-216-

SEPTEMBER

      “The dragonnades of the Huguenots became repeated in the noyades of the Royalists; and again Nancy, Lyons, Rouen, Bordeaux, Montauban, and numerous other places, witnessed a repetition of the cruelties of the preceding century. At Nantes, where the famous Edict of Toleration, afterwards, revoked, was proclaimed, the guillotine was worked until the headsman sank exhausted; and to hasten the destruction of life, a general fusillade in the plain of St. Mauve followed, of men, women, end children. At Paris, the hideous Marat called for "eight hundred gibbets,' in convenient rows, to hand the enemies of the people. He would be satisfied with nothing short of 'two hundred thousand aristocratic heads.'
     "It is unnecessary to pursue the dreadful story further. Suffice it to say that the nobles found themselves compelled to fly from France to escape the fury of the people, and they too made for England, where they received the same asylum, which had been extended to the priests and before them to the Huguenots. To prevent the flight of the noblesse, the same measures were adopted by the convention that Louis XIV bad employed to prevent the escape of the Protestants. The frontiers were strictly guarded, and all the roads patrolled which led out of France. Severe laws were passed against emigration; and the estates of fugitive aristocrats were declared to be confiscated to the state. Nevertheless, many succeeded in making their escape into Switzerland, Germany and England.
     "It fared still worse with Louis XVI, and his beautiful queen Marie Antoinette. They were the most illustrious victims of the barbarous policy of Louis XIV. That monarch had sowed the wind and they reaped the whirlwind. A mob of starving men and women, the offspring of the Great King, burst in upon Louis and his consort at Versailles, shouting, "Bread! Bread!" They were very different from the plumed and garlanded courtiers accustomed to worship in these gilded saloons, and by no means so obsequious. They insisted on the king and queen accompanying them to Paris, virtually their prisoners. The royal family tried to escape, as the Huguenots had done before them, across the frontiers into Germany. But in vain. The king's own highway was closed against him; and the fugitives were led back to Paris and the guillotine.
     "The last act of the unfortunate Louis was his attempt to address a few words to his subjects, when the drums were ordered to be beaten, and his voice was drowned by the noise. It was remembered that the last occasion, on which a like scene had occurred in France, was on the occasion of the execution of the young Huguenot pastor Fulcran Rey at Beaucaire. When he opened his mouth publicly to confess his faith, the drummers posted round the scaffold were ordered to beat, and his dying speech remained unheard. The slaughter of the martyred preacher was thus terribly avenged.
     "We think we are justified in saying, that but for the persecution and expulsion of the Huguenots at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Revolution of 1789 most probably never would have occurred. The Protestants supplied that enterprising and industrious middle class which gives stability to every state. They provided remunerative employment for the population, while at the same time they enriched the Kingdom by their enterprise and industry. Moreover, they furnished that virtuous and religious element in society without which a nation is but as so much chaff that is driven before the wind. When they were suppressed or banished, there was an end of their industrial undertakings. The further growth of a prosperous middle class was prevented; and the misgovernment of the ruling class being unchecked, the great body of the working order was left to idleness, nakedness, and famine. Faith in God and in good died out; religion, as represented by the degenerate priesthood, fell into contempt; and the reign of materialism and atheism began. Frightful distress at length culminated in revolution and anarchy; and there being no element of stability in the state, --no class possessing moral weight to stand between the infuriated people at the one end of the social scale, and the king and nobles on the other, --the imposture erected by the Great Louis was assailed on all sides, and king, church, and nobility were at once swept away.
     "As regards the emigration of the Huguenots in 1685, and of the nobles and clergy in 1789, it must be acknowledged that the former was by much the most calamitous to France. ‘Was the one emigration greater than the other?’ says Michelet. 'I do not know. That of 1685 was probably from three to four hundred thousand persons. However this may be, there was this great difference between them: France at the emigration of 1789 lost its idlers; at the other its workers. The terror of 1789 struck the individual and each feared for his life. The terror of the dragonnades struck at the heart and conscience; then men feared for their all.'
     "The one emigration consisted for the most part of nobles and clergy who left no traces of their settlement in the countries which gave them asylum; the other emigration comprised all the constituent elements of a people --skilled workmen in all branches, manufacturers, merchants, and professional men; and wherever they settled they founded useful establishments which were a source of perennial prosperity and wealth.”


    
 

Previous   Next