edict of Nantes, without the slightest pretext or
necessity, and the various proscriptions that followed it, were the
fruits of a frightful plot, in which the new spouse was one of the chief
conspirators, and which depopulated a quarter of the realm, ruined its
commerce, weakened it in every direction, gave it up for a long time to
the public and avowed pillage of the dragoons, authorised torments and
punishments by which so many innocent people of both sexes were killed by
thousands; ruined a numerous class; tore in pieces a world of families;
armed relatives against relatives, so as to seize their property and
leave them to die of hunger; banished our manufactures to foreign lands,
made those lands flourish and overflow at the expense of France, and
enabled them to build new cities; gave to the world the spectacle of a
prodigious population proscribed, stripped, fugitive, wandering, without
crime, and seeking shelter far from its country; sent to the galleys,
nobles, rich old men, people much esteemed for their piety, learning, and
virtue, people well off, weak, delicate, and solely on account of
religion; in fact, to heap up the measure of horror, filled all the realm
with perjury and sacrilege, in the midst of the echoed cries of these
unfortunate victims of error, while so many others sacrificed their
conscience to their wealth and their repose, and purchased both by
simulated abjuration, from which without pause they were dragged to adore
what they did not believe in, and to receive the divine body of the Saint
of Saints whilst remaining persuaded that they were only eating bread
which they ought to abhor! Such was the general abomination born of
flattery and cruelty. From torture to abjuration, and from that to the
communion, there was often only twenty-four hours' distance; and
executioners were the conductors of the converts and their witnesses.
Those who in the end appeared to have been reconciled, more at leisure
did not fail by their flight, or their behaviour, to contradict their
pretended conversion.

[Illustration: The Edict Of Nantes--Painted by Jules Girardet--front2]

The King received from all sides news and details of these persecutions
and of these conversions. It was by thousands that those who had abjured
and taken the communion were counted; ten thousand in one place; six
thousand in another--all at once and instantly. The King congratulated
himself on his power and his piety. He believe