wn on the
valley of the Seine, he was driven away by the clamour of a Jesuit who
had got hold of some unfortunate Protestant royalists from England,
and was proving to them that no heretic could go to heaven. In general,
Hamilton said, men suffering under a common calamity have a strong
fellow feeling and are disposed to render good offices to each other.
But it was not so at Saint Germains. There all was discord, jealousy,
bitterness of spirit. Malignity was concealed under the show of
friendship and of piety. All the saints of the royal household were
praying for each other and backbiting each other from morning, to night.
Here and there in the throng of hypocrites might be remarked a man too
highspirited to dissemble. But such a man, however advantageously he
might have made himself known elsewhere, was certain to be treated with
disdain by the inmates of that sullen abode. [421]

Such was the Court of James, as described by a Roman Catholic. Yet,
however disagreeable that Court may have been to a Roman Catholic, it
was infinitely more disagreeable to a Protestant. For the Protestant had
to endure, in addition to all the dulness of which the Roman Catholic
complained, a crowd of vexations from which the Roman Catholic was free.
In every competition between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic the Roman
Catholic was preferred. In every quarrel between a Protestant and a
Roman Catholic the Roman Catholic was supposed to be in the right.
While the ambitious Protestant looked in vain for promotion, while
the dissipated Protestant looked in vain for amusement, the serious
Protestant looked in vain for spiritual instruction and consolation.
James might, no doubt, easily have obtained permission for those members
of the Church of England who had sacrificed every thing in his cause to
meet privately in some modest oratory, and to receive the eucharistic
bread and wine from the hands of one of their own clergy; but he did not
wish his residence to be defiled by such impious rites. Doctor Dennis
Granville, who had quitted the richest deanery, the richest archdeaconry
and one of the richest livings in England, rather than take the oaths,
gave mortal offence by asking leave to read prayers to the exiles of his
own communion. His request was refused; and he was so grossly insulted
by his master's chaplains and their retainers that he was forced to
quit Saint Germains. Lest some other Anglican doctor should be equally
importunate, Ja