be seen there a few years
before. Almost all trade was stopped there as well as in the rest of
Normandy. The little amount of manufacture that was possible rotted away
on the spot for want of transport to foreign countries, whence vessels
were no longer found to come. Rouen, Darnetal, Elbeuf, Louviers,
Caudebec, Le Havre, Pont-Audemer, Caen, St. Lo, Alencon, and Bayeux were
falling into decay, the different branches of trade and industry which
had but lately been seen flourishing there having perished through the
emigration of the masters whom their skilled workmen followed in shoals."
The Norman emigration had been very numerous, thanks to the extent of its
coasts and to the habitual communication between Normandy, England, and
Holland; Vauban, however, remained very far from the truth when he
deplored, in 1688, "the desertion of one hundred thousand men, the
withdrawal from the kingdom of sixty millions of livres, the enemy's
fleets swelled by nine thousand sailors, the best in the kingdom, and the
enemy's armies by six hundred officers and twelve thousand soldiers, who
had seen service." It is a natural but a striking fact that the
Reformers who left France and were received with open arms in
Brandenburg, Holland, England, and Switzerland carried in their hearts a
profound hatred for the king who drove them away from their country, and
everywhere took service against him, whilst the Protestants who remained
in France, bound to the soil by a thousand indissoluble ties, continued
at the same time to be submissive and faithful. "It is right," said
Chanlay, in a Memoire addressed to the king, "whilst we condemn the
conduct of the new converts, fugitives, who have borne arms against
France since the commencement of this war up to the present, it is right,
say I, to give those who have staid in France the praise and credit they
deserve. Indeed, if we except a few disturbances of little consequence
which have taken place in Languedoc, we have, besides the fact of their
remaining faithful to the king in the provinces, and especially in
Dauphiny, even whilst the confederated armies of the emperor, of Spain,
and of the Duke of Savoy were in the heart of that province in greater
strength than the forces of the king, to note that those who were fit to
bear arms have enlisted amongst the troops of his Majesty and done good
service." In 1745, after sixty years' persecution, consequent upon the
revocation of the Edict of Nant