y which for the moment is triumphant; when
the Protestants get the upper hand, their vengeance is marked by
brutality and rage; when the Catholics are victorious, the retaliation is
full of hypocrisy and greed. The Protestants pull down churches and
monasteries, expel the monks, burn the crucifixes, take the body of some
criminal from the gallows, nail it on a cross, pierce its side, put a
crown of thorns round its temples and set it up in the market-place--an
effigy of Jesus on Calvary. The Catholics levy contributions, take back
what they had been deprived of, exact indemnities, and although ruined by
each reverse, are richer than ever after each victory. The Protestants
act in the light of day, melting down the church bells to make cannon to
the sound of the drum, violate agreements, warm themselves with wood
taken from the houses of the cathedral clergy, affix their theses to the
cathedral doors, beat the priests who carry the Holy Sacrament to the
dying, and, to crown all other insults, turn churches into
slaughter-houses and sewers.

The Catholics, on the contrary, march at night, and, slipping in at the
gates which have been left ajar for them, make their bishop president of
the Council, put Jesuits at the head of the college, buy converts with
money from the treasury, and as they always have influence at court,
begin by excluding the Calvinists from favour, hoping soon to deprive
them of justice.

At last, on the 31st of December, 1657, a final struggle took place, in
which the Protestants were overcome, and were only saved from destruction
because from the other side of the Channel, Cromwell exerted himself in
their favour, writing with his own hand at the end of a despatch relative
to the affairs of Austria, "I Learn that there have been popular
disturbances in a town of Languedoc called Nimes, and I beg that order
may be restored with as much mildness as possible, and without shedding
of blood." As, fortunately for the Protestants, Mazarin had need of
Cromwell at that moment, torture was forbidden, and nothing allowed but
annoyances of all kinds. These henceforward were not only innumerable,
but went on without a pause: the Catholics, faithful to their system of
constant encroachment, kept up an incessant persecution, in which they
were soon encouraged by the numerous ordinances issued by Louis XIV. The
grandson of Henri IV could not so far forget all ordinary respect as to
destroy at once the Edict of