Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/245

 share of ferocity, which once was common among its barbarous ancestors, is that whose vanity is the most active — France. The cruelty of the French differs from everything that has hitherto been related; or could it be compared to any other, it must be to the cruelty to the Jews. French cruelty flourishes amid the most advanced progress of the social arts. It rages amid great urbanity, much apparent amenity, and a thoughtlessness which seems to bid defiance to deep-seated benevolence French cruelties have always been committed by one part of the nation upon the other, when both the contending parties were of course equal in civilisation. A humane and civilised nation, struggling with ferocious barbarians, may be so exasperated as to forget its natural moderation, and to become as cruel as its antagonists; but when it fights within itself it has no ferocity to excite its vengeance but its own. It is thus, pure and unalloyed by foreign inhumanity, that the cruelty of nations ought to be judged. (Chap. VI., 190-2).” “It has been asserted that the British nation has shed more blood upon the scaffold than any in modern, or perhaps in ancient history; but this charge is quite unfounded. . . . The horror which such executions excite is the reason why the historian dwells upon them. . . . When the Duke of Alva boasted at Madrid that, during his administration of the Low Countries, eighteen thousand persons had been executed on the scaffold by his order, one sweeping phrase includes the whole transaction, together with thirty thousand more who perished for religion by other means; but when the reign of Mary is described by English writers, every particular which can excite compassion for the victims and indignation against the murderers is told. . . . The cruelty of the British has, with as much regularity as can accompany human concerns, diminished progressively, and its diminution has kept due pace with the development of social improvement. . . . At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, six thousand three hundred French Protestant families were provided for in England. At the Revolution of France, 1789, more than one hundred thousand French emigrants, most of whom had lent their aid to the independence of the United States, were relieved here more than twenty years, at the expense of near six millions sterling (194-7).” In the Chapter on Religion the following paragraph occurs:— “The reign of Louis XIII., accomplished the design of Francis I.; and Richelieu, while he supported the reformists in Germany, completely crushed them at home. One of the most politic measures of that admirable minister of despotism was his severity towards the French Calvinists. Three times during this reign, armies were sent against the Huguenots; and in 1627, the religious wars, which had begun after the massacre of Vassy in 1562, were terminated by the famous Siege of Rochelle. It was most gratuitously then that Louis XIV. revoked the humane edict of the first of the Bourbons; and, by threats and promises, by immunities to converts and penalties to the refractory, by armies, by dragonnades. extirpated the few remaining sectaries of a religion, which long since had ceased to be alarming to the State. The loss which France sustained by emigration alone was immense; and while flattering poets sung that the court of Louis was the asylum of kings, his country ceased to be a place of safety for its natives (Chapter V., 115).” The last quotation is from Note A. to Vol. I.:— “The most cruel Frenchman of this reign was perhaps the king himself [Louis XIV]. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was his work. . . . The sect was no longer of any weight in the kingdom. They lived retired and peacefully among themselves, and in harmony with the Catholics. In no point of view, in no province of France, were they considered as dangerous. Yet the most cruel and contradictory laws were enacted against them. The exercise of their religion — of every branch of industry — was prohibited to them. The sacred tie which unites husband and wife was declared null. The natural authority of parents was not respected; and children were taken from their Protestant fathers to be educated by Catholics. Protestant temples were destroyed, the dead were dragged on hurdles — without hurdles — to their grave; sometimes by the populace, sometimes accompanied by a Catholic priest and ceremonies. Certificates of marriage were burnt by the common executioner, in presence of the married pair; the husband was sent to the gallies, the wife into seclusion, and their property was confiscated, or given as a bribe of conversion. In every province soldiers were quartered on the families of the