oner to the Regent, had attempted some time
before to wrest from him a rigorous decree against the Protestants; the
Duke of Orleans, as well as Dubois, had rejected his overtures. Scarcely
had the duke (of Bourbon) come into power, when the prelate presented his
project anew; indifferent and debauched, a holder of seventy-six
benefices, M. de Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired to
obtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. The
government was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman,
from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Little
cared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of the
regency," says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, without
examination, as an act of homage to the late king, and a simple executive
formula. The ministers of Louis XVI. afterwards found the minute of the
declaration of 1724, without any preliminary report, and simply bearing
on the margin the date of the old edicts." For aiming the thunderbolts
against the Protestants, Tressan addressed himself to their most terrible
executioner. Lamoignon de Baville was still alive; old and almost at
death's door as he was, he devoted the last days of his life to drawing
up for the superintendents some private instructions; an able and a cruel
monument of his past experience and his persistent animosity. He died
with the pen still in his hand.

The new edict turned into an act of homage to Louis XIV. the rigors
of Louis XV. "Of all the grand designs of our most honored lord and
great-grandfather, there is none that we have more at heart to execute
than that which he conceived, of entirely extinguishing heresy in his
kingdom. Arrived at majority, our first care has been to have before us
the edicts whereof execution has been delayed, especially in the
provinces afflicted with the contagion. We have observed that the chief
abuses which demand a speedy remedy relate to illicit assemblies, the
education of children, the obligation of public functionaries to profess
the Catholic religion, the penalties against the relapsed, and the
celebration of marriage, regarding which here are our intentions: Shall
be condemned: preachers to the penalty of death, their accomplices to the
galleys for life, and women to be shaved and imprisoned for life.
Confiscation of property: parents who shall not have baptism administered
to their children within twenty-four hours, and see