claring
them unfit for such professions; and in September of the same year three
months only were allowed them for the sale of the reversion of the said
offices. In 1684 the Council of State extended the preceding regulations
to those Protestants holding the title of honorary secretary to the king,
and in August of the same year Protestants were declared incapable of
serving on a jury of experts.

In 1685 the provost of merchants in Paris ordered all Protestant
privileged merchants in that city to sell their privileges within a
month. And in October of the same year the long series of persecutions,
of which we have omitted many, reached its culminating point--the:
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Henri IV, who foresaw this result,
had hoped that it would have occurred in another manner, so that his
co-religionists would have been able to retain their fortresses; but what
was actually done was that the strong places were first taken away, and
then came the Revocation; after which the Calvinists found themselves
completely at the mercy of their mortal enemies.

From 1669, when Louis first threatened to aim a fatal blow at the civil
rights of the Huguenots, by abolishing the equal partition of the
Chambers between the two parties, several deputations had been sent to
him praying him to stop the course of his persecutions; and in order not
to give him any fresh excuse for attacking their party, these deputations
addressed him in the most submissive manner, as the following fragment
from an address will prove:

"In the name of God, sire," said the Protestants to the king, "listen to
the last breath of our dying liberty, have pity on our sufferings, have
pity on the great number of your poor subjects who daily water their
bread with their tears: they are all filled with burning zeal and
inviolable loyalty to you; their love for your august person is only
equalled by their respect; history bears witness that they contributed in
no small degree to place your great and magnanimous ancestor on his
rightful throne, and since your miraculous birth they have never done
anything worthy of blame; they might indeed use much stronger terms, but
your Majesty has spared their modesty by addressing to them on many
occasions words of praise which they would never have ventured to apply
to themselves; these your subjects place their sole trust in your sceptre
for refuge and protection on earth, and their interest as well as their
dut