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THE reputations of remarkable men, and especially of renowned monarchs, are very variously affected by the lapse of time. A retrospective glance through centuries shows them to us alternately magnified or diminished. For some, although a brilliant halo still surround their names, the world's esteem daily lessens; whilst the fame of others, based upon the rock, is but ripened and confirmed by its antiquity. Contemporaries are often dazzled and fascinated by unprofitable glory and showy achievements; posterity judges by results, which history is sometimes tardy to reveal. The splendour of the earlier period of Louis the Fourteenth's long reign, still blinds millions to the errors, crimes, and disasters of its latter half. In France, the Grand Monarque is, to this day, the object of an irrational hero-worship. To assail his memory is there impiety; and the few Frenchmen who, from research and reflection, have formed a just estimate of his real merits, shrink from running counter to the flood of public infatuation. Foreigners may be permitted more impartially to appreciate that king's character and actions. They are bound by no traditional faith in his perfections; nor has the " veneration" which an English king thought

it not unbecoming to express, by the mouth of his ambassador, for the French monarch, by any means descended to the subjects of William the Third's successors. Complacently dwelling upon his triumphs, upon the progress in France, during the first part of his career, of arts and arms, of literature, learning, and civilisation, the fond admirers of the fourteenth Louis artfully avert their gaze from his subsequent reverses, and from the intolerable bigotry and egotism that sullied his declining years. So long as he pursued the wise policy of the Béarnais, of Richelieu, and of Mazarin, glory and prosperity attended him he quitted that path, became a bigot and a persecutor, and disgust and weariness were his portion. The blackest stain upon his reign, the most grievous mistake ever made by monarch, the most fatal of errors, in its effects upon the future of France, was his heartless persecution of his Protestant subjects. Alike barbarous and impolitic, it alone suffices to wither his laurels and cancel his fame. The revenge of history, often slow, is ever sure. And now, nearly a century and a half after his death, facts as yet concealed, or known but to very few-are brought to light. They tend to show that, to

Histoire des Réfugiés Protestants de France, depuis la Révocation de l'Edit de Nantes jusqu'à nos jours. Par M. Ch. WEISS, Professeur d'Histoire au Lycée Bonaparte. 2 Volumes. Paris, Charpentier; Londres, Jeffs: 1853.

VOL. LXXIV.-NO. CCCCLIII.

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the reign in which France attained the apogee of her splendour and prosperity, is to be traced the origin of much of the discord and misery under which she since has groaned.

In no French work do we remember a passage so nearly approaching to a denunciation, temperately and forcibly expressed, of Louis XIV.'s criminal errors, as the following page of Mr Weiss's new history.

"The kingdom," says the learned professor, "which Louis XIV. received covered with glory, powerful by its arms, preponderant abroad, tranquil and contented at home, he transmitted to his successor humbled, enfeebled, dissatisfied, ready to undergo the reaction of the Regency, and of the whole of the eighteenth century, and thus placed upon the fatal slope conducting to the Revolution of 1789. To the formidable encroachments of a prince ruled, during the latter part of his reign, by a narrow and exclusive spirit in religious matters, and, in his policy, by views that were rather dynastic than national, Protestantism opposed an insurmountable barrier in England and Holland united under one chief, who led the whole of Europe against isolated France. The signal of coalitions -since so often re-formed-was given for the first time in 1689, and, also for the first time, France was vanquished, for the Treaty of Ryswick was in fact a defeat. Not only the king acknowledged William III., but his intendants officially recorded the diminution of the population, and the impoverishment of the kingdom inevitable consequences of the emigration, and of the ensuing decline in agriculture, manufactures, and trade. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the safety of France was compromised, in a military sense. Early in the struggle which followed the acceptance of the will of Charles II., Marshal Villars had to be sent for from Germany to combat the insurgents of the Cevennes ; and no sooner had that skilful commander quitted the army than the Allies won the vic

tory of Hochstedt, the first of our great disasters in the War of Succession. During the reign of Louis XV., whenever the allied powers threatened our frontiers, the government was obliged to purchase the fidelity of the Protestants in the border provinces, by promises constantly renewed and never fulfilled. But was even the religious result, pursued at the cost of so many sacrifices, ultimately attained? At the period of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes the population of France was about twenty millions, and included one million of Protestants. At the present day, from fifteen to eighteen hundred thousand Protestants live disseminated amongst thirty-five million Catholics. The proportion between the two religions has not varied. Enforced during a whole century, Louis XIV.'s cruel laws, further aggravated by the decree of 1724, proved powerless against the religious convictions they were intended to annihilate."

An examination of Mr Weiss's book cannot better be commenced than by the quotation of its last few lines-the closing sentences of an eloquent chapter, whose publication preceded that of the work itself. "By writing," he says, "the history of these martyrs of their faith, we believe that, besides performing a pious duty, we have filled up a void in our national history. The annals of France were not to remain for ever closed to the destinies-often glorious, always honourable-of the scattered refugees. We have studied the vicissitudes of their various fortunes, sought out the traces of their sufferings and triumphs, displayed and proved their salutary influence in the most diverse countries; and, if it has not been granted to us to erect to them a durable monument, we at least shall have contributed to rescue from oblivion great and noble recollections, that deserve to live in the memory of man, and of which France herself has reason to be proud." Without wasting in eulogium space which will be better occupied by an analysis of a portion of Mr

*This concluding chapter appeared, under the title of "A General Appreciation of the Consequences of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," in the twelfth number of a French Protestant periodical," Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français," published at Paris in April of the present year.

Weiss's interesting book, we will briefly say that he deserves credit no less for what he has abstained from than for what he has performed. In treating so copious a subject, the temptation to prolixity was great; it has been magnanimously resisted. Mr Weiss has borne steadily in mind that he had undertaken to write a history, not of French Protestantism, but of those French Protestants whom persecution drove from their native land, to enrich other countries by their toil and talents, and, in many instances, valiantly to defend the land of their adoption against the armies of the nation that had rejected them. Profoundly versed in history, himself a zealous Protestant, Mr Weiss has devoted many years of labour and research to the production of these two volumes. He has visited the countries where the refugees founded colonies-in some of which, although a century and a half has since elapsed, French is still the spoken tongue. England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, have in turn received him, and in all he has culled voluminous and important materials for his work. The archives of his own country have swollen the mass of matter, further augmented by the results of researches recently made in Germany by French diplomatists, by order of two ministers of Foreign Affairs, MM. Drouyn de Lhuys and Lahitte. Most of the foreign documents, many of the French ones, were unpublished, and entirely unknown to the world. The persecut ing government of Louis XIV. feared the effect that might be produced upon the less bigoted sections of the Roman Catholics, by a disclosure of the shameful injustice and cruel oppression to which their Protestant fellowcountrymen were subjected. Perhaps, also, a feeling of shame-inadequate to temper fanatical ardour, but sufficiently powerful to bring a blush for such barbarity-induced that and succeeding governments to conceal, as much as possible, the amount of misery, and the grievous detriment to France, originally occasioned by the intolerant spirit of Louis XIV. and his counsellors. The satisfaction with which a large portion of the nation beheld the Huguenots once more driven to the wall, and trodden under

foot, might have been materially lessened, and even converted into indignation and alarm, had it been known that the refugees were taking with them far more than their numerical proportion of the pith and vigour, virtue and valour, of France.

Few historians would have had resolution to confine themselves to their exact theme so strictly as Mr Weiss has done. Many would assuredly have given a volume or two to that preliminary and accessory branch of the subject, which he has admirably compressed into his First Book, of one hundred and twenty pages. Even those persons best versed in the history of the French Protestants during the eighty-seven years that elapsed between the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes and its revocation, will read with fresh and lively interest this succinct narrative. Mr Weiss possesses, in an eminent degree, the talent of compression, combined with a satisfactory lucidity of style and arrangement-attributable, we presume, partly to great painstaking and revision, and partly to his vocation of historical professor, which has habituated him to convey instruction in the clearest and most intelligible man

ner.

He commences by dividing that term of eighty-seven years into three principal periods. During the firstextending from the publication of the celebrated edict which closed, in 1598, the bloody civil wars of the sixteenth century, to the capture of La Rochelle in 1629-the Protestants imprudently meddled in the troubles that distracted the regency of Mary de Medicis and the early years of Louis XIII.'s majority. Deprived, successively, of all the towns allotted them as places of refuge and security, and of their political organisation, they ceased to form a recognised body in the state. The second period extends from the capture of La Rochelle to the commencement, in 1662, of Louis XIV.'s persecutions. During that time the Protestants were a mere religious party, from which, little by little, its most influential chiefs withdrew themselves. They had laid aside their arms; instead of impoverishing France by strife, they enriched her by their industry. It had been wise and Christian-like to abstain from

molesting good subjects, who asked but liberty to pray to God in the way their conscience dictated. Such liberty was not long vouchsafed to them. Between 1662 and 1685, they were excluded from all public employments, attacked in their civil and religious rights, and, finally, by the revocation, compelled to change their religion, or fly their country.

Passing over the historian's rapid sketch of the events of the first period, the reader's attention is infallibly arrested by his novel and striking picture of the state of the French Protestants during the thirty years of repose that followed the siege of La Rochelle, and preceded the persecutions. Repulsed from court, gradually excluded from office of every kind, they fell back upon those natural resources of which none could deprive them-upon their industry, perseverance, and ingenuity. "The vast plains they possessed in Béarn, and in the western provinces, were covered with rich harvests; the parts of Languedoc occupied by them became the most fertile and the best cultivated-often in spite of poverty of soil. Thanks to their indefatigable toil, that province, so long devastated by civil wars, rose from its ruins. In the mountainous diocese of Alais, which includes the Lower Cevennes, the chestnut-tree supplied the inhabitants with food, which they piously compared to the manna wherewith God nourished the Israelites in the desert. The Aigoal and the Esperou, the two loftiest mountains of that chain, were covered with forests and pastures, where their flocks grazed. On the Esperou was particularly remarked a plain enamelled with flowers, and intersected by numerous springs, which preserved the freshness of its verdure in summer's greatest heat. The inhabitants called it the Hort-Diou, or Garden of God. The part of the Vivarais known as the Mountain produced corn in such great abundance that it far exceeded the consumption. The diocese of Uzès also yielded quantities of corn, and exquisite oil and wine. In the diocese of Nismes, the valley of Vaunage was renowned for the richness of its vegetation. The Protestants, who possessed within its limits more than sixty temples, called

it Little Canaan. In Berri, the skilful wine-growers restored that country to its former state of prosperity." In the towns, the Protestants were not less remarkable for their manufacturing and commercial intelligence and success, than were their rural brethren for their proficiency in agriculture. By irrefragable documents-despatches and memorials from government officials, conceived, for the most part, in a spirit hostile to the Huguenots-Mr Weiss shows that in many districts and cities commerce was entirely in their hands. This was the case in Guienne, where nearly all the trade in wine was transacted by them; in the two governments of Brouage and Alençon, where a dozen Protestant families monopolised the trade in salt and wine, amounting annually to twelve or fifteen hundred thousand livres. At Sancerre, the intendant (M. de Seraucourt) admitted that they were superior to the Catholics in numbers, wealth, and consideration. At Rouen, at Caen, at Metz, nearly the whole of the trade was carried on by them. The governor of the lastnamed town recommended the ministers of Louis XIV. to show them "particular attention, much gentleness and patience," inasmuch, he said, as "they have all trade in their hands." Little attention was paid to the judicious recommendation. long as fourteen years after the Revocation, Baville, the intendant of Languedoc, a cruel persecutor of the Protestants, wrote as follows: "If the merchants of Nismes are still bad Catholics, at least they have not ceased to be very good traders. Generally speaking, all the new converts are more at their ease, more laborious and industrious, than the old Catholics of the province." Bordeaux, La Rochelle, and the Norman ports, were indebted to members of the Reformed church for great increase of trade. "The English and Dutch had more confidence in them than in the Catholic merchants, and were more willing to correspond with them." Our restricted space prevents us from giving much of the curious statistical information supplied by Mr Weiss. The Protestants were the first to adopt in France the system (already prevailing in England and

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