholic religion, were cast into prison or sent to the galleys. If the Protestants were not stamped wholly out of existence, at least they were stamped out of sight; and if they continued to worship, it was in secret only-in caves, among the hills, or in "the Desert." Indeed, no measure of suppression could have been more complete. But now see with what results.

One thing especially strikes the intelligent reader of French history subsequent to the Act of Revocation, -and that is, the almost total disappearance of great men in France. After that date, we become conscious of a dull, dead level of subserviency and conformity to the despotic will of the king. Louis trampled under foot individuality, strength, and genius; and there remained only mediocrity, feebleness, and flunkeyism. This feature of the time has been noted by writers

* In the reign of Louis XIV. a sonnet was privately circulated, from which the following is an extract :

Ce peuple que jadis Dieu gouvernait lui-même
Trop las de son bonheur, voulait avoir un Roi,
He bien, dit le Seigneur, peuple ingrat et sans foi,
Tu sentiras bientot le poids du diadème.

*

Ainsi règne aujourd'hui par les voeux de la France
Ce Monarque absolu qu'on nomme Dieu-donné.

so various as De Felice, Merivale, Michelet, and Buckle -the last of whom goes so far as to say that Louis XIV. survived the entire intellect of the French nation."*

The Protestant universities of Saumur, Montauban, Nismes, and Sedan were suppressed, and the professors in them departed into other lands. All Protestant schools were closed, and the whole educational organisation of the nation was placed in the hands of the Jesuits. War was declared against the books forbidden by the Church of Rome. Domiciliary visits were paid by the district commanders to every person suspected of possessing them; and all devotional books of sermons and hymns as well as Bibles and Testaments that could be found, were ruthlessly burned.+

* M. Puaux, referring to the measures so servilely passed by the French Parliament legalising and aggrandis ing the illegitimate offspring of Louis XIV., and declaring them princes of the blood capable of succeeding to the throne, goes on to say-" At sight of these councillors of the red robe, who trembled before the old Sultan of Versailles in sanctioning the glaring scandals of his life, one is justified in asking whether Frenchmen continued to retain the courage displayed by them on so many a field of battle, and whether the cruel saying of Paul-Louis Courier be not true: 'Frenchmen, you are the most flunkeyish of all peoples!' (Français, vous êtes le plus valet de tous le peuples). We blush as we write the lines, at the same time avowing our belief, which we do with pride, that the Great King would never have obtained from

a Huguenot court what was so servilely granted him by a Catholic one."-PUAUX-Histoire de la Reformation Française, tom. vii. p. 64.

Louis XV., who succeeded to Louis XIV., pursued the same policy of book-burning. On the 25th of April 1727 he issued an edict ordering all "new converts" [i.e. Protestants who had been compelled to conform, or pretended to conform, to Popery] to deliver up all books relating to religion within fifteen days, for the purpose of being burnt in presence of the commandants of the respective districts. Those who did not so deliver up their books were heavily fined; and if found guilty a second time of withholding their books, they were to be sentenced to three years' banishment and a fine amounting to not less than one-third the value of their entire property. This measure com

.

There was an end for a time of political and religious liberty in France. Freedom of thought and freedom of worship were alike crushed; and then the new epoch began of mental stagnation, political depravity, religious hypocrisy, and moral decay. With the great men of the first half of Louis XIV.'s reign, the intellectual greatness of France disappeared for nearly a century. The Act of Revocation of 1685 cut the history of his reign in two: everything before, nothing after. There was no great statesman after Colbert. At his death in 1683, the policy which he had so laboriously and so grandly initiated was summarily overthrown. The military and naval genius of France seemed alike paralysed. The great victories of Condé and Turenne on land, and of Duquesne at sea, preceded the Revocation. After that, Louis' army was employed for years in hunting and dragonnading the Huguenots, which completely demoralised them; so that his next campaign, that of 1688, began in disaster and ended in disgrace.

The same barrenness fell upon literature. Molière, the greatest of French comedians, died of melancholy

pleted the destruction of the Protestant libraries. The dragoons were the Omars of the time, and ruthlessly carried out the royal edict for the destruction of Protestant literature. In most of the towns and villages throughout France, great bonfires were lit, into which were cast thousands of volumes, including Bibles and Testaments. Hence the great rarity of some of the earlier editions

of the Scriptures, which are now only to be met with out of France. The most considerable auto-da-Ď of this kind took place at Beaucaire, where many thousand volumes of rare and valuable books were consumed on a great pile lit in front of the Hotel de Ville, in the presence of the municipal authorities, and of M. de Beaulieu, sub-delegate of the intendant of Languedoc.

in 1674. Racine, the greatest of French poets and dramatists, died in 1697, but his genius may be said to have culminated with the production of Phædre in 1676. Corneille died in 1684, but his last, though not his greatest work, Surena, was produced in 1674. La Fontaine published his last fables in 1679.

With Pascal, a man as remarkable for his piety as for his genius, expired in 1662 the last free utterance of the Roman Catholic Church in France. He died protesting to the last against the immorality and despotism of the principles of the Jesuits. It is true, after the Revocation, there remained of the great French clergy, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fénélon. They were, however, the products of the first half of Louis' reign, and they were the last of their race. For we shall find that the effect of the king's policy was to strike with paralysis the very church which he sought exclusively to establish and maintain.

After this period, we seem to tread a dreary waste in French history. True loyalty became extinguished, and even patriotism seemed to have expired. Literature, science, and the arts, almost died out, and there remained a silence almost as of the grave, broken only by the noise of the revelries at court, amidst which there rose up from time to time the ominous wailings of the gaunt and famishing multitude.

The policy of Louis XIV. had succeeded, and France was at length "converted." Protestantism had been crushed, and the Jesuits were triumphant. Their power over the bodies and souls of the people was as