as Bedlow I find he would be very Eloquent and that he would succeed admirably well in composing the Character of a Stage-Hero Let us speak seriously one must have renounced all Modesty to dare to maintain that all this great action is only a Comedy and a Fiction Par. But as concerning Father le Cheise whom your Hugonot spoke of in the affair of Coleman I have admired how the English have aspersed him by the publication of Colemans Tryal For this Father is every where therein in the middle beginning and the end and it is upon him that the most convincing proofs turn that are produced against Coleman It appears that this F. Jesuit was of the Party and that he was engaged very deep into the design of re-establishing the Roman Catholick Religion in England by fire and by the effusion of Blood Prov. My Gentleman made me that remark and told me thereupon Methinks that the King's Equity ought to move him not to hearken to such a Man in what regards the Interests of the Subjects of the Reformed Religion What may not the Protestants of France fear from a Man who has been so deeply engaged in the design of cutting the Throats of so many millions of Protestants What Counsels may not he give to the King against us who would have set whole Rivers of the Blood of our Brethren aslowing and make a St. Bartholomew beyond the Seas Though he was innocent of the Affair of England the advices he gives against us ought to be suspected For it is clear that he ought to have a great resentment of the fierce accusations that have been formed against him and that he would have the intention to revenge himself on the Protestants of France for the outrages that he might pretend to have receiv'd from the Protestants of England Wherefore it is certain that the King ought to consider him as our declared enemy and as a passionate enemy and not as a zealous Catholick However this Father Jesuit brags he is the Master of all the King's Resolutions in what concerns us It is he if he may be believed to whom the Catholick Church is indebted for all the severe Declarations that have been made against us And when the Declaration was obtained which forbids Catholicks to turn to the Reformed Religion he entred into the Assembly of the Clergy with that Declaration in his hand with a triumphing air and said Here is the piece that has been so long a solliciting it is I that have obtained it If this man be so powerful over the King's mind as he brags he is the Protestants of France could not be secure of their lives We know from good hands added he that the Members of the Council are not too well satisfied in that the affairs His Majesty was used to consult them about and believe them in are at present put into the hands of a Jesuit Par. For my part I avow to you I am not too well perswaded no more than you that this Conspiracy of the English Catholicks is a fiction But I endeavour to perswade it to others because that I wish it were so for the honour of the Catholick Religion which never ought to inspire such Designs Prov. Be it as it will my Hugonot Gentleman concluded from all this that a Protestant Prince can never be assured of the Fidelity of his Catholick Subjects On the contrary said he the Protestants are subject to their Prince out of Conscience and out of a Principle of their Religion They acknowledge no other Superiour than their King and do not believe that for the cause of Heresie it is permitted either to kill a legitimate Prince or to refuse him obedience Par. You might have asked him if what the English do at present against the Duke of York agrees well with that Divinity Because that he is said to be Catholick they would declare him uncapable of succeeding his Brother Prov. I had not time to propose to him that difficulty for he prevented it It is true said he to me that the troubles which are in England seem to tend towards the refusing Obedience to the Duke of York because he is a Catholick When a Soveraign is mounted upon the Throne by legitimate means it seems said I to him that he ought at least to have as much priviledge as his Subjects and enjoy as well as them the Liberty of Conscience That is true answered he me when he has not bound his hands by his own Laws But by the Laws of the Kingdom of England which are the Laws of the King as well as of the State the King is obliged not to suffer any other Religion in the State than the Protestant Religion These Laws cannot be repealed but by the Parliament jointly with the King because that in that Kingdom for the making or repealing Laws the King can do nothing without the Parliament nor the Parliament without the King Wherefore if the Parliament is against the Repealing of these Laws if they must subsist and while that they subsist the King has not power to establish in his Family a different Religion from that of the State You know said he to me that the people of England have great Priviledges and that the Kings have not the Right to do all that they please Particularly added he when there is a Prince to be established the States of the Kingdom who are obliged to be careful of the Preservation of the Religion are authorized to take all their Sureties that no change may be made therein Thus they must either remove from the Throne if they have the Right to do so he who would mount into it to ruin the Religion or at least they ought to bridle his Authority for the hindring him from making changes The Religion of Henry the 4th before he turned Catholick was an Obstacle to his establishment upon the Throne which he would never have surmounted though he was the legitimate Heir of the Crown Par. This man is very knowing He certainly came prepared upon the matter For extempore he could not have given to his reasons so great an air of likelihood Prov. He came without doubt prepared and I likewise perceived that he daily consulted people more knowing than himself For he cleared and argued strongly the next day upon such points as I had found him weak in the day before One of the points of which he spoke to me with the most zeal and passion was that of good Faith They oppose against us said he to me the English and Holland Catholicks But what has been promised to those people that has not been performed The United Provinces of the Low Countries are entred into the Union with this Condition of not suffering any other Religion in their States than the Protestant Though England was reformed under Edward the 6th afterwards under Elizabeth by several Acts of Parliament which are the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom it was ordered that no other Religion should
THE POLICY OF THE CLERGY of FRANCE TO Destroy the Protestants OF THAT KINGDOM Wherein is set down the Ways and Means that have been made use of for these twenty Years last past to root out the Protestant Religion In a Dialogue between two Papists Humbly offered to the Consideration of all sincere Protestants but principally of his Most Sacred Majesty and the Parliament at Oxford London Printed for R. Bentley and M. Magnes in Russel-street Covent-Garden near the Piazza MDCLXXXI THE POLICY OF THE CLERGY of FRANCE The First Conference The Parisian THIS Sir is a happy Rencounter for me who thought you were at Paris Methinks you very much neglect your ancient Friends I ought not to have been the last to whom you ought to have made known your arrival since there is no body more disposed to do you Service than my self What brings you hither Does it lye in my Power to serve you The Provincial I am infinitely obliged to you Sir for all your Civilities and Offers But I have not at present any Affair of Importance the design of diverting my self of seeing my Friends of learning what passes in the World and of losing some of the rust of the Province has brought me to Paris And I am over-joyed that my good Fortune has made me meet with the man I honour the most and whom I have ever had in my memory but out of whose thoughts I feared I had been a long time banished Par. I knew you as soon as I saw you and have ey'd you this quarter of an hour to be sure my sight had not deceived me I likewise observed you was in earnest Discourse in that Book-sellers Shop with a Gentleman I had never seen before Who is he He seems to be well bred and appears like a Person of Quality Prov. It is an old Hugonot Gentleman and a great Friend of mine We have made several Campaignes together and having found much Virtue and Sincerity in him I never repented the great engagements I have had with him Par. Have you much Commerce with People of that Religion Prov. Some The most part of my Neighbours are of it and there are few of them that I know but who are honest People Par. For my part I have no dealings with them Not but that I inform my self very particularly of their Affairs and hear them often spoken of but I have no acquaintance amongst them And besides by what I have heard say I believe that such a Commerce is dangerous Prov. I am not of your Opinion I pretend to be as good a Catholick as another but I never found in those People any thing that ought to oblige me to avoid them They are of a very grateful and easie Communication they do not act the part of Converters in the World We hardly ever discourse of Religion together and when it is mentioned it is always after a very modest manner We talk pretty often of their Affairs but without heat and passion As to the rest I have always found them good French-men brave sincere faithful in their Commerce true Friends and you know this is all that is demanded for Conversation and Civil Life For the rest I do not penetrate into their insides to know if they do their Duty towards God Par. I am very glad to hear you talk thus for I am not unwilling to have a good Opinion of all the World But if you have Friends in that Party counsel them to retire betimes it falls and those who do not quickly abandon it run the risque of being oppressed under its Ruines It is a Religion very much decryed which every where runs into decay but especially in this Kingdom Some memory that had been preserved of the Services they had done the Crown had hitherto upheld them At present this is absolutely worn out The Disgusts they meet with at every step discourages the most zealous They quit a Party that is an invincible Obstacle to their Fortune And as things go morally speaking they are not to last ten Years longer They will be brought back without doubt into the Bosome of the Church from whence the boldness of their pretended Reformers has drawn them This is a thing that is made no longer a mystery of You see how P. Maimbourg speaks of it in his Epistle to the King at the head of the History of Lutheranism I hope says he to write suddenly the Rise and Destruction of Calvinism at the same time and is mightily tickled with these hopes Prov. I am over-joyed you are fallen upon the Point It makes a great noise in the Provinces and I have spoke of it often to persons who have not intirely satisfied me You are here at the Source of Affairs and I must beg you would be so kind as to instruct me therein But we must chuse a more Convenient place than the Pavement of St. James's Street which is not much better than the Sea Shore where P. B makes Aristus and Eugenius to have so long Conferences notwithstanding the heat of the Sun You know the Author has been rallied for it and though we were not acquainted with this Story the season and hour would oblige us to seek a shade and shelter Par. Let us go to my House which is but three steps from hence and be so kind as to take part there of a mean Dinner after which we will spend the Afternoon as you shall think fit Prov. I accept the offer without more ado by which procedure I fancy you will perceive me to be still the same man without Ceremony you know I formerly was They enter the Parisian's House they Dine there and after Dinner they go into a Parlour where the Conversation is thus renewed Prov. Since you have assured me you have no business to day and that we shall see no body I demand of you this Afternoon for the instructing me with the manner that is pretended for the reducing the Hugonot-Party to the Catholick Religion This Affair holds all France in suspence The Catholicks are in great impatience to see the Success of the hopes that are given them therein The Hugonots on their part say not all they think I see them very much alarm'd They chear up themselves We hope say they that God will not abandon the Party of truth They recall into their memories what they stile their Deliverances But with all this I do not believe them very safe Par. They have certainly no great reason to think themselves so for great Designs are on foot against them Prov. But the King is he of the Party Par. Do not doubt it The King is a good Catholick and wishes the Reduction of the Hugonots to the Church with as much zeal as any of his Subjects But besides that he is more than any man possessed with that noble passion which is called the love and desire of Glory It is represented to him That after having made all Europe tremble conquer'd so fair
of his Family and the Preservation of his Fortune Thus I believe it may be said that the Design of ruining the Party of the pretended Reformed in France has been laid since the Year 1660. Par. I grant that the Project was not well formed till after the Peace of the Pyrenees and see after what manner it was resolved they should proceed in it Those people said they then must be deprived of the Liberty they have of preaching their Religion By these means they will be no longer instructed and will become ignorant of their own Tenets Their Temples must be raised and the liberty of their Exercise taken from them Their Ministers must be persecuted some of them banished others imprisoned others deprived of their Goods by great Fines Every thing they do must be imputed as a Crime Nothing is more easie than the surprizing them They cannot preach their Religion without preaching against the Catholick Religion and there is not an Expression but what might produce a Process By this means the people will be terrified Fathers and Mother disgusted and will not easily put their Children to the studying Divinity for the making them Ministers Besides this they must likewise be disturbed in all kinds and be deprived of their Charges and expelled from all Employes both of Peace and of War and removed from Court and banished from the Kings House and likewise from the Armies both by Sea and by Land Their Children must be taken from them and be instructed in the Catholick Religion They must be daunted by threatnings and tempted by hopes terrified by sufferings and invited by benefits when they have once changed Religion they shall be forbidden upon great punishments to return to the Religion they have quitted Their liberties must be diminished by little and little and when it is reduced to a small thing and that their number is very much lessened on a sudden all their Edicts shall be revoked Prov. This seems to be very well concerted The first thing that this Design produced was the Declaration that the King made shortly after the Peace of the Pyrenees by which he ordered Commissioners to take Cognisance of the Infractions of the Edict of Nantes Par. That is true The Hugonots fell then into the Snare that was laid for them They imagined that this Declaration was advantagious to them and fancied that by the means of these Commissioners they should have satisfaction for all the Contravensions that had been made for the Edicts and Declarations which were favourable to them and such Contraventions from that time were in no small number Prov. I can assure you that there were but few who were thus trappanned They were before very well acquainted that a great deal of mischief was designed them and the most penetrating judged that there was something more couched under it than they could think of Par. It was a thing the best imagined that possibly could be For by Virtue of this Declaration they were obliged to represent before these Commissioners all the Titles by which they enjoyed their Temples and the liberty of exercise of Religion in each place And by these means more than the half of their Temples were Condemned and above the third part of them were raised And after the manner they proceed in this Case it is impossible any should subsist at least there will so few remain as not to make a number Prov. How so Par. First You know that a long Peace makes People negligent no sureties are taken when no danger is seen The Hugonots lived under the Faith of the Edicts and the Declarations for above sixty Years They imagined they had no need of Titles because they had been so long in possession Insomuch that they took but little care to preserve the Titles of their establishment After the Edict of Nantes Commissioners were nominated by the King for the Executing this Edict They went to the Places where there was any difficulty They gave Acts of establishment for some places to Preach in but not for all For where there was no difficulty nor Process to be tryed they gave no judgment In the places where the Commissioners had given Acts of establishment because they were not necessary having found the establishment wholly made they laid hold of the advantage and condemned them because they could not shew a Title they never had and which was thought they had no occasion for In the places where the Commissioners had given acts of establishment if those acts were not shewn though they gave very evident marks of them and that they had other pieces to which those referred no regard was had of them In such places where the first Titles were found they found nullities in them and you know it is not difficult to bring this to pass where there are none The most part of their Temples are founded upon a certain Right that they call Possession founded upon one of the Articles of the Edict of Nantes which says That in all the Places where the exercise of the R. P. R. shall have been in the Years 1596 and 1597 it shall be made there and continued Proofs were demanded of them that Sermons were Preached in such a place in the Years mentioned by the Edict Prov. I stop you there Had they need of Proofs and Titles for a benefit they had been in Possession of above sixty Years Was not there Prescription for them It is so general a Right that it may be called the Law of Nations There is even Prescription for Crimes Thirty Years makes Prescription every where and the Hugonots had been in possession above twice thirty Years Par. They laughed at all this Such Temples were raised as were more ancient than the Edict To return to what I said they were demanded proofs of their Possession and it was impossible for them to produce them First the proof by Inquest is impossible because there are no people living of that time The proofs by writing are either Registers of Marriage or of Baptisme or Consistorial Papers or Acts of their Synods As for Registers of Baptismes and of Marriages they will not receive them they say that they Marry and Baptize every where and that this cannot be a proof that they have had in a certain place a Temple and a Publick Exercise As for Acts of Consistories and of Synods it is difficult for them to produce any because that that time was Calamitous in the highest degree by reason of the War of the League They had not the liberty of assembling nor of making acts of the Resolutions they took However they did not fail to produce a considerable number of them But all this did nothing no regard was had to them nay there is even no regard to the Resolutions of the Counsel and the Parliament made for the establishment of their Temples And to tell you it in a word the Catholick Commissioner has secret orders not to find any Title good and to condemn all It
Prov. But what will they do in those places where there are no Catholick Midwives Par. Send for them from other places Did you never know that Jewish Midwives have been sent from Avignon to several Cities in Languedock It is till that Catholick ones can be sent thither They will not at first be so very expert and will cost some Women their Lives but for a greater good some ill is to be permitted For in fine by these means they will be used by little and little to lose the Liberty of Conscience they are to be deprived of It is one of their Articles of Faith that the Baptisme of Faith is not good They must at present suffer this Article of Faith to be forced from them But there is another mystery couched thereunder which is not yet time to reveal and which will be manifested in its time Shall I tell you my Opinion We have not yet touched the most important Declarations that have been rendered against them it is the Declaration against Relapses and the Decree which was lately made forbidding any Catholick upon pain of Banishment loss of Honour and confiscation of goods to turn and be of the pretended Reformed Religion Prov. I have seen these Declarations and make the same judgment as you do of them Par. It may be said that thus two thirds of the affair is done The Liberty of Conscience that had been granted them consisted only in these three points The first of being permitted to live in the pretended reformed Religion when born of it The second having leave to change and be of it though not born of it The third the being free to turn to it again though they had once abandoned it The last is extinguished by the Declaration against Relapses The Second by this last Declaration which forbids a Catholick to turn Hugonot There remains only the first point which ought not to last long according to all appearances Thus all the other Decrees that have been made against them does only retrench the Branches but these cut up the very roots Which may make them comprehend that their ruin is directly and speedily aimed at Prov. And I assure you they perfectly comprehend it and those I have seen seem to me extreamly allarm'd But I know not if you are acquainted that there are several Catholicks who are much discontented and say We will be Catholicks out of Conscience and not out of constraint What! the Inquisition is brought upon us we are depriv'd of that Liberty of Conscience that is the most precious thing in the World If we were so unhappy as to be mistaken and fall into Heresie the King would he save our Souls with detaining us by force in the Catholick Church We should be damned notwithstanding the King as well in quality of concealed Hereticks as in quality of Hypocrites Besides the King will thereby lose all those of his Subjects who would change Religion It will not be difficult for a Catholick who will turn Hugonot to dispose of his Goods before he declares and afterwards to into a Forreign Country Par. Besides these extraordinary means which are made use of to Convert them there are a great number of others which make less noise that are Employed however with great success As much mischief is done them as can be they are deprived of all means of gaining their livelihood They are not allowed to be of Arts and Trades though the Declarations and Edicts expresly bear they shall be received into them Injustice is done them they are drove from most part of the Bars they are not allowed to be of a Body of Phisicians they are offered Money and sums are put into the Hands of the principal Judges and Governours to be distributed to the Converted Those have it by advance who promise to turn When by all these means they have been induced to change Religion the Declaration against Relapses fixes them in such a manner that they dare not return to their first Religion though their Consciences often sollicit them to it Prov. I hear them particularly complain of the ills their Ministers suffer They say that people are sent to hear their Sermons that these ignorant and faithless people impute to them things they never said and even make Crimes of the most innocent expressions Whereupon their Ministers are troubled are put into Prison are condemned to some shameful satisfaction and to unsay it in open Sessions some to be drawn upon Sledges with the Executioner others to be banished others to suffer Confiscation and the loss of all their Goods It is but some few years since that the Prisons in the Province of Poictou were all full of their Ministers and their Ancients because they had preached upon the ruines of the Temples that had been destroyed Par. Do you find this strange Is it not the Ministers who keep them in their errour In fleecing these people and driving them away by the troubles they are put to their flocks will be no longer instructed in their Religion and will be easily reduced to the Catholick Religion Prov. But to the purpose Have not you heard talk of what has been done against the Ministers in the Province of Xaintonge by the Lieutenant General of Xaintes Par. Yes the business has come to our Ears You see that all the world is let loose upon them All is permitted provided it tends to do them mischief Neither does the Court any longer make a Mystery of the hatred it has and is desirous the people should have for them You may have observed in the Declaration which forbids Catholicks to turn Hugonots that the King is made to say that the liberty of Conscience which had been granted to the pretended Reformed had augmented the hatred that the Catholicks had against their persons and their Religion Prov. I avow to you that that part suprized me In all the other Declarations it was always said that the design of the Edicts was to establish peace between the Subjects of one and the other Religion and the Kings have ever commanded an union and good intelligence between them But it is at present clear that these people are abandoned to the hatred and fury of the Catholick people The King is too good and too wise to have caused this Clause to be inserted he was certainly surprized but let us return to the affair of Xaintonge Par. Thus then it was The Civil Lieutenant of Xaintes caused a request to be presented him by the Kings Sollicitor of that place demanding that the Ministers might be held to the observation of the eleventh Article of Charles the Ninth's Declaration of the 17th of January 1561. Thus run the terms of the Article The Ministers shall be obliged to appear before our Officers of Places and take Oath of the observation of these Presents and promise not to preach any Doctrine which is contrary to the pure Word of God as it is contained in the Symbol of the Council of Nice
and in the Canonique Books of the Old and New Testaments that our Subjects may not be filled with new Heresies According to this Article the Lieutenant-General of Xaintes has ordered that the Ministers of his Province should be obliged to make Oath before him and upon refusal he has forbidden them all Function of their Ministry to the very visiting the Sick To which several have imprudently submitted for it was very easie for them to have gone on and not have obeyed because it belongs only to the King and his Intendants of Justice to silence Ministers Prov. But why do the Hugonot Ministers make a difficulty of taking the Oath Par. Because that under pretext of the Oath that they should have taken of preaching nothing contrary to the Word of God they might have been hindred from preaching against the Catholick Religion You know very well that the points which separate Us from the Hugonots are in the Word of God and all our Doctors prove them by Scripture as well as by the Fathers and by Reason Besides by this means a Declaration was revived that is not favourable to them which was extinguished above an Age ago and which was likewise never executed In reviving one Article of it all the others were revived and likewise by renewing this Declaration they would have a right of recalling also all the others which were much more favourable to them They still add that it doth not belong to a little particular Judge to aggravate their Yoke that they live under the Priviledge of the Kings Edicts and that the King is their only Master in things that concern Religion But I must acquaint you with what has been imagined against them in Brittany which is well worth that of â—aintonge A Curate bethought himself to give out a 〈…〉 pain of Excommunication for the â—â—â—…ging his Parishioners to reveal all 〈◊〉 who had spoken irreverently of the Catholick Religion There was a prodigious number of Witnesses either false or true found who deposed against the Hugonots of those parts Insomuch that they were all obliged to fly to avoid Imprisonment I believe the place is called Quiatin it is a Lordship which belongs to the Family of the Moussays Prov. This Affair of Britany as well as that of Xaintonge brings into my mind another of Dauphine which has this in Common with those as to make appear that generally all that is done against those people comes from the same principle that we have already enough remarked that nothing is spared even to believe that it is a work grateful to God to impute to them false Crimes for the casting them into certain ruin But perhaps you know the Story as well as I it is what passed some years since in the pursuit of the Recollects of Nions have you not heard of it Par. Being one day by chance at the late Chancellour N's House I heard them talk of a Bell that the Religious would have taken from the Hugonots of that place and I also remember that they made so much noise with their Bell that the Counsel was stun'd But I know nothing more of it Prov. What I am going to relate to you has made much more noise than the Bell of Nions It came into those good Fathers Heads that the Minister of Vinsobres a small neighbouring Village of their Convent kept secret Correspondence with the English They so well represented this idle imagination to the Kings Attorney General of that Province that he immediately declared himself his Accuser The whole Parliament of Grenoble sell into this Snare one of the most able Counsellors of their Body was deputed Commissioner to inform incessantly upon the Places The Grand Provost took the Field with him followed by all the Company of Serjeants the Sieur B thus is the Ministers Name choosing rather to be a Bird of the Forrest than the Cage frighted at their March fled as soon as he had notice of it His Evasion fortified the suspicions that were given them of him They fanâ—â—â—â—l the Syndio of the Consistory might likewise be of the Party and that the Minister had done nothing without his Participation He was the Cock of the Parish and a man likewise very well to pass who at all adventures could pay the Fidlers His person was sâ—â—zâ—d without other form of Process He was conducted with Irons upon his Hands and Legs into the Conciergery of the Palace The people cryed every where against him all along the way He was to have been shâ—â—…ed alive at least and they sâ—â—…ck'd 〈◊〉 all parts to Grenoble to see the Execution but in fine Parturiunt Montes exit 〈◊〉 Mus. Par. How Did it all go into smoke Prov. Even so After they had examined the business there was found nothing in it and those that had been concerned were the Publick laughter The truth is that the Parliament in some manner to save their honour detained this Syndie two whole years in Prison but that time being expired he was released without being condemned or absolved The Door was opened to him one day when he least expected it And all the Fruit that was gathered from this 〈◊〉 Process was that this good man turned Catholick during his detention Par. This is pushing the zeal of Religion very far and becoming strangely ridiculous What likelihood is there that in Dauphine which is the farthest Province of France from England they should undertake to keep Intelligence with England while that in Guyenne and in Normandy which are its Neighbours they had no thoughts of it Neither can I conceive how that a Minister of a Village can be bold enough to undertake and able enough to carry on an Affair of that importance But were not these Recollects punished for their false Accusation Prov. They had no great thanks for having occasioned this Sally but what is to be done with people of the Frocks Their Excuse was their good intentions and they were freed with a small Reprimand that the Chief President de la Berchere made them who is certainly a Magistrate of the greatest Integrity and one of the best Servants the King has in France Par. And what became of the Minister was not he Condemned out of Contumacy Prov Very far from that he was suffered to take away his Goods an account of which had been taken and would have returned to his Village if that Tempest had not drove him into a good Port in Swizzerland He possesses a Post incomparably better than that of Vinsobres and these Reverend Fathers have procured him Riches and Repose without thinking on it Within these two years another Minister of the same Province has done as much The Religious of St. Anthony of Vienois persecuted him he retired into Holland where he was very well received Par. Is it not the Minister of who was seen rouling a long time at St. Germains and Verseilles after the Courts Taile I have heard it confusedly said that he was accused of Treason and detained
several Months in Prison but that he purged himself and yet was silenced by a decree of the Parliament of Greneble I know nothing of the particulars of his business if you are informed of them I pray you tell me what they are Prov. You have divined him it is the same his adventure has something very singular The Hugonots of Dauthine had kept a Fast in all their Churches and the Synod that had ordered it had enjoyned all the Ministers that belonged to it assisted with their Ancients to visit Families and put them in mind of what had been promised God on the Fast day These are the terms of the Article which was Printed and Divulged This Minister did not fail to execute this Order in his District It was during the heat of the War with Holland The Religious of St. Anthony who had lain in wait for him a long time laid hold on this occasion to insinuate themselves with the Court to his Cost They writ to M. le Tellier then Secretary of State that something was contriving against the Kings Service that the Hugonots had celebrated a Fast through all Dauphinate that there was a Plot Couched under this Fast and that Devotion was only the pretext of it That the Minister of had held secret Assemblies at the Houses of the Principals of his Parish that he had prayed God for the success of the Hollanders Arms and that he had gathered great sums of Money from those of of his Party to send to the Prince of Orange Par. Good Could this come into rational Heads though all the Hugonots of the Kingdom should have contributed to this gathering it would not have been sufficient to have furnished Oats to the Cavallry of the Army the Prince of Orange Commanded They can hardly maintain the six or seven hundred Ministers they have since the Seal and Subvension Moneys were taken from them that were destined to that use without any thinking of gatherings for forreign Countries Prov. I knew very well you would also cry out upon this Yet as strange and as unlikely as the thing is it caused this Minister a great deal of trouble There came Orders from the King to seize his Person He was kept in Prison for above four Months false Witnesses were raised to maintain the Accusation and if he had not had the Address to Convince them in the Confrontation he would certainly have passed his time very ill Par. This is horrible It is rather fury than zeal But it is with our Religious as with Angels when they are Corrupted they are Devils There is no manner of ill but what they are capable of Those of St. Anthony surpass in this all the other Orders They have appropriated to themselves vast Riches of St. Lazarus under pretext of Serving the sick Monsieur de Louvois who is chief of this Order designs to make them restore these Goods and to apply them to the Hall of Mars destined to the maintenance of the maimed without doubt these Reverend Fathers to fence off this 〈◊〉 with which they were threatned and to insinuate themselves into the Kings favour bethought themselves of giving this advice to the Court and sacrificing this Minister to their Interest Prov. You have hit the mark and methinks so many Monks ought not to be suffered The Policy of France observes there are too many It would be convenient to retrench at least the two thirds of them and to apply the Revenues of their Houses which are immense to the necessities of the State and to the ease of the people And the other Thirds Wings ought likewise to be clipped and hindred from growing great by forbidding them as is done at Venice to acquire stocks and receive considerable Gifts and Legacies It is the same with their Fraternities as with the Den of Esops Lyon all goes in and nothing comes out and it is not otherwise possible but that at length they must become yet more powerful and formidable Par. I am impatient to know the issue of this Process I beg you would tell it me Prov. The false Witnesses were freed for a Years absence from the Province and the Religious for some Reprimands from the Judges As for the Minister he was fined without any Note of Infamy and condemned to pay the Charges by reason of the visits he had made which they called Assemblies and the silencing of his Ministry too happy to have thus escaped from the Snare that was laid him I saw the Sentence in Print and fixed up by Order of the Bench. You see by all these Stories that all manner of ways are tryed for the tiring out those people their ruin comes on apace consider how many Declarations there be against them within these two Years Par. Two things are the cause of this The first is the Peace while the King has less forreign Affairs he employs himself in the reforming the disorders that may be in the State and in the Religion Moreover the disputes the King has had with the Pope has obliged him to appear severe against the Hugonots Prov. What Mozeray has observed in the Life of Henry the 2d is very true that the disputes of the Kings of France with the Popes have ever cost the Hugonots dear As soon as a Prince thinks of defending himself against the enterprizes of the Court of Rome he is accused of being an Abettor of Heresie and Princes to clear themselves of this suspicion redouble their severity against the Hereticks Par. You see that the Pope in the Briefs he has written to the King praises him for his zeal against Heresie and gives him joy for having destroyed so many Temples and the King on his part to appease the Pope has not failed to make him observe that in few Weeks he has made three very strong Declarations against the Hugonots Prov. Since we are fallen upon this tell me in short what were the disputes the King had with the Pope Par. There were two The first was upon the account of the Regality and the second upon the account of the Urbanists The Regality is a Right our Kings have over vacant Bishopricks upon the Decease or the Demission of those who possessed them During the vacancy the Fruits of them belong to the King and even till that the new Bishop has taken the Oath of Fidelity in Person all the Benifices which would be at the Bishops Nomination are at the Kings The most part of the Bishopricks in France have submitted to this Right However there are some who pretend not to be in the Regality and amongst others those of Guyenne and Languedock Of which kind is the Bishoprick of Pamiers near the Pyrences The King pretended he had the Right of Regality over that Bishoprick the Bishop pretended not His Temporals were seized on of which he complained to the Pope who proceeded so far in this affair as to threaten the King to make use of the Arms of the Church against him The
Par. I should be glad to know some of the particulars of your Conversations Prov. I waited with great impatience to impart them to you for he has very much fortified the difficulty that I intend to propose to you To speak seriously I must assure you he sometimes moved and touched me For example he told me yesterday Must so many efforts be used to force from us that French heart that God and Birth has given us What have we done to merit so many misfortunes and such severe punishments We are hunted we are drove up and down as if we were the Plagues of the Republick We are treated as the enemies of the Christian Name In places where the Jews are tolerated they have all manner of liberty they exercise Arts and Merchandize they are Physicians they are consulted the health and life of Christians is put into their hands And as for us as if we were infected we are forbidden to approach Children that come into the World we are banished from the Bars and Faculties we are removed from the King's Person we are banished from Societies our Charges are taken from us we are forbidden the use of all means that might secure us from being famished we are abandoned to the hatred of the People we are deprived of that precious liberty that we had purchased by so many Services our Children are taken from us who are a part of our selves we are made to lead a languishing life in lowness in poverty and often in dark Prisons Formerly when Declarations were made against us they were at most contented with Registring them in the Rolls They are at present fixed up they are cryed about the Streets as if they were Gazettes to inspire the People with a spirit of fury against us And they have been so successful that in the great Cities of France we expect to have our Throats cut one time or another by a popular Sedition so that we are very near the Inquisition Can it be said that there is Liberty of Conscience in a Kingdom where the People are banished lose their Honour and their Goods are confiscated for Religion's sake There needs nothing more than Fire and that terrible Tribunal of the Inquisition which France has been hitherto so much afraid of will be established there Are we Turks are we Infidels We believe in Jesus Christ we believe him the eternal Son of God we invoke him solely and we have no Idols We have a soveraign respect for the Sacred Scriptures we believe there is a Heaven and a Hell the Maxims of our Morality are of so great a purity that they dare not contradict them We have a respect for Kings we are good Subjects good Citizens faithful in Commerce Let us be tryed according to Law and it will appear if we have been engaged in any Conspiracy against the State and if we have any ways failed in our duty Thanks be to God nothing can stagger our fidelity and the stock of love we have for our Prince is not to be drain'd if it depended on our Enemies we should be Enemies of the State we make a part of they design to push us on to Crimes that the King may have a just occasion of ruining us but they have hitherto missed their aim and are like to do so still the King may see it whilst that they so successfully turn the effects of his goodness from us there is not one of us but who is ready to lose his life for his sake we are Frenchmen as well as we are Reformed Christians we would shed to the very last drop of the blood of our veins to serve our King and for the preserving our Religion even to Death Par. If your Hugonot Gentleman has studied Rhetorick he has not wholly lost his time Prov. I know not if he has studied much but I easily perceive that passion is the source of his Eloquence for he told me what I have newly related to you with a zeal and passion that would have moved you Par. But could not you have stopped that Orators Mouth with one word in telling him that if the condition of the Catholicks in Holland and England was described and in all the Places where the Hugonots are Masters one might make a representation of their miseries much more touching than that they make of the ill Treatment the Religionaries receive in France Prov. I did not fail to lay that before his Eyes but he had a hundred things to tell me thereupon Par. You would oblige me by relating some of them Prov. I will tell you them First in regard of Holland He told me that I supposed a thing very far from truth that the Catholicks are there in oppression I know said he to me that you have been in that Country and you cannot deny but that they go there with as much liberty to Mass as at Paris Would to God added he that our Reformed had the same Conveniences there is not a City where the Catholicks are in a considerable number but that they have ten or twenty Houses wherein Mass is openly said and with an intire liberty They are seen to go in there they are seen to come out from them and no body dares say to them a word against it All that they are troubled at is that they are not Masters of the Churches and that they are obliged to do their Service in particular Houses There is in Holland a Country of small extent ten times more Ecclesiasticks than there are Ministers in all France which is very large There is a compleat Clergy and Hierarchy Amsterdam and all the other great Cities have their Bishops These Bishops have their Chapter and their Priests There are even Religious Houses It is true that all these people are something disguised but are they the less known Would it be difficult to unkennel them They are as well known as the Ecclesiasticks are in France and are not in the least insulted It is likewise true that at the sollicitation of some of the most zealous of the people the States formerly issued out Placates from time to time which forbad the exercise of the Catholick Religion but this is no longer so and it never caused one Stone to be took up against them It cost them about twenty or thirty Pistols for the Sheriff who put those Placates into his Pocket and no more talk was heard of them He added to this That it is unheard of that in that Country the Catholicks have been fatigued for the being Converted they are not at all disturbed in their Commerce They are Merchants Physicians Artizans Advocates and except the Charges of the Government of the State they are received without distinction into all Professions without so much as enquiring of what Religion they are No Body has Actions brought against them upon the account of Relapses or for having changed Religion In a word Liberty of Conscience is entire there as well as in all other places where
the Reformed Religion Rules I avow to you that I had nothing to reply to this Article for I had seen with my Eyes all that he said There was one day with me in a long-Boat or Schupe a Priest drest in black Cloaths who was not otherwise disguised than that his Coat was short who said his Breviary before a hundred persons with as much liberty as he could have done in France Par. And what said he of England Prov. He said that at London there are five and twenty Houses without counting those of the Ambassadours of Catholick Princes wherein Mass is publickly said without any search being ever made that the truth is the liberty is not so great in the Country but that all Gentlemen had their Almoners and Priests in their Houses and that all the Catholicks went thither to Mass But that this was not what he had principally to oppose me with But I 'll allow said he that Catholicks have less liberty in Holland and in England than the Reformed have in France But is there any Justice to compare in this regard France with England Why is not England compared with Spain Italy Hungary and all the Territories of Germany subject to the House of Austria They oppose us with the Severity of the English against the Catholicks and we oppose the cruelty of the Spaniards against our people Is there any Comparison The Catholicks have not the liberty of exercise in England but they live there they Traffick there they exercise Arts there they are known there without danger they even perform their Service there without other hurt if they be discovered than that they are forbid to return In Spain and Italy those they call Calvinists and Lutherans are chased away like Lyons and Bears They go in quest of them and if they be discovered they are burnt alive If they have the boldness of making any publick act of their Religion there are no punishments cruel enough to be inflicted upon them It is sufficient that they are suspected or only accused of Lutheranisme for to be cast into the Prisons of the Inquisition where they must perish without Remedy Par. That is not ill imagined For in fine it is certain that the Inquisitition has not yet been established against the Catholicks in the Countries where the Heresie of Luther and Calvin Govern But did he say nothing to you of more force Prov. You shall hear what he aded appeared considerable to me which was that Hugonot Princes cannot have the same toleration for Catholicks in their States that Catholick Princes can have for Hugonots because that Protestant Princes cannot be assured of the fidelity of their Catholick Subjects by reason they have taken Oaths of fidelity to another Prince whom they consider as greater than all Kings It is the Pope and this Prince is a sworn Enemy of the Protestants He obliges the People to believe that a Soveraign turned Heretick has forfeited all the Rights of Soveraignty that they owe him no Obedience that they may with impunity revolt against him that they may fall upon him as an Enemy of the Christian Name even to assassinate him See the Jesuits Morals cap. 3. Book the Third And thereupon he cited to me Mariana Carolus Scribanus Ribadnera Tolet Gretser Hercun Amicus Lescius Valentia Dicatillus and several others that are cited by the Jansenists in the Book of the Jesuits Morals and by the Ministers All these Authors said he to me teach conformably to the Divinity of Rome that a Heretick Prince and Excommunicated by the Pope is but a particular person against whom Armes may be taken that he may be likewise Assassinated or poysoned He added to this the examples of so many Parricides that have been committed or attempted according to these Maximes How many times said he would they have Assassinated Queen Elizabeth Prince Willam of Orange was twice Assassinated and lost his Life the Second time Henry the Third was not he killed by a Jacobin as Excommunicated by the Pope and stript of the Royal Dignity John Chastel did not he attempt the same thing upon Henry the Fourth And did not Ravilliac out of a false Zeal Assassinate him After which he gave me an account of the Gun powder Plot in England by which in the year 1606. the Catholick had undertaken to blow up the King and all the Grandees of the Kingdom by a Mine they had made under the Parliament House He told me of the Jesuits Garnet and Oldcorn Chief of that Conspiracy who were put into the number of the Martyrs whether they would or no for the Jesuit Garnet going to Execution some one of his Companions telling him softly in his Ear that he was going to be a Martyr he answered Nunquam audivi parricidam esse Martyrem I never heard that a Parricide was a Martyr He related to me a hundred scandalous Stories of that nature Amongst others he told me one that extreamly surprized me he read it to me with all its circumstances in a little Book that had been published by an English Minister who calls himself the King of Englands Chaplain Thus it is in short A Divine who had been the Chaplain of King Charles who was beheaded turn'd Catholick some time before his Masters Death and the English Jesuits put such confidence in him that they imparted to him a very terrible thing It was a Consultation allowed of by the Pope about the means of re-establishing the Catholick Religion in England The English Catholicks seeing that the King was a Prisoner in the hands of the Independants formed the Resolution of laying hold on that occasion to destroy the Protestant Religion and re-establish the Catholick Religion They concluded that the only means of re-establishing the Catholick Religion and of cashiering all the Laws that had been made against it in England was to dispatch the King and destroy Monarchy That they might be authorized and maintained in this great Undertaking they deputed eighteen Father-Jesuits to Rome to demand the Popes advice The matter was agitated in secret Assemblies and it was concluded that it was permitted and just to put the King to Death Those Deputies in their passage through Paris consulted the Sorbonne who without waiting for the Opinion of Rome had judged that that enterprise was just and legitimate and upon the return of the Jesuites who had taken the Journey to Rome they communicated to the Sorbonnists the Popes Answer of which several Copies were taken The Deputies who had been at Rome being returned to London confirmed the Catholicks in their Design To compass this point they thrust themselves in amongst the Independants by dissembling their Religion They persuaded those people that the King must be put to Death and it cost that poor Prince his Life some Months after But that Death of King Charles not having had all the Consequences that had been hoped and all Europe having cryed out with horrour against the Parricide committed in the Person of
cost the Lives of all those who should make Information and pass Sentence Oates and Bedlow are false Witnesses They are then false Witnesses of an admirable Character false Witnesses who agree perfectly well amongst themselves and never contradict one another But for all this they are false Witnesses who have concerted their business very ill If it is a Conspiracy it is a trick invented for the dishonouring the Society of the Jesuits to hang and quarter their Companions Methinks these false Witnesses ought to understand themselves something better On the Seventeenth of December five that were Accused were brought to be Examined and have their Tryal Whitebread the Provincial of the Jesuits William Ireland John Fenwick Thomas Pickering and John Grove Oates and Bedlow were produced against them as Witnesses These two Witnesses were found to know enough and to have said enough to cause three of those persons to be condemned Ireland Pickering and Grove Oates equally charged the five but Bedlow knew not enough to cause Whitebread and Fenwick to be condemned insomuch that they were obliged to send back to Prison these two last both of them Jesuits and to put off their Tryal till farther Information This is strange these two false Witnesses are great Fools Whitebread is the chief of the Conspiracy the Provincial of the Jesuits he whom they had the most reason to ruine and they are so imprudent as not to be of intelligence to tell one another what is capable of causing him to be condemned this is not to be comprehended Oates is a false Witness he says too much to be believed as is reported It must be confessed that if the Depositions of that Man are false it is the strangest and most unheard of thing in the World All the examples of fury of past Ages wrapt together do not approach that which is observed in this false Witness Never was there a link of such terrible Crimes as that Man charges the Accused with They have says he burnt London several times they would assassinate the King the Princes the Grandees and almost two thirds of the Inhabitants of the Kingdom overturn the State destroy the Religion change the Government and to that intent set whole Rivers of blood a flowing Is it credible that there is so wicked a Man in the World as to charge those that are innocent with so many Crimes Perhaps that a passion of revenge might move a Man to lay so Infernal a train to satisfie himself for some outrage he had received But what outrage does there appear that Oates and Bedlow had received from the Roman-Catholicks The most part of those that are accused maintain that Oates and Bedlow are unkown to them If they are unknown to them they have not then done them any outrage which might more them to so prodigious a revenge Moreover by the Testimony of those amongst the accused who confess they know their Accusers it is certain that both of these Witnesses were Roman-Catholicks They had not changed their Religion had it not been for the horrour of the Plot they had not become Apostates had not they been pricked in their Consciences they had not any other reason to be pushed on by a spirit of hatred against the Catholick Religion and against those who profess it wherefore it was only the horrour of the Fact which struck them and obliged them to prevent so horrible effusion of blood Methinks that false Witnesses should not charge themselves with so great a number of Facts lest they should be exposed to contradict one another There needed no more to be said than in two or three Articles that such People have Conspired against the State and against the Religion and might have been executed after that manner But it appears that Oates 〈◊〉 â—ourscore heads of accusation and makes a History of more than fifteen years well pursued and well 〈…〉 It is requisite to have an 〈◊〉 â—â—â—…tion that has hardly the like â—â—â—…vent such a Romance so well purâ—â—â—â—… I likewise find that those Witneâ—â—s are very bold to invent such horrible Depositions against People who so well know how to make use of the Knife for the dispatching their Enemies as appears by the Death of Godfrey The good Nature of those good Fathers would be very great if they did not revenge themselves on Oats and Bedlow in case that their Depositions were true but it is hardly credible that it would reach so far as to let two Impostors live peaceably who had charged them with the most horrid Calumnies that Hell had ever imagined And if they have a design to destroy them it is hard if they do not succeed in it sooner or later The King's Safe-guards and the Protection of the Parliament will little help them Wherefore if Oates and Bedlow were false Witnesses they are great Fools to expose themselves into so great a danger in this life for the damning themselves also in the other In fine my Hugonot Gentleman told me What have we to do with Oates and Bedlow to prove the Truth of that Conspiracy Let us take them if you will from off the Scene and judge of the business by Coleman's Letters to Father le Cheise and to some others These Letters have been acknowledged the accused have not denied them There is one to the Pope's Nuncio at Brussels Dated the 9th of August 1674. which says in proper terms That their design advanced apace and that they should quickly see the ruine of the Protestant Party Is any thing of more force than what Coleman says to Father le Cheise in one of the Letters he wrote to him We have undertaken a great Work it is no less than the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the entire subversion of that pestilent Heresie which has for so long a time rul'd over this Northern part of the World And we have never had so great hopes since the Reign of Our Queen Mary And towards the end of the Letter he powerfully sollicites Father le Cheise to obtain succours of Money and Arms for putting in execution this great Design It is perhaps by the way of Preaching that Coleman pretended to Convert those three Kingdoms Arms and Money are very necessary to give efficacy to Grace and Preaching It is certainly in that spirit of Zeal and well regulated Devotion that Coleman says Though I had a Sea of Blood and a thousand Lives I would willingly lose them all for the execution of this Design and if to bring it to pass it was requisite to destroy an hundred Heretick Kings I would do it These words are pretty strong It is Bedlow who has reported them and says he heard them If he invented them in cold Blood and without being moved with Anger I find him admirable in the art of feigning Passions For it must be avowed that these expressions give us a lively image of a Man the most moved and the most concerned that has ever been seen For a Man of War
concerned I know how to lay under my feet all revenge and particular interest he added that after the Assassinate committed by the League in the person of Henry the Third Henry the Fourth was ready to see himself abandoned by his most faithful Servants because of the Protestant Religion which he made profession of which appears by a Declaration that this Prince made in the form of an Harangue to the Lords of his Army on the 8th day of August 1589 in which he says that he had been informed that his Catholick Nobility set a report on foot that they could not serve him unless he made profession of the Roman Religion and that they were going to quit his Army Nothing but the firmness and fidelity of the Hugonots upheld this wavering Party He must be said my Gentleman the falsest of men who dissembles the Ardour and Zeal with which those of our Religion maintained that just Cause of the House of Bourbon against the attempts of the League And to prove said he that their interest was not the only cause of their fidelity we must see what they did when Henry the Fourth turned Roman Catholick It cannot be said but that they then strove to have a King of their Religion However there was not one who bated any thing of his Zeal and Fidelity the King was peaceable possessour of the Crown the League was beaten down he was Master in Paris he was reconciled to the Court of Rome when the Edict of Nantes was granted and published Our Hugonots were no longer armed nor in a condition of obtaining any thing by force of arms since that the Change of Religion had reduced all the Roman Catholicks to him he would have been in a State of resisting their violence It was the sole acknowledgment of the King and of good Frenchmen that obliged all France to give Peace to a Party that had shed their Blood with so much Zeal and Profession for the conserving the Crown and the restoring it to its legitimate Heirs I avow that we did our Duty but are not those to be thanked who do what they ought How is it possible that these things are at present worn out of the memory of men I am certain that if the King was made to read the History of his Grand-father he would preserve some inclination for the Children of those who sacrific'd themselves to the glory of his House Par. It cannot be denied that this Party has rendered great Services to Henry IV and to the Crown But the Question is to know whether much be owing them upon that Account Have not they been well paid by a repose of so many years which they have enjoyed since that time Prov. I said to my old Gentleman after all in the bottom you have no reason to complain All that is done is with design of Converting and Saving you You ought to consider that it is the Interest of a State to have but one Religion Every one knows that the diversity of Religions is the source of Divisions and that often it causes great troubles You need only read the History of the last Age to be assured of it He thereupon answered me You open me a great field permit me that I stop a little here and that I make you see first That that is a misunderstood Zeal which endeavours at present the Conversion of the Protestants of France in the second place That this Design can never have the success that is expected and in fine that nothing is more opposite to the true Interests of the King than the Conduct they at present hold with us When I had promised him Audience he spoke to me much to this purpose First As for the Zeal which moves at present so many People to make what they call Conversions I must tell you that I never conceived that real Conversions were to be procured by such means They would save us you say in good time but let us be saved by honest means They damn us by endeavouring to save us even though the Religion to which they would bring us were good They make us sell our Religion they make a traffick of Souls threatnings and promises are employed no employ is given no grace granted without adding to it for Condition the Change of Religion The simple are surprized the Children are taken away they lay hold on the irreligion of certain people either Libertines or Brutes who having no sense of God are ever ready to betray their Consciences for Money In effect such people are paid the King is put to great Charges to recompence the Converts that is to say for the entertaining persons who have neither Religion nor Piety It is certain that of a thousand which turn Catholicks there is perhaps not one who does it out of a motive of Conscience The one has lost his suite at Law and his Goods and knows not where to put his head another ready to lose an Employ which kept him alive and which they would have taken from him sacrifices his Conscience for the preservation of his Fortune A Child angry with its Parents who had punished it revenges it self on them by becoming of another Religion than theirs A young Woman who has lost her honour goes to seek it in the strongest Party and is willing to cover all her infamy with the vail of Conversion If the Grandees be excepted who are tempted by pleasures and invited by hopes of some considerable advancement these Converts are almost all such persons as are the dreggs of the people who are drawn in by motives worthy of the baseness of their Birth and their Courage Let the holy Writ be read and see if the Apostles and their Successours ever made use of such-like means for the Converting Pagans and Infidels And with all the pains that are taken they will never succeed in the design of reducing by these kind of ways all the Protestants of France into the Roman Church Great Progresses have been made for some late years but do they believe that that will always last A long Peace had retained in our Party a great number of the ungodly who stuck to our Religion because they did not find themselves better elsewhere Those people who never had any Religion make no difficulty now to change it But our Party will purge it sell and when it is drained of the ungodly ones and when there is none amongst us but honest people who have persevered out of Principle of Conscience it will be no longer seen that so many persons yield to promises and threatnings thus the numerous Conversions will cease Moreover you must know Sir that they take you to be very credulous when they tell you of numerous conversions There are five or six Bigots in France who have erected themselves into Converters keeping a Register of their Converts and from time to time shew the King these Registers but they fill up these Catalogues after a strange manner Besides these Gentlemen
Converters are plaid upon and they are even willing to be cheated that they may afterwards cheat his Majesty because they know that he is liberal even to â—rofusion to those who turn Catholiks â—here are Rogues who never having 〈◊〉 Protestants not so much as by 〈◊〉 on go and put themselves upâ—â—â—… the Catalogue of Converts that they may be rewarded for their pretended Conversion And in fine where are these Conversions made It is at Paris and in some other great Cities of France where there are Missions and Houses of propagation established where the people are perpetually sollicited by Promises and by Threatnings But in all the Provinces and particularly in the Country there are hardly any Conversions seen perhaps within twenty years one might count ten or twelve thousand persons who from Hugonots have turned Catholicks what is this to near two Millions of Souls of that Religion there are in France and when will they then have done I know not continued he how they can hope to draw in so great a number of people there is nothing more difficult to be forced out of the mind than sentiments of Religion and nothing more difficult to be rooted out of a Country than a Sect that has had time to fortifie it self there and which is setled in its Opinions Fire and Sword cannot extirpate it Do we not see it proved in the Spanish Low-Countries From the time that the exercise and profession of the Protestant Religion was forbidden there ought it not to be extinguished yet there are still found a great number of those People whom they call Guises And for my part I cannot forbear believing That the Doctrine and Opinions of the Albigenses have been preserved in Languedock as a Fire hid under Cinders from the time of those Albigenses even to Calvin's time And it is to this that I attribute that our Reformation has made greater Progresses in that Province than in the others All those who would make serious reflections upon what I have now said will grant that they will never compass the reducing the Protestants of France into the Roman Church And thus all the pains that are taken and all the ills they suffer will only make them miserable and raise Malecontents Par. This is certainly all that your Orator could imagine for the maintaining his two first Propositions I am very impatient to know what he could say for the maintaining the third that the design of re-uniting the Religions in France is against the Interests of the King and State for it is a strange Paradox common sense dictates that there is not a greater good in the World both for Temporals and Spirituals preferable to that of seeing in a State an unanimous consent in matters of Religion Prov. When my Gentleman was at the part I left you at I perceived his forces failed him You have put me saith he upon a Chapter that requires something more knowledge than I have A Souldier is not obliged to know more than the History of his Age but give me leave to bring you to morrow a man who will tell you more therein than I can Par. You was not sorry at this occasion of breaking off a Conversation that gave you time to breath Prov. You are in the right I willingly granted him what he desired we parted and the day after at the hour we had appointed I saw him enter accompanied with an old Civil Lawyer of his Party who in the sequel seemed to me a pretty able man After the first Complements he began with telling me You are generous Sir in permitting a man who found himself too weak to go seek for succours This Gentleman has informed me of the subject of the Conversations you had with him He told me where you stopped and if you think fit we will renew it in the same place Par. Methought he had done with proving that they would never succeed in the design of reducing all the Hugonots of France into the bosom of the Church Prov. I thought so as well as you But this Gown-man did not judge that the Souldier had said enough upon that point wherefore he continued the matter thus You must grant Sir that in the rise and fall of Heresies and Schisms there is something Divine and which passes our understanding They are deceived who imagine that the wounds of the Church are to be cured by Humane means God for the punishing the coldness and negligence of the People and Pastors suffers the Devil to sow Weeds in the field of the Church and when his anger is appeased he causes those Schisms to cease and extinguishes those Heresies that his Justice had permitted and he does it by means which he alone is Master of It is true that thousands of Heresies which were in the first Ages are no longer in being Arrianisme that made so much noise in the World is quite gone But to whom do we owe this It is neither to violence nor punishments Good Emperours never made use of them and the effusion of blood is contrary to the good Spirit of the Church The Arrians indeed were persecutors but were never persecuted It is not by such-like means as those by which they pretend at present to Convert the Hugonots of France to wit by depriving them of their Temples and removing them from Charges and doing them injustices and violating the promises that were made them and reducing them to die of Hunger Humane will does the more strive against these sort of Oppositions Neither was it by the way of Councils For after the Decrees of the Council of Nice of that of Sardica and of several others that have been held against the Arrians their Sect has multiplyed and has reigned with more insolence than before that Sect is insensibly extinguished of it self and no one knows how after having exercised its furies in Asia Greece and Africa during more than two hundred years But this Heresie being thus extinguished to conclude from thence that with the cares that might be taken all other Heresies might be stifled and affirm that a Schism cannot last long that after having subsisted some time it must necessarily cease is to be but little acquainted with the History of the Church The Schism and Heresie of Nestorius have not they still lasted to this day in the East from the year 430 that is to say for above twelve hundred years The Schism of the Eutychians is of no later a date than that of the Nestorians than about twenty or five and twenty years for Eutyches and Dioscorus were condemned in the year 451. in the Council of Chalcedon and from that time the followers of those two Men have filled all the East and the South under the names of Eutychians Severians Auphalans Armenians Jacobites Cophtes and even of Abyssyns For all these People who still at this day make the greatest part of the Asian and African Churches adhere to the Schism of Eutyches It is above seven hundred
years that the Latins are in Schism with the Greeks and all the pains that the Popes and Eastern Emperours have given themselves at several times have not been able to extinguish this Schisme If Prudence Cares and Vigilance have not been able to bring to pass the ruine of Sects that were not founded upon Truth and who had violated Charity by their Separation they ought not to hope to ruin the Party of the Reformed which is supported by Truth has purged the Church of so many errours and has in no manner violated Charity in separating it self from a Church that chose rather to chase away from its bosome than suffer any Reformation The conclusion of all that great affair will make appear that those who have Sworn the ruin of the Hugonots fall upon God himself which will not be for their advantage Par. This new Preacher carries it very high but what did you answer to all this Prov. As he had more advantage over me than I had over my Gentleman I was obliged to suffer the match being unequal But I resolved to let the discourse continue and to retain the principal things he should oppose me with to be informed of by you Is any thing of these Facts false that this man laid thus as I have recited them Par. No But though the Facts that he told you be true it is not certain that the Conclusions he draws from thence are very good which we will examine at one time But for the present I will not interrupt you Prov. Since you desire it I will continue to tell you what I can remember of a Conversation which appeared to me in some places something above my Capacity I hear continued our Civil Lawyer that this Gentleman has obliged himself to prove to you that the course they take at present in France against our poor Protestants is quite contrary to the Interests of the King and State Give me leave Sir to represent you several things upon that point First is it not true that it is against the Kings Interests to depopulate the Kingdom There are still in France near two Millions of Souls of the Reformed Religion If all these persons were away their absence would certainly make a considerable Breach There is no body but knows that the force of States depends on the multitude of Inhabitants It is this that makes the United Provinces so powerful It is incredible that so little a State can resist so powerful Enemies and carry it's name to the end of the World which only proceeds from the prodigious multitude of Inhabitants which are there It is this that makes Arts flourish there Necessity being the Mother of Industry It is the cause of the Commerce because the Territory being too little to nourish so many Men they have been obliged to go seek to the very ends of the World the necessaries that their own Country could not furnish them with And in seeking wherewith to keep them alive and that they might not be famished address has made them find out immense Riches The King knows very well that the force of a Prince consists in the multitude of Subjects Wherefore he has made several Declarations in favour of those to whom God grants great Families and who thereby the more contribute to populate the Kingdom He has ordered that those Victuallars who have have two Children should enjoy exemption from all Taxes Imposts Subsidies Collects and quartering of Souldiers It is his will that the Nobles who have the same number of living Children have two thousand Livers of yearly pension out of the publick Revenues and for the exciting young people to marry themselves betimes he orders by another Declaration that the young married shall not be subject till the age of five and twenty years to any publick Charges It is to this intent that such diverse Declarations have been made by his Majesty which forbid all his Subjects to leave the Kingdom and go inhabit else-where By all these Courses the King would get and keep Subjects But his Majesty by the Declarations which have been made against the Reformed has lost twenty times more Subjects than he can have gained or kept by those other ways which his prudence or that of his Ministers had suggested to him It will be made appear to him if he pleases that within these fifteen years his Declarations against the Hugonots have drove away of them out of France above sixty or fourscore thousand All the Frontiere Provinces of England Holland and Germany as Normandy Campagne and Picardy are already sensible of this particularly the City of Amiens Since the Temple has been taken from the Hugonots of that City it is certain that the most part of their Merchants have retired themselves into forreign Countries and that they have carried with them at least twelve or fourteen hundred thousand Livers of Riches out of the Kingdom and which will never return into it In case they would but make the least attention upon this point it would appear that it is impossible but that the Kingdom will be deserted by this Course It is certain that all the Reformed who lose their Goods and Estates by what is called the disgraces of Fortune do quit the Kingdom because that their Religion hinders them from recovering themselves by any means In chacing away all those who bear the Arms of the Guards du Corps of the Musqueteers and the Gendarmes and all the Kings Household in taking the Commissions from several thousands of Commissaries who lived upon their Commssions in neglecting the Officers and refusing them advancement In a word in taking away as they do the means of subsisting from an infinite number of Hugonots who cannot subsist of themselves they are drove out of the Kingdom and all forreign Countries are seen covered with French-men who seek for employ and the means of subsisting that are refused them in their own Country I looked upon it as a certain thing that of 50 thousand that the Rigour which is exercised against us reduces into this estate there are not five hundred who turn Catholicks all the others are as many lost Subjects for the King They are much deceived if they believe that little is lost in losing people who have hardly any thing For it is certain that the Armies of a State are almost wholly composed of such sort of people It is the industry of such persons who keep up Commerce and Arts. There is a City upon the Frontiers of Champagne which formerly belonged to the Dukes of Bouillon touching which I am informed they make great brags to the King that when he took possession of it that City was almost wholly Protestants and that at present the number of the Catholicks much surpasses that of the others But they tell not the King what was told me that the severity with which they treated the Reformed has obliged them to retire that the Catholicks which they fill the City with are Beggers and
poor Wretches That of a good City they have made of it a retreat for people who have nothing and who are a charge to the Commonalty that those Catholicks the City is filled with by expelling the ancient Inhabitants come from the Burroughs and neighbouring Villages Thus the King gains no new Subjects though the City gains new Inhabitants and he loses all the good Subjects who go away and seek for repose elsewhere and carry with them what Riches they have The same thing happens in the Provinces bordering upon Swizzerland and Geneva They are not sensible yet of this diminution but they will one day find it Besides they may assure the King that all those zealous Convertours who brag to him that they increase the Catholick Church will much contribute to desart his Kingdom It is certain that of those who change Religion to become Catholicks there is not the fourth part I dare say the sixth who persevere in the Religion that they have embraced They changed out of Interest Lightness Fear Love or some other passion which surprized them When passion is cooled reason returns those people are ashamed of their change and their Consciences become awake And as the most part have as little benefit in France as in another State it little imports them where they are and they go away to avoid the Rigour of the Edicts against Relapses At that place our Doctor stopped a little appeared pensive and thus renewed I am going to enter upon a nice Subject I have no mind to offend any one but I cannot forbear telling the truth We are all good French-men but the King has much more interest to preserve his Hugonot Subjects than all the others since it is the only Party of whose fidelity he can be secured Give me leave Sir to handle this point more particularly it is certain that the great disputes that France can have are with Spain and with the Emperour There is not a Family in Europe that can give ombrage to that of France besides the House of Austria Since Charles the 5th that House has ever aspired to the Universal Monarchy It is true that the King has brought it very low at present and made it fall very much from its High pretensions But in fine it is the Course of the world which is humbled to day to be raised again to morrow The House of Austria has raised it self from a very low Degree it still reigns in Spain Germany and Italy that is to say almost over the half of Europe and when these large territories become sensible of their force and to be animated by a great Chief they may put Fance as hard to it as they did formerly It is therefore certain that the great Interest of our State is to be always on the Guard on the side of the House of Austria and deprive it of its Allyes and weaken its Subjects and manage Alliances and form Adherences against it and extirpate out of France all that might favour it and entertain there all that is most opposite to it And this already makes appear how much interest the King has not to ruine a Party that can never enter into Intelligence with Spain The House of Austria has conserved so great a fury against the Protestants and the Protestants conserve so much resentment for the violences that they have suffered by the Princes of that House that those two Parties are absolutely irreconcilable It is not the same thing with the other Parties of the State It is true that there is some natural antipathy between a French-man and a Spaniard but you are too well acquainted with the History of our age Sir to be ignorant that notwithstanding those antipathies the Interests of the Grandees has often made such great engagements with Spain that they had like to have ruined the State The History of the League the entry of the Duke of Parma into France and the intentions that the wicked French-men then had to receive a King foom the hands of the Spaniards are Warrants for what I advance I could say something more new and add several stories of our Grandees who dissatisfied with the Court put themselves into the Spanish Party made Treaties with that Crown and would have been of very ill consequence to the Kindom if the preserving Genius of the state had not fenced off it's effects But though all the rest of France should enter into such a mind the Hugonots Party alone would be a Barriere to the State and would shed to the very last drop of its blood that it might not fall under the Dominion of Spain Par. The King in the State he is has little need of keeping measures with any one for the becoming formidable to the House of Austria he who makes all Europe tremble and carries the terrour of his Armes even into Africa Prov. That is true But wise Princes as the King is have longer prospects they do not onely consider themselves and their present State they consider Posterity and the future and take their Sureties against all that may happen Be it as it will our Civil Lawyer proceeding farther upon the matter told me Let me beg of you Sir that we may speak freely Is it not true that the Court of Rome has engagements infinitely greater with Spain and the House of Austria than with France Spain renders submissions to the See of Rome that France does not render it Spain does not talk of the Liberties of its Church as they talk in France of the Liberties of the Gallicane Church as these Liberties pass at Rome for Heresies or attempts against the Holy See Spain is submitted to the Tribunal of the Inquisition France rejects it even in what it has of Good In fine Spain keeps Faith and does Homage to the Court of Rome for one part of its States as the Kingdoms of Naples and Arragon and on the contrary the Kings of France will not depend on the Pope for Temporality and hold only their State of God and their Swords In one word these engagements between Spain and the Court of Rome are such that this Court does not at all ballance when it is to take the French or Spanish side and never kept it self neuter but when it feared the Forces of France Wherefore the Italian Party and the Spanish Party are to be looked upon as the same Party The King of Spain is Master of most part of Italy The Popes are often Spaniards by Birth and they are ever so by inclination the Spanish Faction amongst the Cardinals is ever the most numerous Thus the great Interest of the King and of France is to be ever upon the Guard against the Italian Faction which can easily become Spanish Now this Italian Party is not only in Spain and in Italy it is in Germany in France and every where else it is the Body of the Clergy One cannot be ignorant of the engagements that all the Roman Catholick Clergy has necessarily with
the Court of Rome This Court is the Head the Clergy is the Body the Ecclesiasticks and Monks are the Members and all these Members move by the Orders of the Head Again I have no Design to chocque the Gentlemen Clergy whose persons I respect I do not doubt but that they have good French Hearts But in fine they have their Maximes of Conscience they are of a Religion and they must follow its Principles Now the Principles of their Religion binds them to the Holy See and its preservation preferably to all things moreover Interest makes illusion in Hearts and Minds Their Interest obliges them to take the Popes part who is their Preserver and Protectour and what they do out of interest they persuade themselves that they do it out of Conscience First it may be said of the Monks that all the Houses they have in France are as many Citadels that the Court of Rome has in the Kingdom Those great Societies have withdrawn themselves from the Dominion of the Bishops they depend immediately on the Holy See they have all their Generals of Orders at Rome and those Generals who are Italians and Spaniards are the Soul of the Society they are obliged to follow their Opinions and their Orders the Italian Divinity is the Divinity of the Cloisters Thus the King may reckon that all the Monks look upon him as the Pope's Subject as being lyable to be Excommunicated his Kingdom put under an Ecclesiastical Censure his Subjects dispensed and released from the Oath of Fidelity and his States given by the Pope to another Prince And every time that this happens they will believe themselves obliged out of Conscience to obey the Pope If in those Orders of Monks there happens to be some particular One who follow other Principles it is certain that they are in no Number and do not hinder that the Body of the Monks is absolutely in the Interests of the Court of Rome and by consequence in that of Spain Thus you see already a considerable Party of whose Fidelity the Kings of France cannot be assured And what is this Party One may say that it is all France for the begging Monks and the Jesuits are Masters of all the Consciences they are Confessors they are Directors they persuade what they will to those that are devoted to them The House of Bourbon ought not to doubt of this truth if it never so little calls to mind the endeavours that were used by the Monks for the forcing from it the Crown when the Race of the Valois came to fail It is against this so considerable Party that the State ought to take its Precautions in preserving that other Party which can never be of intelligence with this it is that of the Reformed History tells us how impossible it is to be long without having Disputes with the Court of Rome It is always attempting and one is obliged to defend ones self against its enterprises It is capable of setting great Engines a going of making Engagements and Alliances It had twenty times like to have ruined Germany it has dethroned great Emperours it has likewise caused great troubles in France and one cannot be too secure against its ambition Par. I fancy that your Hugonot's Advocate would not spare the rest of the Clergy and that he endeavoured to prove that we can be no more assured of their Fidelity than of that of the Religious Prov. What you have already heard may make you easily divine that for the giving the more force to what he had to say against our Divines he prevented what might have been objected If you understood these matters Sir said he to me you could tell me that our Clergy of France teach a Divinity wholly different from that of Rome that all make profession of holding for the Liberties of the Gallicane Church the principal Articles of which are 1. That the King of France cannot be Excommunicated by the Pope 2. That an Ecclesiastical Censure cannot be laid upon their Kingdome 3. That it cannot be given to others 4. That the Pope has nothing to do with the Temporality of Kings 5. That he is not Infallible 6. That he is inferiour to the Council These you would tell me are the Maximes of the Sorbonne that have often censured the contrary Propositions This Divinity is maintained by the Authority of the Parliaments who have often declared the Bulls of the Pope abusive null scandalous and impious and have appealed from the Execution of these Bulls when they found them contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church The Court of Parliament assembled at Tours during the League caused the Bulls of Excommunication to be burnt by the hands of the Executioner that had been published against Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth This is all sine and magnificent if you please but these fair appearances have no stock I do not speak of the Divinity of the Parliaments which is that of the Politicians I speak of the Divinity of the Clergy Once more added he I do not at all doubt of the Fidelity of the Divines of France to their King but they shall never perswade me that this Fidelity and Zeal for their Prince is without exception and I make no other exception against it than what they themselves make Will you hear they themselves speak Read the Harangue that Cardinal du Perron made to the third Estate in the name of all the Clergy of France in the States 1616 and remember that it is not the Cardinal du Perron who speaks it is the Clergy of France assembled in a Body who speak by the mouth of that Cardinal All France seised with an horrour of the two horrible Parricides that had been committed in the persons of the two late Kings both of them assassinated out of a false Zeal of Religion would draw up a Formulary of Oath and establish a Fundamental Law of the State which all the Subjects were to swear to and this Law bore that every one should make Oath of ac-acknowledging and believing that our Kings for their Temporalities do not depend on any one soever but on God that it is not lawful for any cause soever to assassinate Kings that even for causes of Heresie of Schism Kings cannot be Deposed nor their Subjects Absolved from their Oath of Fidelity nor upon any other pretext soever This Law methinks is the security of Kings this is a Doctrine which all the Hugonots are ready to sign with their Blood What did the Clergy of France do thereupon It formally opposed that Law divers Works of Cardinal du Perron p. 600 and following they were willing to acknowledge the Independancy of Kings in regard of the Temporalty they consented that Anathema should be pronounced against the assassinates of Kings But they would never pass the last Article that for what cause soever it was a King cannot be Deposed by the Pope stript of his States and his Subjects absolved from the
Oath of Fidelity He who spoke for them alledged all the examples of Emperours and of Kings who had been Deposed and Excommunicated by Popes upon account of refusing Obedience to the Holy See approved them he alledged the example of St. Vrban the Second who Excommunicated Philip the First and laid an Ecclesiastical Censure upon his Kingdom because he had repudiated his Wife Bertha Daughter of a Count of Holland to Marry Bertrade Wife of Foulques Count d' Anjou then still alive He made use of the testimony of Paul Emile who said that Pope Zacharias dispensed the French from the Oath of Fidelity that they had made to Chilperick These two Princes were not Hereticks yet the Clergy of France approved their having been stript of their States by the Popes which makes appear that the Clergy in the bottom judges that the Pope has Right to lay an Ecclesiastical Consure upon the Kingdom of France and to depose its Kings for any other cause as well as that or Heresâ—e Is it not to abuse the World to confess on one side that the Temporalty of Kings does not depend on the Pope and establish on the other that the Pope may in certain occasions Interdict these Kings Excommunicate them and Absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity In sine this is the result of that famous Opinion of the Clergy of France So that if Christians are constrained to defend their Religion and their lives against Heretick Princes or Apostates from their Fidelity to whom they have been Absolved the Politick Christian Laws does not permit them any thing more than what is permitted by Military Laws and by the Right of Nations to wit open War and not Assassination and Clandestine Conspiracies that is to say that when a Pope has declâ—â—ed a Prince deprived of his â—tates his Subjects may set up the Standard of Rebellion declare War against him refuse him Obedience and kill him if they can meet him provided it be with arms in their hand and by the ordinary course of War I cannot comprehend how one can be secured of the Fidelity of those who hold such like Maximes For in fine Kings are not insallible and if they happen to do any thing that the Court of Rome judges worthy of Excommunication and Interdiction they are Kings without Kingdoms and Subjects according to our Clergy of France as well as according to the Divines of Italy But perhaps that the Sorbonne which is the Depository of the French Divinity does not receive these Maximes so fatal to the safety of Kings Let us see what it has done In the Month of December 1587 because that Henry the Third for the security of his Person and of his State made a Treaty with the Resisters or the German Protestants the Sorbonne without staying for the Decisions of Rome made a secret Result which said That the Government might be taken from Princes who were not found such as they ought to be as the administration from a suspected Tutour This was known by the King he sent for the Sorbonne some days after and complained of it After the death of the Princes of Guise which happen'd at Blois the Sorbonne did much worse they declared and caused to be published in all parts of Paris That all the People of that Kingdom were Absolved from the Oaths of Fidelity that they had sworn to Henry of Valois heretofore their King they razed his name out of the publick Prayers and made known to the People that they might with safe Conscience unite arm and contribute to make War against him as a Tyrant If I would add to that the Story that I know this Gentleman told you concerning the Death of the late King of England we should find that the Sorbonne has ever been of the same Opinion Let things be told as they are every time that our Kings shall have assairs that will carry them to extremity against the Court of Rome the Clergy of France will suppress the discontents while that affairs go well for the Court of France but if things turn otherways the dictates of our Divines against the King will not fail to break out Every sincere person will allow that it has never been otherwise than so and that it will be always thus which may be observed in the very least disputes By example in that the King has now lately had with the Pope upon the account of the Regality and of the Vrbanists the publick has seen a Letter from the Clergy Addressed to the King when he departed to visit the Frontiers of the Low-Countries In that Letter these Gentlemen promise the King let whatever be the issue of his Disputes with the Pope they will be always inviolably fixed to his Majesties Interests But we know from good hands that the Archbishop of Paris and the Sieur Rose Secretary of the Cabinet are the sole Authors of that Letter the Bishops have almost openly disavowed it And this makes it apparent enough that in this Dispute they were of the Popes side Must it not then be confessed that it is the King's Interest to preserve the only Party that makes Oath of Fidelity to him without exception and without reserve that can never have engagements contrary to his Service either with Spain or the Court of Rome or with the revolted Clergy favouring the Enemies of the State And it is well known that in the time of Henry the Third while that all the Corporations of the Kingdom were in an actual Rebellion against their Prince the Hugonot was the only one which remained Loyal If it was necessary to add any thing more pursued our Civil Lawyer for to prove that it is the King's Interest to protect the Reformed in his States one might say that the Alliances that have been made with Foreign Protestants have not been disadvantageous to the State Since the year 1630 its engagements with England Holland Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg have been a great help towards its humbling the House of Austria Cardinal Richlieu successfully employed the King of Sweden for to punish the pride to which that House was mounted after the defeat of the Palatine House that had accepted the Crown of Bohemia And it is well enough known that the Protection that the King gave the Protestants in his Territories facilitated those Foreign Engagements and Alliances Thus our Orator ended and made a pause at this place Par. He has forgot a great Article That which is against the Peace of a State is ever against his Interests who governs it Nothing is more incompatible with Peace than diversity of Religions Prov. He did not forget it but he thought he had said enough for one time and referred what he had more to say till the next day This morning sour Gentleman returned and as what was said is fresher in my memory perhaps I shall give you a more exact account I know very well continued our Hugonot Civil Lawyer that I am to
Dispute to day against a pompous Maximed that has all appearances for it that covers it self with the habit of Devotion and against which the Bigots say one cannot declare without impiety But provided we be heard and that we are permitted to distinguish and explain our selves we shall appear nothing less than impious If it be said that nothing is more desirable by a good Prince than to see all his Subjects live in the true Religion we grant it if it be added that for the reuniting minds and bringing them all to think the same thing in matters that may be controverted he ought to employ all the means that Christian Morality suggests and approves we will likewise avow it But all this can neither make us affraid nor do us any hurt Moral Christianity does not suffer that ill be done that good may come on it It will never Counsel the Re-union of Religion by violence and breaking of Words If it be added that this Maxim is as true in Policy as it is in Morality and that it is the interest of a State for its Conservation to have but one Religion in such a manner that it cannot be great flourishing and peaceable while that Diversity of Religions are suffered and tolerated we shall say that nothing can be advanced more false First of all those Gentlemen who maintain that Maxime with so much confidence do not think of what they do they do not perceive that they make an Apology for all persecuting Princes If it be so the Pagan Emperours had reason to arm against the Christians and to set whole Rivers of their blood a flowing The Christians separated themselves from their Society they looked upon others as Enemies of God and as the Devils Subjects and good Policy according to the Maxime that is taught our Kings cannot permit that such people should be suffered to live If these Gentlemen might be believed the Grand Seignior is but very ill Counselled to tollerate in his Territories the Christian Religion he could not be blamed if he let loose his Janizaries upon the Christians and caused all their throats to be cut Par. That 's a pretty fancy to compare a Christian Prince who is of the true Religion to a Pagan Prince or Infidel It is a Crime to persecute the true Religion but it is a work of great merit to extirpate Heresie Prov. Stay and you shall know what he told me thereupon There is not a man said he but who 's persuaded that he 's of the true Religion The Grand Seignior believes himself in the way of Salvation as the most Christian King persuades himself he is Thus according to the principles of Morality his Conscience orders him do all that is possible for him to save his people by forcing them to become of a Religion which he believes to be the only way to Salvation But you must especially take notice that we examine this Maxime according to the Rules of Policy Now according to these Rules the Grand Seignior is as well obliged to endeavour the Peace and Preservation of his Territories as the Christian Princes are to endeavour the Preservation of theirs To refute this Maxime I will only mention that so common saying Divide Impera Nourish Division and you will easily remain Master When there are several Parties in a State provided that the Prince espouses none of them that Division obliges each of the Parties to hold fast to the Princes interests for the having his Favour and Protection If one of the Parties gets much ground of the other and that the Prince likewise happens into this strongest Party provided that he hinders the weakest from being oppressed by the strongest it is clear that he cannot fail to be beloved and considered by all his Subjects He would be beloved by the strongest party because he himself was of it the fear of losing him would make them manage him The weakest party would have love and acknowledgement for a Prince whom it was indebted to for its Tranquillity by the Protection it received Add to all this that such people as are of contrary Religions cannot enter into the same Rebellion Thus the Prince is always sure to have a faithful Party It is ever difficult that in a State divided thus great Conspiracies can be contrived for the one party continually watches the paces of the other Plutarchs Treatise of Isis and Osiris The Ancients have observed to us that in Egypt there was almost as many Religions as Cities because that they had different Animals for Gods At Memphis they adored the Oxe Apis at Leontopolis the Lyon at another place a Wolfe in another City a Sheep at another a Goat And they were of so contrary Religions that some eat the Annimals that their Neighbours adored with design to vex them and turn their Religion into Ridicule Diodorus his 1. Book of his Bibliothiques The Kings of Egypt nourished this Division and found that it was the security of the State because that it hindred Conspiracies I leave it to Politicians to push the Speculations farther that may be made upon it and content my self with the experience by which I make appear that it is very false that a State cannot be both peaceable and happy when it tolerates several Religions It would be requisite to make the History of the World to say all that can be said upon it We should speak of those great Empires which included so many several Nations and full as many Religions It is certain that one Paganisme was more different from the other than the Sects of Christians are different from one another yet the Romans did not fail to render their Empire glorious and flourishing and it was never the Diversity of Religions that troubled it's Peace It has been observed that they carried away the Gods and Spoils of the Nations whom they rendered Tributary and that they adopted those strange Gods and built them Temples in Rome So that they nourished this Diversity of Religions even in the very bosome and Capital of the Empire without the Peace being any way altered If from the Conduct of the Pagans we pals to that of the Christian Emperours we shall see therein the same thing That is they have tolerated the Diversity of Sects amongst the Christians without prejudicing the good of the State The Novatians had their Churches their Bishops and their Priests even in Constantinople that was the Capital of the Empire They were not only tolerated there but were likewise esteemed Constantine did the honour to their Bishop Acesius to call him to the Council of Nice and to ask his Opinion upon the Decree that had been made touching what day Easter ought to be celebrated upon And when he the Great Theodosius took the Resolution to try to reconcile all the Sects by amicable conferences he Communicated his Design to Nectarius Bishop of the Catholicks in Constantinople Nectarius who had not been brought up in Ecclesiastical Affairs consulted able
persons and amongst others he did the honour to Agelius who was then Bishop of the Novatians to ask him his advice Agelius had a Deacon called Sisinnius able and knowing to whom he gave Commission to confer with Nectarius and this Sisinnius gave thereupon such Counsel as was approved by Nectarius and the Emperour But as concerning Theodosius they object against us the Conduct of that Great Prince in regard of the Arrians they have composed his History they have put it into the hands of the Children of our Kings they give them for a Model of their Conduct with us that of Theodosius with the Hereticks of his time In truth they do us a great deal of honour to compare us with the Arrians who were sworn Enemies of Jesus Christ and by Consequence of the Christian Religion and who had persecuted the Church even to effusion of blood Yet we receive the six first General Councils and detest all the Heresies that the Church has condemned I leave equitable people to judge if such sentiments as these are fit to he inspired into young Princes I add that Theodosius had promised nothing to the Arrians he had not made any Treaty with them nor had he given them any Edicts And in fine I say that though Theodosius made some severe Declarations against the Arrians the most part of them were not executed Socrates his Eccl. Hist l. 5. c. 2. The Conduct of Gratian a most Christian Emperour who gave liberty of Conscience and exercise to all the Sects except the Eunomians Manicheans and Phonitians merits to be considered for it is the Model wise Princes ought to regulate themselves by That is to say that when they are obliged to tolerate Divers Sects their toleration ought not to reach to those who ruin the very foundations of Christianity as the Eunomians or Arrians the Manicheans and the Photinians did who were what the Socinians are at present I could pursue the History of the Empire and make appear how in the following ages the Religion was shared into several Branches by the Schismes of Nestorius of Eutychus and of the Monothelites which filled the East and yet the Empire kept still standing It was not those Schismes in Religion that gave Birth to that terrible Empire of the Sarazins that called in the Turks from the North and caused those Inundations of the Barbarous Nations by which the Empire has been ruined They will tell me that those Schismes in Religion have often caused very great dissorders in the State I avow it But from whence did that proceed Because that one party would have oppressed the other and for that the Emperours and the Grandees of the Empire maintained those several Parties and armed them the one against the other Thus the Toleration of several Religions was far from causing any disorder the troubles were only occasioned by their not suffering Diversity of Opinions If the Eutycheans would have tolerated those that were Orthodox and that the Orthodox would have totolerated the Eutycheans the Peace of the State had not been in the least altered It becomes those Gentlemen to object the State France was in in the last age for to prove that the toleration of several Religions in a State is very dangerous From whence proceeded our Wars of Religion in France Did they not arise from the violence that the Catholick Party would have used upon the Protestant Party If they would have suffered one another and if the Princes who governed the State had not conspired to ruin the Protestants by Sword and by Fire all the State would have been in a perfect Tranquillity All this that I have said does not hinder me from avowing that there are occasions in which a Prince may employ the Rigour of the Edicts for to hinder the diversity of Religions which is at the first Birth of Schisms But when a Schism is once formed when a Sect is become numerous and strong it is to go against the Spirit of the Gospel to employ either violence or deceit to remedy this evil especially when a Prince who mounts upon the Throne finds that diversity of Religions established and tolerated I maintain that for the Peace of the State he is obliged to continue that toleration which those Sects are in possession of The United Provinces of the Low Countries can learn us what ill the diversity of Religions produces in a State when it is tolerated They are daily reproached for including in their bosom all the Religions of Europe I do not examine at present if that so general toleration for all sorts of Sects is according to the principles of Religion I am not very much of that Opinion But I boldly maintain that according to the Rules of Policy this general toleration is what makes the strength and Power of that Republick it is that which invites thither so great a number of people and it is what keeps up Trade there All those Sects have different Interests in regard of Religion but all conspire to the good and preservation of a State in which they enjoy a repose that they would not find elsewhere In fine since it is the Religion of France that is in dispute let us draw our Examples from France it self Had not the State like to have perished in the last age by the fury of those who were resolved to suffer but one Religion in France Never was this State so glorious as since the Peace was re-established by the Edicts of Pacification Shew me an age in our History in which France was so glorious and so Triumphing as within these fourscore years that is to say since that the two Religions were obliged to suffer one another by the disposition of the Edicts After that Henry the Fourth had pacified the affairs of Religion it may be said that he had all manner of advantage over his Enemies When Cardinal de Richlieu had finished what he designed against the Protestants in depriving them of their Cities of Surety and that he had restored Peace to them he raised the glory of the Monarchy by the Alliance with the Swedes higher than it had ever been The diversity of Religions that is still in France does not hinder our glorious Monarchy from being the admiration of all the Universe and the terrour of all Europe In a word the State will never come to any trouble by the diversity of Religions as long as the Protestants are protected and tolerated As long as the King pleases he will have in them Subjects of an inviolable Fidelity and for the least kindness he has for them he might draw from their veins to the very last drop of their blood for his Service It was thus that our Conversations ended For my part I was not versed enough in Ancient and Modern History to answer all this You would oblige me Sir to tell me your thoughts upon it Par. These Gentlemen took time to think of their Difficulties before they proposed them to you it is just