e the pope is God."

The Protestants were thrown into the utmost consternation by the death
of Henry IV. They apprehended the immediate repeal of the edict, and
a renewal of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. But the regent,
Mary de Medici, and the court immediately issued a decree confirming
the ordinance. Louis XIII. was then a child but eight and a half years
of age. As he came into power, he was urged by the Jesuits to
exterminate the Protestants. But they were too powerful to be wantonly
assailed. They held two hundred fortified places. Many of the highest
lords were among their leaders. Their soldiers were renowned for
valor, and their churches numbered four hundred thousand men capable
of bearing arms. It was not deemed safe to rouse such a people to the
energies of despair. Still, during the reign of Louis XIII., there
were many bloody conflicts between the royal troops and the
Protestants.

In this religious war, the Protestants, or Huguenots, as they were
then called, defended themselves so valiantly, that the king felt
constrained, in October, 1622, to relinquish his attempt to subjugate
the Protestants by force of arms, and to confirm the Edict of Nantes.
The sword was scarcely sheathed ere it was drawn again. All over
France the Catholics and Protestants faced each other upon fields of
blood. The battle raged for seven years with every conceivable
concomitant of cruelty and horror. The eyes of all Europe were
directed to the siege of La Rochelle, in 1627, where the Huguenots
made their most decisive stand. All that human nature could suffer was
endured. When two thirds of the population of the city had perished,
and the streets and dwellings were encumbered with the unburied dead,
and the remaining soldiers, reduced to skeletons, could no longer lift
their weapons, the city surrendered on the 28th of October, 1628.

By this war and the fall of La Rochelle, the Protestants were
hopelessly weakened. Though they were deprived of many of their
privileges, and were greatly diminished in numbers and influence,
still the general provisions of the Edict of Nantes were not repealed.

In the year 1662, Louis XIV., then upon the throne, in recognition of
some support which he had received from the Protestants, issued a
decree in which he said,

"Inasmuch as our subjects of the pretended Reformed religion have
given us proofs of their affection and fidelity, be it known that,
for these reasons, they shall be