ry much influenced by the king's confessor,
Pere la Chaise, who seems to have been a man of integrity and of
conscientiousness, though fanatically devoted to what he deemed to be
the interests of the Church. In former reigns the Protestants had
endured from the Catholics the most dreadful persecutions. After
scenes of woe, the recital of which causes the blood to curdle in
one's veins, Henry IV., the grandfather of Louis XIV., feeling the
need of the support of the Protestants to protect the kingdom from the
perils by which it was surrounded, and having himself been educated a
Protestant, granted the Protestants the world-renowned Edict of
Nantes.

By this edict, which took its name from the place in which it was
published, and which was issued in April, 1598, certain privileges
were granted to the Protestants, which, in that dark age, were
regarded as extraordinarily liberal.

Protestants were allowed liberty of conscience; that is, they were not
to be punished for their religious faith. In certain designated places
they were permitted to hold public worship. The highest lords of the
Protestant faith could celebrate divine service in their castles.
Nobles of the second rank could have private worship, provided but
thirty persons attended. Protestants were declared to be eligible to
offices of state, their children were to be admitted to the public
schools, their sick to the hospitals, and their poor to the public
charities. In certain places they could publish books; they were
allowed four academies for scientific and theological instruction, and
were permitted to convoke synods for Church discipline.

The Catholic clergy were very indignant in view of these concessions.
Pope Clement VIII. declared that the ordinance which permitted liberty
of conscience to every one was the most execrable which was ever
made.[S]

[Footnote S: History of the Protestants of France, by Professor G. de
Felice, p. 275.]

There were then seven hundred and sixty churches in France of the
Protestant communion. No such church was allowed in Paris. Protestants
from the city, rich and poor, were compelled to repair, for public
worship, to the little village of Ablon, fifteen miles from the city.
The Edict of Nantes probably cost Henry IV. his life. The assassin
Ravaillac, who plunged his dagger twice into the bosom of the king,
said, in his examination,

"I killed the king because, in making war upon the pope, he made war
upon God, sinc