ominable persecution any more than there was for
the burning of John Huss. It had not even as much to justify it as had
the slaughter of St. Bartholomew, for the Huguenots were politically
hostile and dangerous. It was an act of wanton cruelty incited by
religious bigotry. I wonder how a woman so kind-hearted, so intelligent,
and so politic as Madame de Maintenon doubtless was, could have
encouraged the King to a measure which undermined his popularity, which
cut the sinews of natural strength, and raised up implacable enemies in
every Protestant country. I can palliate her detestable bigotry only on
the ground that she was the slave of an order of men who have ever
proved themselves to be the inveterate foes of human freedom, and who
marked their footsteps, wherever they went, by a trail of blood. Louis
was equally their blinded tool. The Order--the "Society of Jesus"--was
created to extirpate heresy, and in this instance it was carried out to
the bitter end. The persecution of the Protestants under Louis XIV. was
the most cruel and successful of all known persecutions in ancient or
modern times. It annihilated the Protestants, so far as there were any
left openly to defend their cause. It drove out of France from two
hundred thousand to four hundred thousand of her best people, and
executed or confined to the galleys as many more, They died like sheep
led to the slaughter; they died not with arms, but Bibles, in their
hands. I have already presented some details of that inglorious
persecution in my lecture on Louis XIV., and will not repeat what I
there said. It was deemed by Madame de Maintenon a means of grace to the
King,--for in her way she always sought his conversion. And when the
bloody edict went forth for the slaughter of the best people in the
land, she wrote that "the King was now beginning to think seriously of
his salvation. If God preserve him, there will be no longer but one
religion in the kingdom." This foul stain on her character did not
proceed from cruelty of disposition, but from mistaken zeal. What a
contrast her conduct was to the policy of Elizabeth! Yet she was no
worse than Le Tellier, La Chaise, and other fanatics. Religious
intolerance was one of the features of the age and of the Roman
Catholic Church.

But religious bigotry is eternally odious to enlightened reason. No
matter how interesting a man or woman may be in most respects, if
stained with cruel intolerance in religious opinions, h