| Les Payens n’entendoient rien à fait de Persecution. Nous avous veu dans nos jours quêque chose de bien plus raffiné, et qui les passe infiniment. | The Heathens were but dunces in their ways of persecution; we have seen in our days a far subtler method, and which goes far beyond them. |
| Ceux de la Religion. | Those of the Reformed Religion, the Protestants, the Huguenots.[1] |
| Une Conversion à la Dragonne. | A conversion made by dragoons. |
☞ La nouvelle Methode des Dragons est si efficace qu’il n y a point de Religion que ces Missionaires armez ne puissent imposer là ou ils sont les plus forts. Siècle admirable, ou ceux qui se piquent d’être Chretiens par excellence ont trouvé le secret de faire les Chretiens Juifs, de Juifs Mahometans, et de Mahometans Payens; après cela si on veut qu’ils en reviennent il n’y aura que les faire derechef Chrêtiens Orthodoxes ou Heretiques.
| A converting dragoon, a booted missionary. | Un Dragon Convertisseur, Missionaire boté. |
| Les Dragons sont allez en Mission dans notre Province et ces bien-heureux Apôtres font partout des Miracles dignes de leur profession. | The Dragoons are gone to perform their mission in our Province, and those blessed Apostles do such miracles everywhere as suit their profession. |
He gives us, among some Additions (1688), a piece of late news about the Refugees after the Revocation of “L’Edit de Nantes, édit irrevocable, qui cependant a ête dernièrement revoqué”:—
Louis d’or. — I said it was worth but eleven livres; but, gold having grown scarce by the flight of French Protestants (who carried with them a good part of the gold used in France), both the Lewises and Spanish Pistoles were lately raised to the value of eleven livres, ten sous.
Chapter VIII.
REFUGEES BEING CONVERTS FROM ROMANISM DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV.
I. Breval.
Rev. Francis Durant de Breval, D.D., was a member of a monastic order, and was one of the preachers to Queen Henrietta Maria. The exact date of his conversion to Protestantism I cannot find, but he preached in the London French Church in the Savoy in October 1669. His sermon was generally applauded; but on Sunday, 17th October, the Superior of the Capuchins at Somerset House rudely assailed him, and denounced the sermon as infamous and abominable. It was therefore translated into English, and published with the title “Faith in the Just victorious over the World, a Sermon preached at the Savoy in the French Church, on Sunday, October 10, 1669, by Dr. Breval, heretofore preacher to the Queen Mother; translated into English by Dr. Du Moulin, Canon of Canterbury; London, printed for Will. Nott, and are to be sold at the Queen’s-Arms in the Pell-Mell, 1670.” The text was 1 John v. 4; and the heads of discourse were (1.) Who are those which are born of God? (2.) What victory they obtain over the world. (3.) What this faith is which makes them obtain the victory.
In or about 1670 he was made a chaplain in ordinary to the King, and one of the pasteurs of the French Church in the Savoy; he also had a diploma as Doctor of Theology. In the next year he had an opportunity of proclaiming his functions and dignities in print. Having been privileged to baptize a converted Jew[2] publicly in
- ↑ So abominable to a Huguenot was the designation (the only legal one in France) la religion pretendue reformee, that Miége never mentions it; but he gives another phrase, Les pretendus Catholiques Romains; and another, Cela est aussi irrevocable que l’Edit de Nantes.
- ↑ The convert was an Italian, highly educated in polite learning and Jewish antiquities, son of a famous Jewish physician in an Italian City, and nephew of a wealthy Jewish merchant in Alexandria. When he was about thirty-five years of age, he made a journey to Constantinople, in order to meet the promised Messiah. And deeply chagrined at finding himself the victim of a contemptible impostor, he went to Egypt, and paid a long visit to his uncle in Alexandria. In that city, without his uncle’s knowledge, he prosecuted long and anxious enquiries as to Christ and Christianity; and at length he declared himself to the Romish missionaries as a convert willing to be baptized. The danger of offending his relations was such, that the advice of the French Consul was asked and acted upon. And accordingly he sailed from Alexandria for Marseilles and Paris, with letters of introduction from the consul. When he arrived in France he heard for the first time that there were two very different communions in the Christian Church, namely, the Romish and the Reformed; and he was warned that, before separating from Judaism, he should make up his mind to which of the two he would unite himself. He took this advice. Through the consul’s letter he obtained frequent interviews with a celebrated
