e
conversion, of the Hugonots, was owing to the wish of Louvois, the
minister, of Lewis the Fourteenth, to become himself, a missionary.
Observing how much the apparent success, of the missionaries,
recommended them, to Lewis the Fourteenth, he began to consider them as
dangerous rivals for the favour of his royal master, and determined,
therefore, to become himself, a principal performer. With this view, he
instituted the dragoon missions, and thus brought a material part, of
the work of conversion, into the war department.

II. 4.

The death of Lewis, and the known disposition of the Regent, appeared to
the Protestant party, in France, to afford a proper opportunity of
recovering their rights. Duclos, in his _Memoires secrets sur les regnes
de Louis XIV. et de Louis XV_., says, that the Regent himself wished to
restore the Protestants, to their civil rights, but was dissuaded by his
council. Still, he seldom permitted the edicts against them to be
executed; and speaking generally, the Protestants seem to have suffered
no active persecution in any part of the reign of Lewis, the XVth. One
intolerable grievance, however, they unquestionably suffered in every
part of it. Their religious principles did not permit them to be married
by a Roman Catholic priest, in the manner prescribed by the law of the
state, and that law did not recognize the legal validity of a marriage,
celebrated in any other form. The consequence was, that in the eye of
the law, the marriage of Protestants was a mere concubinage, and the
offspring of it illegitimate. To his immortal honour, _Lewis the XVIth_,
by his edict of the 17th of November, 1787, accorded to all his
Non-catholic subjects the full and complete enjoyment of all the rights
of his Roman-catholic subjects. On a division in the Parliament, this
edict was registered by a majority of 96 votes against 16.

The persecution of the Hugonots in consequence of the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, was condemned by the greatest men in France. M.
d'Aguesseau, the father of the celebrated chancellor, resigned his
office of Intendant of Languedoc rather than remain a witness of it: his
son repeatedly mentions it with abhorrence. Fenelon, Flechier, and
Bossuet,[086] confessedly the ornaments of the Gallican church, lamented
it. To the utmost of their power, they prevented the execution of the
edict, and lessened its severities, when they could not prevent them.
Most sincerely lam