ard and
extended the olive-branch of peace over all his dominions. By the edict
of Nantes liberty of conscience was ensured by a royal oath, and by the
unanimous consent of the parliament, and confirmed by all the states
and provinces: his successor renewed this oath, and our ruler, Louis
XIV, could not be recognised king, before he agreed to reign over
Evangelical as well as Roman Catholic subjects: thus was the oath which
he took for himself and his posterity ratified to us; he has reigned
many years with happiness and renown, but now in his old age,
surrounded by ambitious and superstitious minds, now that his bright
star has long set, now that his country is impoverished and exhausted;
that his armies are defeated; that enemies threaten his frontiers, and
even his very capital,--now that Germany, England, and Holland, here in
the neighbourhood, Savoy, menace us with the most dire misfortune,--now
his conscience awakes, he thinks to be able to conquer heaven and
fortune, by suffering Catholic subjects only to call him king. He sends
with inconceivable blindness--converting ministers into these
mountains; and threats, compulsion, massacre and pillage are the
exhortations employed towards this unfortunate people; now we have
witnessed these horrors in our very neighbourhood; however zealous you
may be for your party, my son, I know that your humane heart has been
agonised more than once by these proceedings. Suddenly--could he do it,
ask yourself if he might? the king revokes that edict and voluntarily
absolves himself from his oath, without at the same time consulting
that of his predecessors, of the parliament, and of all the states in
the kingdom; he himself destroys, in his religious madness, that which
binds him to the citizen, that attaches the subject to him, the sacred
palladium, the undefilable is profaned and annihilated, and the
wretched inhabitants are yielded a prey to wrath, to murder, and to the
fearful frenzy of the bloodthirsty; the peaceful weaver, the shepherd,
the honest labourer, who was but yesterday a devout Christian, a
respected citizen, a good subject, is through the revocation of the
edict, without any fault of his own, now a rebel, an outlaw, for whom
the wheel and the stake are prepared; against whom all, even the most
savage and disgraceful cruelty is permitted; his temples are closed and
demolished; his priests are exiled and murdered; he is ignorant of his
offence, he only feels his misfo