Guillaume Félice

“ This consisted in restricting the Protestants to certain boundaries, as if Protestantism was such an evil that it was necessary to confine it within the narrowest possible limits. It appeared as if the disciples of the Reformation were told, “Since you exist in the kingdom, we tolerate you; but remain where you are, and guard yourselves from trespassing. Unity of faith is our rule, dissent the exception; and far from authorizing it to spread, we will restrict it to the fullest extent of our power.” ”

“ No Christian population has been so long persecuted as the Reformed people of France. The duty of the historian must be fulfilled; but wherever the task was painful, we have striven to extenuate, by insisting upon the piety and perseverance of the proscribed, much more than upon the crimes of the proscribes. In the midst of massacres, in the face of the scaffold and the stake, in the bloody expeditions against the gatherings in the wilderness, we have only glanced at the oppressors, and our eyes have dwelt upon the victims. ”

“ The duke of Anjou, then in his twentieth year, had been brought up, like his brother, by Gondi, who had taught him to violate faith and to feast himself with spectacles of blood. He was already given up to those unbridled debaucheries, and to those ignoble superstitions, which made him a modern Heliogabalus, and the most abject prince ever seen upon the throne of France. “As for me,” said Charles IX. to Coligny, “I am a Frenchman and king of the French; my brother, the duke of Anjou, speaks only with his head, his eyes, and his shoulders; he is an Italian.” ”

“ The Sorbonnists immediately laid hold of the accident. “It is a vast plot; it is,” they cried, “a great conspiracy against religion, against the prince, against the order and tranquillity of the country! All laws will be overthrown, all dignities abolished! This is the fruit of the doctrines preached by Berquin!” At the cries of the Sorbonne and of the priests, the Parliament, the people, the king himself, are greatly excited. Death to the image-breakers! No quarter to the heretics! And Berquin is in prison a fourth time! ”

“ It was, above all, this sacrilegious industry which gave the fatal blow to the Romish church. Nothing irritates a people so much as to find in religion less morality than in themselves; and this instinct is just. Every religion should ameliorate those who believe in it. When it depraves them, when it makes them descend beneath that condition in which they would be without it, its fall is certain; for it possesses no longer its essential and supreme reason of existence.
How, moreover, could the members of the clergy enforce a respect for moral duties, which they were the first to transgress? ”

“ Liberty of thought, liberty of faith, liberty of worship, under the safeguard and within the limits of common right: complete equality of religious creeds, and even above that equality itself, charity, fraternal love, which feels for the erring while reprobating their error—these are our maxims. They have constantly guided us in our labours, and God grant that our conviction may pass in its entirety into the spirit and conscience of the reader! The generation of our day is still in too much need of teaching of this kind. ”

“ Is it imagined that it is preferable to tread our holy religion underfoot, than not to profess it at all? Who believes that it is possible to force a person, against his inclination and belief, to receive mysteries so dread that faith alone with love and ardour ought to lead us to approach them, and which should be avoided by Catholics themselves, who feel the slightest coldness or indifference? ”

“ The petitioners further said, “We do not regret either office or honours; it is with your majesty to dispense them to whomsoever you please; but we claim the rights that we derive from nature, and which every religion should hold sacred. It must be no longer hidden from you: there are, sire, more than fifty thousand marriages that will fall within the scope of the decree of the Parliament of Bordeaux; and among these marriages, there are some of so old a date as to have given birth to ten or twelve children. Behold, sire, what a multitude of citizens are reduced in one instant to despair!” ”

“ As a Christian, he belonged to the family of Pascal by the penetration and the profundity of his thought, and to the family of Fénélon by the mild and simple candour of his faith. One thing surpassed even his piety and genius—humility. How could a man be so completely ignorant of the qualities of his own heart, who discerned those of others so well? It is that he judged others by his heart, and himself with his conscience. He had all the complaisance of charity for them, and all the severity of the ideal for himself. ”

“ The Reformation of the sixteenth century is the greatest event of modern times. It has remodelled everything in Protestant countries; and has modified almost everything in Roman Catholic countries—religious and moral doctrines, ecclesiastical and civil institutions, the arts and sciences, in such sort that it is impossible to advance a step in the investigation of an idea, or a fact whatsoever, without meeting this immense work face to face. The Reformation marks the starting-point of a new world: God alone knows its development and its end. ”

“ Your principles are that liberty of thought and opinion is an inalienable and indefeasible right. This liberty, gentlemen, is the most sacred of all; it is above the control of men; its refuge is in the depth of the conscience, whither it retreats as to an inviolable sanctuary, where no mortal has the light to penetrate; it is the only liberty that mankind has never submitted to the laws of universal society. ”

“ Weak in numbers, scattered, without bond or union, without a common discipline, constrained to be humble and silent, and to avoid all occasion of disturbing the official classification of religions, the community of the Protestants dragged on a uniform and obscure existence. “The ministers preached,” says M. Samuel Vincent, “and the people listened; the consistories met, and worship preserved its forms. Beyond this, no one troubled himself, no one thought, and religion was a thing beyond the life of all. ”

“ Germany, so justly proud of its immense labours in this branch of human knowledge, still cites these theologians of the seventeenth century with respect. The majority possessed, indeed, that solidity of judgment, together with a profound and vast erudition, that clearness of view, that skilful connection of proofs, in short, that precision of style, which distinguish the good French writers in every class of literature.
We shall only here name the most eminent of the doctors or pastors of the Reformed churches. The history of their ideas and their writings does not belong to our subject. ”

“ Crowds of unfortunates fled to the woods; others hid themselves in the houses of their friends; many determined to fly the kingdom at all hazards; and there might be seen men, women, and children, half-dead, stretched upon the stones or rugged rocks. Many at length consented to abjure under the sabre of the soldier; but what an abjuration! Numbers went mad, or died of grief, or put an end to their days in paroxysms of remorse and despair. There were some who, flinging themselves upon the road, beat their breasts and filled the air with wailings. ”

“ If in the wars of the Camisards, some of the Cévenoles had looked to England or Holland for assistance, it was only a local and partial affair. But the apprehensions of the court, which continually broke out afresh after the Edict of Revocation, prove the great truth, that it is not possible to persecute with impunity. When public authority ignores every condition of justice, morality, and order, it is the first victim of its attempt; and in default of the remorse, from which fanaticism or corruption may relieve it, it expiates its crime by unceasing and invincible terrors. ”

“ Beholding the narrow and pernicious bigotry of the king, the hideous profanations sanctioned by the body of the [Roman Catholic] clergy, the military transformed into missionaries, mourning and blood mingled with religion, all laws, human and divine, trodden underfoot by those, whose especial duty it was to defend them, beholding all this, the upper classes of the nation threw themselves into the wildest scepticism. On the death of Louis XIV. the court was full [332] of unbelievers, and Voltaire sprung ready armed from the bosom of that generation. ”

“ Now that the civil law is the same for all, they form in no sense, either near or afar off, a distinct political party, and they hold it as a point of honour to be confounded in that vast unity, which is the strength and the glory of France.
Theodore de Bèze said in his day to King Henry IV.: “My desire is, that Frenchmen should love one another.” This wish of the venerable Reformer is that of all Protestants, and truly, the circumstances which surround us, render it now more than ever an imperative duty. Not that we partake of the discouragement of many estimable men ”

“ The timorous scruples of the monarch, the subtle contrivances of his counsellors, the blind resistance of the privileged classes, no longer presided over the public affairs. A great assembly, the faithful interpreter of general intelligence and conscience, shook off the shackles of the past which had only sustained itself with artificial props, and enunciated principles that must resolve the most important problems of political and social order. ”

“ Partisans and adversaries of the confessions of faith alike invoke the testimony of the Bible; but the former are above all things anxious for the interest of unity of doctrine, the latter for the right of examination and freedom. The first do not understand how there can be a church in the true acceptation of the term, when the pulpit is open to contradictory teachings; the second are equally ignorant how Protestantism can be subjected to a rule that no longer allows every one to form his belief for himself, Bible in hand. ”

“ An ardent (Roman) Catholic in his youth, Poltrot had served in Spain, and had so far adopted the language and manners of that country, as to have been called by the nickname of Espagnolet. Having embraced the Reformed faith, he was compelled to fly to Geneva, and to follow the trade of an artisan for a livelihood. His temper was soured and his imagination excited. Returned to France, he heard on every side loud complaints against the duke of Guise, whom the Huguenots called the butcher of Vassy, and the destruction of the murderer of his brethren appeared to him an act of legitimate reprisal. ”

“ In the month of May, 1665, an ordinance of the council authorized the curates, and all the ecclesiastics of the Romish church generally, to present themselves with a magistrate at the domicile of sick persons, to ask if they were willing to die in their heresy, or to be converted to the true religion. It is easy to imagine the double scenes of grief and scandal that would ensue, whenever the priest was a fanatic and the magistrate compliant. It was no longer possible to live or to die in peace, out of the Roman communion. ”

“ The Huguenots had observed a rigid discipline at the outset of the campaign. Having newly taken up the cross and risen at the call of their conscience, they wished to absolve their arms by the austerity of their lives. There were no women in their camps; no cards or dice; no blasphemy; no profane discourse; no maurauding or pillage. The nobles paid in money for all that they took for themselves or for their followers. Those who committed violence were punished. ”

“ In these days of fervour and of hope, the faithful believed that the triumph of the Reformation was completely in the hands of the leaders of the state. “It rests with you alone,” they wrote to Catherine de Medicis and Antoine de Bourbon, “that Jesus Christ be known and worshipped throughout the kingdom, in all truth, righteousness, and holiness. For if you ordain that all superstitions and idolatries be extirpated, it will be done without let or hindrance. A single word from your lips will banish all those, who have been guilty of malversation in the Church. ”

“ M. Dupin also said, respecting the affair of the Protestants of Levergies (and his words are still worthy of quotation) , “He who wills the end, wills the means. What avails a proclaimed liberty, if the means of its enjoyment be denied? What! The free exercise of worship is permitted, and at the same time there is a prohibition to exercise it in every place! The exercise is to be interdicted in the streets and public squares: that would shock other creeds. And when its exercise is asked for in any special edifice, it is forbidden! Such liberty is a mockery! ”

“ There were, no doubt, among the faithful, some unquiet, restless minds, who only joined it out of an empty passion for novelty; there were among them also many differences, which compromised the general cause, and many lukewarm, that were called temporisers, middle-course men, or Nicodemites. But the rivalries of the great houses of the kingdom, and political quarrels, had not yet mixed themselves up with religion. The Reformers suffered, and took no vengeance; they received death without a desire to retaliate, and displayed more severity against themselves than their enemies. ”

“ Not a single word could be found in the whole volume of Crespin’s Martyrs, expressive of toleration understood in the sense of Bayle, Locke, and modern ideas. They justify themselves by texts from the Bible, and summon their adversaries to prove that their faith is not conformable to it, or able to absolve them. Their defence is here, and here only. If it had been proposed to them to accord similar rights to those whom they themselves regarded as impious or heretics, they would have beheld herein a rebellion against the will of God. ”

“ It was equally fitting that we should abstain from taking part in the questions, which divide Protestants among themselves. It was not for us to decide who was right or who wrong in these matters, and our pen would have betrayed our will, if, in the following pages, it could be supposed that any class of opinions would find an apology, or meet with an attack. Truth and justice are for all, as far as it has been possible for us to discern the true and the just: we could aspire to nothing less, and nothing more can be required of us. ”