Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/719

Rh FRANCE.] PRESBYTER IANISM 695 Henry IV. s task after Ivry. To secure the latter he put out an edict of toleration ; to gain the former he was &quot;converted&quot; to Catholicism in 1593. The Presbyterian Aristocracy now took a most important step. In May 1594 they held a political meeting at Sainte Foy and formally established a political imperium in imperio of the most decided character. France was divided into ten sections for administrative purposes. There was a general council of four nobles, four bourgeois, two clergy, the numbers being afterwards raised to twelve, twelve, and six. Under the general council were the provincial councils of five or seven members, of whom only one was necessarily a minister. The general council acted as an intermediary between the whole body of the Calvinists and the king. Owing doubtless to its operation Henry, whose leading idea was national unity, in April 1598 (&quot;Tan de salut&quot;) put forth the Edict of Nantes, which practically conceded entire liberty of conscience to the Presbyterians. The truce lasted during the rest of Henry s reign. Synods were re gularly held, and the language of controversy became more bitter. At Gap, in 1603, the pope was declared to be Antichrist, and this declaration was in force until 1637, when the synod of Alenc,on was compelled to expunge it. At the synod of Gap it was reported that there were 760 organized churches, with 565 ministers. The ministry now received from the king a subsidy of 40,000 crowns, the distribution of which took up a large part of the time of subsequent synods. In spite of the confirmations of the Edict which followed Henry s death, the anxious Presby terians held another political synod at Saumur in 1611, when they swore faith to the crown, &quot; le souverain empire de Dieu demeurant toujours en son entier.&quot; In 1620 the political assembly met at La Rochelle, when they confis cated all property belonging to Catholic churches, struck a great seal, levied arms and taxes, organized the church, and divided France into eight military districts. The aus terity and intolerance displayed at the synods at this time were intense (see Buckle, vol. ii. p. 57, ed. 1867). The war, however, was disastrous to the Presbyterians, and at the peace of Montpellier the cessation of political meetings was insisted upon. The policy of Richelieu was that of Henry IV., protection as regarded religion, and a stead fast refusal to permit any political &quot; league &quot; which tended against the concentration of French nationality. The result of his treatment of combined conciliation and repres sion and of the attractions of the court on the nobility was that the Presbyterians, as a political party, ceased to exist. The number of churches, too, greatly diminished : in 1603 there were 760, in 1619 only 700. Mazarin pursued the same course; and his assent in 1660 to the synod of Loudun was the last favour they received. The action of the fourteen synods held since 1600 had been (as was also the case in Scotland) in the direction of increasing the power of the minister and diminishing that of the elders and congregations (Vitre in 1603, La Ptochelle in 1607, and Gap in 1617), and to define the relations with the state. From 1623 (Charenton) a royal commissioner was always present, and year by year the increasing subserviency of their language shows that the national synods were coming more and more under royal control. In 1637 (Alencon) the royal commissioner, who openly taunted them with their powerlessness, forbade not only the provincial synods but even intercourse of the Peul of national synods with the provinces. In 1657 meetings peicn- f or the choice of ministers were prohibited, and then the colloques were suppressed. At Loudun in 1659 the national synod was forbidden and the provincial synods were restored. The greatest jealousy, too, was shown by the crown in respect of communication with other countries. No one might be a minister who was not born in France, or who had studied in Geneva, Holland, or England, the hot-beds of republicanism. The Presbyterians showed a corresponding desire for union with other Protestants. In 1620 they accepted the confession of the synod of Dort ; in 1631, for the first time, they held out the hand of fellow ship to the Lutherans. In 1614 an attempt had been already made to convene a general council of orthodox churches from all Protestant countries ; and an oath of union was taken among themselves, repeated at Charenton in 1623. With two parties alone they would accept no union, Roman Catholics and Independents. Of the time of horrors which reached its climax in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 we can give no account here. The provincial synods were held continu ously and were of great importance in preserving the vitality and spirit of the church. Thus in 1661 the pro vincial synod of Nimes checked defection by compelling every minister within its bounds to swear that he had not thought of joining &quot; light to darkness and God to Belial.&quot; 1 It is reckoned that under the persecution, in addition to the killed, from four to five millions of French Protestants left the country. Armed resistance took place, but no settled struggle until 1702, when the war of the Camisards took place in Languedoc, a war of uneducated peasants without arms or leaders of rank. Like the Cameronians, they believed that they received direct communications from God ; they had their prophets or &quot; inspires&quot;; they lived in a state of religious ecstasy, and bore with patient defiance spoliation, the galleys, and death ; and, when opportunity offered, they exercised against their enemies reprisals as cruel as was the persecution itself. For three years every effort to crush them was made in vain ; and they yielded at last only to the moderate measures of Villars. To abolish the undisciplined rule of the &quot;inspires&quot; and to Antoine restore Presbyterianism, which had ceased since the revo- Court, cation, was the work of Antoine Court, the most notable figure produced by Protestant France. From 1715 to 1730, without a day s rest, this man accomplished a work truly marvellous. He was but eighteen years old when he began it. In momentary peril of death for fifteen years, he restored in the Vivarais and the Cevennes the Presby terian constitution in all its integrity. On 21st August 1715 he assembled his first colloque, consisting of the preachers of the Cevennes and several laymen. In 1718 he held a synod of forty-five members, and again in 1723, when the old discipline was restored. In 1726 he held another synod attended by three ministers and forty-four elders, and again in the next year; and in 1744, in a re mote spot of Bas Languedoc, the first national synod since 1660 brought together representatives from every province formerly Protestant. This alarmed the Government, and persecution again began. From 1760, however, thanks to the gradual spread of the sceptical spirit and to the teach ings of Voltaire, more tolerant views prevailed ; synods were held without disturbance; and in 1787 Turgot, whose great object was to separate the civil and the spiritual domains, put out the Edict of Tolerance. In 1789 all citizens were made equal before the law, and the position of Presbyterianism improved up to 1791. Napoleon in Napo- 1801 and 1802 took into his own hands the independence leon s of both Catholic and Protestant churches. The consistory was abolished and replaced by an &quot; eglise consistoriale,&quot; uniting several churches. Representation on the &quot; premier consistoire &quot; of this &quot; eglise &quot; was now determined by taxa tion instead of by choice of the people. Five &quot;eglises consistoriales &quot; formed a &quot; synode d arrondissement,&quot; which superseded the provincial synod. It consisted of ten mem bers only, and was absolutely under state control. The 1 See Borrel for tliis and for a most interesting account of the action of the consistory of Nimes iu 1663.