ld's
history, nor shall we point to the well-known provisions of this insane
and bloody act. In a word, Protestant worship was abolished throughout
France, under the penalty of arrest, with the confiscation of goods.
Huguenot ministers were to quit the kingdom in a fortnight. Protestant
schools were closed, and the laity were forbidden to follow their
clergy, under severe and fatal penalties. All the strict laws concerning
heretics were again renewed. But, in spite of all these enactments,
dangers and opposition, the Huguenots began to leave France by
thousands.

Many entreated the court, but in vain, for permission to withdraw
themselves from France. This favor was only granted to the Marshal de
Schomberg and the Marquis de Ruoigny, on condition of their retiring to
Portugal and England. Admiral Duquesne, then aged eighty, was strongly
urged by the king to change his religion. 'During sixty years,' said the
old hero, showing his gray hairs,' I have rendered unto Caesar the things
which I owe to Caesar; permit me now, sire, to render unto God the thing
which I owe to God.' He was permitted to end his days in his native
land. The provisions of the Edict were carried out with inflexible
rigor. In the month of June, 1686, more than six hundred of the Reformed
could be counted in the galleys at Marseilles, and nearly as many in
those of Toulon, and the most of them condemned by the decision of a
single marshal (de Mortieval). Fortunately for the refugees, the guards
along the coast did not at all times faithfully execute the royal
orders, but often aided the escape of the fugitives. Nor were the, land
frontiers more faithfully guarded. In our day, it is impossible to state
the correct numbers of the Protestant emigration. Assuming that one
hundred thousand Protestants were distributed among twenty millions of
Roman Catholics, we think it safe to calculate that from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred thousand, during fifteen years, expatriated
themselves from France. Sismondi estimates their number at three or four
hundred thousand. Reaching London, Amsterdam or Berlin, the refugees
were received with open purses and arms, and England, America, Germany,
Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and Holland, all profited
by this wholesale proscription of Frenchmen. All agree that these
Protestant emigrants were among the bravest, the most industrious, loyal
and pious in the kingdom of France, and that they carried wi