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testants read it and knew it to be true, and soon a number of French colonies were formed in Brandenburg. Frederick William's country was poor; he had but two millions of subjects; his treasury was exhausted by a ruinous war; and he had great difficulty in raising the funds necessary for the establishment of the refugees, and for the support of those for whom employment could not at once be found. He emptied his privy purse. "I will sell my plate," he one day said, sooner than let them want." He was repaid for his generosity and sound policy. The difficulty was but temporary. The fugitives did not all come empty-handed. He received their money in deposit, allowed them interest, and applied the capital to the relief of the necessitous. Collections were made, and the French officers voluntarily abandoned a twentieth part of their pay for the relief of their suffering fellowexiles. To this fund the Duke of Schomberg subscribed the annual sum of 2000 livres, which was paid until his departure for England.

"The Electress, Louisa Henrietta, and the future queen, Sophia Charlotte, desired to have presented to them the women whom the rigours of persecution had driven from their country. With delicate attention, the court etiquette was modified in their favour, and they were admitted in black dresses-their best ornament the voluntary indigence they had preferred to apostasy."

Brandenburg received about 25,000 French refugees. Amongst these were 600 officers, whom the Elector admitted at once into his army, forming new companies and regiments to make room for them, and-with a degree of favour which can hardly have been very pleasing to the native officers giving them all a higher grade than that they had held in France. Thus captains became majors, colonels major-generals, &c., and

so on through all ranks. A great number of the Huguenots enlisted as private soldiers. Men and officers did good service, as soon as the opportunity was afforded them.

"The European war which broke out in 1689 was the bloody proof that attested their attachment to their adopted country. Frederick I. took part in it, as the ally of the Emperor, against the King of France, whom he had offended by assisting the Prince of Orange to upset James II. The army he assembled in Westphalia was composed in great part of French regiments. In the first campaign the refugees destroyed the opinion spread against them in Germany, that they would fight but feebly against their former fellowcitizens. At the combat of Neuss the grands mousquetaires* attacked the French troops with a fury that proved a long-cherished resentment, with which French writers have often reproached them. On seeing them gallop towards the enemy with the velocity of lightning, one of the Prussian generals exclaimed, We shall have those knaves fighting against us just now.' Count Dohna, who overheard these offensive words, compelled the general to draw pistol, and washed out, in his blood, this insult to the honour of the refugees." At the siege of Bonn the assault was given by the refugee regiments, who fought like fiends and took all the exterior works. Next morning the French garrison capitulated. In Flanders and in Italy the Franco-Prussians equally distinguished themselves, but were nearly exterminated, at the bloody battle of La Marsaille, by the bayonets of Catinat's army. Those that remained displayed their valour in the War of Succession, under the eyes of Marlborough and Eugene-at Blenheim and Õudenarde, at Malplaquet and Mons. Three regiments, composed entirely of refugees, performed such brilliant ex

ploits at Malplaquet, that, when the Prince-Royal of Prussia came to the throne, he selected from them the principal officers with which he reorganised his army.

Frederick William I., and Frederick the Great, did not show less sympathy than their father and grandfather had shown with the refugees and their descendants. Under the reign of the first-named sovereign, whom George II. was wont to call "my brother the corporal," and who passed his time in drilling his troops, reconnoitring gigantic grenadiers, and in drinking and smoking, the arts and sciences were little encouraged at the Prussian court, although Queen Sophia Dorothea did collect around her a number of learned and accomplished emigrants, some of whom were intrusted with the education of her son and daughter. But the refugees knew how to adapt themselves to circumstances. Frederick William gave new clothes to the whole of his army every year, and he had laid it down as a rule to have everything necessary for their equipment manufactured in his own kingdom. The French refugees founded a number of cloth manufactories, whose fame soon spread abroad-so much so, that in 1733, besides the home consumption, Prussia exported forty-four thousand pieces of cloth of twenty-four ells each. To favour this manufacture, which Prussia owed entirely to the refugees, the king forbade the export of wool, thus compelling his subjects to manufacture it themselves. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia became more French than ever. The refugees supplied generals, privy councillors, ambassadors; their language was substituted for Latin at the Berlin Academy, and was near becoming the national tongue. The French officers taken prisoners at the battle of Rosbach were greatly struck at meeting, in the country of their captivity, with a multitude of their countrymen, and at hearing their language almost generally used in all the provinces of the Prussian monarchy. Notwithstanding his scepticism, Frederick the Great never ceased warmly to sympathise with the religious, Godfearing French Protestants. He deemed himself happy, he said, in his

old age, to have lived long enough to celebrate with them, in 1785, the jubilee of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But the French were gradually blending with the native population and losing trace of their origin. "At the present day," Mr Weiss informs us, "the French colony at Berlin is still about six thousand strong, and, all proportion kept, their morality is purer than that of the rest of the population. The number of suicides, illegitimate births, and crimes of all kinds, is smaller. The rigid spirit of Calvin still animates the descendants of his expatriated sectaries." The old men alone continue to speak the French tongue. Intermarriages, and intercourse with Germans, have brought about its disuse amongst the younger descendants of the emigrants. Frederick the Great despised German literature, and a strong reaction occurred after his death. The disaster of Jena, and the treaty of Tilsit, made everything French unpopular in Prussia-even the language. Many of the refugees had already translated their names into German-as some of their brethren translated theirs into English when the French Revolution and subsequent war made the very name of Frenchman odious in England. The Lacroix, Laforge, Dupré, Savage, had taken the names of Kreutz, Schmidt, Wiese, Wild.

To English readers-perhaps to any readers-the most interesting section of Mr Weiss's work is the third book, "The Refugees in England." For more than a century previously to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, this country had supported the cause of the French Protestants, alternately by peaceable negotiation and by force of arms. In 1562, Elizabeth signed the Treaty of Hampton Court, by which she bound herself to furnish six thousand men to the Prince of Condé-half these troops to defend Dieppe and Rouen, the other half to garrison Havre, which was delivered over to the English. But Harry the Eighth's daughter, that staunch and stubborn Defender of the Faith, had to do with a fickle ally. The defeat of Dreux and the treaty of Amboise threw Condé into the ranks of the royal army, and he assisted to take

Havre from the Earl of Warwick-an act of ingratitude from which Coligny and Dandelot abstained, whilst some Protestant gentlemen, preferring the voice of conscience to that of patriotism, threw themselves into the besieged town to aid in its defence. Elizabeth might well have been disgusted by Condé's conduct and her troops' ill success, but she doubtless shared the belief then entertained by the majority of her subjects, that the fall of Calvinism in France would be a prelude to that of Protestantism in England, and when hostilities again broke out she sent money and artillery to the Huguenots. Mignet has told us, and Mr Weiss repeats, the tale of her grief and indignation at the bloody day of St Bartholomew. "For several days after the massacre she refused to give audience to La Mothe Fénélon, the French ambassador. When at last she consented to admit him to her presence, she received him in her privy chamber, which had the gloomy aspect of a tomb. She was surrounded by the lords of her council and ladies of her court, all attired in deep mourning. The ambassador passed through the silent throng, whilst every eye was averted from him in anger, and approached the queen, who compelled him to justify Charles IX. from that odious crime." More than this, she allowed Montgomery to fit out, upon English ground, an expedition for the relief of La Rochelle, then threatened with a siege; and subsequently, after the death of Henry III., supplied his successor with money and men in his contest with the League and the King of Spain.

The Stuarts continued the support afforded to the French Protestants by their illustrious predecessor; and when that great uncrowned sovereign, sturdy Oliver Cromwell, came to power, it may well be supposed that he was not backward to succour them. "His glorious dictatorship," says Mr Weiss, "replaced England at the head of the Protestant party in Europe." The Protector had no need to draw the sword, efficiently to aid his suffering co-religionists. His name was a tower of strength, his word alone had every where weight. Instead of allying himself with partisans who, like

Condé, might have turned their coats and left auxiliaries in the lurch, he went to the fountainhead. When the Vaudois were cruelly persecuted in 1655, he made Cardinal Mazarin ashamed of the part taken by French troops in that exterminating war. The Cardinal disowned the leaders of those troops, and interceded with the Duke of Savoy in favour of the sufferers. His intercession was perhaps less potent than a menacing letter written by Cromwell to the duke, who forthwith gave way and revoked his bloody edict of proscription. Cromwell then sent assistance to the Vaudois, who had endured terrible calamities, and extended his protection even to the Protestants of Nismes and the Cevennes. In the course of his researches Mr Weiss has disinterred a characteristic postscript to a letter written by the English ruler to the Cardinal. There had been disturbances at Nismes in 1657, and the Catholic party fiercely demanded the chastisement of the Huguenots. Instead of complying with their request, Mazarin granted an amnesty.

"He had just received a despatch from Cromwell, containing the plan of the approaching campaign, and informing him of the operations prescribed to the English fleets in the Mediterranean and on the ocean. The Protector added his opinion on the attacks to be directed against Austria by the armies of Sweden, Portugal, and France, and concluded with the following words, negligently thrown out: Something has occurred in a town of Languedoc, called Nismes. I beg of you to let everything pass without effusion of blood, and as gently as may be.""

Such being the habitual policy of the English sovereigns in the seventeenth century, it is not surprising that England was a favourite refuge with the persecuted amongst the foreign Protestants. Previously to this, so early as the second half of the sixteenth century, the massacre of St Bartholomew, and the Duke of Alva's cruelties, had driven thousands of French and Flemings to Britain's hospitable shores. Their advent and residence were encouraged in the wellfounded expectation that their skill and industry would benefit their adopted

country. Numerous churches were founded in London and the provinces. Their first place of worship was assigned to them by Edward VI., in 1550. It is now the Dutch church in Austin Friars, in the city of London. A few months later they obtained from the Chapter of Windsor the grant of the chapel of St Anthony, in Threadneedle Street. Driven thence by Bloody Mary, they resumed occupation on Elizabeth's accession. During the whole of her long reign, that great queen lavished upon them marks of her favour. When, in consequence of the persecutions in France under Charles IX., their numbers so increased that the more affluent amongst them were unable to supply the wants of the necessitous, she recommended them to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who assisted them. Subsequently, on two occasions, she protected them from the animosity of the London 'prentices, shopkeepers, and artisans, who, jealous of their foreign rivals, loudly demanded their expulsion from England.

The papist Stuart, James II., dared not deviate from his predecessors' policy with regard to the Protestant refugees. Perhaps, indeed, he had no desire to do so; for, with all his attachment to Rome, it is but just to admit that he was not a persecuting monarch. His offence was the favour he showed the Catholics, not oppression of the reformed church. Mr Weiss, in some very interesting pages, exhibits him in great perplexity and conflict with himself. His religious convictions pulled him one way, public opinion and political necessity impelled him in an opposite direction, and obliged him, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to publish an edict favourable to the French refugees. Whilst admitting the impossibility of an exact estimate, Mr Weiss

states at 80,000 the number of those who established themselves in England during the ten years preceding and following the revocation. "During the years 1686, 1687, and 1688, the Consistory of the French church in London, which held its meetings at least once a-week, was occupied almost exclusively in receiving the marks of repentance of those who, after abjuring their faith to save their lives, resumed, in a more tolerant country, the religion they preferred to their native land. The ministers examined their testimony, heard their narratives of their sufferings, and received them back into the communion of their brethren." The old church in Threadneedle Street, and those in the Savoy, Marylebone, and Castle Street, were all insufficient to contain the increasing throng of the faithful. On the prayer of the Consistory, James II. gave license for the erection of a fifth temple in Spitalfields. But although he could not refuse such facilities, in other respects he acted in complete concert with Louis XIV. Whilst the French king converted his Protestant subjects at the sabre's edge, the English sovereign recalled the Jesuits, received the nuncio, and emancipated the Catholics. Louis derived unbounded confidence from the apparent progress of Popery in England; James was confirmed in his fatal course by his conviction of the complete victory of Catholicism in France. But the crowds of fugitives that poured into this country, and their report of their sufferings, so excited the English public that the Catholics themselves were alarmed, and James and the nuncio requested the French ambassador and the Marquis of Bonrepaus, who had just arrived in London on a special mission,* to calm the fermentation by disavowing the persecutions attributed, only too truly,

to their magnificent and merciless master-a strange and not very dignified exculpation of the most puissant of European monarchs, which the French envoys were fain to make to James's favourite councillors, Lords Castlemaine, Dover, and Tyrconnel.

The English king, daily more impressed with the not unfounded belief that the French refugees were his secret enemies, and the future allies of William of Orange, still was compelled to protect and aid them. The richer portion of the fugitives had generally sought asylum in Hollandmost of those who came to England were poor. "The London Mint received, it is true, during the first four months following the revocation, fifty thousand pistoles in specie to convert into English money; and the French ambassador wrote to Louis XIV. in 1687, that 960,000 louis-d'ors had already been melted down in England. But these considerable sums were the property of a small number of great families. Most of the fugitives landed in a state of extreme destitution. James II. authorised collections for their benefit." £200,000 (an immense sum in those days) were thus obtained, and employed to alleviate the misery of the exiles, with whom sympathy was general and immense. In the course of one year (1687), 15,500 French Protestants were succoured by British generosity: 13,000 of these were settled in London, and 2000 in the different seaport towns where they had landed. Amongst them were 140 persons of quality, and numerous members of the learned professions. Many of their sons obtained employment in the first mercantile houses. About 150 entered the army, and we shall presently see what brilliant services some of them rendered. The clergy and the infirm were pensioned from the fund collected; most of the workmen and artisans were employed in English manufactories. 600 of the latter, for whom employment could not be obtained in England, were sent to America by the French committee appointed to the management of the fund, who also supplied money to build fifteen churches-three in London, and twelve in provincial towns where refugees had settled.

Protestant England, already indignant at the false and hypocritical exculpation of the French king concocted between his ambassadors, James II., and the Pope's nuncio, was doubly incensed, a few months later, by the well-known incident of the burning of Claude's book. Claude, formerly minister of the great temple at Charenton, had taken refuge in Holland, where he published a book, entitled: The Complaints of the Protestants cruelly persecuted in the Kingdom of France. It was translated into English, and made a great sensation in London. The French ambassador urged James to testify his disapproval of it. The king convoked his council, and insisted that the book should be burned by the hangman's hand. There was opposition in the council, but James carried his point, and the book was burned accordingly, in presence of the sheriff, and of an exasperated mob. The impression produced throughout England by this concession to Louis XIV. was such, that Barillon, the French ambassador, was alarmed, and wrote to his master that nothing, since the beginning of James's reign, had taken a more violent effect on the public mind. About this time the English king forbade the officers of his guards to enlist foreigners; and so strong was his desire to see the refugees quit England, that he favoured, to the utmost of his power, a wild project conceived by the Marquis de Miremont, who proposed to lead his fellow-exiles to Hungary, to fight against the Turks under the banners of the Empire. James's manœuvres and intrigues were put an end to only by his deposition.

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"The most important service rendered to England by the refugees," says Mr Weiss, at the commencement of the extremely interesting second chapter of his Third Book, was the energetic support they gave to William of Orange against James II. When the prince embarked at the port of Naerden, and sailed to dethrone his father-in-law, his little army consisted but of 11,000 infantry, and 4000 horse. But these troops comprised a chosen body of three regiments of infantry, and one squadron of cavalry, composed entirely of refugees. Each regiment numbered 750 fighting men.

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