time all the demands which they made all the Decrees they proposed to themselves to obtain are found in the Articles of this Declaration In regard whereof they can be looked upon no otherwise than as the Execution of those so destructive Memoires since therein may be seen all the pretentions of the Clergy turned into form of Rules and Ordinances II. Besides who else but the Ecclesiasticks that is to say most passionate Parties could ever have conceived that thought which they had and which they have by surprize caused to be set in the Preface of this Declaration where it is said that what hath been judged and decided by the Decrees of the Counsell should be confirmed and established for ever and be executed as a Law inviolable For to desire that the Decrees in generall made in Counsel that is to say Decrees whereof many were given upon a Petition only and without Cognisance of the Cause or upon particular Actions and upon circumstances extraordinary should pass into a Law inviolable throughout the Realm certainly is a thing that cannot easily be conceived There is no thing more common than to see the Decrees of the Counsel annulled by others subsequent because the King being better informed of the State and truth of things Wills that the Rights of Justice should be maintained on the same Tribunal where the artifice of the Parties would have given it some defeat Decrees being indeed no Rules of the Law but on the contrary the Law the true Rule of Decrees III. The Form and Tenure of the Articles makes it no less clear that the Declaration was a surprize For they are all prejudicial to the Pretended Reformed Religion And in the mean time the King in the beginning of the Preface doth say expresly that his greatest care since his coming to the Crown hath been to maintain his Catholick Subjects and those of the Petended Reformed Religion in perfect Peace and Tranquility And a few lines after that the design of this Declaration was to nourish Peace and Amity amongst his Majesties Subjects as well Catholicks as those of the Pretended Reformed Religion In pursuance of this design truly worthy the Justice and Goodness of the King the Declaration ought to have been conceived in such sort that in giving satisfaction to the one some regard might have been had at least of the weal and subsistence of the other and that not only they of the Roman Catholick Religion but they also of the Pretended Reformed Religion might have found therein some matter of contentment But contrary to this so just a Maxim this whole Declaration is to the disadvantage of the latter and so far from being proper to nourish Peace and Amity that it can serve for nothing else but to beget eternal troubles and divisions This is one manifest proof that it was neither the King nor his Counsell that formed this Declaration not only so partial but so openly contrary to so considerable a party of his Majesties Subjects For Kings have not been wont to deal after this manner in the Regulations which they make for the union and repose of the persons whose differences they would appease They do alwayes conserve the interest of the one part with the other betwixt whom they seek to establish Concord and good Understanding The Edict of Nantes hath been conceived by this true Spirit of Royalty For it propounds so to regulate the Affairs of those of the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Religion and those of the pretended Reformed Religion that both the one and the other might find therein some cause to be contented And also for the composing thereof Henry the Great called unto his person the most prudent and best qualified of the two Religions that he might confer with them He received their Bills he hearkned to their Complaints and to their Remonstrances to the end he might not be surprized in any point But here they of the pretended Reformed Religion were neither heard nor called the Ecclesiasticks only in this rencounter had the honour to approach unto the person of the King and having disguised matters unto him according to the dictates of their passion they have imposed upon him sinister impressions to the prejudice of the truth to the end they might cause him to set forth a Declaration which they had a long time before framed in their own bosoms It is then the Clergy who have suggested it through the motives of their hatred against them of the pretended Reformed Religion and who were desirous therein to accumulate all things whatsoever their passion could enable them to imagine as most proper to atchieve their overthrow and ruine IV. But that which renders this surprize in every respect sensible and palpable is the pablick protestation which the King makes in the entrance of this Declaration that he will observe exactly the Edict of Nantes and that of 1629. for it will be found that this Declaration is so very far from exactly observing those Edicts so authorised that it repeals them in many of its Articles so that none can doubt but that it is contrary to the intention of his Majesty and that they who have obtained it have surprised him in the sincerity of his heart For where is the person so rash or so wicked as to dare to say that the King doth indeed protest that he will observe the Edict of Nantes but that notwithstanding it is not his intention They are none but the enemies of France and of the glory of our illustrious Monarch who can make such discourses They of the pretended Reformed Religion who are resolved to live and die in the respects which they owe unto his Sacred Majesty can never have such a suspicion of so admirable a Prince and the Grand-Child of Henry the Great For that great Heroe who hath transmitted unto him his Vertues with his Blood gives us very well to understand that his posterity are uncapable of any such procedure when he pronounces these generous words which the History hath preserved and he addressed in so firm a tone to them of the Parliament of Paris about the matter of the Edict of Nantes I find it not good saith he to intend one thing and write another and if any have done so I will not do the same Cousenage is altogether odious but most of all in a Prince whose word ought to be unchangeable The Successor then and worthy Imitator of Henry the Great having given his Royal word and willed himself that the Publick should be thereof both depositary and witness even of this his word by which he hath engaged to observe exactly the Edict of Nantes it cannot be denyed that all that whatsoever it be which clashes with this perpetual and irrevocable Edict is at the same time contrary unto the Will of his Royal Majesty Being then it is so that almost in all the Articles of the Declaration of 1666. there are contrarieties to the Edict we must needs conclude that
therefore all ambiguity and that there may not be left any advantage for contentious Spirits to trouble those of the pretended Reformed Religion without cause This present Article had need to be explicated in such sort that his Majesty thereby doe declare that he intends not at all to deprive those of the said Religion of the liberty of calling into their Consistories those whom they shall think fit to cause to come thither because of scandal nor to assemble the Heads of Families for the calling of their Ministers nor to hold Assemblies permitted by the Edict for imposition of Monies for the entertainment of their Ministers and charges of their Synods ART XIII Donations and Legacies That the Elders of the Consistories may not be appointed Inheritours nor Legatees Universal in their said quality THe forty second Article of the Edict of Nantes is Repealed by this For it contains that the Donations or Legacies made or to be made whether it be by last Will in the case of Death or made by the Living for the entertainment of their Ministers Doctors Scholars or for the Poor of the pretended Reformed Religion or other matters of Piety should be valid and obtain their full and intire effect notwithstanding all Judgements Decrees or ether things to the contrary thereof whatsoever This settlement is general and absolute and it distinguisheth not betwixt the Universal and particular Donations And by consequent it respects the one as well as the other For there where the Law distinguisheth not men are not to distinguish Also the King Lewis the Just your Majesties Father finding this Law to be indisputable confirmed it solemnly in 1616. by his Royal answer to the Paper of those of the pretended Reformed Religion in these terms The Forty Second of the private Articles made at Nantes concerning Donations and Testamentary Legacies let it be observed in favour of the poor of the pretended Reformed Religion notwithstanding any Judgements to the contrary And all the Decrees of the Counsell and Parliaments have been alwayes conformable to this Law This change is therefore surprizing and a notable breach of the Edict At the least we cannot doubt that the Kings Justice will make him find two things reasonable and necessary to which his Majesty is most humbly besought to have regard The one is that being no Ordinances have any power retroactive nor touch any thing that is past he would be pleased to ordain in the explication of this Article of the Declaration that it may not prejudice those Donations or Legacies Universal which were formerly made to the Consistories The other that it is not the intention of his Majesty to hinder particular Donations which may be given to Consistories It is very certain that the King's design is not to forbid them For being that in this Article he forbids only Donations universal it follows necessarily that he confirms the particular In the mean time they begin by an excessive transport to dispute the particular Gifts and Legacies and Parliaments have lately made some rigorous Decrees against which those of the said Religion demand Justice of his Majesty at whose Feet they seek their only Refuge beseeching him to authorise the particular Donations which have been or shall hereafter be made unto the Consistories conformable to the forty second Article of the particular of Nantes notwithstanding all Decrees and Judgments to the contrary ART XIV Preaching and Residence of Ministers in divers Places That those of the said P. R. R. assembled in their Synod National or Provincial permit not their Ministers to Preach or reside in divers places by turns but on the contrary do enjoyn them to reside and preach only in one place which is given them by the said Synods THis Article contains two parts the one regarding the Preaching and the other the Residing of Ministers in more than one place As for the Preaching by course in divers places it is true that there have been many Decrees pro and con about this matter so that indeed the business being at this day as it were suspended amongst many Decrees contrary to one another it belongs now unto his Majesty to determine of them by his Soveraign Authority And his Justice gives them of the P. R. R. to hope that he will maintain them in the liberty of their Annexes taking away the prohibitions which have been made against their Preaching in divers places That which gives them this hope is this that these prohibitions have been founded on no other thing than a Misinformation For they never had any other Foundation than from the Edict of the Month of January one thousand five hundred and sixty one by which it was forbidden Ministers to walk from place to place and from Village to Village to preach there by violence and without right But it doth not treat at all of this business of Annexes For it is agreed that Ministers ought not to be Vagabonds and wander from place to place of their own fancy Their Discipline it self doth sorbid this and the Maxims of a good Conscience as well as those of good Polity do oppose it Therefore the Edict of January is in this point altogether just But the Annexes suffer not the Ministers to be Vagabonds but on the contrary fix and settle them with certain flocks They do not give them liberty to go and preach in places where the Exercise is not permitted but on the contrary fix them in places where they have right to exercise according to the Edict What is it then that should hinder the Ministers that they may not preach in two or three places of this nature What pretence can the Ecclesiasticks find to give a colour to their Enterprise Will they alledge the Edict But that forbids not to preach in divers places when they have a right to exercise Besides there is found a Decree made in the Council in the Month of May 1652 by which the King doth formally declare that all the Decrees which have outed the Ministers of this liberty are contrary to the Edicts So that the intent of his Majesty's being to cause the Edict of Nantes to be exactly observed there is ground to believe that he will leave unto the Ministers this liberty the prohibition whereof he hath himself declared to be contrary to the Edicts Will they alledge the Declaration given at S. Germain the nineteenth of December 1634 which they will pretend to be so much the more available for that it was verified in the Chamber of the Edicts of Castres the first of January 1635 But this Declaration was founded upon this that the Ministers of Languedoc went to preach in divers places of that Province where that Exercise was not allowed them These are the proper words which are read in that Declaration which by consequence concerns not the Annexes where they have right to exercise Will they alledge Reason But what reason is there to hinder a Minister to preach in many places when
THE GREAT PRESSURES AND GRIEVANCES OF THE PROTESTANTS IN FRANCE AND THEIR Apology to the Late Ordinances made against them both out of the Edict of Nantes and several other Fundamental Laws of France and that these new Illegalities and their Miseries are Contrived by the Pop. Bishops Arbitrary Power Gathered and Digested by E. E. of Grays-Inn sometime Under-Secretary to the French King Humbly Dedicated to his MAJESTY of Great Britain in Parliament LONDON Printed by E. T. and R. H. for T. Cockeril at the Three Legs over against the Stocks-Market and R. Hartford at the Angel in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange 1681. TO THE KING IN PARLIAMENT GREAT SIR IT is for the amplyfying of your Name and Dignity for the Patronizing and Securing of true Religion at home and abroad and in special gratitude to my Masters in the Faith that I introduce these undone French Supplicants to Petition and Appeal to your Majesty and your Grand Council for your Mediation or some other Redress which they with all possible submission and reiterated Applications nay with tears of Blood and with broken Hearts and Backs have long sought in vain of that incroaching Monarch that rules and tramples over them as may appear by these following Sheets That which makes them conceive the greater Trust and Confidence is certain Titles of your Majesties and that particularly of Defender of the Faith which they hope you will think to fulfil according as occasion at home will suffer your Prudence to turn your eyes to their Exigencies and the present Opportunities abroad The Solemn Embassies that your Majesties Protestant Predecessors sent thither for to expostulate with the French Kings concerning the illegal oppressions of the Huguenots contrary to the Edict of Nantes whereof the Kings of England were held the Guaranties were allowed and are found Recorded in their own Memoires and Registers of State without the least animadversion or disclaim it being a Privilege that the Kings of this Realm had used as their right to practise and insist upon and which we in our days ought by no means to lose by Prescription Now if that King should go about to huff at any Forraign Princes concerning himself in this Nature with the State of his Subjects besides the premised reasons his mouth may be stopped with this argumentum ad hominem That he himself took the same liberty in writing to the Duke of Savoy in favour of his oppressed Protestant Subjects of the Valleys of Piedmont at that time when not only England but Sweadland Denmark and most of the Protestant Princes of Europe had done the same But this Patronizing Spirit for the Protestant Interest which was so conspicuously famous even in a Woman a Princess of this Nation was not suffered to decay in the hearts of the English People it self during that unhappy absence of your Majesty from your Kingdom for amidst their Civil Distractions they forgot not the right our Nation had to Mediate and succour their French Brethren of the Reformed Religion For besides Letters and Messages they sent for their present solid Relief twenty thousand two hundred thirty three pounds by Sir Samuel Morland as part of a General Collection made for them throughout England whereof remained in ready Cash sixteen thousand three hundred thirty three pound ten shillings to be improved for them and we know in whose hands this Sum was deposited at your Majesties happy Restoration but since it is so scattered that few knows what is become of it which is a thing that we humbly beg your Majesty and Parliament to give order to inquire into who they were that laid Sacrilegious hands on such an holy offering of the Nations to the indigent members of Christ in Foraign Churches The French Church in London have a Procuration to receive it for the Piedmontoes In Fine both divine and Humane Reasons do clearly demonstrate That whatever temporizing Pseudo-Polititians may insinuate nothing would as it is presumed so much strengthen your Majesty at home and abroad as to give all possible proofs to your Neighbours that you roundly and vigorously intend to shew your self The Head of the Protestant Religion and that you will appear to be Defender of the Faith indeed And certainly the opposite Interest God be thanked does so visibly decay according to his unsurmountable Decree That the Protestants are and shall be found to be the best friends and strongest supporters your Majesty may have did worldly Prudence it self lead one to make a Choice Now the matter of this Book will afford sufficient matter for your Royal Compassion and Protection and though you see here but a rough draught of their Miseries and a few of the very many Decrees which I have by me that were made against them yet here is as much as may satisfy your Majesty and the World that they suffer not as evil Doers as 't is plain by the Edict of Nantes here inserted and their Plea out of it and other French Laws France was sadly distracted and disjoynted within it self for many ages upon this account of Religion when the Popes Emissaries would never suffer the poor Huguenots to live as peaceable Subjects among them striving though in vain utterly to extirpate and root them out But all their Devices turned to their own shame and all their other attempts for the sâ—tling the Peace of that Nation in any other way still proved unsuccessful till this healing Edict called of Nantes was Enacted by Henry the Fourth at that City whereby the free exercise of Religion in determined fixed Places throughout the Nation with sundry other Priviledges were allowed to those of the Reformed Religion This wrought such a general Unity and Harmony and such a blessing from God upon that Kingdom that both Popish Bishops and Presbyterian Professors lived quietly together for about a whole Century till now of late those proud Prelates not induring any Fellows in the Ministry and not content with the whole Fleece will have all the room to dilate their Phylacteries and so upon several superstitious pretences and jealousies they drew that King to grant those Decrees against Protestants as oft as he would require Money of their Convocated Clergy Thus they first of all break the Bonds of Charity and Christian Unity and afterwards that of the Civil Concord of the Nation by incroaching upon the Civil Magistrates Power of making and executing of Penal Laws in their Courts against their Fellow Christians wherein they are Antichrists Successors not Christs nor his Apostles For his Kingdom was not of this World But may it not then be hoped and humbly offered that the ordaining of such another Edict of Nantes here in England would in allowing some limited Privileges to the Non-conformists conforming in Fundamentals whose Principles are not destructive to Monarchy nor Morality work the same good effects here as it did in that Country and prevent those further growing Divisions and Distractions in Church and State In sine both
and made publick by many and divers times in the Year 1586 and in 1597 until the end of the Month of August notwithstanding all Decrees and Judgements whatsoever to the contrary 10. In like manner the said Exercise may be Established and re-established in all the Cities and Places where it hath been established or ought to be by the Statute of Pacification made in the Year 1577 the particular Articles and Conferences of Nerat and Fleux without hindering the Establishment in places of Domain granted by the said Statutes Articles and Conferences for the Place of Bailiwicks or which shall be hereafter though they have been alienated to Catholicks or shall be in the future Not understanding nevertheless that the said Exercise may be re-established in the Places of the said Domain which have been heretofore possessed by those of the said Reformed Religion which hath been in consideration of their persons or because of the privilege of Fiefs if the said Fiefs are found at present possessed by persons of the said Catholick Religion 11. Furthermore in each ancient Bailiwick Jurisdiction and Government holding place of a Bailiwick with an immediate Appeal without mediation to the Parliament We ordain that in the Suburbs of a City besides that which hath been agreed to them by the said Statute particular Articles and Conferences and where it is not a City in a Burrough or Village the Exercise of the said Reformed Religion may be publickly held for all such as will come though the said Bailiwicks chief Jurisdictions and Governments have many places where the said Exercise is established except and be excepted the Bailiwick new created by the present Edict or Law the Cities in which are Arch-Bishops and Bishops where nevertheless those of the said Reformed Religion are not for that reason deprived of having power to demand and nominate for the said Exercise certain Borroughs and Villages near the said Cities except also the Signories belonging to the Ecclesiasticks in which we do not understand that the second place of Bailiwicks may be established those being excepted and reserved We understanding under the name of ancient Bailiwicks such as were in the time of the deceased King Henry our most Honoured Lord and Father in Law held for Bailiwicks chief Justice-ships and Governments appealing without intercession to our said Courts 12. We don't understand by this present Statute to derogate from the Laws and Agreements heretofore made for the Reduction of any Prince Lord Gentleman or Catholick City under our Obedience in that which concerns the Exercise of the said Religion the which Laws and Records shall be kept and observed upon that account according as shall be contained in the Instructions given the Commissioners for the execution of the present Edict or Law 13. We prohibit most expresly to all those of the said Religion to hold any Exercise of the same as well by Ministers preaching discipling of Pupils or publick instruction of Children as otherways in this our Kingdom or Countries under our Obedience in that which concerns Religion except in the places permitted and granted by the present Edict or Law 14. As also not to exercise the said Religion in our Court nor in our Territories and Countries beyond the Mountains nor in our City of Paris nor within five Leagues of the said City nevertheless those of the said Religion dwelling in the said Lands and Countries beyond the Mountains and in our said City and within five Leagues about the same shall not be searched after in their Houses nor constrained to do any thing in Religion against their Consciences comporting themselves in all other things according as is contained in our present Edict or Law 15. Nor also shall hold publick Exercise of the said Religion in the Armies except in the Quarters of the principal Commanders who make profession of the same except nevertheless where the Quarters of our person shall be 16. Following the second Article of the Conference of Nerat we grant to those of the said Religion power to build Places for the Exercise of the same in Cities and Places where it is granted them and that those shall be rendered to them which they have heretofore built or the Foundations of the same in the condition as they are at present even in places where the said Exercise was not permitted to them except they are converted into another nature of Building In which case there shall be given to them by the Possessors of the said Buildings other Houses and Places of the same value that they were before they were built or the just estimation of the same according to the Judgment of experienced persons saving to the said Proprietors and Possessors their Tryal at Law to whom they shall belong 17. We prohibit all Preachers Readers and others who speak in publick to use any words discourse or propositions tending to excite the People to Sedition and we injoin them to contain and comport themselves modestly and to say nothing which shall not be for the instruction and edification of the Auditors and maintaining the peace and tranquillity established by us in our said Kingdom upon the penalties mentioned in the precedent Statutes Expresly injoyning our Attourney Generals and their Substitutes to inform against them that are contrary hereunto upon the penalty of answering therefore and the loss of their Office 18. Forbidding also to our Subjects of what Quality and Condition soever they be to take away by force or inducement against the will of their Parents the Children of the said Religion to Baptize or Confirm them in the Catholick Church as also we forbid the same to those of the said Reformed Religion upon pain of being exemplarily punished 19. Those of the Reformed Religion shall not be at all constrained nor remain obliged by reason of Abjurations Promises and Oaths which they have heretofore made or by caution given concerning the practice of the said Religion nor shall therefore be molested or prosecuted in any sort whatsoever 20. They shall also be obliged to keep and observe the Festivals of the Catholick Church and shall not on the same dayes work sell or keep open shop nor likewise the Artisans shall not work out of their shops in their chambers or houses privately on the said Festivals and other dayes forbidden of any trade the noise whereof may be heard without by those that pass by or by the Neighbours the searching after which shall notwithstanding be made by none but by the Officers of Justice 21. Books concerning the said Reformed Religion shall not be printed or sold publickly save in the Cities and places where the publick exercise of the said Religion is permitted And for other Books which shall be printed in other Cities they shall be viewed and visited by our Theological Officers as is directed by our ordinances Forbidding most expresly the printing publishing and selling of all Books Libells and writings defamatory upon the penalties contained in our Ordinances injoyning all our
Courts of Aids Officers of the general Treasuries of France and other Officers of the Exchequer shall be examined and received in places where they have been accustomed and in case of refusal or denying of Justice they shall be appointed by our Privy Councel 55. The reception of our Officers made in the Chamber heretofore established at Castres shall remain valid notwithstanding all Decrees and Ordinances to the contrary And shall be also valid the reception of Judges Councellors Assistants and other Officers of the said Religion made in our Privy-Councill or by Commissioners by us ordained in case of the refusal of our Courts of Parliaments Courts of Aids and Chambers of Accompts even as if they were done in the said Courts and Chambers and by the other Judges to whom the reception belongeth And their Sallaries shall be allowed them by the Chambers of Accompt without difficulty and if any have been put out they shall be established without need of any other command than the present Edict and without that the said Officer shall be obliged to shew any other reception notwithstanding all Decrees given to the contrary which shall remain null and of none effect 56. In the mean time untill the charges of the Justice of the said Chambers can be defrayed by Amerciaments there shall be provided by us by valuable assignations sufficient for maintaining the said charges without expecting to do it by the Goods of the Condemned 57. The Presidents and Councellors of the Reformed Religion heretofore received in our Court of Parliament of Dauphine and in the Chamber of Edict incorporated in the same shall continue and have their Session and Orders for the same that is to say Presidents as they have injoyed and do injoy at present and the Councellors according to the Decrees and Provisions that they have heretofore obteined in our Privy Councel 58. We declare all Sentences Judgments Procedures Seisures Sales and Decrees made and given against those of the Reformed Religion as well living as dead from the death of the deceased King Henry the Second our most honoured Lord and Father in Law upon the occasion of the said Religion Tumults and Troubles since hapning as also the execution of the same Judgments and Decrees from henceforward cancelled revoked and anulled And we ordain that they shall be eased and taken out of the Registers Office of the Courts as well Soveraign as inferiour And we Will and Require also to be taken away and defaced all Marks Foot-steps and Monuments of the said Executions Books and Acts defamatory against their Persons Memory and Posterity and that the places which have been for that occasion demolished or rased be rendred in such condition as now they are to the Proprietors of the same to enjoy and dispose at their pleasure And generally we cancell revoke and null all proceedings and informations made for any enterprize whatsoever pretended Crimes of high Treason and others notwithstanding the procedures decrees and judgments containing re-union incorporation and confiscation and we farther Will and Command that those of the Reformed Religion and others that have followed their party and their Heirs re-enter really and actually into the possession of all and each of their Goods 59. All Proceedings Judgments and Decrees given during the troubles against those of the Religion who have born Arms or are retired out of our Kingdom or within the same into Cities and Countries by them held or for any other cause as well as for Religion and the troubles together with all non-suiting of Causes Prescriptions as well Legal Conditional as Customary seizing of Fiefs fallen during the troubles by hindring Legitimate proceedings shall be esteemed as not done or happening and such we have declared and do declare and the same we have and do annihilate and make void without admitting any satisfaction therefore but they shall be restored to their former condition notwithstanding the decrees and execution of the same and the possession thereof shall be rendred to them out of which they were upon this account disseised And this as above shall have like place upon the account of those that have followed the party of those of the Religion or who have been absent from our Kingdom upon the occasion of the troubles And for the young children of persons of Quality abovesaid who died during the troubles We restore the parties into the same condition as they were formerly without refunding the expence or being obliged for the Amerciaments not understanding nevertheless that the Judgements given by the chief Judges or other inferiour Judges against those of the Religion or who have followed their Party shall remain null if they have been given by Judges sitting in Cities by them held which was to them of free access 60. The Decrees given in our Court of Parliament in matters whereof the Cognizance belongs to the Chambers or Courts ordained by the Edict in the Year 1577 and Articles of Nerac and Flex into which Courts the Parties have not proceeded voluntarily but have been forced to alledge and propose declinatory ends and which decrees have been given by default or foreclusion as well in Civil as Criminal matters notwithstanding which Allegations the said Parties have been constrained to go on shall be in like manner null and of no value And as to the decrees given against those of the Religion who have proceeded voluntarily and without having proposed ends declinatory those decrees shall remain without prejudice for the execution of the same Yet nevertheless permitting them if it seem good to them to bring by Petition their Cause before the Chamber ordained by the present Edict without that the elapsing the time appointed by the Ordinances shall be to their prejudice and untill the said Chambers and Chanceries for the same shall be established Verbal appellations or in writing interposed by those of the Religion before Judges Registers or Commissioners Executors of Decrees and Judgements shall have like effect as if they were by command from the King 61. In all inquiries which shall be made for what cause soever in matters Civil if the Inquisitor or Commissioner be a Catholick the Parties shall be obliged to convene an Assistant and where they will not do it there shall be taken from the Office by the said Inquisitor or Commissioner one who shall be of the Religion and the same shall be practised when the Commissioner or Inquisitor shall be of the said Religion for an Assistant who shall be a Catholick 62. We Will and Ordain That our Judges may take Cognizance of the validity of Testaments in which those of the Religion may have an interest if they require it and the appellations from the said Judgements may be brought to the said Chambers ordained for the Process of those of the Religion notwithstanding all Customs to the contrary even those of Bretagne 63. To obviate all differences which may arise betwixt our Courts of Parliaments and the Chambers of the same Courts ordained
Reign the ninth signed HENRY And underneath the King being in Council FORGET And on the other side VISA This Visa signifies the Lord Chancellors perusal Sealed with the Great Seal of Green-wax upon a red and green string of Silk Read Published and Registred the Kings Procurator or Attorney-General Hearing and Consenting to it in the Parliament of Paris the 25th of February 1599. Signed VOYSIN Read Published and in-Registred the Chamber of Accompts the Kings Procurator-General Hearing and Consenting the last day of May 1599. Signed De la FONTAINE Read Published and Registred the Kings Procurator-General hearing and consenting at Paris in the Court of Aids the 30th of April 1599. Signed BERNARD OBSERVATIONS Upon the KINGS TWO DECLARATIONS Given at St. GERMAINS In Laye the Second of April 1666. The one concerning the Affairs of those of the pretended Reformed Religion The other Entituled against the Relapsed and Blasphemers The Preface of the First Declaration LEWIS By the Grace of God King of France and Navarr To all those to whom these Presents shall come Greeting Our greatest care since we came unto the Crown hath been to maintain our Catholick Subjects and those that be of the pretended Reformed Religion in perfect Peace and Tranquility observing exactly the Edict of Nantes and that of the Year 1629. But although the Laws foresee those Cases which happen more ordinarily so as to apply thereto necessary pre-cautions yet seeing a multiplicity of Actions which daily occurr cannot be reduced to one certain rule It was therefore necessary to make particular provisions assoon as difficulties of any sort did occasionally arise and therein to make Judgement and Decision by the ordinary Rules and Forms of Justice Which thing hath made way for many Decrees made in our Council and sundry others passed in our Chambers of the Edict of which there having been no publick notice given our Subjects have found themselves often ingaged in Suites and Contestations which they might have then avoided if they had known that the like questions had been already decided by former Judgements Insomuch that for preventing the like inconveniencies and to nourish Peace and Amity amongst our Subjects as well Catholicks as those of the pretended Reformed Religion the Arch-Bishops Bishops and other Ecclesiastick Deputies in the General Assembly of the Clergy which is held at present by our permission in our good City of Paris have very instantly besought us to reduce the said Decisions into one single declaration adjoyning thereunto certain Articles touching some Actions thereupon occuring to the end that the whole may be made more notorious and publick to all our Subjects and that by this means they having no cause to pretend Ignorance may conform themselves thereto and cause to cease the discords and altercations which may arise on such like actions and that what hath been Judged and decided by the said Decrees may be for ever confirmed and established and may be put in Execution as a Law inviolable For these causes with the advice of our Counsel and of our certain knowledge full power and authority Royal We have by these Presents signed with our hand said and declared say and declare We Will and it is our Pleasure that the said Decrees made in our Counsell be kept and observed according to their form and tenour in such manner Observations upon this Preface IF this Declaration which contains fifty nine Articles had hurt them of the pretended Reformed Religion only in points of Commodity and Convenience they have so much respect for whatsoever bears the August name of their Soveraign they would have contained themselves in silence and not have troubled by the importunity of their Complaints the satisfaction which this great Monarch doth injoy in the sweets of Peace and prosperities of his Estate But the deplorable extremity to which they see themselves to be reduced doth forcibly draw from them whether they will or no those groans which they would have stifled if their Sorrows had not been extreme For this Declaration which they esteem as the greatest and most rigorous blow by which they could be smitten like a clap of Thunder doth throw them into the greatest terrors and doth not suffer them to be silent And it seems to them that they should make themselves Criminals if upon this so pressing an occasion which threatens their Goods their Honours their Families their Lives and which is yet more and more dear unto them their Religion and the Liberty of their Consciences they should not cause their sad voice to be heard by his Majesty for that were no other than to testify an injurious distrust as if his Justice and his Royal protection could be wanting to his miserable Subjects who come to prostrate themselves at the feet of this extraordinary Prince given of God expresly for this end that he might do good unto men and that his Scepter no less Just than Puissant might be the Sanctuary of afflicted Innocence So that it is not only their necessity but their sence of their Duty it self which gives them of the pretended Reformed Religion the boldness to address themselves unto the King to demand of him with all profound Humility the revocation of an Ordinance which is not properly his own work but of them of the Clergy who have suggested it Kings have alwayes at the highest point of their Grandeur and of their Puissance made no difficulty to change their most absolute Oders when they have been caused to understand that they had been surprised And yet even from this also they have received Glory because to give Laws is only to rule over others but to revoke those which Persons interessed have imposed upon the Spirit of the Prince is to Reign over Himself and this is the means by which Soveraign Force may make it self to be acknowledged through all the World as truly worthy of Empire if the love of Justice be more powerfull in his heart than that of his Soveraign Authority There is then reason to hope for these generous sentiments from a King whose Soul is yet more noble than the Crown it self which he wears and whose resolution hath already begun to display it self in naming Commissioners of the highest dignity to review the Declaration now in debate Which is a Piece that appears so many strange wayes that they themselves who made it would confess it to be so if they could but for some moments of time devest themselves of their prejudice I. First of all the Declaration sets forth That it was granted at the request and upon the very instant supplications of the Arch-Bishops Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Deputies in the Assembly of the Clergy Which had it not been so clearly expressed might nevertheless have been easily known by reading the Memoires of the Clergy those publick Memoires which were Printed in the Year one thousand six hundred and sixty six For all the same things which were remarkable and which the Clergy pretended to at that
P. R. R. to observe the former part of this Article which Wills that their Books may not be Printed without the Attestation of approved Ministers for this is an order which is observed inviolably amongst them and which is established by their own Synods But as for the second part which forbids them to cause any Books to be Printed concerning their Religion without the permission of the Magistrates and the consent of the King's Attournies is a rigour altogether opposite to the Edict of Nantes for thus it speaks in the one and twentieth Article Let not the Books which concern the P. R. R. be Printed or sold publickly except in the Towns and places where the publick Exercise of that Religion is permitted and for other Books which are printed in other Towns let them be viewed and revised as well by the King's Officers as Divines according to the true intent of the Ordinances Where may be observed an express distinction of Books of the P. R. R. some Printed in the Towns where the publick Exercise of the P. R. R. is permitted and others which are Printed in places where this Exercise is not permitted As for those this Edict wills that they be viewed and visited by the King's Officers which indeed is but reasonable being there the P. R. R. is not openly and publickly professed But of the other the Edict speaks in a far different manner permitting to Print them and sell them publickly in the Towns and Places where the P. R. R. is prosessed without submitting them to the visitation of permission of the Kings Officers which is required in the other case Now therefore the Declaration forbids what the Edict of Nantes permits in express terms And this is a matter very considerable and whereof they of the pretended reformed Religion have just cause to complain in that this new Declaration is more rigorous in this point than the Edict of 1576 it self notwithstanding that it was made during all the heat and animosity of the Civil Wars For the Edict of 1576. was content to require that the Books of them of the pretended Reformed Religion should be viewed and approved by the Chambers My parties of which one half was alwaies found to profess the said Religion In place whereof this new Declaration subjects them of the said pretended Reformed Religion to obtain a permission from the Magistrates and consent from the Kings Attorneys who are all of a contrary Religion This is to make it impossible for the Kings Attorneys who will never give their consent to the impression of Books which treat of another Religion than their own and to permit them to Print with this condition is to forbid them absolutely against the clear and express intent of the Edict of Nantes This then is a meer surprize of the Clergy who have passionately longed and aspired to have such an Article as this to be made as may appear by their Memoirs which were published 1661. For their desire is there found expressed thus It is requisite say they to have a Decree containing a Prohibition to print any Books which have not been formerly viewed and approved by the Kings Officers which also testifies that before this time no Decree had forbidden this and that it was formerly unknown And surely it is a matter of admiration that the Ecclesiasticks desired to obtain this prohibition for it is not for the advantage of the Catholick Roman Religion It will seem that they are afraid of the Books which they oppose and mistrust they cannot answer them They therefore of the pretended Reformed Religion hope that his Majesty according to their most humble supplication which they make unto him will revoke this Article concerning the Books of their Religion and vacate all the Decrees by which he hath been surprized in this matter ARTICLE VIII The quality of Pastors and Prohibition to speak of the Church with irreverence of holy things That the said Ministers shall not take on them the quality of Pastors of the Church but only that of Ministers of the pretended Reformed Religion as also that they shall not speak irreverently of holy things and of the Ceremonies of the Church and shall not call the Catholicks by any other name than that of Catholicks VVE cannot admire enough that they have caused to be entred in a Declaration Royal and of Consequence a Prohibition of the name Pastor For this term hath nothing considerable in it nor any thing that makes for the honour of those who bear it It is common both to good and bad Pastors and the Holy Scripture doth often cry out against false Pastors that abuse and corrupt the People They make no difficulty to give to the pretended Reformed Churches the name of a Flock by what reason then do they refuse their Ministers the name of Pastors which is relative thereto since a Pastor is he that feeds the Flock so that no more exception is to be taken against the quality of a Pastor than is against the appellation of a Minister since it doth barely set out their duty without determining whether they discharge it well or ill And this Language cannot be blamed being warranted by the example and authority of his Majesty himself For when he did them the honour to write to their national Synod at London the 30th of November 1659. The superscription of his Letter was in these Terms To our dear and well-beloved the Pastors and Elders the Deputees in the Assembly of the National Synod of our Subjects professing the pretended Reformed Religion at London The residue of this Article of the Declaration is of the same nature with the fifth Article and if there be any difference it is in this that this aggravates the other and goes above it It is an endless source and everlasting Seed of all sorts of Mischief to the Ministers who notwithstanding all the most accurate pre-caution and the most wise and modest continence will be continually halled before the Tribunals cast into Prisons ruinated in their Goods and overwhelmed in their very Persons because there will be alwayes found some ill-minded people who will accuse them for having spoken irreverently of the holy things and Ceremonies of the Catholick Apostolick Roman Church To the end therefore that they may injoy in this Realm the liberty which was granted to them by the Edict his Majesty is most ardently besought that he would cause these two Articles the fifth and the eighth to be excluded as which draw innumerable Calamities on those Persons whom he hath been pleased to declare that he will take into his Royal Protection Neither is it only the concern of the Ministers security that causes them to demand the revocation of these Articles but the repose and subsistence of all those persons in general who are of the pretended Reformed Religion For a method hath been taken up of late which doth sufficiently make known how much a Prohibition to speak of holy things and the Ceremonies of
my Affairs These good Testimonies which his Majesty hath given them in so authentick manner will incline him to reject this Article which tends to the dishonour of their fidelity as if they were a people capable to betray the Estate and to carry on by their correspondencies with the Provinces Criminal Caballs against the Service of their Soveraign whose prosperity is more dear unto them than their very lives Since the King is pleased to permit them to live and to profess their Religion in the Realm necessity requires that they be permitted to write and correspond with the Provinces for their Ecclesiastick affairs as well as their secular for without this neither can their Universities subsist any longer who have no other maintenance but by the relief of the Provinces neither can they demand nor receive the payment of the Sallaries of their Professors and of their Regents And when they want a Professor they cannot provide if they be deprived of the liberty of searching out and sending for them by Letters the only means to be imployed in such exigencies It is also evident that this Article of this Declaration contradicts it self For in forbidding to receive appeals from other Synods save only to transmit them to the National Synods they authorize National Synods and approve the Convoking of them But how can they be Convocate if the Provinces may not correspond one with another and it be not permitted unto them to write Being the Convocation of National Synods is not nor cannot be made without Letters sent into the Provinces as well to advertize them of the time as of the place where they are held as to authorize the Deputies which ought to be present in those Assemblies Finally this Article gives occasion to them of the P. R. R. to beseech his Majesty to consent unto their National Synods in the term of their Discipline which requires that these general Assemblies may be held from three years to three years For during the long interval of time which intervenes betwixt the National Synods to hinder appeals unto other Synods were to open a gate to infinite helpless unredressable inconveniencies This were to forego the means of removing Scandals extinguish Vices and to oppose the abuses of the Discipline and corruption of manners This would bring in disorders whose course and progress all good men ought to desire to obviate stop and prevent So that this Article being of very dangerous consequence in every part of it they of the P. R. R. do fervently beseech his Majesty to revoke the whole as being inconsistent with the liberty which is given them by the Edicts and also ruining their Discipline which permits appeals from other Synods in the tenth Article of the eighth Chapter ARTICLE XVII Colloquies The same prohibitions are made to the Ministers Elders and others of the P. R. R. to assemble any Colloquies except at such times as the Synod is Assembled by the permission of his Majesty and in the presence of his deputed Commissioner THe Establishment of this Article doth not only stifle the Edict of Nantes but blows it up all at once For the Edict authorizes the Colloquies in such a manner as permits not to contest their establishment This is in the thirty fourth Article of the Particulars which hath been already rehearsed on another occasion That in all places where the exercise of the said Religion shall be publick the People may be assembled and that also by the sound of a Bell and do all the Acts and Functions that appertain as well to the exercise of their Religion as the regulation of their Discipline as to hold Consistories Colloquies and Synods Provincial and National by the Permission of his Majesty It cannot be imagined that they can elude these so authentick words and say that the Declaration doth permit our Colloquies only during the session of the Synods and that the Edict goes no farther For the contrary doth appear manifestly and they must first make them of the P. R. R. renounce all common sence before they can perswade them a thing so evidently irreconcilable to the intent disposition drift and settlement of the Edict which distinguishes the Colloquies from the Synods as different Assemblies and which may be held at divers times If the Edict would only authorize Colloquies during the sitting of the Synods they may maintain by the same reason that they are not permitted to hold Consistories but in the Synods nor Provincial Synods but in the National The Article of the Edict being not more express for the Consistories than for the Colloquies and not expressing the one in any other manner than the other wherefore like as the one is intirely unsustainable and cannot sall into the thoughts of any person so the other is no less to be rejected Besides ever since the Edict the P. R. Churches have alwayes without Impeachment enjoyed this liberty of their Colloquies and the answers made unto their Papers at divers times by the King's Majesties Predecessors have maintained them in this usage which by this means is found to have the Edict for its foundation and also the possession of threescore and ten Years which alone is a title more than sufficient This is the reason wherefore nothing herein can be changed without contradicting his Majesties intention who declares that he wills that the Edict of Nantes be exactly observed And certainly the Ecclesiasticks cannot pretend to any thing wherein they will find themselves more destitue of all appearance of reason than in this point for what pretence can they make to colour the prohibition of the Colloquies Do they conclude of any thing that may render them odious or suspected Have they not there a Commissioner for the King as well as in the Synods The affairs which they handle there are they not purely Ecclesiastick and the shortness of the time which they imploy therein which in ordinary extends not beyond a day or two shews it not that these innocent Societies propose nothing to themselves but readily to expedite some points of their Discipline Finally being they permit the Synods for what reason do they forbid the Colloquies which are nothing but small Synods peculiar to one Class one Bailywick or one Stewardship as the Synods are general Colloquies for the whole Province What then can be the scope of this condemnation of the Colloquies Surely it cannot come but from a bare meer design of inconveniencing those of the P. R. R. and hurting their affairs But this cannot be the design of the Prince who seeks on the contrary the repose comfort and commodity of his Subjects as the Preface of this Declaration it self doth testify This is only the intent of the Ecclesiasticks who hate them of the said Religion and seek all possible means to cross them and to render their condition miserable For to exclude them from the Colloquies would be a means to cast them into inexpressible inconveniencies for that the Synods not sitting but from
this matter it is fully removed by the condition prescribed in the Decree of 1651 which orders that the nominations and presentations unto Benefices shall be made by persons of the C. R. R. to whom the Lords of the P. R. R. shall have given their power This condition was more than sufficient to remove from the most scrupulous what they might find to object against the right of Patronages possessed by them of a different Religion for as to the capacity and manners of those whom they shall name to Benefices there is no fear of abuse therein because that it pertains to the Bishops and Ecclesiasticks to judge thereof and that it is in their power not to admit any persons in whom they do not find the necessary qualities ARTICLE XXIII Exposing dead Bodies before the Gates That those of the said Religion may not expose their dead bodies before the doors of their Houses nor make any exhortations or consolations in the Streets upon occasion of their Interrments THey pretend not hereto at all and this tends only to perswade his Majesty that they of the P. R. R. are an adventurous presumptuous busie people and which take to themselves Liberties which they are not allowed to the end they may hinder this great King from having compassion on their Miseries and hearing their groans which the violence of their grief doth continually draw from them ARTICLE XXIV The Hour and Number requisite for Interrments That the Interments of the dead Bodies of those of the said pretended Reformed Religion may not be made in those places where the exercise of their Religion is not permitted but in the morning at the break of the day and in the evening in the entrance of the night and that no greater number may be assisting thereunto than ten Persons of the Kindred and Friends of the dead and that for those places where the publick exercise of the said Religion is permitted the said Interrments be made from after the Month of April to the end of the Month of September precisely at six of the Clock in the morning and six of the Clock at night and they may have for Convoys if they please the nearest Kindred of the deceased and to the number of thirty persons only their said Kindred being comprised in that number THe greatest animosity ceaseth for the most part after the death of the persons who are hated and those who cannot be born with whilst they are alive become an object of compassion after they are dead this notwithstanding the hatred of the Clergy against them of the P. R. R. extends it self also beyond their decease and they are desirous to trouble them in their Sepultures of which the said consolation is not denied to the greatest enemies The Article which the Ecclesiasticks have obtained as also the Decree which they have gotten by surprize from the Counsel about this sad affair is capable of engendring endless troubles and Suits For they will continually molest persons about the hour namely whether the interrment be made after six in the morning or before six at night About the number namely whether the Carriers of the Dead be to be esteemed to make part of them that assist as Convoys in which case it often falls out when the number is limited to ten that the Children cannot perform their last duty to their Father or else be constrained to carry him themselves to the Grave They will dispute also whether those that betake themselves to the Church-yard to behold the interrment and those which are found in the street looking on the Bier as it passeth are not to be considered as exceeding the number permitted and they will find many other means to disquiet them of the P. R. R. on these occasions which are sufficiently dolourous of themselves By which means we shall daily find some poor families who in the midst of the tears they shed and sorrows which overwhelm them because of the loss of their dead will see themselves also against all sense of humanity committed into the hands of Judges who will condemn them and of Serjeants who will execute their Sentences upon them with all rigour The Edict of Nantes nor other Edicts and Declarations made thereupon have never yet limited neither the time of Funerals nor the number of persons They of the P. R. R. have alwayes enjoyed a full and entire liberty in this respect and it is but of late that they have been deprived thereof by the solicitation of the Clergy Wherefore they hope that his Majesty considering that this limitation is a Nursery of Suits and Disorders will revoke all this Article of the Declaration and the Decrees which have been made conform thereto and will leave them of the said Religion in the liberty of their Burials that they may enjoy them so and in the same manner as they have been accustomed to use them before such Decrees But besides all this his Majesty will be pleased to understand that in the Countrey the execution of this Article is absolutely impossible for the Church-yards are very far distant and oftentimes it behooves them to travail two or three Leagues to commit their Corps unto the earth If then they be not to part from the house of the dead untill the entry of the night how can they make so tedious a Convoy through the horror of darkness many times through dreadful wayes and mires through which they will have all trouble imaginable to make passage The morning hour doth not help this mischief at all for if they set out at break of day it will be necessary thereupon that they travel two or three hours after the Sun is risen from whence the Parish Priests will not sail speedily to lay hold of occasion to raise suits and also to oppose the Convoy by violence as it hath fallen out in many places so that the dead Corps hath been abandoned in the midst of a great High-way upon pretence that the interrment ought to have been accomplished by break of day for which reason the Parliament of Rouen who cannot be suspected to be too favourable to them of the P. R. R. have made a regulation importing that Burials in the Country may be made at all hours except only those of the Divine Service of Catholick Apostolick Roman Churches This being a thing evidently just should be ordained through all the Realm adding only an explication of what is intended by the hours of Divine Service that it comprizeth only the Morning Service and the Celebration of the Mass because if the hours of Divine Service be understood to contain all those in which any sort of Ceremonies or Religious Offices may be performed there will be no hours left free in the whole day for the Interrments of those of the P. R. R. from whence many Suits have been seen to arise in Normandy about the hours of Divine Service But instead of making an Article against them of the P. R. R. about the
yea some of them have come also to that excess as to threaten to raise the Country against the Bearers and those which did accompany the Bier Being this is an inhumane action and which natural compassion cannot suffer that the earth should be forbidden to any dead person whatsoever the King is most humbly besought to imploy his authority in this matter and to ordain that either in every Village some Burying place be delivered to them of the P. R. R. according to the twenty eighth Article of the Edict of Nantes or that in such places wherein they have no Burying place they of the said Religion may carry their dead to some Burying-place which they have in some Neighbour-Parish ARTICLE XXVI Process for Cases reserved to Provosts That House-keepers of the said P. R. R. against whom the Presidial Courts shall issue Process in any case subject to the Jurisdiction of the ordinary Judges or Provost shall not cause the Competence to be Judged in the Chamber of the Edicts when the said Presidial Courts have commenced the Suit before the Provosts or Ordinary Judges but the Competence shall be Judged by the said Presidial Courts in which case the Defendant may refuse three Judges without cause known according to the sixty fifth Article of the Edict of Nantes Notwithstanding the said House-keepers of pretended Reformed Religion being Defendants upon any Crime under the Jurisdiction of the Ordinary local Judges may demand their remission to the Chambers of the Edict for to cause the Competence to be there Judged where the Provost or Ordinary local Judge shall begin the Suit according to the 63 and 67 Articles of the Edict which shall be executed as to Vagabonds according to their form and tenor And the Judgement made upon the Declinator by the said Chamber for the Housholders of the said P. R. R. shall take place for the Catholicks Defendants for or upon the same Crime where the Process shall be made conjunctly THe Import of this Article is terrible in that it respects the Lives of those of the P. R. R. whom it throws back especially those of the Provinces of Guyenne Languedoc Province and Dauphine into the first condition in which they were before the erection of the Chambers of the Edict which were expresly agreed upon for their sakes that they might not be left exposed to the passions of the inferiour Judges whose Motions are commonly more suddain more hot and violent than those of Soveraign Courts This notwithstanding this Article withdraws the House-keepers of the P. R. R. from under the Chambers of the Edict to subject them in Causes in the Jurisdiction of ordinary Judges unto the Presidial Court that they may Judge of them with Soveraign authority Which the Clergy pretends to ground on this pretence So it is say they that the Edict of Nantes in its sixty seventh Article hath not attributed to the Chambers ordained by this Edict the power of judging of Competencies in Process Criminal but only when they are brought by the Provosts ordinary local Judges and not when they are brought by Presidial Courts But there can be nothing more unreasonable than this imagination of the Clergy For if Presidial Courts cannot Judge of the competition of Provosts inferiour Judges and are obliged to remit their Judgement to the Chambers of the Edicts when the Defendant requires it how much less are they capable to Judge of their own proper Competence For being herein they are concerned in their own personal and particular interest there is cause certainly wherefore they should be the more suspected what appearance of Reason can there be to make them Judges of their own proposals And to what danger shall not the lives of them of the P. R. R. be exposed for the future if they be abandoned to those Judges out of whose hands they have been withdrawn so many years by the Edict who come now to revenge themselves on them for the time they have lost Neither may they pretend to diminish this danger by saying that the Presidents cannot make Criminal Process against any House-holder of the P. R. R. but only in cases subject to Provosts ordinary local Judges for if they be once established Judges of their own Competencies all Crimes shall become Provostall in their hands wherein persons of this Religion shall be concerned so instead of one Provost Inferiour Judge from whom the Edict doth exempt them they shall have many who shall treat them severely upon all occasions And it will come to pass oftentimes that the Presidial Courts by a suddainness as formidable as that of the most fiery Provosts ordinary Judges will dispatch an honest man in twenty four hours time because he hath not any means to bring himself before his proper Judges who are the Chambers of the Edict Farthermore it appears manifestly by the settlement of this 67 Article of the Edict of Nantes that the intention of the Law-giver was to comprehend equally under the same Law the Provosts and the Presidial Courts for after that he had ordained that the Competency should be judged by the said Chambers if the Defendant did require it he adds That as well the Judges in Presidial Courts as the Provosts Marshal vice-Bayliffs vice-Sheriffs and all others that Judge finally should be obliged respectively to obey and satisfie the commands given them by the said Chambers in such manner as they have been accustomed to do to Parliaments upon pain of deprivation from their Estates Where it is manifest that the right of Judging Competencies granted unto those Chambers respects the one as well as the other for the Presidials have not received power to Judge finally in the four Provostal Cases i.e. which belong to inferiour Judges otherwise than those Provosts had it before So that the authority of the one ought not to be priviledged more than that of the others who first exercised it In a word there needs but one thing to be noted for discovery of the surprize in this Article of the Declaration which is this That the Edict hath absolutely taken away from Parliaments the Cognizance of Process Criminal against them of P. R. R. and the Declaration hath attributed soveraign Judgements of the same unto the Presidial Courts Is it because the Presidial Courts are more capable more illuminate and less passionate than the Parliaments who sees not in this the surprize of the Clergy from which may it please the King to secure those of the said Religion by a revocation of this Article But they have need that his Majesty would herein also redress another mischief For they have attempted to ruine their liberty likewise in regard of criminal Process which they make against them by the Provost Marshals or by their Leivetenants Witness the Decree got from the Council by surprize the 15 of October 1647. which declaring that the Crimes of making and uttering false Moneys altering the species and clipping of Gold or Silver and the Adherents and Accomplices
Deliberations Assemblies and Functions which depend thereon indifferently and without distinction So that whilst they alledge this Article they destroy it and making semblance to execute it they utterly overturn it from top to bottom As for the Declaration of 1631 they have but little more faithfully cited it to his Majesty For here we see is a general settlement which forbids them of the P. R. R. to enter into the Assemblies of the Estates which are held in the Provinces Whereas that Declaration of 1631 was particularly for them of Languedoc and Guienne and it speaks nothing at all of their entrance in the Assemblies of the Estates but only of the my party division of the Consulates and Politick Charges It is indeed true that the Declaration ordains that the first Consul should be always of the C. A. R. R. And because of all the Consuls none but the first enters the Assembly of the Estates in Languedoc the said Declaration by that means shuts the Door against all the Consuls of P. R. R. in that Province which is a formal opposition to the said twenty seventh Article of the Edict and they of the P. R. R. have good ground thereof to demand a revocation But so far are they at this day from repairing the wrong which they did then that they have aggravated it yet more and have in divers places outed them of the P. R. R. from the Consulate whole and entire which the Declaration of 1631 had only made miparty and now over and above all the Clergy by an evident surprise have here taken occasion by an Ordinance which hath respect only to the Consuls of Languedoc to forbid the entrance into the Assemblies into the Estates generally to all those of the P. R. R. in what part of France soever they live that they might comprehend in this exclusion those persons which have right thereto by the Edict and which is more which are in peaceable possession and who never have been questioned for their entrance into aud rank in the Estates of their Country as the Jurats of Bearn who without distinction of Religion have been always for more than this hundred years received into the Estates of their Province As also the Lords Gentlemen and others of this Religion who without any difficulty have been admitted into all the Estates of the Realm and who here implore the Justice of his Majesty for the conservation of their Right beseeching his Majesty to declare that it is not his intention to deprive them thereof But the surprise of the Clergy doth not stay here but that which renders it altogether insupportable are the last words where they mention the Sessions of the Diocesses this is a Novelty which was never heard of before and renders the condition of those of the P. R. R. wholly deplorable Though it might well be said that as to the Estates the first Consulate being taken from them of the said Religion by the Declaration of 1631 they could not according to the terms of that Declaration pretend to have any entrance there yet the same cannot be extended to the Sessions of the Diocesses for to this day all the Consuls from the first to the last as well of the one as of the other Religion have always without difference had entrance into these Sessions of the Diocesses because they are Coaequators i.e. Assessors born as they speak in Languedoc that is to say that in the quality of Consuls they have all the right of proceeding unto the division of the Taxes and other Impositions laid on the Diocesses by the order of the Estates the Sessions being nothing else but an Assembly made in every Diocess after the sitting of the Estates for making necessary Impositions Being then there is nothing treated of in these Sessions but the division of the Charges which are to be born by them of the P. R. R. as well as others and that all the Consuls without exception have right to assist there it is just that they should be admitted as heretofore for the preservation of their Interests there For by what justice can they banish from those Sessions the persons who are to bear the greatest part of the Charges who pay to the King much more than they of the C. A. R. R. because they are more in number and possess more Lands the difference being so great that of eight parts they have seven in divers places wherefore shall they be driven from those Assemblies where they have so great an interest if not to this end that in their absence they may cast on them the whole charge to be born that they may ruine them and overwhelm them by unreasonable Impositions and many times contrary to the Edicts and that they may treat them not as Subjects of the King and Natural French but as Strangers and Prisoners of War whom they would put to their ransom Being then all this Article is contrary to the Edict and to the Liberties of those of the P. R. R. and drawing after it the ruine of their Estates let it by the King 's good pleasure be cast out of the Declaration and above all the end which excludes them of the said Religion from entring into the Estates and the Sessions of the Diocesses and for to secure their repose in a point of so great consequence they do most humbly beseech his Majesty to rescind all the Decrees Judgments and Declarations which may have given any occasion to this Article ARTICLE XXX Common Council of Towns and Commonalties That in all Assemblies of Towns and Communities the Catholick Consuls and Common-Council-men be at least of equal number to those of the P. R. R. into which Assemblies the Rector or Vicar may enter as one of the Common-council and have the first vote in want of other Inhabitants better qualified and without prejudice to the right of those places which may appertain to Ecclesiasticks provided of Benefices situate in the said places THe manner then of putting this Article into execution in all Communities being there are divers places in the Realm where all the Inhabitants are of the P. R. R. is reserved to the Parson and his Vicar It will therefore come to pass that in such places they can never assemble and that the publick Affairs be wholly deserted where the Voters are not above four in number which is not at all reasonable and besides there are occasions in which it will be impossible For sometimes Affairs occur which concern the Parson and other Ecclesiasticks so that in those places where there are none of the C. A. R. R. but the Parson and his Vicar no deliberation can possibly be had in those Accidents Adde hereunto that in many places there are ancient Statutes which exclude the Ecclesiasticks from entring the Town-Houses for that they contribute nothing to the ordinary Charges by reason of their Privileges and therefore it is not just to put into their hands the conduct of the Affairs which
They then humbly beseech his Majesty to dispense with them for sweeping before their Doors on the occasion of the Feasts because this is a thing repugnant unto their Consciences being done as a Religious Ceremony which their Faith approves not of This also will be after a short season a matter of Suit also because they will always pretend that they have not swept clean enough and there will be found people so ill disposed as to cast ordure before their Doors to the intent they may make them criminal Offenders For this cause being the Civil Ordinances are sufficient for cleansing the Pavements of Towns and those of the P. R. R. are at all times very careful to acquit themselves well herein before their Horses there is no need of the last Clause of this Article and his Majesty is besought to revoke it ARTICLE XXXV Meeting the Sacrament in the Streets That those of the Pretended R. R. meeting the Holy Sacrament in the Streets carried abroad to the sick or otherwise be obliged to retire at the sound of the Bell which goes before it or if not to put themselves in a posture of respect by putting off their Hats if they be men with prohibition that they appear not at the Doors Shops nor Windows of their Houses whilst the Holy Sacrament passeth unless they put themselves in such posture BEing the King leaves unto them of the P. R. R. the liberty of the Alternative and permits them to retire in these incident cases they never give cause to complain of them But they find themselves constrained in this matter to represent three things unto his Majesty The first is that they are always in these occasions hindred from retiring the way is stopped the doors of the Houses are shut upon them they are held by force they are outraged they are laid on with Blows after all this they are over and above punished as not retiring his Majesty is therefore besought to add unto this Article That no hindrance be made to them that would retire and that those who attempt to stay force or outrage them in any manner whatsoever be punished as disturbers of the publick peace The second is that whereas in this Article nothing is said save only of meetings in the Streets many flye out so far as to require them to put off their Hats who are closed in Chambers and Houses and in case they refuse they make criminal process against them and hold them a long season in prison without any other cause by an unexcusable violence So far that they would even oblige the Councellors of the P. R. R. to be uncovered when they are within the Tarress where the object of the Adoration of those of C. A. R. R. is neither seen nor perceived and whence it is not possible for them to retire His Majesty is therefore besought to declare That this Article is not extended but to those meetings which happen in the Street only and not otherwise The third thing is that the Parliament of Rouen in verifying the King's Declaration have much aggravated this Article For whereas the King obliges those that will not retire only to put off the Hat which respects men only and insists on an action less than bending of the Knee the Parliament extending the rigour of this Authority against both the Sexes have carried it on so far as to command That they should put themselves in the same observance as the Catholicks that is to say to kneel which cannot be reasonably exacted of them of the P. R. R. so long as they are left in the liberty of their Faith Therefore his Majesty expounding this Article in the manner which hath been represented may be pleased to forbid to hinder them who would retire or to do them any displeasure by declaring that this Article is not to be extended save only to meetings which happen in the Streets without having any regard to the verification of the Parliament of Rouen which he discharges as contrary to his intention ARTICLE XXXVI Levies of Moneys That those of the P. R. R. may make no Levies of Money amongst themselves in the name and pretext of Collects but only those that are permitted them by the Edicts THose of the P. R. R. make no Levies of Money amongst themselves but what are permitted them by the Edicts they pretend not to make any others and those who would raise this suspition amongst them do impose upon them a thing of which they are extremely Innocent And by consequence this Article ought to be rescinded as to no purpose ARTICLE XXXVII Collectors of Money appointed for the affairs of those of the pretended Reformed Religion That the Money which they have power to impose may be imposed in the presence of a Royal Judge according to the 43 Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes and the State thereof be transferred to his Majesty or his Chancellor and with prohibition to the Collectors of the Taxes to charge themselves directly or indirectly with the levying of the Money of them of the said P. R. R. which they have imposed for their particular affairs which shall be Levied by distinct Collectors NOthing should have been said to this Article if the zeal which they of the P. R. R. have for the service of the King had not obliged them to speak thereto For it is certain that those who have suggested this settlement in thinking to hurt them have done nothing but to the prejudice of his Majesties affairs The reason is manifest which is this that the Collectors of the Taxes of the Provinces of Guienne and Languedoc making at the same time the Levies of the Money appointed for the entertainment of the Ministers these Collectors have still more Money in their hands and by consequence the King is much better paid because the Collectors do alwayes take of all the Money which comes into their hands that which belongs unto his Majesty by preference in the first place But this is not the interest of them of the P. R. R. save only so as the Interest of the Prince is the same with that of all his true Subjects And it suffices them here to remark only how the Ecclesiasticks are animated against them being they regard not at whose cost their passion is declared and that the Interest of the King himself cannot hinder them from hurting them of the said Religion when occasion is presented them ARTICLE XXXVIII Contribution to the Charges of Chappels and Guilds That according to the second Article of the Particulars of the Edict of Nantes the Artisans of the said P. R. R. may not be obliged to contribute to the Charges of Chappels Fraternities or other the like if there be not Statutes Conventions or Foundations to the contrary and yet notwithstanding that they may be constrained to contribute and pay the rights which are ordinarily paid by the Masters and the Freemen of the said Trades that the said Sums may be
two Leagues round about upon condition only that he might not dogmatize The other was of the first of February 1623. by which the same thing was permitted to one named Poignant under the same condition not to dogmatize and not to use the Prayers of his Religion in the Parish of St. Anthony of the Forrest where the said Exercise was not at all established and this notwithstanding the opposition of the Official of Rouen since which time the thing hath not been any more disputed and they of the P. R. R. have not been troubled untill these last years in which the hatred which many persons bear unto them hath been permitted all things without restraint they have been desirous to forbid them these particular petty Schools in all places And the same hath passed even to that excess as to forbid Masters to go teach Children in particular houses And to heap up this measure it is carried on to a refusal of receiving Masters of the Arts of Writing and Arithmetick as this may be seen all in one Decree of the Parliament of Rouen made against one named du Perry This is one of the evils of which they of the P. R. R. do complain with the greatest sorrow This is one of those for which they have the least pretext For what danger can there rise from these petty and obscure Schools which are rather a mark of the weakness of those of this R. then of their Power Is it then a Crime for their Children to read and write will they bring Process against a man for putting a pen into the hands of a simple flock of Infants which come to seek him in his Chamber without noise or shew and shall Fathers be compelled to let their Children live like Beasts or send them to Masters whom they suspect or send them two or three Leagues from their houses to find there a Master of the Religion which they profess The distinction which here is made of the Schools of those of the P. R. R. shews clearly how many surprizes are to be found in this forty sixth Article of the Declaration For first The thirteenth Article of the Edict of Nantes is cited to prove that they of the said Religion may not have any Schools but in the places where they have publick Exercise and yet it speaks only in the thirteenth Article of the Instruction of Infants in that which concerns Religion an evident proof that in the places where the exercise is not publick it is permitted to them of the P. R. R. to have other Schools that is such as intermeddle not at all with Religion and where they are taught nothing but Learning that is purely humane Secondly The Article of the Declaration wills that in the Schools whether they be in Towns or in Suburbs where the Exercise of the said Religion is established they may teach to Read Write and Arithmetick only which is true indeed of the particular petty Schools which may be kept indifferently in all places with their doors shut but not of the publick Schools which are authorized by the 37th Article of the Particulars For that Article doth not restrain the permission of those Schools to Reading nor to Writing nor to Arithmetick alone but leaves them the intire liberty of Schools to give the same Lessons there which they Practise in other Schools of the Kingdom Therefore to bring back and restore these things to the settlement in the Edict it is just and necessary to permit publick Schools in all the Towns and all the places where the publick Exercize of the said P. R. R. is had and to consent to the Particular petty Schools in all places of the Realm This is that concerning which his Majesty is most humbly besought as also to stay the course of the devices and injustice which is done to them of the said Religion concerning their Schools For they do continually raise Suits against them about the word Places which is found in the Edict of Nantes when it is said that they may not have publick Schools but in the Towns and Places where their Exercise is permitted there are many who have the rigour to desire to oblige them to keep their Schools in the same place with their Exercise i.e. within the enclosure of their Temples Notwithstanding that King Henry the fourth expounded himself in this matter by his answer to the paper of 1612 Art 9. wherein he consented that the Children of the Towns and Suburbs should have Schools in the Towns and Suburbs where the exercise of their Religion was permitted and that the Children of the Neighbour Villages round about should have Schools in the Suburbs Wherefore to hinder us a vexation so ill conceived his Majesty is most humbly besought to renew this explication and to declare that by the places of publick Schools permitted to them of the P. R. R. he intends the Townes or Suburbs where the Exercize is publickly enjoyed and wholly extended to the Suburbs Burrows and Villages where they have the right of exercise notwithstanding all Decrees and Judgements to the contrary ARTICLE XLVII Sojourners with Ministers That the Ministers of the said Religion may not entertain any Sojourners save of the P. R. R. nor in greater number than two at a time THis is a thing which is not common to see Ministers entertain Sojourners But it was not expected that a Law of the Realm would have been made to hinder them For every one may use his House his Table and his Time as seems good unto himself provided he do nothing against the Estate And it is not easie to imagine in what the Estate receives prejudice when Ministers entertain Sojourners in their houses For all the Instructions which they can give them is only particular which is no where forbidden but in the Countries of the Inquisition It is only publick instruction which is limited in France to the places where the publick Exercise of the P. R. R. is permitted Yet in these authorized places Ministers must at least be permitted to entertain as many Sojourners as they will to agree with the Edict They who have suggested this Article ought to have thought that it was not worthy to be put into the Declaration of a great King and for that very reason ought to be outed ARTICLE XLVIII The Sick That the Ecclesiasticks and the Religious may not enter into the houses of the sick of the P. R. R. if they be not accompanied with some Magistrate or an Alderman or the Mayor of the place and sent for by the Sick in which case no hinderance shall be given unto them Notwithstanding it shall be permitted to the Rector of the place assisted with some Judge Alderman or Consul to present himself to the sick to know of him if he will dye in the P. R. R. or not and after his Declaration he shall withdraw himself HEre we have the most important Article of all the Declaration There is nothing more contrary
common for the re-edification of the Church of Saint Thomas notwithstanding that the Catholicks alledged that the said Church had been heretofore demolished by them of the P. R. R. during the Troubles As for the Chambers of the Edict they have given like Decrees in so great number that their multitude only hinders from citing them so that this question hath not been dubious in the Parliament of Normandy it self and the usage of the Palais of that Court hath been so constant to discharge them of the P. R. R. that they Condemned them also to pay costs who had the rashness to assail them in this matter of reparations of Churches and Parsonage-houses of which those of the said Religion have the Decrees in readiness to justifie the truth of their Allegation in case there be need What strang surprize then is this to see at this day a practice of Justice so well established to be changed all at one blow and to repeal a Possession founded on the Edict on the Answer-Royal On the Decrees of the Council and the Chambers of the Edict without any one appearing to the contrary to the time of this Declaration The Preface of this Declaration it self setting down That what hath been Judged and decided by the Decrees should be firm for ever and executed as a Law inviolable A Maxim surely which is one of the greatest surprises that the Clergy have made upon the Justice of the King as hath been shewn in the beginning But notwithstanding that this Maxim cannot be received in other things the exemption granted unto them of the P. R. R. in respect of the Churches and Parsonage houses ought to pass for a Law inviolable since it hath been judged and decided in all occurrences by the Decrees of the Council and Chambers of the Edict Decrees which are so much the more indisputable because they are founded on the Law which is the Edict of Nantes What can the Ecclesiasticks then alledge for to colour their pretensions All that they have in their mouths is a vain consequence which they draw by a false reasoning and which serves only to shew how ill founded they are They say that they of the P. R. R. do indeed pay Tythes to the Parsons and by consequence they ought also to contribute to the Charges of Churches and Parsonage-houses But there can be nothing less reasonable For there is found in the Edict one express Article which obligeth them of the said Religion to pay the Tythes But so far it is from having condemned them to contribute to the repaires of the Churches and building Parsonage-houses that on the contrary it hath one to exempt them They cannot then argue rightly from tenths to reparations And if one might draw a consequence from the one to the other they of the P. R. R. might as well have good grounds to maintain that because they are exempt from Reparations they ought not to be subject unto Tythes as the other think they have good ground to maintain that because those of the said Religion are subject to Tythes therefore they ought to contribute to reparations But the principal foundation of this affair is indeed that they of the P. R. R. were not made subject unto Tythes but by the pure and only authority of Henry the Great who would have it so that he might give that satisfaction to the Ecclesiasticks for at the bottom the Parish Priests are not the Pastors of them of the P. R. R. and do them no manner of service in Spiritual things they are not bound to entertain them but only their own Ministers who take care of their Souls which also King Henry the fourth knew so well that for to indemnify them in a thing from which their Religion did exempt them he was willing to pay them yearly the sum of 45000. Crowns for the subsistence of their Ministers to the intent that this sum might be in the place of the Tythes which they ought not to have paid With what appearance of Reason then can they draw a consequence from Tythes to Reparations being the payment of Tythes themselves is a charge to which they of the P. R. R. were so little subject that the King himself thought that it was Just for him to Indemnify them in that particular Would it not be a case very deplorable that the money being taken away which was expresly allowed them to mitigate their payment of Tythes yet notwithstanding nevertheless the Tythes should obtain to oblige them to Reparations And doth it not seem rather to be Justice to restore their Pension of 45000 Crowns for to recompense the Tythes which they pay in consideration of that sum than to will that they be charged with new payments for Reparations from which they are exempt by all manner of Reason It were in vain to pretend to make that limitation valid which is found in the end of this Article where it is said that they may not be Cottized rated by the Poll i.e. that they may not be obliged to contribute with respect to their Persons but only according to the proportion of their Lands and Inheritances which they possess in their Parishes so that they who have neither houses nor Lands should pay nothing This is a very sad consolation which regards only those miserable persons that have neither house nor home And which is more this sort of rating is not ordinarily set save only on Inheritances so that to allow this exemption only to those that have no estate in Lands is to allow nothing in effect The Edict it self will not suffer a thought of this fruitless exemption For can it be said that when the Edict of Nantes exempts them of the P. R. R. from contributing to the Reparation of Churches and Parsonage-houses that its intention was only to discharge Persons and not Lands There is no appearance that any person would propose a thing so unreasonable For the Decrees of the Council and of the Chambers of the Edict alledged above do fully evince the contrary by authentick decisions which have been made in this matter during the term of more than threescorâ— years alwayes discharging those of the P. R. R. which possessed Lands purely and wholly of these Ecclesiastick Reparations Being then the Edict exempts the inheritances as well as the Persons it follows clearly that this new Declaration in pronouncing that they of the said Religion should not be rated in regard of their heads makes nothing at all for them and that it cannot be otherwise looked on than as the ruine of the Article of the Edict A ruine which infallibly draws after it that of his Majesties Subjects who profess the P. R. R. For this will be a sure means for the Ecclesiasticks to spoil them of their Estates because that out of hate to their Religion the Parsons Treasurers and Guardians of Parishes will make them bear almost all the Charges of these Reparations as is seen of late by experience They
is not the King that speaks therein For the P. R. R. is therein called Heresie they that have quitted it and return thereto are named Relapsed The Priests and Monks which embrace it Apostates and Sacrilegious and those that speak at all as they think of matters in Controversie are qualified as Blasphemers against the mysteries of the Catholick Religion All France knows that since the Edicts of Pacification our Kings have never expressed themselves in this manner and there is not found any Declaration Decree or publick Act that have used these injurious terms On the contrary the Edict of Nantes in its second Article hath forbidden all those of the one and other Religion to outrage or offend one another in Word or Deed enjoyning them to contain themselves and to live peaceably together as Brethren Friends and fellow-Citizens upon pain upon the Transgressors to be punished as infringers of the Peace and disturbers of the publick Repose which was no other than a renovation of the Ordinance made in the Year 1570 by Charles the ninth Confirmed by Henry the third in his Edicts of 1576 and 1577. and found so Just and Necessary by Lewis the thirteenth Father of his Majesty that he would expresly re-iterate the same in his Declaration given at Blois in the Year 1616. How is it possible to cause this prohibition to be executed and to hinder them of the Catholick Apostolick Religion from outraging in Word and in Deed these of the P. R. R. if the Declarations themselves which bear the Kings name treat the Religion and Belief of the latter as Heresie For is it not to Authorize the other to call them Hereticks a term which without contradiction is an injury of all other most outragious and most capable to wound the hearts and provoke the Spirits of men and so far off is this odious name from consisting with the design of their living together as Friends and Brethren that it is certain that it is capable to make Brethren and themselves irreconcilable enemies The Wisdom and Justice of our Kings have caused them to condemn formally this factious name of Hereticks and sometimes to imploy the Authority of their Ordinances to banish it from the Writings and Language of their Subjects in respect of them who profess the P. R. R. This may be seen by the answer of Henry the Great to the fourteenth Article of the Paper presented unto him in 1602. by those of the P. R. R. who complained that contrary unto the tenure of the seventeenth Article of the Edict many Preachers and the Advocates of the Parliaments of Tholouse Bordeox Province and Britain and other Benches of their Precincts did licence themselves to hold scandalous discourses calling them of the said Religion Hereticks whereupon it was enjoyned the Attorneys General and their Substitutes thereof to inform ex officio on pain to answer it in their own proper private names It may be seen also by the answer of the same King to the sixth Article of the Paper of 1604. For they of the said Religion having conceived that in the great Church of Bazas there was left an inscription made during the troubles in which were these words ab Hereticis Huguenotis It was said that a Commission should be given out to the Steward of Bazas for to cause them to be put out Above all the answer of Lewis the Just to the third Article of the Paper of 1615. reviewed and ratified by that of the third and sixth of May 1616. is extreamly considerable For they of the P. R. R. who saw that the Clergy would serve themselves of the Oath which the King made at his Coronation to extirpate Heresies to animate him unto their ruine demanded that it would please his Majesty to declare that this Oath did not respect them at all nor imported any prejudice to the liberty of the Edicts of Pacification made in favour unto them it was answered in these terms The King hath not intended in the Oath which he took at his Coronation to comprehend those of the P. R. R. living in this Realm under the benefit of his Edicts Is it not then a thing wonderful strange that against the settlement of so many Edicts against the Declarations of four Kings and particularly those two great Princes the Grand-Father and Father of his Majesty against the usage of so many Years and sentiment of a whole Age the Ecclesiasticks have enterprized to give the P. R. R. the defaming Title of Heresie and to cause them who make profession of this Doctrine to pass for Hereticks in a Royal Declaration They have done it without doubt to make themselves a Dispensation from the observation of the seventeenth Article of the Edict which forbids all Readers Preachers and others who speak in publick to use any words talk or discourses tending to stir up the People to Sedition enjoyning them to contain and comport themselves modestly and to say nothing but what might tend to maintain the Repose and Tranquility established within the Kingdom For having by surprize caused the Kings Declarations to talke after their manner what will they not allow themselves in their Chaires What Licence will they not inspire into their Auditors What aversation and hate will they not draw upon those whose Peace the Edict did intend to procure Since after this their Countrymen considering them under the Masque of Heresie will look on them no longer but with horror and the example of the Parliament of Bretaigne testifies very well how far this impression may carry men For amongst the Parliaments of France this is one of the most eager against them of the P. R. R. and the Condemnation of Mounseiur de la Touche whom they caused to be taken and burnt with cruel Torments for a Crime whereof he never had a thought and of which the Providence of God was pleased to justifie him after his death in an admirable manner is but too sad a proof and others no less convincing may be also alledged These transports are the Consequents of the Licence which this Parliament hath alwayes given it self to treat them of this Religion as Heretick of which it hath taken so strong a habit that it condemned the last year by a Decree the Bayliffs deputy of the Town of Vitre in 21 Livers Fine for having ordained joyntly with other two Catholick Judges that the term of Heresie imployed in the Writs of a Conplainant should be rased out They of the said Religion complain unto his Majesty of this unjust Decree and humbly demand of him the revocation of it and they also at the same time do beseech him to prohibit the Ecclesiasticks and all others and particularly the writer of the Gazets whose writings are the more dangerous because they pass into all places of Europe to blast them by the name of Hereticks being it cannot but tend to cause Sedition in the Estate and to make Union and Concord amongst his Majesties Subjects to become
impossible But though the Stile of this Declaration in which it delivers it self be strange certainly the settlements which it contains are no less and the Passion of the Ecclesiasticks is here manifested without any converture For herein they speak of three sorts of Persons of the Relapsed Apostates and Blasphemers of the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion The two first are condemned to be Banished out of the Kingdom and the Cognizance of the Process to be made against all the three is taken absolutely from the Chambers of the Edicts and attributed intirely to the Parliaments So it is that the Clergy thrust forward and advance alwayes their enterprizes against them of the P. R. R. to throw them at last if they can into despair For in the Month of April 1663. they have gotten a Declaration by surprize against those whom they call Relapsed and Apostates But that said nothing at all of those others whom they call Blasphemers against the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion Afterwards in the Month of June 1665. The Clergy suggested another Declaration to express and fix the Penalty which they would impose upon these pretended Relapsed and Apostates causing them to be condemned unto perpetual Banishment But the Chambers of the Edict were not forbidden to take Cognizance thereof In the end the Animosity of the Clergy being not yet satisfied and fearing they had not yet got force enough to Banish those out of the Realm whose abode in France is to them insupportable they would give them the last blow in 1666. Procuring this Declaration which leaves them no means who shall be accused for Relapsed or Apostates or Blasphemers against the Catholick Religion to bring themselves before the Chambers of the Edict to the end they may find no shelter any where against the ardour of the pursuit of their Adversaries It is easie to shew that in all these Heads the King is imposed on and that they have surprized him in his Religion and Equity Of the Relapsed As for the Relapsed the Ecclesiasticks have given his Majesty to understand as it appears by the first Declaration of the Month of April 1663. That he should not suffer the profanation and impiety of those who for the considerations of Marriages and other like Motives after they had made Abjuration of the P. R. R. and profession of the Catholick Religion turned to their first error And certainly it is true that those who out of an impious and profane spirit Sport themselves so with the Mysteries of R. or that seek only to deceive the World with a dissembled profession and for interests meerly humane are infinitely condemnible and deserve to be punished exemplarily But under this pretence the Clergy by a visible artifice have caused a general Law to be made against those who would return unto the profession of their first belief whatsoever their motive be and although their return be altogether disinteressed and though they have no other end of their change than the repose of their Consciences In this the surprize appears manifestly For is it credible that the King would force by the severity of his Ordinances and by rigorous penalties a person wounded in his Soul to stay against its resentments in a Religion which it esteems not good and wherein it hath no hope to be saved If a man through infirmity or ignorance or by some temptation which dazles his Spirit and surprizes his heart suffers himself to be transported to quit his Religion and afterwards a serious reflection or more ample instruction give him apprehensions and perswade him that he cannot be saved but by re-entring into the Church from which he was departed is it possible that any should desire either to constrain or punish him whilst he acts by this Principle and hath no other motive but the discharge and duty of his Conscience His Majesty knows that of all things in the World Conscience is most free and that the authority of those Soveraigns whose Yoak is born by the whole earth pretend not to have a right to constrain it If St. Bernard had not said it in his time That Faith is to be perswaded and not to be commanded fides suadenda est non imperanda Reason it self hath spoken it enough and the example of the King of Kings affords us thereof a good proof For this adorable master to whom the whole World oweth obedience hath never imployed the Terror of his Thunder nor the greatness of his Authority to oblige men to believe his Gospel He hath not used in this his design any thing but the truth of his Mysteries and the Preaching of his Apostles Faith saith St. Paul Rom. 10. 17. is by hearing and hearing by the word of God he saith not that Faith is by hearing of Declarations nor of Decrees nor of Menaces but of that Divine Word whose perswasion alone is capable to beget it in mens Spirits How then would they put on the King to enforce man by the terror of his Banishments to continue in that Religion which he approves not For what can come of this constraint But only that he should be inwardly of one Religion and outwardly of another that is to say that he should be an Hypocrite Sacrilegious and impious who prophanes two Religions at once who doth violate the one by the thoughts of his heart and the other by the words of his mouth and actions of his body Or to speak more truly he will be a man without Religion For he that serves himself of two Religions at once hath none at all and differs very little from an Atheist The King himself cannot have confidence in him nor be assured of his Fidelity For how shall one believe that his obedience was sincere towards his Prince whilst it is dissembled towards God Finally the Edict of Nantes needs only to be considered for to avouch that the Declaration intituled against the Relapsed can be nothing else than a surprize For it is manifest that that Edict gives an entire Liberty of Conscience without exception to them of the P. R. R. without distinguishing of those that are born in it and those that come over to it betwixt them that have alwayes followed it and those that return after they have quitted it for some time The sixth Article of the Generals expresseth it self in these Terms That we may not leave any occasion of troubles and differences amongst our Subjects We have permitted and do permit them of the said P. R. R. to abide in all the Towns and Places of this our Realm and the Countries under our Obedience without being inquired after vexed molested nor constrained to do any thing in the matters of Religion against their Conscience nor by reason thereof to be sought out in their houses and places where they are pleased to dwell According to this Article then all those that are of this Religion of what sort soever they be may dwell safely and peaceably in their houses and the
we and the French Protestants ought in all humble thankfulness to acknowledge the late bountiful relief of your Majesties for the conveying some of the most indigent Banished French Protestants into Carolina and giving them an Azile there but be pleased to consider that if some course be not taken to protect them rather where they are that it seems no greater pleasure can be done to the French King nor his Bishops for by a too considerable transportation of them the Protestant Interest in Christendom will grow weaker and the French and Popish will become by so much the stronger the Ballance of Europe shall not be maintained which may be your Majesties true Interest and Privilege to preserve and besides Religion will be made to flee to America while State-Policy calmly looks on and inthrones itself in its place therefore the Premisses and the finding out any other more fit Expedient is humbly laid at your Majesties feet and your Grand Councils Censure and better Deliberation and Resolve By Your Majesties Meanest and Dutifullest Servant and Subject Edmond Everard THE EDICT OR STATUTE Granted by HENRY the IV OF FRANCE TO Those of the Reformed Religion of that Kingdom for the free exercises of their Consciences in matters of their Religion c. called the Edict of Nants because Enacted at that City with the King's Declaration upon the precedent Edicts of Pacification HENRY By the Grace of God King of France and Navarr To all Present and to Come greeteth Among the infinite Mercies that God hath pleased to bestow upon us that most Signal and Remarkable is his having given us Power and Strength not to yield to the dreadful Troubles Confusions and Disorders which were found at our coming to this Kingdom divided into so many Parties and Factions that the most Legitimate was almost the least enabling us with Constancy in such manner to oppose the Storm as in the end to surmount it reducing this Estate to Peace and Rest For which to Him alone be given the Honour and Glory and us the Grace to acknowledge our obligation in having our Labours made use of for the accomplishing so good a work in which it hath been visible to all that we have not only done what was our Duty and in our Power but something more than at another time would peradventure have been agreeable to the Dignity we now hold as in not having more Care than to have many times so freely exposed our own Life And in this great concurrence of weighty and perillous Affairs not being able to compose all at one and the same time We have chosen in this order First to undertake those who were not to be suppressed but by force and rather to remit and suspend others for some time who might be dealt with by reason and Justice For the general difference among our good Subjects and the particular evils of the soundest parts of the State we judged might be easily cured after the Principal cause the continuation of the Civil Wars was taken away in which we have by the blessing of God well and happily succeeded all Hostility and Wars through the Kingdom being now ceased and we hope he will also prosper us in our other affairs which remain to be composed and that by this means we shall arrive at the establishment of a good Peace with tranquility and rest which hath ever been the end of all our vows and intentions as all the reward we desire or expect for so much pains and trouble as we have taken in the whole course of our Life Amongst our said affairs towards which it behooves us to have patience one of the principal hath been the many complaints we received from divers of our Provinces and Catholick Cities for that the exercise of the Catholick Religion was not universally re-established as is provided by Edicts or Statutes heretofore made for the Pacification of the Troubles arising from Religion as also the Supplications and Remonstrances which have been made to us by our Subjects of the reformed Religion as well upon the execution of what hath been granted by the said former Laws as that they desire to have some addition for the exercise of their Religion the liberty of their Consciences and the security of their Persons and Fortunes presuming to have just reasons for desiring some inlargement of Articles as not being without great apprehensions because their Ruine hath been the principal pretext and original foundation of the late Wars Troubles and Commotions Now not to burden us with too much business at once as also that the fury of War was not compatible with the establishment of Laws how good soever they might be we have hitherto deferred from time to time giving remedy herein But now that it hath pleased God to give us a beginning of enjoying some Rest we think we cannot imploy our self better than to apply to that which may tend to the glory and service of his holy name and to provide that he may be adored and prayed unto by all our Subjects and if it hath not yet pleased him to permit it to be in one and the same form of Religion that it may at the least be with one and the same intention and with such rules that may prevent amongst them all troubles and tumults and that we and this Kingdom may alwayes conserve the glorious title of most Christian which hath been by so much merit so long since acquired and by the same means take away the cause of mischief and trouble which may happen from the Actions of Religion which of all others are most prevalent and penetrating For this cause acknowledging this affair to be of the greatest importance and worthy of the best consideration after having considered the papers of complaints of our Catholick subjects and having also permitted to our Subjects of the Reformed Religion to assemble themselves by Deputies for framing their complaints and making a collection of all their Remonstrances and having thereupon conferred divers times with them viewing the precedent Laws we have upon the whole judged it necessary to give to all our said Subjects one general Law Clear Pure and Absolute by which they shall be regulated in all differences which have heretofore risen among them or may hereafter rise wherewith the one and other may be contented being framed according as the time requires and having had no other regard in this deliberation than solely the Zeal we have to the service of God praying that he would henceforward render to all our subjects a durable and Established peace Upon which we implore and expect from his divine bounty the same protection and favour as he hath alwayes visibly bestowed upon this Kingdom from our Birth during the many years we have attained unto and give our said Subjects the grace to understand that in observation of this our Ordinance consisteth after that which is their duty toward God and us the principal foundation of their Union Concord Tranquility Rest
the Religion shall be parties within the jurisdiction of our Parliaments of Paris Rouen Dyon and Rennes shall be presently removed to the Chamber or Court established at Paris by vertue of the Edict of 1577. or else to the great Councell at the Election of those of the said Religion if they require it and those which shall be of the Parliament of Bourdeaux to the Chamber or Court established at Castres or to the said grand Councell at their Election and those which shall be of Provence to the Parliament of Grenoble And if the said Chambers or Courts are not established within three Months after the presentation of our Edict that Parliament which shall make refusal thereof shall be prohibited the Cognizance and Judgement of the causes of those of the Religion 44. The Process not yet judged depending in the said Courts of Parliaments and great Counsel of the quality abovesaid shall be sent back in what Estate soever they be to the said Chambers or Courts each within his jurisdiction if one of the Parties of the Religion require it within four Months after the Establishment of the same and as to those which shall be discontinued and are not in condition of being judged those of the said Religion shall be obliged to make Declaration upon the first intimation and signification to them of the Prosecution and the time past shall not be understood to require the dismission 45. The said Chambers or Courts of Grenoble and Bourdeaux as also that of Castres shall keep the forms and stile of Parliament where the jurisdiction of the same shall be established and shall judge by equal numbers of the one and the other Religion if the Parties consent not to the Contrary 46. All the Judges to whom the Address shall be made for execution of Decrees Commissions of the said Chambers and Patents obtained in Chancery for the same together with all the Messengers and Serjeants shall be obliged to put them in execution and the said Messengers and Serjeants shall do all Acts throughout our Kingdom without demanding a Placet or peremptory Warrant upon penalty of suspension of their Estates and of the expenses damages and interests of the Parties the Cognizance whereof shall belong to the said Chambers 47. No removal of causes shall be allowed to any whereof the Cognizance is attributed to the said Chambers except in cases of Ordinance the removal by which shall be made to the next Chamber established according to our Edict And the dividing of the Process of the same Chambers shall be judged by the nearest observing the proportion and forms of the said Chambers where the Process shall be proceeded upon except the Chamber of Edict in our Parliament of Paris where the Process divided shall be distributed in the same Chamber by the Judges which shall be by us named by our particular Letters Patents for that effect if the parties had not rather wait the removing of the said Chamber And happening that one and the same Process be divided in all the Chambers Myparty or half on Religion half th' other the division shall be sent to the Chamber of Paris 48. The refusal that shall be proposed against the Presidents and Councellors of the Chambers half one Religion and half the other called the Court of Edict may be judged by the number of six to which number the parties shall be obliged to restrain themselves otherwise they shall be passed over without having regard to the said Refusal 49. The examinations of the Presidents and Councellors newly erected in the Chambers of Edict Mypartis shall be made in our privy Council or by the said Chambers each in his Precinct when they shall be a sufficient number and nevertheless the Oath accustomed shall be by them taken in the Courts where the said Chambers shall be established and upon refusal in our Privy-Council except those of the Chamber of Languedoc in which they shall take Oath before our Chancellor or in the same Chamber 50. We Will and Ordain That the reception of our Officers of the said Religion judged in the said Chambers half Papist and half of the Reformed Religion by Pluralities of Voices as is accustomed in other Courts without being needfull that the opinions surpass two thirds following the ordinance which for the same cause is abrogated 51. There shall be made in the said Chambers Mypartis the Propositions Deliberations and Resolutions which shall appertain to the publick Peace and for the particular State and Policy of the Cities where the same Chambers shall be 52. The Article for the jurisdiction of the said Chambers ordained by the present Edict shall be followed and observed according to its form and tenure even in that which concerns the execution or breach of our Edict when those of the Religion shall be Parties 53. The Kings subordinate Officers or others whereof the reception belongeth to our Courts of Parliament if they be of the Reformed Religion they may be examined and received in the said Chambers viz. those under the jurisdiction of the Parliaments of Paris Normandy and Bretagne in the said Chambers of Paris those of Dauphine and Provence in the Chamber of Grenoble those of Burgundy in the said Chamber of Paris or Dauphine at their choice those under the jurisdiction of Tholouse in the Chamber of Castres and those of the Parliament of Bourdeaux in the Chamber of Guyenne without that others may oppose themselves against their reception and render themselves Parties as our procurators General and their Substitutes and those enjoying the said Offices Yet nevertheless the accustomed Oath shall be by them taken in the Courts of Parliaments who shall not take any Cognizance of the said receptions and in refusal of the said Parliaments the said Officers shall take the Oath in the said Chambers after which so taken they shall be obliged to present by a Messenger or Notary the Act of their reception to the Register of the said Courts of Parliaments and to leave a coppy thereof examined by the said Register who is enjoyned to Register the said Acts upon penalty of all the expence dammage and interest of the Parties and the Registers refusing to do it shall suffer the said Officers to report the Act of the said Summons dispatched by the said Messengers or Notaries and cause the same to be Registred in the Register-Office of their said Jurisdiction for to have recourse thereunto when need shall be upon penalty of Nullity of their proceedings and Judgments And as to the Officers whereof the reception hath not been accustomed to be made in our said Parliaments in case those to whom it belongs shall refuse to proceed to the said examination and reception then the said Officers shall repair to the said Chambers for to be there provided as it shall appertain 54. The Officers of the said Reformed Religion who shall hereafter be appointed to serve in the body of our said Courts of Parliaments grand Counsell Chambers of Accompts
by our present Edict there shall be made by us a good and ample Reglement betwixt the said Courts and Chambers and such as those of the Religion shall enjoy entirely from the said Edict the which Reglement shall be verified in our Courts of Parliaments and kept and observed without having regard to precedents 64. We inhibit and forbid all our Courts Soveraign and others of this Realm the taking Cognizance and judging the Civil or Criminal process of those of the Religion the Cognizance of which is attributed by our Edict to the Chambers of Edict provided that the Appeal thereunto be demanded as is said in the Fortieth Article going before 65. We also Will and Command for the present and untill we have otherwise therein ordained that in all Process commenced or to be commenced where those of the Religion are Plaintiff or Defendants Parties Principals or Guarrantees in matters Civil in which our Officers and chief Courts of Justice have powâ—â—… to judge without appeal that it shall be permitted to them to except against two of the Chamber where the Process ought to be Judged who shall forbear Judgement of the same and without having the cause expressed shall be obliged to withdraw notwithstanding the ordinance by which the Judges ought not to be excepted against without cause shown and shall have farther right to except against others upon shewing cause And in matters Criminal in which also the said Courts of Justice and others of the Kings subordinate Judges do Judge without appeal those of the Religion may except against three of the said Judges without showing Cause And the Provosts of the Mareschalsie of France vice-Bayliffs vice-Presidents Lievetenants of the short Robe and other Officers of the like Quality shall Judge according to the Ordinances and Reglements heretofore given upon the account of Vagabonds And as to the houshold charged and accused by the Provosts if they are of the said Religion they may require that three of the said judges who might have Cognizance thereof do abstain from the Judgement of their Process and they shall be obliged to abstain therefrom without having cause shewn except where the Process is to be judged there shall be found to the number of two in Civil and three in Criminal Causes of the Religion in which case it shall not be lawfull to except without Cause shewn and this shall be reciprocall in the like cases as above to the Catholicks upon the account of Appeals from the Judges where those of the Religion are the greater number not understanding nevertheless that the chief Justice Provosts of the Marshalsies vice-Bayliffs vice-Stewards and others who judge without appeal take by virtue of this that is said Cognizance of the past Troubles And as to crimes and excess happening by other occasions than the troubles since the beginning of March 1585. untill the end of 1597. in case they take Cognizance thereof We will that an appeal be suffered from their Judgement to the Chamber ordained by the present Edict as shall be practised in like manner for the Catholick and Confederates where those of the Religion are Parties 66. We Will and Ordain also that henceforward in all instructions other than informations of criminal Process in the chief Justices Court of Tholouse Carcassonne Roverque Loragais Beziers Montpellier and Nimes the Magistrate or Commissary deputed for the said instructions if he is a Catholick shall be obliged to take an Associate who is of the Religion whereof the Parties shall agree or where they cannot agree one of the Office of the said Religion shall be taken by the abovesaid Magistrate or Commissioner as in like manner if the said Magistrate or Commissioner is of the Religion he shall be obliged in the same manner as abovesaid to take and associate a Catholick 67. When it shall be a question of making a criminal Process by the Provosts of the Marshalsies or their Leivetenants against some of the Religion a house-keeper who is charged and accused of a crime belonging to the Provost or subject to the Jurisdiction of a Provost the said Provost or their Leivetenants if they are Catholicks shall be obliged to call to the instruction of the said Process an Associate of the Religion which Associate shall also assist at the Judgement of the difference and in the definitive Judgement of the said Process which difference shall not be judged otherwise than by the next Presidial Court assembled with the principal Officers of the said Court which shall be found upon the place upon penalty of nullity except the accused shall require to have the difference Judged in the Chambers ordained by the present Edict In which case upon the account of the house-keepers in the Provinces of Guyenne Languedoc Province and Dauphine the substitutes of our Procurators general in the said Chambers shall at the request of the said house-keepers cause to be brought into the same the Charges and Informations made against them to know and judge if the Causes are tryable before the Provost or not that according to the quality of the crimes they may by the Chamber be sent back to the Ordinary or judged tryable by the Provost as shall be found reasonable by the contents of our present Edict and the Presidial Judges Provosts of Mareschalsie vice-Bayliffs vice-Stewards and others who Judge without Appeal shall be obliged respectively to obey and satisfie the commands of the said Chambers as they use to do to the said Parliaments upon Penalty of the loss of their Estates 67. The outcries for sale of Inheritances and giving notice thereof by warning passed or chalked according to order shall be done in places and at hours usual if possible following our Ordinances or else in publick Markets if in the place where the Land lies there is a Market-place and where there shall be none in the next Market within the jurisdiction of the Court where Judgement ought to be given and the fixing of the notice shall be upon the posts of the said Market-place and at the entry of the Assembly of the said place and this order being observed the notice shall be valid and pass beyond the interposition of the sentence or decree as to any nullity which might be alledged upon this account 69. All Title and papers instructions and documents which have been taken shall be restored by both parties to those to whom they belong though the said Papers or the Castles and houses in which they were kept have been taken and seized by special Commission from the last deceased King our most honoured Lord and Brother in Law or from us or by the command of the Governors and Lievetenant Generals of our Provinces or by the authority of the heads of the other party or under what pretext soever it shall be 70. The children of those that are retired out of our Kingdom since the death of Henry the Second our Father-in-Law by reason of Religion and Troubles though the said Children are born out
abolition contained in our present Edict and is liable to be inquired after or prosecuted yet nevertheless no Soldier shall be troubled whence may arise the renewing of troubles and for this cause We Will and Ordain that execrable cases shall only be excepted out of the said abolition as ravishing and forcing of Women and Maids Burnings Murders Robberies Treachery and lying in wait or ambush out of the way of hostility and for private revenge against the duty of War breaking of Pass-ports and Safeguards with murders and Pillages without command from those of the Religion or those that have followed the party of their Generals who have had authority over them founded upon particular occasions which have moved them to ordain and command it 87. We Ordain also that punishment be inflicted for Crimes and offences committed betwixt persons of the same party if Acts not commanded by the hands of one Party or the other by necessity of Law and Order of War And as for the Leavying and exacting of Money bearing of Arms and other exploits of War done by private authority and without allowance the parties guilty thereof shall be prosecuted by way of Justice 88. The Cities dismantled during the troubles may with our permission be re-edified and repaired by the Inhabitants at their Costs and Charges and the provisions granted heretofore upon that account shall hold and have place 89. We Ordain and our Will and Pleasure is that all Lords Knights Gentlemen and others of what quality and condition soever of the Reformed Religion and others who have followed their Party shall enter and be effectually conserved in the enjoyment of all and each of their Goods Rights Titles and Actions notwithstanding the Judgements following thereupon during the said troubles and by reason of the same with Decrees Seizures Judgements and all that shall follow thereupon we have to this end declared and we do declare them null and of no effect and value 90. The acquisitions that those of the Reformed Religion and others which have followed their Party have made by the authority of the deceased Kings our predecessors or others for the immovables belonging to the Church shall not have any place or effect but we ordain and our pleasure is that the Ecclesiasticks enter immediately and without delay be conserved in the possession and enjoyment really and actually of the said goods so alienated without being obliged to pay the purchase-money which to this effect we have cancelled and revoked as null without remedy for the Purchasers to have against the Generals c. by the authority of which the said goods have been sold Yet nevertheless for the re-imbursement of the Money by them truly and without fraud disbursed our Letters Patents of permission shall be dispatched to those of the Religion to interpose and equalize bare sums of the said purchases cost the Purchasers not being allowed to bring any action for their Damages and interest for want of enjoyment but shall content themselves with the re-imbursement of the Money by them furnished for the price of the acquisitions accounting for the price of the fruits received in case that the said Sale should be found to be made at an under rate 91. To the end that as well our Justices and Officers as our other Subjects be clearly and with all certainty advertised of our Will and Intentions and for taking away all ambiguity and doubt which may arise from the variety of former Edicts Articles secret Letters Patents Declarations Modifications Restrictions Interpretations Decrees and Registers as also all secrets as well as other deliberations heretofore by us or the Kings our predecessors made in our Courts of Parliaments or otherwayes concerning the said Reformed Religion and the troubles hapning in our said Kingdom we have declared and do hereby declare them to be of no value and effect and as to the derogatory part therein contained we have by this our Edict abrogated and we do abrogate and from henceforward we cancell revoke and anull them Declaring expresly that our Will and Pleasure is that this our Edict be firmly and inviolably kept and observed as well by our Justices and Officers as other Subjects without hesitation or having any regard at all to that which may be contrary or derogatory to the same 92. And for the greater assurance of the keeping and observing what we herein desire we Will and Ordain and it is our pleasure that all the Governors and Leivetenants General of our Provinces Bayliffs Chief-Justices and other ordinary Judges of the Cities of our said Kingdom immediately after the receit of this same Edict and do bind themselves by Oath to keep and cause to be kept and observed each in their district as shall also the Mayors Sheriffs principal Magistrates Consuls and Jurates of Cities either annual or perpetual Enjoyning likewise our Bayliffs chief Justices or their Livetenants and other Judges to make the principal Inhabitants of the said Cities as well of the one Religion as the other to swear to the keeping and observing of this present Edict immediately after the publication thereof And taking all those of the said Cities under our Protection command that one and the other respectively shall either answer for the opposition that shall be made to this our said Edict within the said Cities by the Inhabitants thereof or else to present and deliver over to Justice the said opposers We Will and Command our well beloved the people holding our Courts of Parliaments Chambers of Accounts and Courts of Aids that immediately after the receipt of this present Edict they cause all things to cease and upon penalty of Nullity of the Acts which they shall otherwise do to take the like Oath as above and to publish and Register our said Edict in our said Courts according to the form and tenure of the same purely and simply without using any Modifications Restrictions Declarations or secret Registers or expecting any other Order or Command from us and we do require our Procurators-general to pursue immediately and without delay the said publication hereof We give in command to the People of our said Courts of Parliaments Chambers of our Courts and Courts of our Aids Bayliffs Chief-Justices Provosts and other our Justices and Officers to whom it appertains and to their Leivetenants that they cause to be read published and Registred this our present Edict and Ordinance in their Courts and Jurisdictions and the same keep punctually and the contents of the same to cause to be injoyned and used fully and peaceably to all those to whom it shall belong ceasing and making to cease all troubles and obstructions to the contrary for such is our pleasure and in witness hereof we have signed these presents with our own hand and to the end to make it a thing firm and stable for ever we have caused to put and indorse our Seal to the same Given at Nantes in the Month of April in the year of Grace 1598. and of our
they are so many surprizes of which his Majesty will do right to his Justice by making a solemn revocation of the same V. They who have contrived them believed that they had found a very specious pretext under which they might procure them to pass when they represented to his Majesty that the Law could not foresee all those particular actions which might occurr in the succession of time and that therefore besides the Edict of Nantes some other Declaration must be had which might serve for a certain Rule But this pretense is also another surprize For the Edict it self stiles it self a general perspicuous clear and absolute Law by which all those of the one or the other Religion should be regulated in all the differences which had befaln or should hereafter occurr betwixt them But for the full discovery of the vanity of this artificial pretext they of the Pretended Reformed Religion maintain that this Declaration under the pretence of explicating and interpreting this Edict doth ruine it and that the settlements of the one are the overturners of the other Which thing will appear as clear as day by the following observations which will give us to see that the greater part of those things which are contained in this long Declaration are contrary to the Edict of Nantes or if there be any which are not of that number they are unprofitable Innovations and which can serve for nothing unless it be secretly to dress a Trap for the Liberties of those of the pretended Reformed Religion These are the two Hinges upon which all these following remarks do rowl and these two Principles do equally conclude to cause a revocation of this Declaration since that the Articles contrary to the Edict cannot accord with the intention of his Majesty and those which are fruitless are unworthy to hold any rank in a Royal Ordinance ARTICLE I. Prohibition to Preach any other where than in the places appointed for that usage That the Ministers may not make their Sermons in any other places than those destinate to that usage and not in publick places on any pretext whatsoever OBSERVATION IF this Article carried no other sense than what appears in open view they of the pretended Reformed Religion had found nothing to say unto it seeing that they never pretended that it was permitted them to Preach in any publick place But these last words which are read in the end of this Article under any Pretense whatsoever are an Artifice which the Ecclesiasticks have invented for to ruine the Liberty of those of the pretended Reformed Religion and to authorize certain Decrees gotten of the Counsel by surprize For they would joyn these terms under what pretext soever it be not to the second clause of the Article where it speaks of publick places but to the first which in general forbids to preach else-where than in places appointed for that usage So that by vertue of these words they will prohibit them who have petty Fees to cause Sermons to be made in their own houses where they have no Temples nor Places particularly appointed for preaching which notwithstanding is contrary to the eighth Article of the Edict of Nantes wherein the right of these Fees is formally established And besides if a Temple fall to ruine or is pulled down in some popular sedition or burnt by fire they will pretend that they who have accustomed to hold their exercise in that place cannot assemble in any near place or Neighbour house untill such times as the Temple is re-built and if a Temple be made unaccessible by a deluge of waters or if the Plague or Enemies or any other Obstacle hinder their approach thereunto they will pretend the same thing against Reason and Justice and also against the Sixth Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes Finally if they of the pretended Reformed Religion be obliged to transfer their Exercises for necessary reasons and there observe all conditions requisite or if they Preach to their Assemblies in the Country in places uncovered where they have right they will thereupon raise Troubles and Suits in consequence of this Article This is the cause why they of the said Religion do most humbly beseech his Majesty to revoke this Article as tending to give occasion to many vexing contestations and contrary to the intention of the Edicts or it will be necessary for removing all matters of vexation instead of these terms under any pretext whatsoever to employ these without intending notwithstanding to do any prejudice to the priviledge of the Fees or to forbid in case of Hostility Contagion or Fire overflowing of Water or Ruine or other Lawfull causes to Preach in any Neighbour place provided it be not a publick place notwithstanding any Decrees or Judgements made to the contrary ARTICLE II. Places of Demesme That they of the pretended Reformed Religion aforesaid may not establish any Preachings in the places of their Demesme which are adjudged unto them under pretence of any Priviledge annexed to Courts of High-Justice contained within their said adjudications This is formally contrary to the seventh Article of the Edict of Nantes by which It is allowed to all Lords Gentlemen and other persons of the Reformed Pretended Religion having right of High Justice-Courts or Tenure of Knights whether as Proprietors or as Vsufructuaries only to have the Exercise of Religion in their Houses These words have respect to those that obtain the Demesme of the King as well as others for they are general they speak of all persons that have power of High Justice without any distinction and there is as to this point no difference betwixt those that enjoy the right of High Justice by the King's Engagement and those that possess it as their own proper estate because the Morgagee enjoys all the Rights which depend on the Fee of which he is the Possessor until such time as he is reimbursed The liberty then of Publick Exercise being one of the Attributes of High Justice and of the Fee of Knights Service it is but reason that the Morgagee of the Domain do enjoy it during his possession The Edict it self leaves no place to doubt of this For in the Article we have now alledged mention is made of those that have High Justice Whether as Proprietaries or Vsufructuaries Now the Possessor of a Demain by Morgage is an Usufructuary and by consequent is comprised expresly in the Edict But the thing will be entirely out of question if we consider the tenth Article of the Edict where these words are read So that the said establishment be not hindred in such places of Demain as have been given by the said Edict Articles and Conferences for places of Bailiwicks or which hereafter shall be although they have been alienated heretofore or shall be hereafter by persons of the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion An exception which shews that the places of the Demesnes are subjected to the right of Exercise as well as
others And to the end that we might not suppose that it was the intent of the Edict to be restrained to the places of Bayliwicks only this tenth Article proceeds thus However we do not understand that the said Exercise may be re-established in places and seats of the said Demain which have been heretofore possessed by them of the said P. R. R. which they did enjoy in consideration of their persons or because of their Fees if those Fees be found at present in the possession of persons of the said Catholick Apostolick and Roman Religion An exception which doth evidently testifie that Fees of Demain engaged follow in this respect the condition of others which when they are withdrawn out of the hands of those of the P. R. R. the Exercise cannot be any longer continued for that the privilege was personal and affixed to the Fee whence it follows that according to the Edict so long as the said Fees are possessed by persons of this Religion the Exercises thereof ought to be freely made there as in other Fees of requisite qualification His Majesty therefore out of the design which he hath to cause the Edict of Nantes to be observed will be pleased to accord to the revocation of this Article as also in like manner to an evacuation of a Decree made in Council January 11 1667 in which they of the P. R. R. are not only forbidden to Establish any Preaching in the Place of Demain which shall be adjudged unto them under pretence of Right of High Justice comprised within their Adjudications But moreover in it they find another settlement yet more rigorous in as much as it import that When his Majesty accords to the right of High Justice in any of the Lands of those of the P. R. R. there must be express mention made in the erection of those Rights of High Justice that the Exercise of their Religion may not be established there under the pretext of that High Justice A strange surprise imposed on the King and we have cause to promise our selves that his Majesty cannot suffer this rigour which turns his favour into a punishment and depriveth them of the P. R. R. of a liberty which is of the number of those which the Edict hath most formally expressed ARTICLE III. Places of High Justice That in Places where the Lords of the P. R. R. having the Right of High Justice do exercise the same there shall be no marks of publick Exercise THis Article is incompatible with the thirty fourth of the Particulars of Nantes which expresseth That in all places where the Exercise of the said Religion shall be publick the people may be assembled and that also by the sound of a Bell and do all the Acts and Functions that appertain as well to the Exercise of their Religion as the Regulation of their Discipline as to hold Consistories Colloquies and Synods Provincial and National by the permission of his Majesty This settlement is formal for it speaks generally and without exception of all places where the Exercise is publick Therefore it intends the places of High Justice as well as other places accorded by the Edict since by the seventh Article of the Generals the right of Exercise is attributed to the Places of High-Justice and to the Fees of Knight-service in which the Lords and Gentlemen Possessors thereof may cause Sermons to be made as well for themselves their Families and Subjects as for others that will resort thither which thing makes the Exercise publick Further this thirty fourth Article of the Particulars permits in all places where the Exercise of the P. R. R. is publick to assemble the people by the sound of the Bell which Bell for assembling the people supposeth a power to have a Bell-House and the Bell-House supposeth a Temple So that according to the intention of the Edict Temples may be had in the places of High Justice And here we may perceive also by the settlement of this 34th Article that it is permitted in all places where the publick Exercise is Celebrated to hold Synods not only Provincial but National also By consequent all places of this nature of the number of which are those of the High Justice may have the marks of a publick Exercise For how can a Provincial or a National Synod be held in a place where there is neither Chair to Preach nor Bench to sit Is it credible that the Edict did command that there should be a place where the Deputies from the whole Kingdom should have liberty to Assemble in a Synod without giving power to their Ministers notwithstanding to ascend the Pulpit to make there the Sermons necessary to such Solemn Assembles Being therefore this Article cannot be made to agree unto the Edict his Majesty is most humbly besought to revoke it as also those Decrees which the Clergy have obtained by surprize for authorising so ill founded a pretention And this thing appears yet more strange because the places wherein the pretended Reformed Religion is exercised have nothing at all in outward shew which might move Jealousie to any person for they are places altogether simple and plain without Pomp without Imbellishments and without Ornaments There is nothing but a Chair and Seats without curiosity and being they have nothing but what is absolutely necessary those places cannot reasonably be deprived thereof whereunto the Edict gives right of publick Exercise ARTICLE IV. Consolation of Prisoners That the Ministers may not comfort the Prisoners in the Goals but with a low voice in a Chamber apart and assisted only with one or two Persons HEre may be seen also a manifest contrariety to the fourth Article of the particulars of Nantes where it is said As to them who shall be condemned by course of Justice the said Ministers may likewise visit and comfort them without making publick Prayers except only in places where the said publick Exercise is permitted unto them by the Edict This Article permits in the places authorised by the Edict publick Prayers to be made that is to say in a publick place at the very place of Punishment before all the great Concourse of People assembled there and the Declaration on the contrary forbids without distinction of places prayers to be made with a loud voice and even in private also in the Chambers of the Prisons with the Doors shut Are not these two settlements opposite which destroy one the other It seems likewise that the Declaration contradicts it self For if the Ministers be obliged to comfort prisoners in a Chamber apart wherefore are they commanded to speak with a low voice Since one hath free liberty to speak in a Chamber distinct from others or if it be their will that they should speak with a low voice why do they oblige them to a Chamber apart since a low voice needs not a distinct place And besides what stream of Processes will there issue from this obligation to speak with a low voice for
they will without intermission make trouble to the Ministers for the tone of his voice They will pretend that he hath not spoken low enough and it will be in a manner impossible to find the just mean betwixt a voice too low which the Prisoner cannot hear and by which he cannot be comforted and a voice a little too high which may be understood by others It will be therefore necessary at the least to regulate this so that itmay be understood of a low voice that it is to be spoken in such a sense as it is used in the case of the noise of those that work on a Festival Day that it be such a voice as cannot be heard in the Street nor of the Neighbours It is also hard to conceive how the Ministers can observe that Clause which speaks of a Chamber apart for shall it be in their power to bring the Prisoners into a Chamber apart If the question were only of them that are condemned to death the matter would be easie for they do ordinarily put them in a place apart after their condemnation But the Article of the Declaration speaks of all Prisoners without distinction And shall the Minister have authority to cause to lead or carry into a Chamber apart a sick Prisoner whom they find in the same place with many others and if the Jaylor will not suffer it then what means shall the Ministers have to cause him to obey them And it may so fall out that an unfortunate person detained in Prison for his Debts or for any other cause may die there without consolation or exhortation to repentance for that he cannot be in a Chamber apart This Article being then impossible to be executed and tending to leave poor Prisoners to die miserably without being assisted in their Consciences his Majesty is most humbly besought to cause this Article to be put out and to be content in the affair of Prisoners with the regulation contained in the fourth Article of the particulars of Nantes ARTICLE V. To speak of the Catholick Religion with all respect That the Ministers shall not in their Sermons and elsewhere use any injurious or offensive terms against the Catholick Religion or the State but on the contrary shall carry themselves with that moderation which is ordained by the Edicts and speak of the Catholick Religion with all respect THey of the P. R. R. cannot behold without sensible grief that their Ministers are forbidden to use injurious terms against the Estate For this Prohibition seems to presuppose that they either have been guilty of this Crime or that they have some propensity to commit it And notwithstanding there is nothing that they abhor more and of which they are more incapable The love of the Estate and zeal of their Religion are inseparable in their hearts and mouths They never express themselves neither in their Sermons nor in their Discourses but as good French and faithful Subjects and they never ascend their Pulpits but they pray to God for the Sacred Person of the King for all the Royal Family and for the prosperity of his Estate As for what belongs to the Catholick Religion they always speak thereof with the moderation ordained by the Edicts But to make a Law which commands them to speak with all respect is to expose them to the uttermost misery and they can never assure themselves any longer neither of their Goods nor of their Liberty nor of their Lives if this Ordinance continue for whatsoever moderation they use in their Sermons whatsoever pains they take to chuse their terms when they are obliged to touch matters of controversie there will be found notwithstanding persons who will pretend that they have not spoken with all respect so will it come to pass that they shall see themselves every hour overwhelmed with Fines imprisoned and condemned to many kinds of punishments This is the reason wherefore his Majesty is instantly besought to give remedy to this mischief by expunging this Article which renders it inevitable and to be satisfied with that regulation which is found in the Edict of Nantes where in its seventeenth Article it forbids all Preachers Lecturers and others who speak in publick to use any Speeches Discourses or Propositions illuding to stir up the people to Sedition with a strict command to demean themselves modestly and to speak nothing which may not be for the instruction and comfort of their Hearers and for maintaining the tranquillity and repose of the Realm A Prohibition which of good right was made general and common to all sorts of Preachers as well of the one Religion as of the other notwithstanding that indeed the Ministers have less need of this injunction in this matter than the Preachers of the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Religion amongst whom it is easie to find that they give themselves liberties apt to trouble the publick peace of all ART VI. Acts of Notaries That Notaries who receive the Testaments and other Acts of the P. R. R. shall not speak of them of the said Religion in other terms than such as the Edicts permit THey of the P. R. R. find not any thing of their concern in this Article and cannot divine upon what consideration the Ecclesiasticks have caused it to be put in this Declaration unless it be that they well fore-seeing that Justice would infallibly prevail with his Majesty to reform a piece wherein they had surprised his Royal Goodness in so many ways they have expresly for that end caused Articles unprofitable and to no purpose to be foisted therein to the end that when this Work comes to be examined they may have therein certain matters which they might remit to give pretence that afterwards the Declaration should be very moderate and could no more give cause of complaint to any person But our Monarch hath an understanding too much enlightned not to discover this Artifice and when this sixth Article of this Declaration and divers others of like nature which may be found therein are outed they of the P. R. R. cannot esteem their condition any thing the better nor more supportable if the other points which ruine their Liberties be maintained their subsistence being nevertheless in this Kingdom impossible This is the cause wherefore his Majesty is besought to keep this in mind to the end that this Observation may be applyed to many other Articles insignificant or of small consequence with which this Declaration is swoln apparently for some design worthy to be observed ART VII Books That those of the P. R. R. may not cause any Books to be Printed concerning the P. R. R. which are not attested and certified by approved Ministers for which they are to be responsible nor without the permission of the Magistrates and the consent of our Attourneys and that the said Books shall not be vended but in such places where the Exercise of the said Religion is permitted THere needs no Law to oblige them of the
the Church may hurt them That is that the Parish Priests when they please publish their Censures and Monitions against any Person of the pretended Reformed Religion obliging all their Parishioners in general to depose if they have heard any thing spoken by him against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion which makes way for them to rip up all a mans life from his very infancy and if it have hapned that he have spoken of any Controversie they impute it unto him to have uttered some Blasphemies against the Mysteries and Ceremonies of the Church And sometime Witnesses are found who by false reports bring the Honour and Life of men in hazard and we have already seen persons unreproachable whose innocence could not secure them from such Calumnious Accusations and who have been condemned to death for words maliciously contrived with design to destroy them your Majesty is therefore humbly prayed to hinder this so great a mischief not only by removing this Article which will serve for pretext to evil disposed Spirits but also by ordaining just and reasonable penalties against the accusers and the Witnesses who in such contests shall be convinced of falshood and fall short of proving their accusations and above all forbidding those minatories and those wandring uncertain and undetermined Informations which smell of the Inquisition and are capable of troubling all the whole Realm ARTICLE IX Robes and Cassocks of Ministers That the Ministers may not wear Gowns or Cassocks nor appear in the long Robe elsewhere than within their Temples THe liberty of habit is so great in France that it were to strip the Ministers of the quality of French-men to bring the form of their Garments into Controversie If Cassocks or long Robes were in such manner peculiar to Church-Men that it might pass for an infallible mark of their Character and Order it might be that they might have some reason to dispute them with those whom they will not acknowledge for Ecclesiasticks But the Cassock and the Gown are worn of many persons that are not of the Orders of the Church Judges Counsellors Attorneys themselves Recorders Ushers Physicians Regents of Schools or Colledges have this priviledge without contestation And the quality of Doctors Licentiates or Masters of Arts in which Ministers may be invested as well as others and are in a manner is that which properly giveth right of wearing the Cassock and long Robe It cannot therefore be imagined for what reason they ought to be forbidden unto Ministers and when the Ecclesiasticks required this Prohibition and obtained it by a Decree of the Counsel gotten by surprize the 30th of June 1664. to serve for a foundation of this Article of the Declaration it was meerly the effect of their dissatisfaction to the Ministers and only upon design to blast them But the Ministers who are born Subjects of the King hope to find his Justice in the defence of their Honour as well as of their Persons ARTICLE X. Registers of Baptisms and Marriages That the said Ministers shall keeep Registers of the Baptisms and Marriages which are made by those of the pretended Reformed Religion and shall produce from three Months to three Months an Extract thereof to the Registers of the Bailywick and Constableries of their Precincts THis Article is altogether useless in regard that the new Ordinance which is now observed through the whole Realm hath sufficiently provided for the Recording of Baptisms and Marriages ARTICLE XI Celebration of Marriages That they may not make any Mariages betwixt Persons that are Catholicks and those of the pretended Reformed Religion whereon any opposition is made untill such time as such opposition have been removed by the Judges to whom the Cognizance thereof doth appertain THis settlement is also to be numbred amongst the fruitless and there is no need of an Ordinance to inforce this duty upon the Ministers For they do never bestow the Nuptial blessing on Marriages contracted betwixt persons of divers Religions unless it be by vertue of some Decree or Judgement of the Magistrates Their own Ecclesiastick Discipline forbids them to do otherwise and when there is opposition the cognizance whereof belongs unto the Judges they never proceed till they be determined ART XII Consistories That those of the pretended Reformed Religion may not receive into the Assemblies of their Consistories others than those whom they call Elders with their Ministers THe Consistories of those of the pretended Reformed Religion are composed not only of Ministers and Elders but also of Deacons who have the particular care of Feeding Cloathing and Harbouring the Poor The Discipline of the pretended Reformed Churches makes express mention of these three sorts of Persons regulates their Charges their Imployments and their Functions Being therefore the Edict of Nantes in the thirty fourth Article of the particulars doth authorize the exercise of this Discipline and that even the thirty fifth Article doth formally name the Deacons as being part of the Consistories it is not credible that the Kings intention was to exclude the Deacons from thence But as it is usual to draw advantage of every thing against them of the pretended Reformed Religion if the word Elders be left alone in this Article of the Declaration occasion undoubtedly will be taken thereby to hinder the Deacons from entring into their Consistories contrary to the order of their Discipline and the intent of the Edict Wherefore it is necessary to add unto this Article the term Deacons which is there omitted Besides this illustration there are three other particulars also no less necessary to make this Article accord with the Discipline of the pretended Reformed Churches and with the Edict of Nantes which doth authorize it For their Discipline which is the rule of their conduct in their Ecclesiastical Politie Wills that when they are about the calling of a Minister all the Heads of the Families of one Flock should be assembled to give their voice as being all concerned in the Establishment of a person who is appointed for their service So that if they of the said Religion may receive none into their Assemblies but Ministers Elders and Deacons they cannot call any Ministers to the service of their Churches when they have need which cannot be the Kings intention Besides the Edict of Nantes in the forty third Article of the Particulars permits those of the pretended Reformed Religion to assemble to make impositions of Monies which are necessary for the Charges of their Synods and entertainment of their Ministers which notwithstanding they cannot do if this Article of the Declaration be continued as it is and if they cannot receive into the Assemblies of their Consistories other persons than their Elders and Deacons And it may may also come to pass that there may be found troublesome Spirits who will contend that they may not call offenders and scandalous persons into their Consistories to censure them according to their merit and to reduce them to their duty For the avoiding
for laying hands on them which cannot be done but in the intervals of Synods because the Discipline of those of the pretended Reformed Religion ordains that the Candidates who have been examined by the Synods shall make three Sermons of tryal on three Lords dayes successively before the Church whither they are sent before they can receive Imposition of Hands and power to administer the Sacraments from the Commissioners deputed for that purpose It must here be added that this Article proceeds yet farther and leaves them of the pretended Reformed Religion no more any surety for their persons or their lives For they are forbidden to deliberate of any affairs for any cause or in any manner whatsoever on pain of being punished So as soon as two or three persons of that Religion be seen together their enemies will pretend that they are consulting of affairs and bring Process against them There will be no Tranquillity for them in the Realm neither can there be any Society Conversation or Commerce amongst them without danger His Majesty is therefore besought with all the Ardour of which his Subjects of the pretended Reformed Religion are capable that he would take off this Prohibition and take away an Article so fatal to their repose ARTICLE XIX The Validity of Marriages That the Ministers Consistories and Synods of the said pretended Reformed Religion take not on them to judge of the validity of Marriages made and contracted by those of the said pretended Reformed Religion AN Article needs not for a thing which they of the pretended Reformed Religion have never designed to undertake They leave it to the Magistrates to judge of the validity of Marriages and their Ministers do pretend nothing therein only their calling obligeth them to reprove and censure the incestuous and the King without doubt doth not intend to deprive them of this power which is given them by their Discipline the exercise whereof is authorized by the Edict of Nantes ARTICLE XX. Those that are sent to Catholick Colledges The like Prohibition is also made to their Consistories and Synods to Censure or otherwise to punish Fathers Mothers and Tutors who send their Children or Pupils to the Catholick Colledges or Schools or elsewhere to be instructed by Catholick Masters notwithstanding that the said Children be not constrained to imbrace their Religion THis Prohibition cannot stand with the thirty fourth Article of the Particulars of Nantes by which it is permitted to them of the pretended Reformed Religion to exercise all Acts and Functions that belong to the regulation of their Discipline And it may be seen in this Discipline the fourteenth Chapter and fourteenth Article that it is forbidden to Fathers and Mothers of that Religion to send their Children to the Colledges and Schools of those of the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Religion This is therefore a manifest repeal of the Edict to take from the Consistories and Synods the power of censuring Fathers and Mothers in this case being that Censure is part of that Discipline the exercise whereof is established by the Edict This doth not hinder but that when the Regents of Colledges and Masters of Schools are of sufficient discretion and fidelity not to discourse of Religion to Infants their Fathers Mothers and Tutors may send them to their Classes to be there instructed for this is a daily practice But if they do attempt to induce them to change their Religion can the Consistories then be blamed for doing their duty in advertizing Fathers and Mothers to withdraw their Children from a place where they believe their Souls are in danger This Article then is of the number of those of which the Edict demands the Revocation ARTICLE XXI Bonefires That when Bonefires are to be made by the Order of his Majesty in publick places and when execution is done upon Criminals of the P. R. R. there Ministers and others of the P. R. R. shall not have power to sing Psalms THe prosperity of the King and of the Estate will alwayes produce sentiments of Joy and Gladness in the hearts of those of the P. R. R. as becomes the true and faithfull Subjects of his Majesty They will render thanks unto God publickly in their Temples and also bless him privately in their houses That it is to no purpose to forbid them to sing Psalms in publick places on what occasion soever and the Clergy have made use of this prohibition only to make shew that they attempt things which never came once in their thoughts ARTICLE XXII Burials in Churches or Church-yards That the dead Bodies of those of the said P. R. R. may not be interred in the Church-yards of the Catholicks nor in their Churches upon pretext that the Tombs of their Ancestors were there or that they had there any right of Lordship or Patronage THis Prohibition is also needless for that they of the said Religion have never had any thoughts of interring their dead in the Churches nor in the Church-yards of them of the C. R. R. But this Article that speaks of Patronages gives occasion to them of the P. R. R. to complain unto his Majesty of the wrong which is done them in all the Provinces of the Realm by hindering them to enjoy their right of Patronage which was left them by the thirty fourth Article of the generals of the Edict of Nantes and confirmed by an authentick Decree of the Council of Estate July 10 1651. by which his Majesty doth keep and confirm his Subjects of the P. R. R. in the possession and enjoyment of naming capable persons to the Benefices of which they are Patrons with the charge only of naming Persons that are Catholicks of whom it gives them power to make the said nominations and presentations which being done the Bishops Arch-Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Collators shall be obliged to admitt in the ordinary Form such nominations and presentations as shall be so made His said Majesty Ordaining that this Regulation should be executed from point to point according to the form and tenure thereof notwithstanding all Judgements to the contrary If the Clergy have gotten any Decrees since this differing therefrom they are Decrees gotten by Surprize and which ought not to be put in ballance with this of 1651 which was granted in Foro contradictorio and upon full Cognizance of the Cause They of the P. R. R. do therefore promise themselves from the Kings Justice that the consideration of his own Ordinance joyned with the authority of the Edict which in the eighty ninth Article willeth that all Lords Knights Gentlemen and others of what quality or condition soever they be of the P. R. R. shall be effectually preserved in the enjoyment of all their Goods Rights Nominations reasons and actions will cause him to maintain his Subjects of the said Religion in a right which doth appertain so legitimately unto them and which is annexed to their Fees and Lands which they possess If there be any small appearance of difficulty in
concern the Communities And it may also be feared lest the Affairs of the King receive prejudice because in these Assemblies the Curats Parsons and Vicars will have so great care of the Interests of the Clergy that those of his Majesty may thereby be incommodated This Article therefore not being possible to be executed doth of it self require to be suppressed ARTICLE XXXI Single Municipal Employments That the Charges of the Secretaries to Consular Houses Clerks to Communities Clock-keepers Porters and other Charges Municipal which are single shall not be held by any but Catholicks only IT must needs be that the Clergy have a strange hatred against those of the P. R. R. being they cannot suffer them to be so much as Clarks Clock-keepers or Porters Should not they take notice how contrary this pretension is to the intent of his Majesty who declares that he wills That the Edict of Nantes be exactly observed that Edict which admits indifferently and without distinction in the twenty seventh Article Those of the P. R. R. to all Estates Dignities Offices and Charges publick whatsoever belonging to Knights Nobles or Cities of which these last are they which this Declaration terms municipal In the mean time against a settlement so clear repeated and confirmed in the tenth Article of the particulars they will not allow the least employments nor the smallest Offices to them of this R. Ought not the Clergy to have had more respect to the King 's Royal Promise and not to have demanded of his Majesty things which he hath published to the whole world to be contrary to his will whilst he declares that he will observe the Edict of Nantes But this Article doth not only combat the Edict but it surpasses also the rigour of the Declaration 1631 which imports that all the Municipal Charges should be Miparties and that one half of them should be supplyed with those of the C. A. R. R. and the other half of the P. R. R. which is so well observed that the single places as those of the Secretaries to the Consular houses are used by turns one year by a Person of the C. A. R. R. and another year by one of the P. R. R. and so in order consecutively There are therefore no bounds to the Animosity of the Ecclesiasticks against them of the P. R. R. In the Year 1631. they were content to demand that the Municipal Offices should be Mâ—parties now they will wholly exclude those of the said Religion In which it must be avowed that they little consider Reason so they satisfie themselves For Goods and Lands being possessed by them of the P. R. R. as well as others the inequality it self being so great in divers places that of eight parts those of the P. R. R. possess seven as hath been already observed can there be any reason to require that all the Titles and the Records of Heritages and of Lands should remain in the hands of those of the C. A. R. R. to dispose at their pleasure and to cause the substance of others to disappear when they shall be possessed with envy toward them or any other emotion inspired by the diversity of their Religion shall cause them to conceive such a design This is therefore an Article upon which the Justice of the King is implored to cause it to be intirely abolished and his Majesty may easily judge of how great importance it is to retain a settlement so rigorous in that it continually furnisheth new vexations to his Subjects of the P. R. R. as appears by the injury done to them of Castres where under pretext of this Article which forbids them all single municipal charges they will not permit them any longer to be Porters to the Town notwithstanding that this charge is not a single one and that there are many Porters according to the number of the Gates This is a very clear proof that the least pretext serves to bring the uttermost extremity upon them of the P. R. R. because they look on them as persons upon whom they may attempt all things without fear of punishment ARTICLE XXXII Trades and Professions That in the Assemblies of the sworn Masters of Trades the Catholicks shall be at least equal in number to those of the P. R. R. IT behooves that we voluntarily close our eyes that we may not perceive that this Article proceeds farther than it seems and that the Clergy hath here another design than what appears in their words For they know that there are places where all the Masters of certain Trades are of the P. R. R. for that those of the C. A. R. R. neglect those Professions and apply not themselves thereunto From whence the Clergy could not fail to infer that it was impossible to put this Article in execution in those places But the Ecclesiasticks would in this affair cover another more secret intention That is to reduce and limit the number of the Masters in every Trade For if in the Companies of the sworn Masters those of the C. A. R. R. ought to be at least in like number with them of the P. R. R. it will quickly be concluded from thence that no Masters are to be received untill the number of those of the Catholick A. R. R. become equal to the others And they will then proceed yet much farther for then they will have the number of the Masters of the C. A. R. R. to be much greater than that of the others and that the same proportion is to be kept which is in every place betwixt the persons of both Religions This is the reason that the Parliament of Normandy hath forbidden the admitting of any Goldsmith or Grocer of the P. R. R. in the Town of Rouen untill such times as they are reduced to fifteen that is to say that for fifteen Goldsmiths of the C. A. R. R. there can be but one of the P. R. R. That which is done in Trades is done also with the same rigour in all liberal Arts in all Professions and in all Imployments It is no more possible to cause them to receive any Advocates of the said Religion and the Parliament of Rouen have made a regulation secret indeed but which is executed with all possible exactness importing that they will not receive any more Advocates of the P. R. R. untill such times as they are reduced to the number of ten for the Parliament two for the Presidial Courts and Bailywicks and one only for the Sheriffs Courts that is that there be none received into Parliament for fifty years for that half an age at least will be necessary to make this Reduction to the number of ten In like manner they receive no more Clerks no more Notaries nor Messengers no more Ushers nor Serjeants no more Attorneys And we see with grief in the suppression which is made of a certain number of Attorneys in every seat of Judicature they have pitched alltogether of them of the P. R. R.
that they may drive them from all the Jurisdictions of the Realm It is incredible that ever such a Change could be seen to come in an Estate where the Edict of Nantes hath been so well verified by Parliaments and so authentickly confirmed by the successors of Henry the Great Upon what grounds do they interdict them of the P. R. R. of the Functions of Counsellors Clerks or Attorneys what have those charges common with Religion And to exclude them of the P. R. R. from the quality of Counsellors is no other than to cause that their Innocence and the Merits of their Causes should be without support before the Tribunals that they may be oppressed at the pleasure of their enemies and adverse Parties For to reduce them of the P. R. R. to serve themselves of no others than Councellors of the Ca. A. R. R. were to take from them all means to defend themselves in matters of Religion there being no likelihood that Counsellors of another Faith would take on them to defend Interests of that Nature or if they would it must needs be done with such feebleness and negligence that no success could be thereupon expected They proceed so far herein as not to be willing to suffer any Physitians of the P. R. R. as if the Precepts of Hyppocrates and Galen were incompatible with the consession of the Faith of the P. R. R. Churches The Parliament of Rouen have limited the number of two to that great Town and almost all the Universities of France begin to refuse the Degrees of Doctor in Physick to those of the P. R. R. notwithstanding that we see the Jews open and declared enemies of Christianity do exercise this profession and fill even the Chairs of Physick in the most famous Universities of Italy Finally it is not sufficient to say that they do at this day limit the number of those of the P. R. R. that aspire to Professions and Arts we must also add that they exclude them wholly For it is not without incredible pains that any one hath admittance And as for Trades they refuse with a high hand in a manner all those that offer themselves without alledging any other cause than their Religion This is not only simply to shut upon them the gate to Honours and Dignities but it is also to take away from them of the said Religion all means of gaining their Lively-hood and to condemn them cruelly to dye of hunger as if there were left no more humanity for them neither in their hearts nor in their Spirits It is true that the King hath been willing to remedy this injustice by his Decrees given in Council the 28th of June the 18th of September and 10th of November 1665. by which it is ordained that those of the P. R. R. should be indifferently admitted to Arts and Trades serving their Apprentiships and doing their Master-pieces by which also the contrary Decrees of the Parliament of Rouen are rescinded But there are three things which grief and necessity force them of the said Religion to present before his Majesty The first is that neither the Parliaments nor the inferiour Jurisdictions depending on them have any regard at all to these Decrees of the Council They make open profession not to regard them and they are not afraid to say aloud that they will not yield to them at all if the King do not express himself otherwise nor make them understand his Will by a Declaration formal In effect the Court of Money by a Decree of the 17th of December 1666. have forbidden any Master of the Goldsmiths to be received in Rouen untill such times as the number of the Catholicks be supplyed And thereupon the Jurisdiction of Mony in the said Town hath refused an Apprentice-Goldsmith to be received Master and have dismissed him lately by their sentence of the 12th of July 1668. The Parliament of Paris hath fined one named Magdalen de la Fond and put her to pay Costs and Damages and forbids her the exercise of the trade of a Linnen Merchant by their Decree of the seventh of September 1665. somewhat more than two Months after the first Decree of the Council which ordained that those of the P. R. R. should be indifferently admitted to Arts and Trades being dated June 28 1665. And which is yet more astonishing the Council it self made a Decree of the like Nature August 21 of the same year 1665. to forbid that there should be any Linnen Merchant in Paris of that Religion By which one may conclude that the Decrees of the Council are not sufficient to establish a certain Law and that the Declarations of the King are necessary to determine affairs especially in the savour of them of the P. R. R. who find always strong opposition in the Spirits of their Judges The Second thing to be considered in this place is that the Decrees of the Council speak only of Arts and Trades and not of Professions and Charges such as be of small consequence as those of Clerks which hath given them occasion obstinately to refuse Physitians Counsellors Attorneys Clerks Ushers and Serjeants by a marvellous hard usage which constrains them which have these Gifts and Talents proper for the service of the publick to continue in forced silence which renders them unprofitable to the Estate and which overwhelms them in confusion as if they were persons notorious and infamous and which had deserved for their evil Actions not to be admitted into any honest profession nor received into any remarkable Employment This is the reason that they of this Religion which perceive themselves to have any capacity and which may be profitable to their Country think of nothing else but to retire themselves out of the Realm and the Estate by this means will see it self deprived of many persons of merit and service by whom strangers benefit themselves to the prejudice of France The third thing which ought here to be observed is that the Decrees of the Council receive not them of the P. R. R. to Arts and Trades but under condition of Apprentiships and performing Master-pieces to deprive them by this Clause of those Letters of Master-ship which the King hath been accustomed to grant upon important and advantageous occasions as hath been done in favour of the general peace the happy marriage of his Majesty the Birth and Baptism of my Lord the Dolphin They of the P. R. R. cannot express the grief they have conceived from a Decree gotten by surprise from the Council July 21 1664 by which they are deprived of these Letters which are the gracious favours of their Soveraign the refusal whereof cannot be unto them but most sad not only because of the prejudice which they receive thereby but especially because of the dishonour which it casts on them For to refuse them these Letters of Mastership is loudly to declare them unworthy of the least Grace from their Prince and what would they not do to
recover themselves from this blasting Are they not French by Birth and Original as well as others Take they not part as they ought in the prosperities of the Estate The general Peace the happy Marriage of his Majesty the Birth and Baptism of my Lord the Dauphin and the other advantages of the Crown and Royal House are not their hearts therewith sensibly affected Have they acted any Treachery or any attempt which might exclude them from those Graces which diffuse themselves to all others Subjects On the contrary his Majesty hath testified himself for them That they have given proofs of their fidelity and zeal beyond all he could have imagined This is therefore a surprise made upon his Majesty whereby a Decree hath been obtained from the Council wherein the rigour proceeds so far as to declare them of the P. R. R. unworthy the favour of being Shooe-makers or Joyners They are those of this R. especially that have need of these Letters of freedom for that the most part of the Masters of the C. A. R. R. will not take them for Apprentices and the Guardians being almost never satisfied with their Master-pieces the entrance into Trades in this way is to them ordinarily impossible Besides these Letters have never been denyed them hitherto they have always very easily obtained them they peaceably enjoyed them and this hath made their refusal more pungent and afflicting But above all this they cannot sufficiently complain of the unjustice of the Parliaments who overbearing that infallible Maxim of Right that no Law hath any effect but for the time to come would this notwithstanding that the Decree of the Council of July 21 1664. which deprives those of the P. R. R. of the Letters of Mastership should have a virtue retroactive For they condemned those persons to shut up their Shops who in consequence of such Letters were admitted Masters and who had many years before exercised their Trades Therefore the King is most humbly besought to redress this and for to stay those disorders which cast his Subjects of the P. R. R. into a famine worse than that which comes through the barrenness of the Earth or which will force them to seek their Bread in strange Countries as many in considerable numbers have done already to the great prejudice of the Trade and Manufactures of the Realm his Majesty will be pleased to ordain that they of the said Religion may not be refused upon what pretext soever it be to be admitted into Arts and into Trades and that they be received indifferently whether it be by Letters of Mastership or Apprentiships or Master-pieces and that those who have heretofore obtained Letters of Mastership may not be hindred to make use thereof and that at length those of the said Religion may be admitted into all sorts of Professions of Arts and Trades without restriction or limitation of number that they may enjoy all the rights and perform all the Functions which depend thereon And that his Majesty would have the goodness to insert this into a Declaration in good form that may not leave any more place of disobedience to passionate Judges and Officers ARTICLE XXXIII Ceasing of singing Psalms in Churches whilst Processions pass That when the Processions in which the Holy Sacrament is born pass before the Temples of those of the P. R. R. they shall cease to sing their Psalms until the said Processions be past by HEre is no appearance that they would have this Article to be extended to all sorts of Procession of that Quality which is here specified for that it would be impossible to obey what pains soever were taken therein For the most part of these Processions are arbitrary and unforeseen and made on days and hours not fixed nor settled how then can it be possible for those who are in an Assembly to know when they are to pass And how shall they who sing in a Temple many times far distant from the Street or Way shut in with Walls and in a place apart understand whether a Procession pass or not There is therefore sufficient reason to believe that the intention of the King in this Article is to speak only of that Solemn Procession of the day called Corpus Christi day which being known and foreseen of all People those of the P. R. R. may be forewarned not to Preach in the morning of that day but to chuse some other as is already practised in divers places This is the interpretation which they herein request of his Majesty for preventing the evil intentions of those who seek to trouble their repose and will raise a thousand Suits against them if this Article remain in the condition it is in at present For if they of the P. R. R. whilst they are in a Temple be not silent when a Procession passeth although they could neither foresee it nor discover it nor perceive it they will not fail to fall on them and draw them into Law and condemn them to pay great Amercements and perhaps will use them far worse For they will think themselves sufficiently authorised to assault the Temple and to treat it as Rebellious and demand to have it pulled down and it may even so come to pass that the people in the Procession will seditiously pull it down at that instant through their fervor without attending the order of Justice as hath been often seen in those times in which they have had no Declaration which might serve them for a pretext for such popular commotion And this may happen to be the mean to raise whole Cities and to cause such flames as cannot be extinguished but by the blood of many persons His Majesty therefore will be pleased to revoke this Article or at least to make it clear by restraining it to the Procession of the day named Corpus Christi day and leaving in regard of other Processions to them of the P. R. R. the liberty which they have always enjoyed notwithstanding all contrary Decrees Judgments and Ordinances ARTICLE XXXIV To make clean the Streets before their Doors against Festival Days Those of the said P. R. R. shall be obliged to suffer their Houses to be hung in the Streets by the authority of the Officers of the place and other places appertaining unto them on the Feasts days ordained so to do according to the third of the private Articles of Nantes and that they of the said P. R. R. shall make clean before their doors IT is true that by the third of the private Articles of the Edict of Nantes they of the P. R. R. are obliged to suffer Hangings to be put up before their Houses but not to clean the Streets before their Doors This is an Addition to the Law and which appears also contrary to the Law for that the Edict in the sixth general Article doth expresly signifie that those of the P. R. R. may not be constrained to do any thing to any Religious Purpose against their Conscience
imployed to the relief of the Poor of the said Trades and other necessities and affairs of the Trade THe Clergy who see that it is the intention of his Majesty in his Declarations to cause the Edict of Nantes to be exactly observed imploy all their Force and Art to ruine the Edict whilst they make shew to conform themselves to it and in searching out Biases which may give it some supposed senses whereby they may turn it against them whose Protection it undertakes This is the Principal Artifice of the Ecclesiasticks This is that wherby they think to cast powder in the eyes and this method appears in no part of these Declarations more naked than in this Article For here we see the second Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes cited by which the Artisans of the P. R. R. are discharged from contributing to the Charges of Chappels and Fraternities But we find three wayes practised to make this Article unprofitable to them of the said Religion and to imploy it even against them The First is that they apply to the Fraternities the exception which is found in that Article when it saith Except they have any Foundations Donations or other Settlements made by themselves or their Predecessors And yet it is certain that the Foundations and Donations have no respect unto the Brother-hoods but only to the other things specified in that Article as Churches and Chappels The Second means is that by an ingenious shift whilst they discharge the Artisans of the said Religion from contributing to the charges of Chappels and Brother-hoods and such like they condemn them nevertheless to pay the same sums from which they exempt them to be imployed to the relief of the Poor and necessitous of their Trades This is directly to pull away with one hand what they will not receive with the other The King hath not the terms of his Declaration so intended being in this place equivocal those persons which are enemies to them of the P. R. R. will never fail readily to give it an inconvenient sence Therefore his Majesty is besought to expound himself and to make it known that in subjecting the Masters and Artisans of this Religion to the payment of the dues to the Trades he hath not intended those which are paid to the services and Devotions of the Guildes but only those which the Masters of the one and the other Religion are obliged to pay for the relief of the poor and for the sustaining the affairs of their Trade which are purely politick The Third is much more considerable and dangerous which is that in this Article of the Declaration they have inserted the word Statutes which is not found in the second Article of the Particulars of Nantes and by this word Statutes they will elude the whole settlement of the Edict For there is no Guild which hath not its Statutes so that they of the P. R. R. shall find themselves bound by the force of this word to contribute to all the Guilds to the prejudice of the Edict which exempts them from doing any thing contrary to their Consciences And that they may leave them of the said Religion no hope of saving themselves therefrom they have contrived of late to make new Statutes for their Trades obliging the Masters to cause Masses to be said expresly to this intent that they may subject them to the charge of the Service of the Guilds from which the Edict hath exempted them Yea and by vertue of these new invented Statutes they will pretend to exclude all those of the P. R. R. from Trades because there are found in them Articles which oblige the Masters to the Service and Ceremonies of the C. A. R. R. Church and which amount to thus much that none shall be admitted Masters who make no profession of the C. A. R. R. And because these Statutes are made since the Edict of Nantes they will maintain that they do derogate therefrom His Majesty therefore to obviate this mischief which is contrary to his intention and to the Decrees of his Council will be pleased to hear the most humble Petition which his Subjects of the P. R. R. make unto him to expunge this Article of the Declaration and to be contented in the matter of Chappels and Guilds with the second Article of the particulars of Nantes and to expell out of his Ordinance the word Statutes which is not found in the Edict and acording to his equitable wisdom to impede those new Statutes which they would establish in the Trades or at least to cause them to withdraw the Articles which concern the difference of the two Religions as being of great prejudice to the traffick and behoof of the Publick which thereby will be found most remarkably injured ARTICLE XXXIX Eliquidation or Stating of Debts That the debts contracted by them of the P. R. R. be paid by themselves only and that the clearing the sums may not be made before any other than the Commissioners of the Provinces deputed by his Majesty HEre is another attaint which they would pass against the Chambers of the Edict to whom properly belongs the Cognizance of the Debts contracted by them of the P. R. R. The Commissioners of his Majesty and the Intendants of the Provinces may well make the liquidation of the Debts of the Community but those of the Communities are different from those which respect them of the P. R. R. alone It belongs to the Chambers of the Edicts to verify their debts with exclusion to all other Judges ARTICLE XL. Inducements to change Religion That those of the said Religion may not suborn the Catholicks nor induce them to change their Religion under any pretext whatsoever and that the Catholicks which shall abjure their Religion may not be married for six months after their Change PUre and simple subornation which is not accompanied with Violence nor Threats nor Promises nor Presents hath no reference to those that are of Age for that they being of age to know discern and choose are capable to defend themselves from suborners and when they suffer themselves to be perswaded to any thing it is by an acquiescence of the Soul altogether free which is carried of its self to imbrace that which it esteemeth reasonable and this is the cause also why the 18th Article of the Edict of Nantes which forbids inducement to the change of Religion speaks only of Infants willing that they should not be induced to this change without the consent of their Parents And the same Article makes the prohibition reciprocal for them of the one and the other Religion under the same pains Yet beginning at the Children of those of the P. R. R. because they are in effect more exposed to this danger According to this model his Majesty is besought to cause this Article of the Declaration to be reformed restraining it to Infants and Minors who only are capable of being suborned in the manner which
considerable a change It is hard to imagine For can it be that the change of Religion should change the nature of Contracts and obligations and introduce this novelty in Commerce that those who are Debtors cease so to be to the prejudice of their Creditors who have lent them their Money upon their Credit and upon just confidence they had upon the validity of publick Acts by which they who borrowed their Money became their debtors The King will never consent to a favour or priviledge to the prejudice of others But here the favour which they would shew to these new Converts turns to the damage and it may be even to the ruine of their Creditors whose Bond may not only happen to be relaxed by the discharge of some of their Debtors But it may fall out also that all his Obliges becoming Converts some one man may loose all his whole debt in general and so may see himself reduced to beggery If the King would except these Converts it would seem necessary for him to reconcile his Grace with his Justice that his Majesty would be pleased to pay their debts and to discharge them with his own Money Otherwise this were to give away the Estate of another and to cause a loss without recompence to those of whom the Prince is the natural Tutor is the quality of a Father of his Country It is also a thing worthy to be considered that in the Provinces of Languedoc and Guienne the debts contracted by Bodies Corporate are Charges real which follow the Land and immovable goods into what hands soever they pass Because the possessor is obliged to pay his part according to the proportion of his Inheritances when they come to the division of these debts How then can the Converts be reasonably discharged of these debts being their obligation is not only personal but real also and affecteth the Lands which they possess and whose enjoyment by consequence is a sufficient title against them to make them liable unto this payment How great soever this matter of complaint is in it self yet it must here be added that they go about to make it yet more insupportable For although this Article is not extended farther than the debts of Communalties yet there are many notwithstanding so absurd as to desire to extend it to particular debts and to make use of their Conversion as an infallible means to cross the Books of the Merchants of the P. R. R. of the sums of which the new Converts find themselves accountable and to extinguish and acquit all the rents with which they shall be charged and to cancel all the promises by which they are held obliged to them of the said Religion The King without doubt never intended to authorize an imagination so unreasonable This were to do outrage to the Christian Religion to make it serve a design so contrary to its Precepts to whose Disciples it is commanded by the mouth of St. Paul Rom. 12. 7. To render unto all that which is their due This Article then drawing after it so many bad consequences they of the P. R. R. demand with all respect and instance the revocation of it and beseech his Majesty to expound it in such sort that Converts may not imagine that they may be freed from paying their Creditors of the said Religion their personal and particular debts with which they are charged by Contract or by Obligation or otherwise ARTICLE LXIV Temples and Burying places not to be discharged of Taxes That the Temples and Burying places of them of the P. R. R. be not left out of the Rolls nor discharged of Taxes but shall be used as heretofore IT is hard to comprehend the sense of this Article for it contains an evident contradiction It imports that the Temples and Burying places should not be left out of the Codastre i. e. out of the common Register which contains the Roll of the Houses and Lands of one Parish and that they shall not be discharged of the Taxes of the Countries where they are Real and in the mean time the same Article adds that they should be used as heretofore This is a contradiction impossible to be reconciled For if they be to be used as in times past the Temples and the Burying places shall be left out of the Parish Rolls and freed from Taxes because they have been alwayes used in this manner heretofore To establish the settlement contained in the beginning of this Article were to overturn Order and Use And Reason opposes it no less than Custom for Temples and Burying places are places fallen into Mortmaine which are no longer in Commerce amongst men and which being not possessed by any particular person are not subject to any Charges which are put upon particular persons only And this is that which hath been formally ordained by the answer of Henry the Great to the 26th Article of the Paper of 1601. on the behalf of the Dauphine and by that of Lewis the Just to the 10th Article of the Paper of 1612. in behalf of all the Burying places of them of the P. R. R. in general Justice therefore and the Royal decision of the two last Soveraigns of this Estate demand the Revocation of this Article ARTICLE XLV Infants That the Children whose Fathers are or have been Catholicks shall be Baptized and brought up in the C. C. though their Mothers be of the P. R. R. and also the Children whose Fathers are departed in the said C. R. shall be brought up in the said Religion for which purpose they shall be committed to the hands of their Mothers Tutors or other Kindred which are Catholicks upon demand with express prohibition to lead the said Children to the Temples or Schools of the said P. R. R. or to bring them up therein albeit their Mothers be of the said P. R. R. BEing Fathers have nothing more clear than their Children this Article doth cause also an inexpressible grief to them of the P. R. R. Because it takes away from many amongst them the liberty of causing their own Children to be Baptized and brought up in the Religion which they Profess upon pretence that they have sometimes been Catholicks If this Article had spoken only of Parents who are or who dye in the C. A. R. R. it would have been thought less strange But to require that a man should not Baptize his Child in the Communion in which he lives because he hath been of another Religion 30 or 40 years before certainly is a severity sufficient to throw a man into despair Besides here is also a Contradiction in this very Article which speaks not only of Fathers which are but which have been Catholicks For wherefore will they that Infants born of a Catholick Father should be Baptized and brought up in the Catholick Church It is without doubt because it is just and reasonable that the Children should follow the Religion of their Fathers when as yet they are not of age nor
to them of the pretended Reformed Religion nothing more capable to trouble the publick Tranquility nor to cause so deadly consequences of all sorts For it is in Sickness and above all at the approach of Death that men have the greatest need of repose and that trouble is to them most insupportable for that being otherwise sufficiently toyled they cannot indure to be molested in that Estate nor to be hindred in the injoyment of the Peace and comfort of their souls the Salvation whereof is then their sole Interest The Clergy in their other Articles have striven to take from them of the P. R. R. the means to live in this they come to deprive them of the liberty of dying in the profession of their Faith against that so express settlement of the Edict of Nantes in the 14th Article of the Particulars They of the said Religion saith it shall not be obliged to receive exhortations when they are sick and nigh unto Death whether it be by Condemnation of Justice or otherwise of others than they of the same Religion and they may be visited and comforted by their Ministers without being molested And this point was judged to be of so great consequence that the King ratified it by his answer of 1636. Art 19. For his Majesty there Ordained that the fourth Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes should be entirely observed with injunction to his Officers to hold their hand therein on pain to answer it in their proper and private names Can there be any thing more opposite to the Declaration The Edict of Nantes wills that the sick of the P. R. R. shall not be obliged to receive Exhortations of others than those of their own Religion and the Declaration on the contrary wills that they be obliged to suffer the Parish Priests and Aldermen to enter into their houses without their consents and without being called How shall we agree these two settlements so contrary For to say that the Declaration only permits the Parish Priests to presents themselves to the sick to know their minds not to make any exhortations unto them this is in truth to say nothing at all For where is the Parish Priest that seeing himself Master of the Chamber of a sick person will not adventure to speak somewhat unto him for to gain him And if any attempt to hinder him what uproar and what Mischief shall not follow upon it They will cry Rebellion against those that assist the sick They will pretend that they offer violence to the Parish Priest who making himself to be heard through the Windows the neighbourhood and almost all the people will run thither in a tumult break open the doors throw themselves in a fury into the Chamber of the poor agonising person who shall at the same time see himself miserably molested all his Family terrified and discomforted at what time as he ought to be left in repose to bethink himself of his Salvation And how many other Mischiefs will this permission given to the Parish Priests draw after it For the least word that one can say to them to free ones self from their urgencies and importunities shall be taken for an attempt on his person their persons shall be seized who let fall any word wherewith they are not satisfied they will drag them to Prison they will in the conclusion condemn them to so great Fines and such rigorous reparations as are to be seen by divers examples in many places Humanity it self ought to oblige unto more compassion to Families who are in sorrow and not to establish means to give trouble over and above to a wife that hath more than enough by the sickness of her Husband or to a mother that is weeping over a Child ready to give up the Ghost or to Children that have their hearts wounded for the sad estate of their Father Furthermore if a man be in a Phrenzy by the heat of a violent Feaver and he in the distraction of his spirit let fall any word conrary to his intention before the Parish Priest they will quickly lay hold on it as a good and formal Conversion and thereupon they will drive out of his Chamber all those that attend him They will hale away the Wife from her Husband and the Husband from his Wife under pretext that the sick hath changed his Religion and ought to have the liberty of his Conscience And if any person dye in this Phrensie they will seize on his Body and interr him after the Ceremonies of the C. A. R. R. though he never had any thoughts on it Yea and force his Children to leave the Church wherein they were born and pass over to that in which they pretend their Father dyed by vertue of the 45th Article of this Declaration which imports That the Children of the Fathers who departed in the R. C. A. R. Should be brought up in the said Religion But if the sick man escape they will constrain him to go unto the Mass and hinder him from returning to the P. R. R. by vertue of the Declaration against the Relapsed though he never thought in the least to quit his belief and if he have said any thing it hath been the pure effect of his Feaver in a time when he knew not what he said and when he was not himself And above all this they will constrain his Children also to go unto the Mass in consequence of this Declaration which in the 45th Article Ordains That Infants whose Fathers have been Catholicks shall be brought up in the Catholick Church Is it possible to be any misery like to this There is also herein another inconvenience which must not here be forgotten which is that the Parish Priests when they present themselves to the sick put to them captious and artificial questions upon design to entangle and surprize them for example they will ask them whether they would not be of the true Faith whether they be not willing to believe the pure and sound Doctrine whether they would not live and dye in the true Church and other such like things To which if a man answer only one Yes Immediately they take this word for an abjuration and at the same time they put his friends from him because they pretend by this one Yes that the man is become a good Roman Catholick They must not pretend to put them of the P. R. R. into shelter against all these disorders by the presence of the Judge and the Magistrate whom the Declaration wills to accompany the Parish Priests For the Parish Priests will choose the Judges and Officers according to their liking and they will find many as ill-disposed as the Parish Priests themselves and who far from moderating them will push them on to undertake any thing So that their presence instead of helping many times will hurt because it giveth more authority to that which he doth and the sick and his friends are less able to cause a
Declaration on the contrary Banisheth them from all places of the whole Realm one part of them of that Religion i. e. those who return thereto after some slight change The first Article of the Particulars is also more considerable and more express For it gives such an extent to this liberty of Conscience that no person is therefrom excluded making use of these words The sixth Article of the said Edict touching liberty of Conscience and permission to all his Majesties Subjects to live and abide in this Realm shall take place and be observed according to its form and tenure as well for Ministers and Schoolmasters as for all others who are or shall be of the said R. whether they be Inhabitants of this Kingdom or others It cannot be doubted that this Settlement doth comprize those whom they call Relapsed since it speaks not only those which are but those also which shall be of the P. R. R. authorizing also those persons that may return thereunto hereafter as well as those who have not departed from it at all This hath been so constant from the time of the Edict that the Edict it self wills that this Liberty of Conscience should be extended unto those who before were returned to the P. R. R and that it hath in it one Article to hinder all inquiry after them notwithstanding any security that they might have given for assurance of the contrary This is in the ninth Article which imports That those of the P. R. R. should not be any ways constrained nor continue obliged by reason of any abjurations promises or Oaths which they have made heretofore or securities that they had given concerning any matter of Religion and that they might not be molested or troubled therefore in any sort whatsoever It is therefore without all reason that any one should make use of this Article against them who after the Edict re-assume the Religion which they had abjured as if the intention of the Law-giver had respected that only which was past For before the Edict the Liberty of Conscience not well established throughout the Realm and the Records being full of Decrees of Arrests against the Bodies and other rigorous sentences against those who notwithstanding their abjurations and securities had changed once more it was therefore necessary to provide for that But by the Edict this liberty being so plainly and generally granted to all people as is seen by the Articles already rehearsed the thing was not afterwards any more in question and there were no more Sureties to be taken of those who after their abjuration should change in the future for that they were comprised in the common liberty of all persons within the Realm It is not possible to have any doubt of this matter when it is considered that until the Declaration 1663 there was never any inquiry nor pursuit made against those who returned in this manner An indubitable proof that they were within the terms of the benefit of the Edict Otherwise we must accuse all the Attourney-Generals and all their Substitutes to have been ignorant of their duty or not to have executed their Office for so long a space of time And how come the Ecclesiasticks that are so active and so vigilant against those who depart from their Communion to enter into another which they hate to have slept so many years without enterprising to disquiet them by Justice That Decree it self given by the Council of Estate September 18 1664 to declare that the Ordinance of the King against the Relapsed might have no effect retroactive against them who before were returned from the P. R. R. is an evident testimony that this is a new Law contrary to the intention of the Edict that since the Edict until then there had been no pursuit made against these persons and that they had not pretended only so much as to have right to do For he that hath acted against the Law is a debtor to the Law Being then they have let pass sixty five years without demanding any thing against the pretended Relapsed it is concluded that they were not Debtors and that they had not transgressed the Edict Satis est argumenti nihil esse debitum Naevio quod tam diu nihil petivit Orat. pro Quinctio It is argument enough that there is nothing due unto Naevius because of so long time he hath demanded nothing As the Roman Orator speaks Of Apostates The same reasons which have been alledged for those whom they named Relapsed serve equally for those whom they qualifie as Apostates For the liberty of Conscience is acquired by the Edict to all sorts of persons whether Ecclesiasticks or Laicks Where the question was of regulating the Interests of the Ecclesiasticks who before the Edict changed their Religion there was nothing at all touched concerning their Subsistence or abode within the Realm because that was presupposed as certain and assured by the Liberty of Conscience given universally unto all but provision was only made for their Marriages to declare them good and valid and the succession to their Moveables Purchases and Acquisitions were confirmed to their Children by the thirty ninth Article of the Particulars Is it possible that the condition of these Persons is made worse by the Edict which is the foundation of the publick Liberty This is a thing not conceivable and notwithstanding that would come to pass if the Marriages of the Ecclesiastick and Religious Persons which were before the Edict being authorized it were not permitted to others who would imitate them at this day to live only in France and to continue in the possession of their Goods This were to bring them back to be under the Yoak of the Edict of Charles the Ninth That Edict which was made in 1563. in the midst of the height of the Wars and in the greatest aversation of Spirits For in the twelfth Article it is ordained that the Professed Religious Men and Women who had liberty given them to depart out of their Monasteries during and since the Troubles should return to their Monasteries to live there according to the Constitutions of the C. A. R. C. Otherwise they should be obliged to depart the Kingdom It s known that this Edict and all those that followed were abrogated by that of Nantes in the ninety first Article so that this were to bring back the settlement of the Edict 1663. and to evacuate that of Nantes which had annulled the other The Ecclesiasticks themselves ought to hinder them of their Orders from being thus handled by the Maxim which they teach That the intention of the Priest is necessary to the Sacraments For what intention can they have who are retained by constraint in a Religion which they believe not to be Orthodox For this cause it is to be hoped that his Majesty seeing things by Lights much clearer than those of passionate Persons will re-establish that Liberty which they inforce themselves to very ill purpose to destroy and
that he will find that it will not be just to condemn unto Banishment the Ecclesiasticks who would embrace the P. R. R. Being they recompence the Ministers who abandon it and allow them Priviledges and assign them yearly Pensions Of Blasphemers of the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion We cannot promise our selves less Justice towards those whom they would have to pass for Blasphemers against the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion This is a point of the highest importance and which throws them of the P. R. R. into mortal Allarms For by these Mysteries of the Catholick Religion they mean without doubt the Doctrines and Ceremonies with which they of another Communion do not accord So that all the Sermons of their Ministers all their Books of Controversie all private Discourses of these disputed matters shall hereafter be treated as Blasphemies and Impieties So that they may never hereafter pretend neither to speak of these things in their Chaires nor to write thereof in their Books nor to conserr about them upon the most just and inevitable occasions There must therefore be no more Liberty for them in the Kingdom There can be no more for them any sort of Security They must of necessity either be Cowardly or Prevaricators in not daring to speak of their Faith or miserable in exposing their Lives at every word which they shall dare to pronounce in maintainance of their Belief To establish this rigour were infallibly to banish them all out of the State which is a rigour impossible to be reconciled with his Majesties intention For being in France the Liberty is left them of the P. R. R. to believe and to profess their Doctrine it follows of necessity that that of speaking also be allowed unto them The Language of the Mouth ought to be conformable to the apprehensions of the heart and the profession of any Doctrine cannot be otherwise made than by words which are thereof the natural image and portraiture This is the Reason also why the Clergy knowing well that the pretended Crime of a Blasphemer against the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion even as those of the Relapsed and Apostates were no other than supposed Crimes they believed that to attain to their design of causing them to be punished it was necessary to take away the Cognizance thereof from the Judges who are obliged to keep close to the Edict and who knew how they of the P. R. R. ought to live and ought to speak upon this account they have caused the Chambers of the Edict to be prohibited to Judge in these matters that they might attribute it only unto Parliaments and to the great Chambers as the Declaration imports of which complaint is now made Of the Prohibition made to the Chambers of the Edict to take Cognizance of the Relapsed Apostates and of Blasphemers against the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion Of all complaints which can be made by them of the P. R. R. there is not any that can give them more fear and more disquiet than this and therefore they cast themselves in this matter at his Majesties feet beseeching him with extreme consternation that he would have pitty on them For to send these back unto the Parliaments of whom this Declaration speaks is an assured means not only to destroy them but to destroy all those of that Religion for hereafter to destroy a person of that Profession it will need only to impute unto him that he hath held some discourse against the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion to the end that he may be brought before the great Chambers whereof the greatest part of the Judges are so animated that it sufficeth with them to be of the P. R. R. to make him Criminal and punishable in their Spirits They will mingle also this ingredient even in all the causes of them of the said Religion so that there shall not be any more any Chambers of the Edict for them and all their affairs shall be brought before the Parliaments This is to repeal the great design of the Edict and to give them of the P. R. R. cause to fear that they shall not be suffered any longer in France For that they might enjoy any repose the Edict of Nantes judged it necessary to take them out of the hands of the Parliaments and to allow them particular Chambers where Justice might be done them without suspition or hatred as the thirtieth Article of the Generals doth speak How great then hath the surprize of the Clergy been in this point and of what reason can they serve themselves to cause the Chambers of the Edict to be prohibited to judge of those whom they name Relapsed Apostates and Blasphemers For being they have given unto these people such names as they pleased and conceived an action against them under the Idea of the greatest Crimes therefore the rather according to the Edict ought the Chambers ordained for them of the P. R. R. take Cognizance thereof with exclusion of the Parliaments For the thirty fourth Article of the Generals imports That the said Chambers should take Cognizance and judge Soveraignly and with final determination by Decree privatively to all others the Process and Differences moved and which shall be moved in which they of the said Religion were Parties Principal or Security Plaintifs or Defendants in all matters Civil or Criminal The fifty second Article in confirming this Settlement addes thereunto a clause decisive in these terms The Article of the Jurisdiction of these Chambers ordained by this present Edict shall be followed and observed according to the form and tenure even in what concerns the execution and not execution or violation of our Edicts when they of the said Religion shall be Parties From this an invincible Argument may be drawn for the action of them whom they call Relapsed Apostates and Blasphemers is either a violation of the Edict or not If it be not then is it not to be inquired after nor condemned nor punished If it be it ought then to be sent back to the Chambers of the Edict to whom alone as competent Judges belongs the Jurisdiction of the inexecution or violation of the Edicts One may say that the Law-giver foreseeing these very assaults which the Clergy would one day make against the Jurisdiction of these Chambers he hath been desirous to prevent them by all means possible For not content with the two Articles which have been already represented he hath made another also which is as it were the last Seal of his will Inhibiting saith he and forbidding all our Soveraign Courts and others of our Realm to take Cognizance of or Judge Process Civiles or Criminals of those of the said Religion whose Cognizance is by our Edict attributed to the said Chambers provided that the reference thereof be by them demanded Art 64. Can there be now a contrariety more formal than that of this Article and the Declaration That prohibits all the Soveraign Courts of the Realm to
take Cognizance or to Judge of the Criminal Process of them of the P. R. R. And this Ordinance reversing it wills that all guilty and accused af the Crime of Relapse Apostasie or Blasphemies uttered against the Mysteries of the Catholick Religion shall be judged by the Parliaments every one in his Precinct with Prohibition to the Chambers of the Edict to take Cognizance thereof directly or indirectly under what pretext or occasion soever upon pain of nullity evacuation of proceedings Expenses Charges Damages and Interests of the Parties and greatter if need require The Ecclesiasticks then can never attempt any thing more highly against the Edict then in suggesting this Declaration and it is clear that they had not pursued thus far but to the end their Prey might not escape them because the animosity of the Parliaments is so great against them of the P. R. R. that they are infallibly lost if they be left in their power There have been infinite vexatious experiences had of this and that we may not pass from the matter that is here in question a Decree was made by the Parliament of Tolouse Feb. 23 1665. against one named John Gayrard who had forsaken his Religion and was returned on the second of April 1662. a year before the first Declaration against the pretended Relapsed Notwithstanding by this Decree he was condemned to be delivered into the hands of the Executioner of the Haut Justice to be led with a Halter ahout his Neck in his Shirt his Head and Feet bare on a Lords day before the Cathedral Church of Montauban at the close of the great Mass where being on his knees he should ask Pardon of God the King and Justice for his misdeeds be banished the Town and Shrievalty of Montauban for three years and condemned in a hundred Livers for a Fine and in the Charges and sent back to the Consuls of Montauban to cause this Decree to be put in Execution In pursuit whereof having been re-closed three Months in the Prisons of Tolouse he was led to that of Montauban where he hath been ever since and there he is at present So it comes to pass that this Parliament gives it self all license not only to surpass the rigour of the Declarations in turning one part of his Banishment into a reparation much more infamous and insupportable but which is more they have condemned a man who according to the Decree of the Council of Estate of the 18th of September 1664. ought to have been absolved and discharged of all penalties because he was re-entred into his Religion a Year before the first of the Declarations by which they would prevail against him But we need not be surprised at this proceeding of the Parliament of Tholouse For in all times it hath made appear in all sorts of occasions and excessive hate against them of the P. R. R. So far that King Charles the IX having ordained by his Edict of 1570. that untill such times as the Chambers of the Edict should be Established they of the said Religion might refuse in the Parliaments four Judges of the Chamber wherein their Process were depending without expressing any cause and without prejudice to the ordinary right of Chalenges but as for the Parliament of Tholouse it was declared to be wholly refusable in process wherein they of that Religion were interested And in case they could not agree of another Parliament it was ordered that the Parties should be sent back to the Court of Requests to be there Judged with final determination Afterward in the Year 1573. when the Towns of the P. R. R. gave Hostages to the same King it was Decreed that they might be sent to any Town of the Kingdom which it pleased him saving that of Tholouse the Royal authority the publick Faith and the Law of Nations being not judged a sufficient warrant from the violence of that Parliament Also in the Edict of 1577. which in the 32 and 33. Articles did import that the Catholick Officers serving the Chambers of the Edict were to be taken from the Parliaments that of Tholouse was excepted and it was ordained that the Catholick Commissioners of the Chamber of the Edict in Languedoc should be taken from other Parliaments or from the Grand Council which was executed in that sort till the Parliament being displeased to see themselves so Chastized promised to moderate it self and to do Justice But they have not observed their Promise and have alwayes continued to give such great proofs of their ill will that there is now no more cause to trust them than heretofore The grief is that the other Parliaments have imitated their example and a certain spirit of fierceness and aversion hath so pre-possessed them for some time that they of the P. R. R. can well say that they and their Liberties are at an end if they must abide under a Jurisdiction so contrary and averse Witness the Decree of the Parliament of Remes against James Caillion Seiur de la Touche and the Parliaments of Pau Bordeaux and Rouen have done of late things which render them no less formidable The King therefore who will not see his Subjects to perish miserably of whom he knows himself that he hath no cause to complain will be pleased to revoke this rigorous Declaration which subjects them unto Parliaments in many of which there are not so much as any Counsellors of the P. R. R. for to defend their innocence He will maintain of his Justice and equitable Goodness the Chambers of the Edict in their power without permitting any breach to be made upon their Jurisdiction He will remove the Prohibitions gotten by surprize against those who are painted out under the name of Relapsed Apostates and Blasphemers leaving to all his Subjects full liberty of Conscience which the Edicts confirmed by his Majesty have established throughout the Realm and for that person named Gayrard in particular your Majesty is besought to cause him to be freed from Prison by evacuating the Decree made against him by the Parliament of Tolouse and ordaining that the warrant of his imprisonment be cancelled and the Gaoler constrained by all sorts of means and even arrest of his body it self to suffer him to depart A brief Table of the Estate of those of the P. R. R. After all these several observations which a hard necessity hath in a manner haled from the breast of those of the P. R. R. It is now easie to judge unto what extremity they are reduced and how deplorable their condition is if the King to whom they look as their only support on Earth do not suffer himself to be touched with their supplications and their Tears For at length what can be thought of their Estate They behold the most part of their Temples to be condemned and demolished in all the Provinces of the Realm so that a possession of threescore and ten years and titles authentick could not save them They dare no more
correspond one with another nor write of their affairs Their Ministers dare not Preach without exposing themselves to the peril of being informed against to the Justices for not having spoken with all respect of the Catholick Religion They cannot any more cause any Books to be Printed to defend their Doctrine without the permission of the Magistrates and consent of his Majesties Attorneys which makes the Impression impossible They have no more liberty to hold their Colloquies for the conduct of their flocks and for the exercise of their Discipline In the interval of Provincial Synods it is forbidden them to receive any Candidates to the end that their Churches may often remain whole years without Ministers and consequently without consolation without Sermons without Sacraments The Synods National are refused them or consented to at such distance from one another that they serve for little else than to make them feel their Misery and in the mean while they hinder them from calling one Provincial Synod after another for the affairs for which they provide The Schools are taken from them in all places and they cannot any longer cause their Children to be instructed by Masters unsuspected Their Children themselves are ravisht from them every day to be thrown into Cloysters and to heap up the measure of this evil usage which is sufficient to cause pity in the most insensible their Fathers are condemned to pay a Pension to those places where they behold them with most bitter sorrow All wayes of getting their Liveli-hood are denyed them For they are excluded from all Charges from all professions from all Arts from all the most mechanick Trades And if one of them be received into any mystery it is a grace so rare as it doth not deserve to be accounted of and is bought so dear that the profits of his Trade will not of a long time equal the expence he must be at to enter it They have not only taken from them the means to gain their bread but they have also brought in innovations to hale from them that little Estate which they possess by constraining them to contribute to the charges of Chappels and Guilds to the re-edifications and reparations of Churches and Parsonage-houses They are not assured of their Lives themselves because that in Criminal Process they do not permit them to be brought before the Chambers of the Edict and they subject them to the Presidial Courts in cases Provostal or to Parliaments and great Chambers in pretended Crimes of Religion The liberty of Conscience which is granted unto them is so straitned that it is no longer a Liberty but a Rack because they that persist in their belief do not speak of it without fear of being accused of Blasphemy those who quit it cannot return to it without being driven out of the Kingdom for ever and the Ecclesiasticks who would embrace it have not at all permission to say it so that they are necessarily obliged to chuse Banishment or Dissimulation Credidi propter quod locutus sum Psal 116. I have believed therefore have I spoken is no more a good Maxim for them they must hold the quite contrary Credidi propter quod tacui I have believed therefore have I been silent The sick of this Religion themselves cannot be comforted in repose The Parish Priests may trouble them without Penalty in their very beds and there procure unto them agonies more cruel than those of Death it self finally they are still pursued even after Death and cannot promise themselves to be quit of their travels in their Coffins Because for the most part they take away their Burying-places and they must sustain incredible pains who bring them to their Graves so difficult do they make their Interrments See here a lively Picture of the unhappy State of those of the R. R. they present it to his Majesty with assurance that it need only to make him know these things for to receive the effects of his Justice Hitherto the Church-men have hindred him from seeing the Miseries of those whose ruine they desire They themselves who suffer have been silent out of respect hoping that their Patience would sweeten or weary the hatred of their Adversaries But the excess of their grief hath this day constrained them to speak and to offer this sad draught to the eyes of their Prince They hope he will have compassion of their Misery and his Royal goodness having a sence of their Evils will consent unto some Remedy And that which principally promotes this hope is that the remedy which is necessary for them is the self-same which the King hath protested to have in his intention to wit To cause the Edict of Nantes to be exactly observed This is all they demand of his Majesty they require of him no other favour at all than the observation of that important Edict which the best and most zealous Catholicks have named the Establishment of the Kingdom of God amongst the French The Law of Concord and Union The true Cement of Peace A holy and Sacred Law A work worthy of the great King who made it And which deserves not only to be imprinted in Books but also to be engraved in the memories of all them who desire the Peace and Welfare of France But seeing it is the Kings pleasure to cause the Edict to be Religiously observed they of the R. R. will to that end address here two Supplications to this great Monarch with all the respect which is due to his Sacred Majesty 1. That the Ecclesiasticks hereafter may not be permitted to make themselves their opposite parties neither in the Council nor in Parliaments nor before other Jurisdictions when any thing is in hand that concerns the Execution or Violation of the Edicts For it cannot be hoped that the Edict ever will be observed hereafter in the Kingdom while these Church-men whose Authority is so great and whose name alone is so Puissant and revered by the spirits of the Judges shall become adverse Parties against them whose Religion renders their persons odious and prejudiced This is one of the Principal Springs of the Grievances and Griefs which are brought upon them and there can never be Peace nor Repose for them in the Nation if this manner of dealing take place for the Ecclesiasticks do hate them with an ardour which is almost unseparable from their Characters if they continue in this Allowance and Liberty to make themselves ex professo their Adverse Parties as if it were a Duty incumbent upon them they will bring thus Suits and Vexations against them to an infinite number This also the Edict of Nantes did provide for For in the 17 20 21 29. Articles where it speaks of inquiries touching the violations of the Edict it is always said That it should be by the Kings Officers to exclude therefrom the Ecclesiasticks And by the Answer of Lewis the 13th unto the 12th Article of the Paper of 1611. it is expresly