THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 744, 4 June 1886, Page 8

THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

Morning Advertises.

On October 23, 1685. Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes. The result was a proscription and persecution of the reformed creed even more cruel and sweeping than Protestantism had to ensure under the infamous author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. The report of the Act of Grace was indeed but the culmination of a protracted tyranny which went far to nullify the stipulations of the treaty. After the capitulation of Montpellier on October 21, 1622, there followed a general peace, by which the Edict was confirmed, but the right of prohibiting Protestant assemblies was assumed by the Crown. Goaded into resistance by an intolerable oppression, the Protestants seized the opportunity when the Government was involved in a difficulty with Italy to take up arms. Soubise, with a fleet furnished by the town of Rochelle, more than once defeated the Royal navy. Cardinal Richelieu, who was at the head of offairs, found himself under the necessity of offering terms, which were rejected. Hereupon the cardinal resolved upon the capture of Rochelle, the olrief stronghold of the ‘rebels.’ The town fell after a heroic defence, and this disaster was followed by the capture of Nismes, Montauban, Castries, and all the other strong places wherein the Protestants endeavored to maintain their ground. These successive misfortunes left the defeated party dependant on the will of the Court, which, however, made no attempt to deprive them of liberty of conscience. It was only when Louis le Grand, in the senile superstition of old age, yielded to the instigations of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor Lachaise that the religious persecution was revived in all its bitterness. The Protestants were stripped of all civil rights, and a merciless attempt was made to stamp out their faith altogether. Bodies of troops, accompanied by monks, paesed through the southern provinces, compelling the inhabitants to renounce their l-elicion, demolishing their places of worship, and slaughtering the preachers. Hundreds of thousands of Protestants fled to Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, and Germany. It was endeavored, but in vain, to prevent this exodus by cordons along the borders. Many Protestants made an insincere profession of Roman Catholicism, and these on the slightest suspicion of relapse were tortured and put to death. This condition of things was aggravated by the formal revocation of the Edict—a proceeding which let slip the dogs of bigotry upon the miserable Protestants. Their marriages were declared null and void, their children were deprived of the right of inheritance and forcibly confined in convents, their preachers were indiscriminately killed wherever found, A multitude of fugitives from the district of Nismes, where the adherents of the Reformation were particularly numerous, betook themselves to the mountains of the Cavennes, and continued the exercise of their religion in secret. Amongst these and the mountaineers of the Cavennes a remarkable enthusiam exhibited itself in the movement of the Camisards, who sustained for a number of years so stout and so successful a struggle against the forces of a great monarchy. The 4 Camisard rebellion was not extinguished in blood and fire until the year 1706, by which time France had lost more than a million of her most active, industrious, and enterprising citizens, while,

notwithstanding the heavy penalties of fidelity to their creed, more than t wo miliione remained invincibly at tached to Protestantism The revocation of the Edict of Nantes is fairly ranked amongst the nmst important incidents in the history of religious persecution. Those most intimately associated with it are just now engaged in comme'.noratiug the bicentenary of the wholesale self-expatria-tion which lost to France her most valuable children, and gave worthy citizens to strange lands. The commemoration began on Sunday, and will bo continued throughout the week. Special services are being held in ail the Huguenot churches of England, and it need hardly be said that the sympathy of native congregations with the decendants of the exiles finds appropriate expression. At Canterbury Cathedral, for instance, both the Dean and Canon Free man tie preached upon the subject, and very justly said that the hospitally extended two hundred years ago by this country to the victims of religious persecution in Franco has been well repaid. For the coming of the Huguenots was one of the truest blessings in our national record. These sturdy exiles brought with them the bright example of a spirit prepared to suffer all for conscience’ sake, and to take up its cross and follow what it held to be right even to the ends of the earth, and through the sore ordeal of banishment. But they bro -ght with them more than a noble and wholesome illustration of that power of standing up for themselves which is an essential element in the character of any great people ; they brought a great many trades and indnsfc&es which did not previously exist in England. France at the period cf the Huguenot Hegira was in a much more advanced condition in matters social and artistic than this country, and her expellpd children brought with them to their insular asylum many trades and industries not previously existing in England. The result was the infu-ion of a new element, which had a speedy effect in developing our civilisation and brightening and beautifying the whole system of our national life. Not only in the ranks of British commerce and manufacture, but in the nobility and in the Church, the posterity of these Huguenot exiles to make a brilliant figure. France bad enjoyed a practical monopoly of certain very profitable industries before the suicidal and dastardly policy of the Court drove the trade secrets abroad, and enabled foreign countries to compete with and ultimately to beat France in the general market. A few years after the revocation the silk weaving craft, which was one of the industries brought over by the Huguenots, had made such progress that in 1713 it was boasted that gold and silver stuffs, brocades, and ribbon.s were manufactured by the Spitalfields weavers of as good quality as those of France. It was estimated, moreover, that velvets, hoods, and scarves were woven in the historic quarter to the value of L 300.000 a year. This fact suggests in a striking way the ma'eiial benefit to English industries of the ruthless and shortsighted de-potism which deprived Franco of her best citizens, and sent them abroad to retort, through the ar’s and industries they diffused, the previous wrong that had been done them. It was not only in her commercial relations that France had serious reason to regret the act of a despotic and priest ridden despot, thought the figures show that in the matter of trade the loss was very substantial. Eight thousand silk weavers’ looms were reduced to 1,200 in Tours alone, 700 silk mills dwindled to seventy, and only 400 woiktnon remained out of 40.000 at one time occupied in this one branch of the art. The country lost defenders as well as artificers. It is recorded that only three years after the revocation Vauban reported to the King that 6,000 of the best seamen of France, aud double that number of her bravest soldiers, had not only been lost to the service of their native land, bat in many cases had taken arms under the flag of England, or in the service of the Dutch or the Brandenburghers. No country profited so much bv the explusion of the Huguenots as Great Britain. For two centuries their presence here may be traced through our history with a distinctness far greater than is warranted by their comparatively email number. They must have been composed of the best stuff men are made of who have secured such a position in diverse walks of effort and achievement- in science and art, in finaoc° and trade, and in the civil, military, naval, and diplomatic services of the country. Many of the names borne by the first exilee have been Anglicised, and it is only the curious or the instructed who recognise in the Coopers, Kings, Youngs, Whites, Blacks Masters, or Birds of insular nomenclature, the Tonneliers, Leroys, Lejeunes, Leblance, Lmoirs, Le Maitres, or Loiseaux of the great flight. Other names have been perpetuated among us without abatement of the high repute won by those who first bore them in an adopted land. Turquand, Lefevre, Houblon, Bouverie, Latouehe, and scores of others will recur. The memorab'e episode of which these people are the witnesses has receded into the infinite azure of the past. It is certain that religious persecution, whatever shape it may take in France—and the spirit of it seems strangely compatible with the principle of French Republicanism —will never direct itself against the faith for which the Huguenots suffered. Canon Freemantie, in a commemoration sermon, was able to congratulate the decendants of the Camisards, the children of the poor folk who perished in the dragonnades of Louvois, on the revival of Protestantism in France, where Guizot,. Waddington, De Freyeinet, and many other less prominent but most influential men are evidence that it far more than holds its own in the paths of etatemanship and literature, as well as in the region of patriotic effort. History probably shows no instance of an iniquity punishing itself so remarkable a& that supplied by the episode which is now being recalled with rite and ceremony by those who have no doubt long since learnt to regard it leas as a calamity than as a blessing.