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
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
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
be suffered than that the Anglicane Church made choice of and that they would not suffer the Assemblies of those whom they at present call Nonconformists It was even forbidden to the Priests and Monks to set Foot in England and to make any abode there However they have not kept up to this rigour and every one knows that there is at present above ten thousand Priests and Monks disguised in England and that there has ever been so Wherefore more has been given to the Catholicks than was promised them But in France where we live under favourable Edicts they have promised us what they have not performed It is only against us that they make profession of not performing what they have promised The Edicts of Pacification are in all the Formes that perpetual Laws ought to be they are verified by the Parliaments they are confirmed by a hundred Declarations which followed by Consequence and by a thousand Royal Words In fine they have been laid as irrevocable Laws and as foundations of the Peace of the State We rely upon the good Faith of so many promises and on a sudden we see snatcht from us what we looked upon as our greatest security and which we had possessed for above a hundred years Thus there is neither Title nor Prescription nor Edicts nor Arrests nor Declarations which can put us in Safety This is what he told me and I avow to you that this part put me in pain for I am a Slave of my Word and an Idolater of good Faith I look upon it as the only Rampart of Civil Society and I conceive that States and Publick persons are no less obliged to keep what they promise than particular men Par. That is true But do not you know that the health of the people and the publick good is the Soveraign Law Very often we must suffer and even do some Evil for the good of the State Peaces and Treaties are daily broken which have been solemnly sworn because that the publick interest requires it should be so Prov. My Hugonot made himself that difficulty and told me thereupon When War is declared against Neighbours to the prejudice of Treaties of Peace and Alliances this is done in the Forms They publish Manifesto's they expose or at least they suppose Grievances and Infractions in the Articles of the Treaty that have been made by those against whom War is declared When a Soveraign revokes the Graces that he had done his Subjects it is ever under pretext that they have rendered themselves unworthy of them But are we accused or can we be accused of having tampered in any Conspiracy of having had Intelligence with the Enemies of the State of having wanted Love Fidelity and Obedience towards our Soveraigns If it be so let us be brought to Tryal let the Criminals be informed against and let the Innocent be distinguished from those that are Guilty We speak boldly therein because we are certain they can reproach us with nothing and we know that his Majesty himself has very often given Testimony of our Fidelity He knows that we did not enter into any of the Parties that have been made against his Service since he has been upon the Throne During the troubles of his minority it may be said that none but those Cities we were Masters of remained Loyal When the Gates of Orleans were shut upon the King he went to Gien and that City was going to be guilty of the same Crime without the vigour of a Hugonot who peirced with his Sword in his hand to the Bridge and let it down himself This action was known and recompenced for the King immediately made him Noble who had done it VVe had not any part in the disturbances of Bordeaux in those of Brittany and Auvergne nor in the Conspiracy of the Chevalier de Rohan Not one Hugonot was engaged in these Criminal Cases The King has been pleased to acknowledge it and we look upon the Testimony of so great a King as a great Recompence But our Enemies who continually sollicit him to our ruin ought to be mindful that it would be more civil in them to leave the King the liberty of following his inclinations These would without doubt move him to preserve the effects of his kindness for people who have preserved for him an inviolable Fidelity This is what he told me upon that point and I confess I was in great perplexity how to answer him for I durst not make use of that Maxime that I have seen often maintain'd by some people that one is not obliged to keep Faith with Hereticks I have ever admired that saying of Charles the Fifth He caused Martin Luther to come to Worms and gave him safe Conduct and his Imperial word that no hurt should be done him But not having been able to obtain from him what he desired he sent him back some one would have persuaded Charles That he ought to cause Luther to be seized without having regard to the safe Conduct because that this man was of the Character of those to whom one is not obliged to keep ones word Though good Faith were banished from all the Earth answered he it ought to be found in an Emperour A saying very worthy of so great a Man But tell me Sir is it not an Opinion very contrary to that of Charles the 5th that is the cause that so little Conscience is made of keeping with those people what has been promised them Par. This Doctrine that one is not obliged to keep Faith with Hereticks is taugâ—â— by some Casuists and they pretend 〈◊〉 it is founded upon the Authority of the Council of Constance because that that Council caused John Hus to be burnt contrary to the Faith of the safe Conduct that the Emperour Sigismond had granted him and Jerome of Prague notwithstanding the safe Conduct that the same Council had given him Prov. This Morality ever appeared to me terrible and I have been often scandalized at the Conduct of that great Council of Constance Par. The most part of the Catholicks reject that Morality and maintain we are obliged to keep Faith with all the World without excepting Infidels and Hereticks otherwise there would never be any Treaty between the Turks and the Christians that were real It is pretended that the Council of Constance has not established this Maxime That we are not obliged to keep with Hereticks what we have promised them John Hus had no safe Conduct from the Council he had only the Emperours and thereupon the Council in the Nineteenth Session declared That any safe Conduct granted by the Emperour by Kings and the other Secular Princes to Hereticks-could not do prejudice to the Catholick Faith and to the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and could not hinder from proceeding in the Tribunal of the Church to the punishment of Hereticks who had provided themselves with such a safe Conduct Thus the Council did not violate its promise for it never gave any neither did
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