time, much more in the midst of the tumult and confusion of war. The
Huguenots had made the attempt at Orleans, and had not shrunk from
inflicting the severest punishments, even to death, for the commission of
theft and other heinous crimes. They had endeavored in their camp to
realize the model of an exemplary Christian community. But they had
failed, because there were with them those who, neither in peace nor in
war, could bring themselves to give to so strict a moral code any other
obedience than that which fear exacts. Such was the misery of war. Such
the melancholy alternative to which, more than once, the reformed saw
themselves reduced, of perishing by persecution or of saving themselves by
exposing their faith to reproach through alliance with men of as little
religion or morality as any in the opposite camp.

[Sidenote: It prevents France from becoming Huguenot.]

The first civil war prevented France from becoming a Huguenot country.
This was the deliberate conclusion of a Venetian ambassador, who enjoyed
remarkable opportunities for observing the history of his times.[263] The
practice of the Christian virtue of patience and submission under
suffering and insult had made the reformers an incredible number of
friends. The waging of war, even in self-defence, and the reported acts of
wanton destruction, of cruelty and sacrilege--it mattered little whether
they were true or false, they were equally credited and produced the same
results--turned the indifference of the masses into positive aversion. It
availed the Huguenots little in the estimate of the people that the crimes
that were almost the rule with their opponents were the exception with
them; that for a dozen such as Montluc, they were cursed with but one
Baron des Adrets; that the barbarities of the former received the
approbation of the Roman Catholic priesthood, while those of the latter
were censured with vehemence by the Protestant ministers. Partisan spirit
refused to hold the scales of justice with equal hand, and could see no
proofs of superior morality or devotion in the adherents of the reformed
faith.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Huguenot ballads and songs.]

Besides their psalms, hallowed by so many thrilling
associations, the Huguenots possessed a whole cycle of song.
The meagre portion of this that has come down to us is among
the most valuable of the monuments illustrative of their mo