religion, but is it possible our oppressors can hope that they have sincerely entered into their communion? The only boast in respect of these miserable apostates can be, that they have been driven out of every religion.”
M. Portalis, a tolerant Bonapartist statesman, repeats this plain colloquial statement in more academic language:—
“I am surprised” (he says) “that writers, in treating upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, should have regarded that event only in relation to the injury which it brought upon French commerce, without dwelling upon the moral consequences which it has produced in [French] society — consequences incalculable in their results. A numerous part of the nation were condemned to serve neither God nor their country. Was it wise by such measures to precipitate multitudes of men into the despair of a religious atheism, and into the danger of a sort of political atheism which threatened the State? Was it thought possible to depend upon men who were rendered impious by necessity, who were subjected by violence, and who were, at the same time, deprived of civil advantages, and even of the rights of nations? Was it not evident that these men, justly exasperated, would become powerful auxiliaries against the State in all times of complaint and murmur?”
The Rev. Thomas Cotton, M.A., in company with a young gentleman, his pupil, visited France and made frequent tours up and down in that country during 1684 and 1685. Mr Cotton left behind him many rcminiscenses of this period, which are peculiarly interesting in themselves, and as illustrating a community of dangers and interests pertaining to both French and British Protestants. Some of his notes I quote in the language of Mr Walter Wilson, an English barrister.[1]
His first halt was at Paris. He attended with pleasure on the serious and useful preaching of Mr Wake in the English Ambassador’s chapel. In the spring of 1684 he made a short stay at Orleans, and spent the whole summer at Blois and Tours, where the Protestants had liberty of worship. In the winter of 1684-5, he was at Saumur. Speaking of his travels as a whole, he said that he witnessed many dreadful scenes of persecution, as the breaking up of large congregations, the demolishing of churches, the silencing of ministers, the banishment of some, the imprisonment of others, of whom some were made galley-slaves and others put to cruel deaths. He also saw numberless families utterly ruined, and the nearest relations cruelly rent from each other. He stayed the longest in those places where liberty of worship was still allowed, though he was sometimes detained by mere compassion, to sympathise with and assist the distressed Protestants, when they were expecting every Sabbath and every lecture to be their last.
After he had been for some time at Saumur, the Protestant temple was condemned, and orders were given to the governor of the castle to see it demolished. The most dreadful outrages were committed; the graves of Protestants were opened and the bodies treated with indignity. Mr Cotton and his companions appealed to the governor, who would give no redress, but, on the contrary, issued an order to all strangers to assist the Papists in their violent proceedings. The English in particular were made obnoxious to this order, being told that they must all shortly turn Roman Catholics, as King Charles II. was at the point of death, and his successor was known to be of that communion. Mr Cotton says they mentioned the death of that monarch with great confidence and insults at Saumur, five days before it happened. At Lyons the news of Monmouth’s defeat produced many new insults and threatcnings against Protestants. The last act of public worship at Saumur was most impressive. The congregation all in tears — the singing the last psalm — the pronouncing of the blessing — the people passing before the ministers to receive their benediction — presented a scene of indescribable solemnity. The ministers and the professors of the college being banished, Mr Cotton accompanied them to the barque and took leave of them in circumstances of great danger.
At Poictiers he was exceedingly moved at the vast numbers that appeared at their last public exercise, and the great difficulty with which the ministers pronounced the blessing, when they all burst forth into a flood of tears. At the inn, he saw an old gentleman of a very considerable family and large estate who, leaning upon his staff, cried out with emotion and tears, “Unhappy France! if I and mine were now entering some country of refuge and safety, where we might have liberty to worship God according to our consciences, I should think myself the happiest man in the world, though I had nothing but this staff in my hand.” On his leaving Poictiers,
- ↑ Wilson’s “History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches in London,” vol. iv. This author has not observed chronological order; in fact he gives no dates; and has failed to observe that many of the incidents happened before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
