Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/42

 inhabitants of the city of Nismes in France. There arose a difference between the burghers, who were mostly Huguenots, the magistrates, and the bishop; which growing tumultuary, the Intendant of the Province repaired thither to prevent an insurrection. When he came there the inhabitants opposed him, and preparations were made to reduce them by force. The Protestants in France fearing to be involved in the guilt of the mutiny at Nismes, and these burghers expecting severe chastisement, applied to Cromwell to intercede for them. This was done very secretly. The Protector with equal secrecy assured them of his protection, and immediately despatched a trusty agent with this letter to Cardinal Mazarin:—

“Eminentissimo Cardinali Mazarino,

“Eminentissime Domine Cardinalis, — Cum nobilem hunc virum cum Uteris, quarum exemplar hie inclusum est, ad Regem mittere necessarie statuissem, turn ei ut Eminentiam vestram meo nomine salutaret simul in mandatis dedi, certasque res vobiscum communicandas ejus fidei commisi. Quibus in rebus Eminentissimam rogo vestram, uti summam ei fidem habere velit, utpote in quo ego summam fiduciam reposuerim. Eminentise vestrse studiossimus,

“Ex Alba. Aula, 26th Dec. 1656.

“P.S. (of his own handwriting). — ‘Je viens d’apprendre la revolte des habitans de Nismes. Je recommande a votre Eminence les interets des Reformes,’ i.e., I have just been informed of the tumult at Nismes, I recommend to your Eminence the interests of the Reformed.

“He also sent instruction to Lockhart [Ambassador at Paris] to second the solicitations of the agent, and if he prevailed not, to come away immediately. Mazarin complained of this way of proceeding as too imperious, but he feared Cromwell too much to quarrel with him. The Cardinal sent orders to the Intendant to make up matters as well as he could.”

I have, said of Pasteur Stouppe that “he was at heart more a layman than a pastor, as he ultimately proved, by becoming a Brigadier in the French army.” But I must acquit him of the suspicion of having abjured Protestantism in order to be qualified for the army. At the restoration of Charles II. he could not stay in London, the royalists being furious against him for having acted as a diplomatist under Cromwell. He hoped to preach in Canterbury unmolested, but was followed to that retreat. Among the records of the French Church of Canterbury Mr Burn found a document thus described:— ”28th August 1661. The king’s letter requiring the church not to admit or use Mr Stoupe as minister, but give him to understand he is not to return to this kingdom, he being a known agent and a common intelligencer of the late usurpers.” During the early campaigns of the Williamite war in Flanders, he was colonel of a regiment of Swiss Auxiliaries in the French service. Soon after his death a number of his men went over to our king. “Brigadier Stouppe,” says D Auvergne, “died of the wounds he received at the battle of Steenkirk. That Stouppe was a Protestant and had been a minister. But I was told that Colonel Monim, who had the regiment after him, was a Roman Catholic, and had turned out the minister that belonged to the regiment, and put a priest in his place, which so disgusted his soldiers that it occasioned a general desertion in his regiment.”. (DAuvergne’s “History of the Campagne in the Spanish Netherlands,” A.D. 1694, page 24.) In the year 1662 Baxter notices the case of Pastor Stouppe; he says (“Reliquiae,” p. 380), “Mr Stoope, the pastor of the French church, was banished or forbidden this land, as fame said, for carrying over our debates into France.”

Bishop Burnet erroneously calls Stouppe “a minister of the French Church in the Savoy” [in the Strand, London]. At that time no such church had been founded, although a West-End congregation was waiting for the sanction of Charles II. at his Restoration. I have already given details of the troubles of the regular French congregations in the days of Laud. It should here be added that the greater troubles, which that prelate brought upon himself and upon his country, drew off attention from the French congregations, and practically occasioned the cessation of their vexations. Even the black Act of Uniformity in 1662 did not molest them. It contained this proviso:— “Provided that the penalties in this Act shall not extend to the Foreigners or Aliens of the Foreign Reformed Churches, allowed or to be allowed by the King’s Majesty, his heirs and successors in England.” A revival of the Laudean spirit betrayed itself temporarily in the year 1676 in Canterbury, when the Anglican Consistorial Court suspended the Pasteur Delon from the ministry for having solemnized, as usual, a marriage between descendants of refugees, and excommunicated the virtuous couple as persons married clandestinely. The persecuting proceedings were speedily cancelled by Royal order. 