ained from my
predecessors, but to grant them nothing further, and even to confine the
performance thereof within the narrowest limits that justice and
propriety would permit. But as to graces that depended upon me alone, I
have resolved, and I have pretty regularly kept my resolution ever since,
not to do them any, and that from kindness, not from bitterness, in order
to force them in that way to reflect from time to time of themselves, and
without violence, whether it were for any good reason that they deprived
themselves voluntarily of advantages which might be shared by them in
common with all my other subjects."

These prudent measures, "quite in kindness and not in bitterness," were
not enough to satisfy the fresh zeal with which the king had been
inspired. All-powerful in his own kingdom, and triumphant everywhere in
Europe, he was quite shocked at the silent obstinacy of those Huguenots
who held his favor and graces cheap in comparison with a quiet
conscience; his kingly pride and his ignorant piety both equally urged
him on to that enterprise which was demanded by the zeal of a portion of
the clergy. The system of purchasing conversions had been commenced; and
Pellisson, himself originally a Protestant, had charge of the payments, a
source of fraud and hypocrisies of every sort. A declaration of 1679
condemned the relapsed to _honorable amends_ (public recantation, &c.),
to confiscation and to banishment. The door's of all employments were
closed against Huguenots; they could no longer sit in the courts or
Parliaments, or administer the finances, or become medical practitioners,
barristers, or notaries; infants of seven years of age were empowered to
change their religion against their parents' will; a word, a gesture, a
look, were sufficient to certify that a child intended to abjure; its
parents, however, were bound to bring it up according to its condition,
which often facilitated confiscation of property. Pastors were forbidden
to enter the houses of their flocks, save to perform some act of their
ministry; every chapel into which a new convert had been admitted was to
be pulled down, and the pastor was to be banished. It was found
necessary to set a guard at the doors of the places of worship to drive
away the poor wretches who repented of a moment's weakness; the number of
"places of exercise," as the phrase then was, received a gradual
reduction; "a single minister had the charge of six, eight, and