years that the Latins are in Schism with the Greeks and all the pains that the Popes and Eastern Emperours have given themselves at several times have not been able to extinguish this Schisme If Prudence Cares and Vigilance have not been able to bring to pass the ruine of Sects that were not founded upon Truth and who had violated Charity by their Separation they ought not to hope to ruin the Party of the Reformed which is supported by Truth has purged the Church of so many errours and has in no manner violated Charity in separating it self from a Church that chose rather to chase away from its bosome than suffer any Reformation The conclusion of all that great affair will make appear that those who have Sworn the ruin of the Hugonots fall upon God himself which will not be for their advantage Par. This new Preacher carries it very high but what did you answer to all this Prov. As he had more advantage over me than I had over my Gentleman I was obliged to suffer the match being unequal But I resolved to let the discourse continue and to retain the principal things he should oppose me with to be informed of by you Is any thing of these Facts false that this man laid thus as I have recited them Par. No But though the Facts that he told you be true it is not certain that the Conclusions he draws from thence are very good which we will examine at one time But for the present I will not interrupt you Prov. Since you desire it I will continue to tell you what I can remember of a Conversation which appeared to me in some places something above my Capacity I hear continued our Civil Lawyer that this Gentleman has obliged himself to prove to you that the course they take at present in France against our poor Protestants is quite contrary to the Interests of the King and State Give me leave Sir to represent you several things upon that point First is it not true that it is against the Kings Interests to depopulate the Kingdom There are still in France near two Millions of Souls of the Reformed Religion If all these persons were away their absence would certainly make a considerable Breach There is no body but knows that the force of States depends on the multitude of Inhabitants It is this that makes the United Provinces so powerful It is incredible that so little a State can resist so powerful Enemies and carry it's name to the end of the World which only proceeds from the prodigious multitude of Inhabitants which are there It is this that makes Arts flourish there Necessity being the Mother of Industry It is the cause of the Commerce because the Territory being too little to nourish so many Men they have been obliged to go seek to the very ends of the World the necessaries that their own Country could not furnish them with And in seeking wherewith to keep them alive and that they might not be famished address has made them find out immense Riches The King knows very well that the force of a Prince consists in the multitude of Subjects Wherefore he has made several Declarations in favour of those to whom God grants great Families and who thereby the more contribute to populate the Kingdom He has ordered that those Victuallars who have have two Children should enjoy exemption from all Taxes Imposts Subsidies Collects and quartering of Souldiers It is his will that the Nobles who have the same number of living Children have two thousand Livers of yearly pension out of the publick Revenues and for the exciting young people to marry themselves betimes he orders by another Declaration that the young married shall not be subject till the age of five and twenty years to any publick Charges It is to this intent that such diverse Declarations have been made by his Majesty which forbid all his Subjects to leave the Kingdom and go inhabit else-where By all these Courses the King would get and keep Subjects But his Majesty by the Declarations which have been made against the Reformed has lost twenty times more Subjects than he can have gained or kept by those other ways which his prudence or that of his Ministers had suggested to him It will be made appear to him if he pleases that within these fifteen years his Declarations against the Hugonots have drove away of them out of France above sixty or fourscore thousand All the Frontiere Provinces of England Holland and Germany as Normandy Campagne and Picardy are already sensible of this particularly the City of Amiens Since the Temple has been taken from the Hugonots of that City it is certain that the most part of their Merchants have retired themselves into forreign Countries and that they have carried with them at least twelve or fourteen hundred thousand Livers of Riches out of the Kingdom and which will never return into it In case they would but make the least attention upon this point it would appear that it is impossible but that the Kingdom will be deserted by this Course It is certain that all the Reformed who lose their Goods and Estates by what is called the disgraces of Fortune do quit the Kingdom because that their Religion hinders them from recovering themselves by any means In chacing away all those who bear the Arms of the Guards du Corps of the Musqueteers and the Gendarmes and all the Kings Household in taking the Commissions from several thousands of Commissaries who lived upon their Commssions in neglecting the Officers and refusing them advancement In a word in taking away as they do the means of subsisting from an infinite number of Hugonots who cannot subsist of themselves they are drove out of the Kingdom and all forreign Countries are seen covered with French-men who seek for employ and the means of subsisting that are refused them in their own Country I looked upon it as a certain thing that of 50 thousand that the Rigour which is exercised against us reduces into this estate there are not five hundred who turn Catholicks all the others are as many lost Subjects for the King They are much deceived if they believe that little is lost in losing people who have hardly any thing For it is certain that the Armies of a State are almost wholly composed of such sort of people It is the industry of such persons who keep up Commerce and Arts. There is a City upon the Frontiers of Champagne which formerly belonged to the Dukes of Bouillon touching which I am informed they make great brags to the King that when he took possession of it that City was almost wholly Protestants and that at present the number of the Catholicks much surpasses that of the others But they tell not the King what was told me that the severity with which they treated the Reformed has obliged them to retire that the Catholicks which they fill the City with are Beggers and
as Bedlow I find he would be very Eloquent and that he would succeed admirably well in composing the Character of a Stage-Hero Let us speak seriously one must have renounced all Modesty to dare to maintain that all this great action is only a Comedy and a Fiction Par. But as concerning Father le Cheise whom your Hugonot spoke of in the affair of Coleman I have admired how the English have aspersed him by the publication of Colemans Tryal For this Father is every where therein in the middle beginning and the end and it is upon him that the most convincing proofs turn that are produced against Coleman It appears that this F. Jesuit was of the Party and that he was engaged very deep into the design of re-establishing the Roman Catholick Religion in England by fire and by the effusion of Blood Prov. My Gentleman made me that remark and told me thereupon Methinks that the King's Equity ought to move him not to hearken to such a Man in what regards the Interests of the Subjects of the Reformed Religion What may not the Protestants of France fear from a Man who has been so deeply engaged in the design of cutting the Throats of so many millions of Protestants What Counsels may not he give to the King against us who would have set whole Rivers of the Blood of our Brethren aslowing and make a St. Bartholomew beyond the Seas Though he was innocent of the Affair of England the advices he gives against us ought to be suspected For it is clear that he ought to have a great resentment of the fierce accusations that have been formed against him and that he would have the intention to revenge himself on the Protestants of France for the outrages that he might pretend to have receiv'd from the Protestants of England Wherefore it is certain that the King ought to consider him as our declared enemy and as a passionate enemy and not as a zealous Catholick However this Father Jesuit brags he is the Master of all the King's Resolutions in what concerns us It is he if he may be believed to whom the Catholick Church is indebted for all the severe Declarations that have been made against us And when the Declaration was obtained which forbids Catholicks to turn to the Reformed Religion he entred into the Assembly of the Clergy with that Declaration in his hand with a triumphing air and said Here is the piece that has been so long a solliciting it is I that have obtained it If this man be so powerful over the King's mind as he brags he is the Protestants of France could not be secure of their lives We know from good hands added he that the Members of the Council are not too well satisfied in that the affairs His Majesty was used to consult them about and believe them in are at present put into the hands of a Jesuit Par. For my part I avow to you I am not too well perswaded no more than you that this Conspiracy of the English Catholicks is a fiction But I endeavour to perswade it to others because that I wish it were so for the honour of the Catholick Religion which never ought to inspire such Designs Prov. Be it as it will my Hugonot Gentleman concluded from all this that a Protestant Prince can never be assured of the Fidelity of his Catholick Subjects On the contrary said he the Protestants are subject to their Prince out of Conscience and out of a Principle of their Religion They acknowledge no other Superiour than their King and do not believe that for the cause of Heresie it is permitted either to kill a legitimate Prince or to refuse him obedience Par. You might have asked him if what the English do at present against the Duke of York agrees well with that Divinity Because that he is said to be Catholick they would declare him uncapable of succeeding his Brother Prov. I had not time to propose to him that difficulty for he prevented it It is true said he to me that the troubles which are in England seem to tend towards the refusing Obedience to the Duke of York because he is a Catholick When a Soveraign is mounted upon the Throne by legitimate means it seems said I to him that he ought at least to have as much priviledge as his Subjects and enjoy as well as them the Liberty of Conscience That is true answered he me when he has not bound his hands by his own Laws But by the Laws of the Kingdom of England which are the Laws of the King as well as of the State the King is obliged not to suffer any other Religion in the State than the Protestant Religion These Laws cannot be repealed but by the Parliament jointly with the King because that in that Kingdom for the making or repealing Laws the King can do nothing without the Parliament nor the Parliament without the King Wherefore if the Parliament is against the Repealing of these Laws if they must subsist and while that they subsist the King has not power to establish in his Family a different Religion from that of the State You know said he to me that the people of England have great Priviledges and that the Kings have not the Right to do all that they please Particularly added he when there is a Prince to be established the States of the Kingdom who are obliged to be careful of the Preservation of the Religion are authorized to take all their Sureties that no change may be made therein Thus they must either remove from the Throne if they have the Right to do so he who would mount into it to ruin the Religion or at least they ought to bridle his Authority for the hindring him from making changes The Religion of Henry the 4th before he turned Catholick was an Obstacle to his establishment upon the Throne which he would never have surmounted though he was the legitimate Heir of the Crown Par. This man is very knowing He certainly came prepared upon the matter For extempore he could not have given to his reasons so great an air of likelihood Prov. He came without doubt prepared and I likewise perceived that he daily consulted people more knowing than himself For he cleared and argued strongly the next day upon such points as I had found him weak in the day before One of the points of which he spoke to me with the most zeal and passion was that of good Faith They oppose against us said he to me the English and Holland Catholicks But what has been promised to those people that has not been performed The United Provinces of the Low Countries are entred into the Union with this Condition of not suffering any other Religion in their States than the Protestant Though England was reformed under Edward the 6th afterwards under Elizabeth by several Acts of Parliament which are the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom it was ordered that no other Religion should
the Court of Rome This Court is the Head the Clergy is the Body the Ecclesiasticks and Monks are the Members and all these Members move by the Orders of the Head Again I have no Design to chocque the Gentlemen Clergy whose persons I respect I do not doubt but that they have good French Hearts But in fine they have their Maximes of Conscience they are of a Religion and they must follow its Principles Now the Principles of their Religion binds them to the Holy See and its preservation preferably to all things moreover Interest makes illusion in Hearts and Minds Their Interest obliges them to take the Popes part who is their Preserver and Protectour and what they do out of interest they persuade themselves that they do it out of Conscience First it may be said of the Monks that all the Houses they have in France are as many Citadels that the Court of Rome has in the Kingdom Those great Societies have withdrawn themselves from the Dominion of the Bishops they depend immediately on the Holy See they have all their Generals of Orders at Rome and those Generals who are Italians and Spaniards are the Soul of the Society they are obliged to follow their Opinions and their Orders the Italian Divinity is the Divinity of the Cloisters Thus the King may reckon that all the Monks look upon him as the Pope's Subject as being lyable to be Excommunicated his Kingdom put under an Ecclesiastical Censure his Subjects dispensed and released from the Oath of Fidelity and his States given by the Pope to another Prince And every time that this happens they will believe themselves obliged out of Conscience to obey the Pope If in those Orders of Monks there happens to be some particular One who follow other Principles it is certain that they are in no Number and do not hinder that the Body of the Monks is absolutely in the Interests of the Court of Rome and by consequence in that of Spain Thus you see already a considerable Party of whose Fidelity the Kings of France cannot be assured And what is this Party One may say that it is all France for the begging Monks and the Jesuits are Masters of all the Consciences they are Confessors they are Directors they persuade what they will to those that are devoted to them The House of Bourbon ought not to doubt of this truth if it never so little calls to mind the endeavours that were used by the Monks for the forcing from it the Crown when the Race of the Valois came to fail It is against this so considerable Party that the State ought to take its Precautions in preserving that other Party which can never be of intelligence with this it is that of the Reformed History tells us how impossible it is to be long without having Disputes with the Court of Rome It is always attempting and one is obliged to defend ones self against its enterprises It is capable of setting great Engines a going of making Engagements and Alliances It had twenty times like to have ruined Germany it has dethroned great Emperours it has likewise caused great troubles in France and one cannot be too secure against its ambition Par. I fancy that your Hugonot's Advocate would not spare the rest of the Clergy and that he endeavoured to prove that we can be no more assured of their Fidelity than of that of the Religious Prov. What you have already heard may make you easily divine that for the giving the more force to what he had to say against our Divines he prevented what might have been objected If you understood these matters Sir said he to me you could tell me that our Clergy of France teach a Divinity wholly different from that of Rome that all make profession of holding for the Liberties of the Gallicane Church the principal Articles of which are 1. That the King of France cannot be Excommunicated by the Pope 2. That an Ecclesiastical Censure cannot be laid upon their Kingdome 3. That it cannot be given to others 4. That the Pope has nothing to do with the Temporality of Kings 5. That he is not Infallible 6. That he is inferiour to the Council These you would tell me are the Maximes of the Sorbonne that have often censured the contrary Propositions This Divinity is maintained by the Authority of the Parliaments who have often declared the Bulls of the Pope abusive null scandalous and impious and have appealed from the Execution of these Bulls when they found them contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church The Court of Parliament assembled at Tours during the League caused the Bulls of Excommunication to be burnt by the hands of the Executioner that had been published against Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth This is all sine and magnificent if you please but these fair appearances have no stock I do not speak of the Divinity of the Parliaments which is that of the Politicians I speak of the Divinity of the Clergy Once more added he I do not at all doubt of the Fidelity of the Divines of France to their King but they shall never perswade me that this Fidelity and Zeal for their Prince is without exception and I make no other exception against it than what they themselves make Will you hear they themselves speak Read the Harangue that Cardinal du Perron made to the third Estate in the name of all the Clergy of France in the States 1616 and remember that it is not the Cardinal du Perron who speaks it is the Clergy of France assembled in a Body who speak by the mouth of that Cardinal All France seised with an horrour of the two horrible Parricides that had been committed in the persons of the two late Kings both of them assassinated out of a false Zeal of Religion would draw up a Formulary of Oath and establish a Fundamental Law of the State which all the Subjects were to swear to and this Law bore that every one should make Oath of ac-acknowledging and believing that our Kings for their Temporalities do not depend on any one soever but on God that it is not lawful for any cause soever to assassinate Kings that even for causes of Heresie of Schism Kings cannot be Deposed nor their Subjects Absolved from their Oath of Fidelity nor upon any other pretext soever This Law methinks is the security of Kings this is a Doctrine which all the Hugonots are ready to sign with their Blood What did the Clergy of France do thereupon It formally opposed that Law divers Works of Cardinal du Perron p. 600 and following they were willing to acknowledge the Independancy of Kings in regard of the Temporalty they consented that Anathema should be pronounced against the assassinates of Kings But they would never pass the last Article that for what cause soever it was a King cannot be Deposed by the Pope stript of his States and his Subjects absolved from the
Oath of Fidelity He who spoke for them alledged all the examples of Emperours and of Kings who had been Deposed and Excommunicated by Popes upon account of refusing Obedience to the Holy See approved them he alledged the example of St. Vrban the Second who Excommunicated Philip the First and laid an Ecclesiastical Censure upon his Kingdom because he had repudiated his Wife Bertha Daughter of a Count of Holland to Marry Bertrade Wife of Foulques Count d' Anjou then still alive He made use of the testimony of Paul Emile who said that Pope Zacharias dispensed the French from the Oath of Fidelity that they had made to Chilperick These two Princes were not Hereticks yet the Clergy of France approved their having been stript of their States by the Popes which makes appear that the Clergy in the bottom judges that the Pope has Right to lay an Ecclesiastical Consure upon the Kingdom of France and to depose its Kings for any other cause as well as that or Heresâ—e Is it not to abuse the World to confess on one side that the Temporalty of Kings does not depend on the Pope and establish on the other that the Pope may in certain occasions Interdict these Kings Excommunicate them and Absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity In sine this is the result of that famous Opinion of the Clergy of France So that if Christians are constrained to defend their Religion and their lives against Heretick Princes or Apostates from their Fidelity to whom they have been Absolved the Politick Christian Laws does not permit them any thing more than what is permitted by Military Laws and by the Right of Nations to wit open War and not Assassination and Clandestine Conspiracies that is to say that when a Pope has declâ—â—ed a Prince deprived of his â—tates his Subjects may set up the Standard of Rebellion declare War against him refuse him Obedience and kill him if they can meet him provided it be with arms in their hand and by the ordinary course of War I cannot comprehend how one can be secured of the Fidelity of those who hold such like Maximes For in fine Kings are not insallible and if they happen to do any thing that the Court of Rome judges worthy of Excommunication and Interdiction they are Kings without Kingdoms and Subjects according to our Clergy of France as well as according to the Divines of Italy But perhaps that the Sorbonne which is the Depository of the French Divinity does not receive these Maximes so fatal to the safety of Kings Let us see what it has done In the Month of December 1587 because that Henry the Third for the security of his Person and of his State made a Treaty with the Resisters or the German Protestants the Sorbonne without staying for the Decisions of Rome made a secret Result which said That the Government might be taken from Princes who were not found such as they ought to be as the administration from a suspected Tutour This was known by the King he sent for the Sorbonne some days after and complained of it After the death of the Princes of Guise which happen'd at Blois the Sorbonne did much worse they declared and caused to be published in all parts of Paris That all the People of that Kingdom were Absolved from the Oaths of Fidelity that they had sworn to Henry of Valois heretofore their King they razed his name out of the publick Prayers and made known to the People that they might with safe Conscience unite arm and contribute to make War against him as a Tyrant If I would add to that the Story that I know this Gentleman told you concerning the Death of the late King of England we should find that the Sorbonne has ever been of the same Opinion Let things be told as they are every time that our Kings shall have assairs that will carry them to extremity against the Court of Rome the Clergy of France will suppress the discontents while that affairs go well for the Court of France but if things turn otherways the dictates of our Divines against the King will not fail to break out Every sincere person will allow that it has never been otherwise than so and that it will be always thus which may be observed in the very least disputes By example in that the King has now lately had with the Pope upon the account of the Regality and of the Vrbanists the publick has seen a Letter from the Clergy Addressed to the King when he departed to visit the Frontiers of the Low-Countries In that Letter these Gentlemen promise the King let whatever be the issue of his Disputes with the Pope they will be always inviolably fixed to his Majesties Interests But we know from good hands that the Archbishop of Paris and the Sieur Rose Secretary of the Cabinet are the sole Authors of that Letter the Bishops have almost openly disavowed it And this makes it apparent enough that in this Dispute they were of the Popes side Must it not then be confessed that it is the King's Interest to preserve the only Party that makes Oath of Fidelity to him without exception and without reserve that can never have engagements contrary to his Service either with Spain or the Court of Rome or with the revolted Clergy favouring the Enemies of the State And it is well known that in the time of Henry the Third while that all the Corporations of the Kingdom were in an actual Rebellion against their Prince the Hugonot was the only one which remained Loyal If it was necessary to add any thing more pursued our Civil Lawyer for to prove that it is the King's Interest to protect the Reformed in his States one might say that the Alliances that have been made with Foreign Protestants have not been disadvantageous to the State Since the year 1630 its engagements with England Holland Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg have been a great help towards its humbling the House of Austria Cardinal Richlieu successfully employed the King of Sweden for to punish the pride to which that House was mounted after the defeat of the Palatine House that had accepted the Crown of Bohemia And it is well enough known that the Protection that the King gave the Protestants in his Territories facilitated those Foreign Engagements and Alliances Thus our Orator ended and made a pause at this place Par. He has forgot a great Article That which is against the Peace of a State is ever against his Interests who governs it Nothing is more incompatible with Peace than diversity of Religions Prov. He did not forget it but he thought he had said enough for one time and referred what he had more to say till the next day This morning sour Gentleman returned and as what was said is fresher in my memory perhaps I shall give you a more exact account I know very well continued our Hugonot Civil Lawyer that I am to
Provinces taken so many Cities made so many Sieges and won so many Battels nothing can be more worthy of him and more capable of rendering the memory of his Reign Glorious than the re-uniting the Religions in France He has hearkned to it and will forget nothing for the accomplishment of this Design The King does not naturally love to vex his people and if he was left to act according to his inclinations things would not be carried on so violently but he is pushed on and is not left at quiet Prov. It is not however believed that violent means shall be employed that is to say Sword Fire and Banishment Par. If some Bigots were listened to nothing should be spared But the general vein of the Kingdom does not go so The King does not love violence Besides how weak soever a Party may be when it is pusht to extremity it is capable of giving a desperate blow It was not observed that this Conduct succeeded in the last age And in fine the King whose principle aim is to make himself formidable to his Neighbours does not design to depopulate his Countries And doubtless they would be considerably depopulated if the Hugonots were destroyed by the Sword or chased away by Banishment Prov. It is well known that the Kings Prospects are very opposite to those for he has made several Ordonnances to hinder his Subjects from leaving the Kingdom It is likely that the Hugonots have a very great share in them they are not allowed to go seek reâ—ose elsewhere They must stay and be exposed to the ills that are designed them and that they may at length change being wearied with so many Fatigues or invited by such hopes Par. It is so it is not to be dissembled See here then the manner by which it is pretended to compass the great Design of re-uniting them to the Church It has been observed by experience that there are two things that give root to Heresie in a State The first is the great Liberty that the Hereticks have of preaching their Doctrines The Second is the Conveniency of Life when they are suffered to live in a profound Peace and enjoy Charges Employes and all the other Dignities and Priviledges which the other Subjects enjoy Prov. It is certain when a man is born of a Religion and that he finds therein all the Repose Riches Pleasure and Honour that he could wish he has no great mind to change it how little zealous soever he may be Par. That 's true and therefore during fifty Years there was not so many Conversions seen as within these five Years The Edicts given in favour of the Hugonots by Henry the 4th and confirmed by his Successour Lewis the 13th granted them great Liberties In the Cities where they were most numerous they possessed one part of the Magistratures they had Chambers of the Edict in the Parliaments and likewise divided Chambers in the Provinces where they were most numerous They avoqued all their Causes to these Chambers that the zealous Catholick might not do them injustice They exercised all manner of honourable and gainful Professions with the same liberty as the Catholicks They were Counsellors and Attorneys at Law Physicians gathered in a Body of the Faculty They were received into Arts they carried on Trade they likewise entred into the Kings affairs as well as others In War no distinction was made between them and the Catholicks Nothing was considered but Merrit and Fidelity and Service and Courage They were received into all the Military Dignities and had Pensions They were Collonels Brigadeers Major-Generals Lieutenant-Generals and even Marshals of France commanding Armies in Chief On the other part as for what concerned the exercise of their Religion they very freely enjoyed what had been granted them They had places appointed from the time of the Edict for their Sermons Every Gentleman having High Justices was as a little Soveraign in his House He might assemble by the sound of the Bell all the Religionaries thereabouts he made a Parish in his House and no body disturbed him The Bishops were used to suffer those people in their Diocesses They had even engagements with the Principals of this Party The Hugonot Lord made no scruple of visiting my Lord the Prelate and the Prelate on the other part lookt with a good Eye upon the Hugonot Gentleman Thus they lived in a very great Peace But it was visibly perceived that the Heresie took deep root by the favour of that repose as ill Herbs are increased by the gentleness of the Spring Prov. The State the Kingdom had been in for a long time had without doubt contributed to the tranquility the Hugonots enjoyed A War of thirty Years with Spain a long Minority Civil Broiles and Forreign Affairs had hindered the thoughts of them Par. That is certain For after all our Kings who bear with justice the name of most Christian and Eldest Sons of the Church have never lost the design of destroying Hereticks But their Prudence has obliged them to suspend the use of the means they designed to make use of for that end Prov. As for Henry the 4th I do not think this can be said of him He had treated with them with sincerity He was of opinion he had received great services from them he had been a long time of their Religion He only quitted it that he might quite dissipate the League which covered it self with the Cloak of Catholicity And we very well know that this remnant of Inclination that he had preserved for them cost him his Life After his Death during the minority of Lewis the 13th and the Ministry of the Marquess d' Ancre the Affairs of Court and State were in such disorder that there were few thoughts of extirpating the Hugonots It is true that Cardinal Richlieu took from them their Cities of Surety but it was rather out of a Politick prudence than any zeal of Religion He saw that it was a State in a State and that those Cities were retreats for Rebels and the Discontented but in the bottom he sought not their ruin His engagements were too small with the Court of Rome and was too able a Politician to ruin a Party of whose Fidelity he might always be assured It may likewise be said with more assurance that Cardinal Mazarin never thought of extirpating Heresie The Good man though an Italian and a Neighbour of the Church had no great zeal for it Riches were his only Divinity It is very well expressed in one of his Epitaphs Si Coelum rapitur habet He never sought any other way to go to Heaven thâ—n that of Rapine Especially he never thought of this way to Heaven which is called the Conversion of Hereticks Besides his Ministry was attended with so many Traverses and he was so hard put to it to defend himself against so many Enemies that it cannot be imagined he had ever any other Prospects than such as tended to the establishment
the Reformed Religion Rules I avow to you that I had nothing to reply to this Article for I had seen with my Eyes all that he said There was one day with me in a long-Boat or Schupe a Priest drest in black Cloaths who was not otherwise disguised than that his Coat was short who said his Breviary before a hundred persons with as much liberty as he could have done in France Par. And what said he of England Prov. He said that at London there are five and twenty Houses without counting those of the Ambassadours of Catholick Princes wherein Mass is publickly said without any search being ever made that the truth is the liberty is not so great in the Country but that all Gentlemen had their Almoners and Priests in their Houses and that all the Catholicks went thither to Mass But that this was not what he had principally to oppose me with But I 'll allow said he that Catholicks have less liberty in Holland and in England than the Reformed have in France But is there any Justice to compare in this regard France with England Why is not England compared with Spain Italy Hungary and all the Territories of Germany subject to the House of Austria They oppose us with the Severity of the English against the Catholicks and we oppose the cruelty of the Spaniards against our people Is there any Comparison The Catholicks have not the liberty of exercise in England but they live there they Traffick there they exercise Arts there they are known there without danger they even perform their Service there without other hurt if they be discovered than that they are forbid to return In Spain and Italy those they call Calvinists and Lutherans are chased away like Lyons and Bears They go in quest of them and if they be discovered they are burnt alive If they have the boldness of making any publick act of their Religion there are no punishments cruel enough to be inflicted upon them It is sufficient that they are suspected or only accused of Lutheranisme for to be cast into the Prisons of the Inquisition where they must perish without Remedy Par. That is not ill imagined For in fine it is certain that the Inquisitition has not yet been established against the Catholicks in the Countries where the Heresie of Luther and Calvin Govern But did he say nothing to you of more force Prov. You shall hear what he aded appeared considerable to me which was that Hugonot Princes cannot have the same toleration for Catholicks in their States that Catholick Princes can have for Hugonots because that Protestant Princes cannot be assured of the fidelity of their Catholick Subjects by reason they have taken Oaths of fidelity to another Prince whom they consider as greater than all Kings It is the Pope and this Prince is a sworn Enemy of the Protestants He obliges the People to believe that a Soveraign turned Heretick has forfeited all the Rights of Soveraignty that they owe him no Obedience that they may with impunity revolt against him that they may fall upon him as an Enemy of the Christian Name even to assassinate him See the Jesuits Morals cap. 3. Book the Third And thereupon he cited to me Mariana Carolus Scribanus Ribadnera Tolet Gretser Hercun Amicus Lescius Valentia Dicatillus and several others that are cited by the Jansenists in the Book of the Jesuits Morals and by the Ministers All these Authors said he to me teach conformably to the Divinity of Rome that a Heretick Prince and Excommunicated by the Pope is but a particular person against whom Armes may be taken that he may be likewise Assassinated or poysoned He added to this the examples of so many Parricides that have been committed or attempted according to these Maximes How many times said he would they have Assassinated Queen Elizabeth Prince Willam of Orange was twice Assassinated and lost his Life the Second time Henry the Third was not he killed by a Jacobin as Excommunicated by the Pope and stript of the Royal Dignity John Chastel did not he attempt the same thing upon Henry the Fourth And did not Ravilliac out of a false Zeal Assassinate him After which he gave me an account of the Gun powder Plot in England by which in the year 1606. the Catholick had undertaken to blow up the King and all the Grandees of the Kingdom by a Mine they had made under the Parliament House He told me of the Jesuits Garnet and Oldcorn Chief of that Conspiracy who were put into the number of the Martyrs whether they would or no for the Jesuit Garnet going to Execution some one of his Companions telling him softly in his Ear that he was going to be a Martyr he answered Nunquam audivi parricidam esse Martyrem I never heard that a Parricide was a Martyr He related to me a hundred scandalous Stories of that nature Amongst others he told me one that extreamly surprized me he read it to me with all its circumstances in a little Book that had been published by an English Minister who calls himself the King of Englands Chaplain Thus it is in short A Divine who had been the Chaplain of King Charles who was beheaded turn'd Catholick some time before his Masters Death and the English Jesuits put such confidence in him that they imparted to him a very terrible thing It was a Consultation allowed of by the Pope about the means of re-establishing the Catholick Religion in England The English Catholicks seeing that the King was a Prisoner in the hands of the Independants formed the Resolution of laying hold on that occasion to destroy the Protestant Religion and re-establish the Catholick Religion They concluded that the only means of re-establishing the Catholick Religion and of cashiering all the Laws that had been made against it in England was to dispatch the King and destroy Monarchy That they might be authorized and maintained in this great Undertaking they deputed eighteen Father-Jesuits to Rome to demand the Popes advice The matter was agitated in secret Assemblies and it was concluded that it was permitted and just to put the King to Death Those Deputies in their passage through Paris consulted the Sorbonne who without waiting for the Opinion of Rome had judged that that enterprise was just and legitimate and upon the return of the Jesuites who had taken the Journey to Rome they communicated to the Sorbonnists the Popes Answer of which several Copies were taken The Deputies who had been at Rome being returned to London confirmed the Catholicks in their Design To compass this point they thrust themselves in amongst the Independants by dissembling their Religion They persuaded those people that the King must be put to Death and it cost that poor Prince his Life some Months after But that Death of King Charles not having had all the Consequences that had been hoped and all Europe having cryed out with horrour against the Parricide committed in the Person of
cost the Lives of all those who should make Information and pass Sentence Oates and Bedlow are false Witnesses They are then false Witnesses of an admirable Character false Witnesses who agree perfectly well amongst themselves and never contradict one another But for all this they are false Witnesses who have concerted their business very ill If it is a Conspiracy it is a trick invented for the dishonouring the Society of the Jesuits to hang and quarter their Companions Methinks these false Witnesses ought to understand themselves something better On the Seventeenth of December five that were Accused were brought to be Examined and have their Tryal Whitebread the Provincial of the Jesuits William Ireland John Fenwick Thomas Pickering and John Grove Oates and Bedlow were produced against them as Witnesses These two Witnesses were found to know enough and to have said enough to cause three of those persons to be condemned Ireland Pickering and Grove Oates equally charged the five but Bedlow knew not enough to cause Whitebread and Fenwick to be condemned insomuch that they were obliged to send back to Prison these two last both of them Jesuits and to put off their Tryal till farther Information This is strange these two false Witnesses are great Fools Whitebread is the chief of the Conspiracy the Provincial of the Jesuits he whom they had the most reason to ruine and they are so imprudent as not to be of intelligence to tell one another what is capable of causing him to be condemned this is not to be comprehended Oates is a false Witness he says too much to be believed as is reported It must be confessed that if the Depositions of that Man are false it is the strangest and most unheard of thing in the World All the examples of fury of past Ages wrapt together do not approach that which is observed in this false Witness Never was there a link of such terrible Crimes as that Man charges the Accused with They have says he burnt London several times they would assassinate the King the Princes the Grandees and almost two thirds of the Inhabitants of the Kingdom overturn the State destroy the Religion change the Government and to that intent set whole Rivers of blood a flowing Is it credible that there is so wicked a Man in the World as to charge those that are innocent with so many Crimes Perhaps that a passion of revenge might move a Man to lay so Infernal a train to satisfie himself for some outrage he had received But what outrage does there appear that Oates and Bedlow had received from the Roman-Catholicks The most part of those that are accused maintain that Oates and Bedlow are unkown to them If they are unknown to them they have not then done them any outrage which might more them to so prodigious a revenge Moreover by the Testimony of those amongst the accused who confess they know their Accusers it is certain that both of these Witnesses were Roman-Catholicks They had not changed their Religion had it not been for the horrour of the Plot they had not become Apostates had not they been pricked in their Consciences they had not any other reason to be pushed on by a spirit of hatred against the Catholick Religion and against those who profess it wherefore it was only the horrour of the Fact which struck them and obliged them to prevent so horrible effusion of blood Methinks that false Witnesses should not charge themselves with so great a number of Facts lest they should be exposed to contradict one another There needed no more to be said than in two or three Articles that such People have Conspired against the State and against the Religion and might have been executed after that manner But it appears that Oates 〈◊〉 â—ourscore heads of accusation and makes a History of more than fifteen years well pursued and well 〈…〉 It is requisite to have an 〈◊〉 â—â—â—…tion that has hardly the like â—â—â—…vent such a Romance so well purâ—â—â—â—… I likewise find that those Witneâ—â—s are very bold to invent such horrible Depositions against People who so well know how to make use of the Knife for the dispatching their Enemies as appears by the Death of Godfrey The good Nature of those good Fathers would be very great if they did not revenge themselves on Oats and Bedlow in case that their Depositions were true but it is hardly credible that it would reach so far as to let two Impostors live peaceably who had charged them with the most horrid Calumnies that Hell had ever imagined And if they have a design to destroy them it is hard if they do not succeed in it sooner or later The King's Safe-guards and the Protection of the Parliament will little help them Wherefore if Oates and Bedlow were false Witnesses they are great Fools to expose themselves into so great a danger in this life for the damning themselves also in the other In fine my Hugonot Gentleman told me What have we to do with Oates and Bedlow to prove the Truth of that Conspiracy Let us take them if you will from off the Scene and judge of the business by Coleman's Letters to Father le Cheise and to some others These Letters have been acknowledged the accused have not denied them There is one to the Pope's Nuncio at Brussels Dated the 9th of August 1674. which says in proper terms That their design advanced apace and that they should quickly see the ruine of the Protestant Party Is any thing of more force than what Coleman says to Father le Cheise in one of the Letters he wrote to him We have undertaken a great Work it is no less than the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the entire subversion of that pestilent Heresie which has for so long a time rul'd over this Northern part of the World And we have never had so great hopes since the Reign of Our Queen Mary And towards the end of the Letter he powerfully sollicites Father le Cheise to obtain succours of Money and Arms for putting in execution this great Design It is perhaps by the way of Preaching that Coleman pretended to Convert those three Kingdoms Arms and Money are very necessary to give efficacy to Grace and Preaching It is certainly in that spirit of Zeal and well regulated Devotion that Coleman says Though I had a Sea of Blood and a thousand Lives I would willingly lose them all for the execution of this Design and if to bring it to pass it was requisite to destroy an hundred Heretick Kings I would do it These words are pretty strong It is Bedlow who has reported them and says he heard them If he invented them in cold Blood and without being moved with Anger I find him admirable in the art of feigning Passions For it must be avowed that these expressions give us a lively image of a Man the most moved and the most concerned that has ever been seen For a Man of War
poor Wretches That of a good City they have made of it a retreat for people who have nothing and who are a charge to the Commonalty that those Catholicks the City is filled with by expelling the ancient Inhabitants come from the Burroughs and neighbouring Villages Thus the King gains no new Subjects though the City gains new Inhabitants and he loses all the good Subjects who go away and seek for repose elsewhere and carry with them what Riches they have The same thing happens in the Provinces bordering upon Swizzerland and Geneva They are not sensible yet of this diminution but they will one day find it Besides they may assure the King that all those zealous Convertours who brag to him that they increase the Catholick Church will much contribute to desart his Kingdom It is certain that of those who change Religion to become Catholicks there is not the fourth part I dare say the sixth who persevere in the Religion that they have embraced They changed out of Interest Lightness Fear Love or some other passion which surprized them When passion is cooled reason returns those people are ashamed of their change and their Consciences become awake And as the most part have as little benefit in France as in another State it little imports them where they are and they go away to avoid the Rigour of the Edicts against Relapses At that place our Doctor stopped a little appeared pensive and thus renewed I am going to enter upon a nice Subject I have no mind to offend any one but I cannot forbear telling the truth We are all good French-men but the King has much more interest to preserve his Hugonot Subjects than all the others since it is the only Party of whose fidelity he can be secured Give me leave Sir to handle this point more particularly it is certain that the great disputes that France can have are with Spain and with the Emperour There is not a Family in Europe that can give ombrage to that of France besides the House of Austria Since Charles the 5th that House has ever aspired to the Universal Monarchy It is true that the King has brought it very low at present and made it fall very much from its High pretensions But in fine it is the Course of the world which is humbled to day to be raised again to morrow The House of Austria has raised it self from a very low Degree it still reigns in Spain Germany and Italy that is to say almost over the half of Europe and when these large territories become sensible of their force and to be animated by a great Chief they may put Fance as hard to it as they did formerly It is therefore certain that the great Interest of our State is to be always on the Guard on the side of the House of Austria and deprive it of its Allyes and weaken its Subjects and manage Alliances and form Adherences against it and extirpate out of France all that might favour it and entertain there all that is most opposite to it And this already makes appear how much interest the King has not to ruine a Party that can never enter into Intelligence with Spain The House of Austria has conserved so great a fury against the Protestants and the Protestants conserve so much resentment for the violences that they have suffered by the Princes of that House that those two Parties are absolutely irreconcilable It is not the same thing with the other Parties of the State It is true that there is some natural antipathy between a French-man and a Spaniard but you are too well acquainted with the History of our age Sir to be ignorant that notwithstanding those antipathies the Interests of the Grandees has often made such great engagements with Spain that they had like to have ruined the State The History of the League the entry of the Duke of Parma into France and the intentions that the wicked French-men then had to receive a King foom the hands of the Spaniards are Warrants for what I advance I could say something more new and add several stories of our Grandees who dissatisfied with the Court put themselves into the Spanish Party made Treaties with that Crown and would have been of very ill consequence to the Kindom if the preserving Genius of the state had not fenced off it's effects But though all the rest of France should enter into such a mind the Hugonots Party alone would be a Barriere to the State and would shed to the very last drop of its blood that it might not fall under the Dominion of Spain Par. The King in the State he is has little need of keeping measures with any one for the becoming formidable to the House of Austria he who makes all Europe tremble and carries the terrour of his Armes even into Africa Prov. That is true But wise Princes as the King is have longer prospects they do not onely consider themselves and their present State they consider Posterity and the future and take their Sureties against all that may happen Be it as it will our Civil Lawyer proceeding farther upon the matter told me Let me beg of you Sir that we may speak freely Is it not true that the Court of Rome has engagements infinitely greater with Spain and the House of Austria than with France Spain renders submissions to the See of Rome that France does not render it Spain does not talk of the Liberties of its Church as they talk in France of the Liberties of the Gallicane Church as these Liberties pass at Rome for Heresies or attempts against the Holy See Spain is submitted to the Tribunal of the Inquisition France rejects it even in what it has of Good In fine Spain keeps Faith and does Homage to the Court of Rome for one part of its States as the Kingdoms of Naples and Arragon and on the contrary the Kings of France will not depend on the Pope for Temporality and hold only their State of God and their Swords In one word these engagements between Spain and the Court of Rome are such that this Court does not at all ballance when it is to take the French or Spanish side and never kept it self neuter but when it feared the Forces of France Wherefore the Italian Party and the Spanish Party are to be looked upon as the same Party The King of Spain is Master of most part of Italy The Popes are often Spaniards by Birth and they are ever so by inclination the Spanish Faction amongst the Cardinals is ever the most numerous Thus the great Interest of the King and of France is to be ever upon the Guard against the Italian Faction which can easily become Spanish Now this Italian Party is not only in Spain and in Italy it is in Germany in France and every where else it is the Body of the Clergy One cannot be ignorant of the engagements that all the Roman Catholick Clergy has necessarily with