Buckle Henry Thomas
History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3
These generalizations, which account for a great part of the present superstition of the Irish Catholics, will also account for the former superstition of the French Protestants. In both cases, the government disdaining the supervision of an heretical religion, allowed supreme authority to fall into the hands of the priesthood, who stimulated the bigotry of men, and encouraged them in a hatred of their opponents. What the results of this are in Ireland, is best known to those of our statesmen, who, with unusual candour, have declared Ireland to be their greatest difficulty. What the results were in France, we will now endeavour to ascertain.
The conciliating spirit of the French government having drawn over to its side some of the most eminent of the French Protestants, and having disarmed the hostility of others, the leadership of the party fell, as we have already seen, into the hands of those inferior men, who displayed in their new position the intolerance characteristic of their order. Without pretending to write a history of the odious feuds that now arose, I will lay before the reader some evidence of their increasing bitterness; and I will point out a few of the steps by which the angry feelings of religious controversy became so inflamed, that at length they kindled a civil war, which nothing but the improved temper of the Catholics prevented from being as sanguinary as were the horrible struggles of the sixteenth century. For, when the French Protestants became governed by men whose professional habits made them consider heresy to be the greatest of crimes, there naturally sprung up a missionary and proselytizing spirit, which induced them to interfere with the religion of the Catholics, and, under the old pretence of turning them from the error of their ways, revived those animosities which the progress of knowledge tended to appease. And as, under such guidance, these feelings quickly increased, the Protestants soon learned to despise that great Edict of Nantes, by which their liberties were secured; and they embarked in a dangerous contest, in which their object was, not to protect their own religion, but to weaken the religion of that very party to whom they owed a toleration, which had been reluctantly conceded by the prejudices of the age.
It was stipulated, in the Edict of Nantes, that the Protestants should enjoy the full exercise of their religion; and this right they continued to possess until the reign of Louis XIV. To this there were added several other privileges, such as no Catholic Government, except that of France, would then have granted to its heretical subjects. But these things did not satisfy the desires of the Protestant clergy. They were not content to exercise their own religion, unless they could also trouble the religion of others. Their first step was, to call upon the government to limit the performance of those rites which the French Catholics had long revered as emblems of the national faith. For this purpose, directly after the death of Henry IV. they held a great assembly at Saumur, in which they formally demanded that no Catholic processions should be allowed in any town, place, or castle occupied by the Protestants.138 As the government did not seem inclined to countenance this monstrous pretension, these intolerant sectaries took the law into their own hands. They not only attacked the Catholic processions wherever they met them, but they subjected the priests to personal insults, and even endeavoured to prevent them from administering the sacrament to the sick. If a Catholic clergyman was engaged in burying the dead, the Protestants were sure to be present, interrupting the funeral, turning the ceremonies into ridicule, and attempting, by their clamour, to deaden the voice of the minister, so that the service performed in the church should not be heard.139 Nor did they always confine themselves even to such demonstrations as these. For, certain towns having been, perhaps imprudently, placed under their control, they exercised their authority in them with the most wanton insolence. At La Rochelle, which for importance was the second city in the kingdom, they would not permit the Catholics to have even a single church in which to celebrate what for centuries had been the sole religion of France, and was still the religion of an enormous majority of Frenchmen.140 This, however, only formed part of a system, by which the Protestant clergy hoped to trample on the rights of their fellow-subjects. In 1619, they ordered in their general assembly at Loudun, that in none of the Protestant towns should there be a sermon preached by a Jesuit, or indeed by any ecclesiastical person commissioned by a bishop.141 In another assembly, they forbade any Protestant even to be present at a baptism, or at a marriage, or at a funeral, if the ceremony was performed by a Catholic priest.142 And, as if to cut off all hope of reconciliation, they not only vehemently opposed those intermarriages between the two parties, by which, in every Christian country, religious animosities have been softened, but they publicly declared, that they would withhold the sacrament from any parents whose children were married into a Catholic family.143 Not, however, to accumulate unnecessary evidence, there is one other circumstance worth relating, as a proof of the spirit with which these and similar regulations were enforced. When Louis XIII., in 1620, visited Pau, he was not only treated with indignity, as being an heretical prince, but he found that the Protestants had not left him a single church, not one place, in which the king of France, in his own territory, could perform those devotions which he believed necessary for his future salvation.144
This was the way in which the French Protestants, influenced by their new leaders, treated the first Catholic government which abstained from persecuting them; the first which not only allowed them the free exercise of their religion, but even advanced many of them to offices of trust and of honour.145 All this, however, was only of a piece with the rest of their conduct. They, who in numbers and in intellect formed a miserable minority of the French nation, claimed a power which the majority had abandoned, and refused to concede to others the toleration they themselves enjoyed. Several persons, who had joined their party, now quitted it, and returned to the Catholic church; but for exercising this undoubted right, they were insulted by the Protestant clergy in the grossest manner, with every term of opprobrium and abuse.146 For those who resisted their authority, no treatment was considered too severe. In 1612, Ferrier, a man of some reputation in his own day, having disobeyed their injunctions, was ordered to appear before one of their synods. The gist of his offence was, that he had spoken contemptuously of ecclesiastical assemblies; and to this there were, of course, added those accusations against his moral conduct, with which theologians often attempt to blacken the character of their opponents.147 Readers of ecclesiastical history are too familiar with such charges to attach any importance to them; but as, in this case, the accused was tried by men who were at once his prosecutors, his enemies, and his judges, the result was easy to anticipate. In 1613 Ferrier was excommunicated, and the excommunication was publicly proclaimed in the church of Nîmes. In this sentence, which is still extant, he is declared by the clergy to be ‘a scandalous man, a person incorrigible, impenitent and ungovernable.’ We, therefore, they add, ‘in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the conduct of the Holy Ghost, and with authority from the church, have cast, and do now cast and throw him out of the society of the faithful, that he may be delivered up unto Satan.’148
That he may be delivered up unto Satan! This was the penalty which a handful of clergymen, in a corner of France, thought they could inflict on a man who dared to despise their authority. In our time such an anathema would only excite derision;149 but, early in the seventeenth century, the open promulgation of it was enough to ruin any private person against whom it might be directed. And they whose studies have enabled them to take the measure of the ecclesiastical spirit will easily believe that, in that age, the threat did not remain a dead letter. The people, inflamed by their clergy, rose against Ferrier, attacked his family, destroyed his property, sacked and gutted his houses, and demanded with loud cries, that the ‘traitor Judas’ should be given up to them. The unhappy man, with the greatest difficulty, effected his escape; but though he saved his life by flying in the dead of the night, he was obliged to abandon for ever his native town, as he dared not return to a place where he had provoked so active and so implacable a party.150
Into other matters, and even into those connected with the ordinary functions of government, the Protestants carried the same spirit. Although they formed so small a section of the people, they attempted to control the administration of the crown, and, by the use of threats, turn all its acts to their own favour. They would not allow the state to determine what ecclesiastical councils it should recognize; they would not even permit the king to choose his own wife. In 1615, without the least pretence of complaint, they assembled in large numbers at Grenoble and at Nîmes.151 The deputies of Grenoble insisted that government should refuse to acknowledge the Council of Trent;152 and both assemblies ordered that the Protestants should prevent the marriage of Louis XIII. with a Spanish princess.153 They laid similar claims to interfere with the disposal of civil and military offices. Shortly after the death of Henry IV., they, in an assembly at Saumur, insisted that Sully should be restored to some posts from which, in their opinion, he had been unjustly removed.154 In 1619, another of their assemblies at London declared, that as one of the Protestant councillors of the Parliament of Paris had become a Catholic, he must be dismissed; and they demanded that, for the same reason, the government of Lectoure should be taken from Fontrailles, he also having adopted the not infrequent example of abandoning his sect in order to adopt a creed sanctioned by the state.155
By way of aiding all this, and with the view of exasperating still further religious animosities, the principal Protestant clergy put forth a series of works, which, for bitterness of feeling, have hardly ever been equalled, and which it would certainly be impossible to surpass. The intense hatred with which they regarded their Catholic countrymen can only be fully estimated by those who have looked into the pamphlets written by the French Protestants during the first half of the seventeenth century, or who have read the laboured and formal treatises of such men as Chamier, Drelincourt, Moulin, Thomson, and Vignier. Without, however, pausing on these, it will perhaps be thought sufficient if, for the sake of brevity, I follow the mere outline of political events. Great numbers of the Protestants had joined in the rebellion which, in 1615, was raised by Condé;156 and, although they were then easily defeated, they seemed bent on trying the issue of a fresh struggle. In Béarn, where they were unusually numerous,157 they, even during the reign of Henry IV., had refused to tolerate the Catholic religion; ‘their fanatical clergy,’ says the historian of France, ‘declaring that it would be a crime to permit the idolatry of the mass.’158 This charitable maxim they for many years actively enforced, seizing the property of the Catholic clergy, and employing it in support of their own churches;159 so that, while in one part of the dominions of the king of France the Protestants were allowed to exercise their religion, they, in another part of his dominions, prevented the Catholics from exercising theirs. It was hardly to be expected that any government would suffer such an anomaly as this; and, in 1618, it was ordered that the Protestants should restore the plunder, and reinstate the Catholics in their former possessions. But the reformed clergy, alarmed at so sacrilegious a proposal, appointed a public fast, and inspiriting the people to resistance, forced the royal commissioner to fly from Pau, where he had arrived in the hope of effecting a peaceful adjustment of the claims of the rival parties.160
The rebellion thus raised by the zeal of the Protestants, was soon put down; but, according to the confession of Rohan, one of the ablest of their leaders, it was the beginning of all their misfortunes.161 The sword had now been drawn; and the only question to be decided was, whether France should be governed according to the principles of toleration recently established, or according to the maxims of a despotic sect, which, while professing to advocate the right of private judgment, was acting in a way that rendered all private judgment impossible.
Scarcely was the war in Béarn brought to an end, when the Protestants determined on making a great effort in the west of France.162 The seat of this new struggle was Rochelle, which was one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, and was entirely in the hands of the Protestants,163 who had grown wealthy, partly by their own industry and partly by following the occupation of public pirates.164 In this city, which they believed to be impregnable,165 they, in December, 1620, held a Great Assembly, to which their spiritual chiefs flocked from all parts of France. It was soon evident that their party was now governed by men who were bent on the most violent measures. Their great secular leaders were, as we have already seen, gradually falling off; and, by this time, there only remained two of much ability, Rohan and Mornay, both of whom saw the inexpediency of their proceedings, and desired that the assembly should peaceably separate.166 But the authority of the clergy was irresistible; and, by their prayers and exhortations, they easily gained over the ordinary citizens, who were then a gross and uneducated body.167 Under their influence, the Assembly adopted a course which rendered civil war inevitable. Their first act was an edict, by which they at once confiscated all the property belonging to Catholic churches.168 They then caused a great seal to be struck; under the authority of which they ordered that the people should be armed, and taxes collected from them for the purpose of defending their religion.169 Finally, they drew up the regulations, and organized the establishment of what they called the Reformed Churches of France and of Béarn; and, with a view to facilitate the exercise of their spiritual jurisdiction, they parcelled out France into eight circles, to each of which there was allotted a separate general, who, however, was to be accompanied by a clergyman, since the administration, in all its parts, was held responsible to that ecclesiastical assembly which called it into existence.170
Such were the forms and pomp of authority assumed by the spiritual leaders of the French Protestants; men by nature destined to obscurity, and whose abilities were so despicable, that, notwithstanding their temporary importance, they have left no name in history. These insignificant priests, who, at the best, were only fit to mount the pulpit of a country village, now arrogated to themselves the right of ordering the affairs of France, imposing taxes upon Frenchmen, confiscating property, raising troops, levying war; and all this for the sake of propagating a creed, which was scouted by the country at large as a foul and mischievous heresy.
In the face of these inordinate pretensions, it was evident that the French government had no choice, except to abdicate its functions, or else take arms in its own defence.171 Whatever may be the popular notion respecting the necessary intolerance of the Catholics, it is an indisputable fact, that, early in the seventeenth century, they displayed in France a spirit of forbearance, and a Christian charity, to which the Protestants could make no pretence. During the twenty-two years which elapsed between the Edict of Nantes and the Assembly of Rochelle, the government, notwithstanding repeated provocations, never attacked the Protestants;172 nor did they make any attempt to destroy the privileges of a sect, which they were bound to consider heretical, and the extirpation of which had been deemed by their fathers to be one of the first duties of a Christian statesman.
The war that now broke out lasted seven years, and was uninterrupted, except by the short peace, first of Montpelier, and afterwards of Rochelle; neither of which, however, was very strictly preserved. But the difference in the views and intentions of the two parties corresponded to the difference between the classes which governed them. The Protestants, being influenced mainly by the clergy, made their object religious domination. The Catholics being led by statesmen, aimed at temporal advantages. Thus it was, that circumstances had in France so completely obliterated the original tendency of these two great sects, that, by a singular metamorphosis, the secular principle was now represented by the Catholics, and the theological principle by the Protestants. The authority of the clergy, and therefore the interests of superstition, were upheld by that very party which owed its origin to the diminution of both; they were, on the other hand, attacked by a party whose success had hitherto depended on the increase of both. If the Catholics triumphed, the ecclesiastical power would be weakened; if the Protestants triumphed, it would be strengthened. Of this fact, so far as the Protestants are concerned, I have just given ample proof, collected from their proceedings, and from the language of their own synods. And that the opposite, or secular principle, predominated among the Catholics, is evident, not only from their undeviating policy in the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis XIII., but also from another circumstance worthy of note. For, their motives were so obvious, and gave such scandal to the church, that the pope, as the great protector of religion, thought himself bound to reprehend that disregard of theological interests which they displayed, and which he considered to be a crying and unpardonable offence. In 1622, only one year after the struggle between the Protestants and Catholics had begun, he strongly remonstrated with the French government upon the notorious indecency of which they were guilty, in carrying on war against heretics, not for the purpose of suppressing the heresy, but merely with a view of procuring for the state those temporal advantages which, in the opinion of all pious men, ought to be regarded as of subordinate importance.173
If, at this juncture, the Protestants had carried the day, the loss to France would have been immense, perhaps irreparable. For no one, who is acquainted with the temper and character of the French Calvinists, can doubt, that if they had obtained possession of the government, they would have revived those religious persecutions which, so far as their power extended, they had already attempted to enforce. Not only in their writings, but even in the edicts of their assemblies, we find ample proof of that meddling and intolerant spirit which, in every age, has characterized ecclesiastical legislation. Indeed, such a spirit is the legitimate consequence of the fundamental assumption from which theological lawgivers usually start. The clergy are taught to consider that their paramount duty is to preserve the purity of the faith, and guard it against the invasions of heresy. Whenever, therefore, they rise to power, it almost invariably happens, that they carry into politics the habits they have contracted in their profession; and having long been accustomed to consider religious error as criminal, they now naturally attempt to make it penal. And as all the European countries have, in the period of their ignorance, been once ruled by the clergy, just so do we find in the law-books of every land those traces of their power which the progress of knowledge is gradually effacing. We find the professors of the dominant creed enacting laws against the professors of other creeds: laws sometimes to burn them, sometimes to exile them, sometimes to take away their civil rights, sometimes only to take away their political rights. These are the different gradations through which persecution passes; and by observing which, we may measure, in any country, the energy of the ecclesiastical spirit. At the same time, the theory by which such measures are supported generally gives rise to other measures of a somewhat different, though of an analogous character. For, by extending the authority of law to opinions as well as to acts, the basis of legislation becomes dangerously enlarged; the individuality and independence of each man are invaded; and encouragement is given to the enactment of intrusive and vexatious regulations, which are supposed to perform for morals the service that the other class of laws performs for religion. Under pretence of favouring the practice of virtue, and maintaining the purity of society, men are troubled in their most ordinary pursuits, in the commonest occurrences of life, in their amusements, nay, even in the very dress they may be inclined to wear. That this is what has actually been done, must be known to whoever has looked into the writings of the fathers, into the canons of Christian councils, into the different systems of ecclesiastical law, or into the sermons of the earlier clergy. Indeed, all this is so natural, that regulations, conceived in the same spirit, were drawn up for the government of Geneva by the Calvinist clergy, and for the government of England by Archbishop Cranmer and his coadjutors; while a tendency, precisely identical, may be observed in the legislation of the Puritans, and to give a still later instance, in that of the Methodists. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in France, the Protestant clergy, having great power among their own party, should enforce a similar discipline. Thus, to mention only a few examples, they forbade any one to go to a theatre, or even to witness the performance of private theatricals.174 They looked upon dancing as an ungodly amusement, and, therefore, they not only strictly prohibited it, but they ordered that all dancing-masters should be admonished by the spiritual power, and desired to abandon so unchristian a profession. If, however, the admonition failed in effecting its purpose, the dancing-masters, thus remaining obdurate, were to be excommunicated.175 With the same pious care did the clergy superintend other matters equally important. In one of their synods, they ordered that all persons should abstain from wearing gay apparel, and should arrange their hair with becoming modesty.176 In another synod, they forbade women to paint; and they declared that if, after this injunction, any woman persisted in painting, she should not be allowed to receive the sacrament.177 To their own clergy, as the instructors and shepherds of the flock, there was paid an attention still more scrupulous. The ministers of the Word were permitted to teach Hebrew, because Hebrew is a sacred dialect, uncontaminated by profane writers. But the Greek language, which contains all the philosophy and nearly all the wisdom of antiquity, was to be discouraged, its study laid aside, its professorship suppressed.178 And, in order that the mind might not be distracted from spiritual things, the study of chemistry was likewise forbidden; such a mere earthly pursuit being incompatible with the habits of the sacred profession.179 Lest, however, in spite of these precautions, knowledge should still creep in among the Protestants, other measures were taken to prevent even its earliest approach. The clergy, entirely forgetting that right of private judgment upon which their sect was founded, became so anxious to protect the unwary from error, that they forbade any person to print or publish a work without the sanction of the church; in other words, without the sanction of the clergy themselves.180 When, by these means, they had destroyed the possibility of free inquiry, and, so far as they were able, had put a stop to the acquisition of all real knowledge, they proceeded to guard against another circumstance to which their measures had given rise. For, several of the Protestants, seeing that under such a system, it was impossible to educate their families with advantage, sent their children to some of those celebrated Catholic colleges, where alone a sound education could then be obtained. But the clergy, so soon as they heard of this practice, put an end to it, by excommunicating the offending parents;181 and to this there was added an order forbidding them to admit into their own private houses any tutor who professed the Catholic religion.182 Such was the way in which the French Protestants were watched over and protected by their spiritual masters. Even the minutest matters were not beneath the notice of these great legislators. They ordered that no person should go to a ball or masquerade;183 nor ought any Christian to look at the tricks of conjurors, or at the famous game of goblets, or at the puppet-show; neither was he to be present at morris-dances; for all such amusements should be suppressed by the magistrates, because they excite curiosity, cause expense, waste time.184 Another thing to be attended to, is the names that are bestowed in baptism. A child may have two christian names, though one is preferable.185 Great care, however, is to be observed in their selection. They ought to be taken from the Bible, but they ought not to be Baptist or Angel; neither should any infant receive a name which has been formerly used by the Pagans.186 When the children are grown up, there are other regulations to which they must be subject. The clergy declared that the faithful must by no means let their hair grow long, lest by so doing they indulge in the luxury of ‘lascivious curls.’187 They are to make their garments in such a manner as to avoid ‘the new-fangled fashions of the world:’ they are to have no tassels to their dress: their gloves must be without silk and ribbons: they are to abstain from fardingales: they are to beware of wide sleeves.188
Those readers who have not studied the history of ecclesiastical legislation, will perhaps be surprised to find, that men of gravity, men who had reached the years of discretion, and were assembled together in solemn council, should evince such a prying and puerile spirit; that they should display such miserable and childish imbecility. But, whoever will take a wider survey of human affairs, will be inclined to blame, not so much the legislators, as the system of which the legislators formed a part. For as to the men themselves, they merely acted after their kind. They only followed the traditions in which they were bred. By virtue of their profession, they had been accustomed to hold certain views, and, when they rose to power, it was natural that they should carry those views into effect; thus transplanting into the law-book the maxims they had already preached in the pulpit. Whenever, therefore, we read of meddling, inquisitive, and vexatious regulations imposed by ecclesiastical authority, we should remember, that they are but the legitimate result of the ecclesiastical spirit; and that the way to remedy such grievances, or to prevent their occurrence, is not by vainly labouring to change the tendencies of that class from whence they proceed, but rather by confining the class within its proper limits, by jealously guarding against its earliest encroachments, by taking every opportunity of lessening its influence, and finally, when the progress of society will justify so great a step, by depriving it of that political and legislative power which, though gradually falling from its hands, it is, even in the most civilized countries, still allowed in some degree to retain.
But, setting aside these general considerations, it will, at all events, be admitted, that I have collected sufficient evidence to indicate what would have happened to France, if the Protestants had obtained the upper hand. After the facts which I have brought forward, no one can possibly doubt, that if such a misfortune had occurred, the liberal, and, considering the age, the enlightened policy of Henry IV. and Louis XIII. would have been destroyed, in order to make way for that gloomy and austere system, which, in every age and in every country, has been found to be the natural fruit of ecclesiastical power. To put, therefore, the question in its proper form, instead of saying that there was a war between hostile creeds, we should rather say that there was a war between rival classes. It was a contest, not so much between the Catholic religion and the Protestant religion, as between Catholic laymen and Protestant clergy. It was a struggle between temporal interests and theological interests, – between the spirit of the present and the spirit of the past. And the point now at issue was, whether France should be governed by the civil power or by the spiritual power, – whether she should be ruled according to the large views of secular statesmen, or according to the narrow notions of a factious and intolerant priesthood.
The Protestants having the great advantage of being the aggressive party, and being, moreover, inflamed by a religious zeal unknown to their opponents, might, under ordinary circumstances, have succeeded in their hazardous attempt; or, at all events, they might have protracted the struggle for an indefinite period. But, fortunately for France, in 1624, only three years after the war began, Richelieu assumed the direction of the government. He had for some years been the secret adviser of the queen-mother, into whose mind he had always inculcated the necessity of complete toleration.189 When placed at the head of affairs, he pursued the same policy, and attempted in every way to conciliate the Protestants. The clergy of his own party were constantly urging him to exterminate the heretics, whose presence they thought polluted France.190 But Richelieu, having only secular objects, refused to embitter the contest by turning it into a religious war. He was determined to chastise the rebellion, but he would not punish the heresy. Even while the war was raging, he would not revoke those edicts of toleration by which the full liberty of religious worship was granted to the Protestants. And when they, in 1626, showed signs of compunction, or at all events of fear, he publicly confirmed the Edict of Nantes,191 and he granted them peace; although, as he says, he knew that by doing so he should fall under the suspicion of those ‘who so greatly affected the name of zealous Catholics.’192 A few months afterwards, war again broke out; and then it was that Richelieu determined on that celebrated siege of Rochelle, which, if brought to a successful issue, was sure to be a decisive blow against the French Protestants. That he was moved to this hazardous undertaking solely by secular considerations is evident, not only from the general spirit of his preceding policy, but also from his subsequent conduct. With the details of this famous siege history is not concerned, as such matters have no value except to military readers. It is enough to say that, in 1628, Rochelle was taken; and the Protestants, who had been induced by their clergy193 to continue to resist long after relief was hopeless, and who, in consequence, had suffered the most dreadful hardships, were obliged to surrender at discretion.194 The privileges of the town were revoked, and its magistrates removed; but the great minister by whom these things were effected, still abstained from that religious persecution to which he was urged.195 He granted to the Protestants the toleration which he had offered at an earlier period, and he formally conceded the free exercise of their public worship.196 But, such was their infatuation, that because he likewise restored the exercise of the Catholic religion, and thus gave to the conquerors the same liberty that he had granted to the conquered, the Protestants murmured at the indulgence; they could not bear the idea that their eyes should be offended by the performance of Popish rites.197 And their indignation waxed so high, that in the next year they, in another part of France, again rose in arms. As, however, they were now stripped of their principal resources, they were easily defeated; and, their existence as a political faction being destroyed, they were, in reference to their religion, treated by Richelieu in the same manner as before.198 To the Protestants generally, he confirmed the privilege of preaching and of performing the other ceremonies of their creed.199 To their leader, Rohan, he granted an amnesty, and, a few years afterwards, employed him in important public services. After this, the hopes of the party were destroyed; they never again rose in arms, nor do we find any mention of them until a much later period, when they were barbarously persecuted by Louis XIV.200 But from all such intolerance Richelieu sedulously abstained; and having now cleared the land from rebellion, he embarked in that vast scheme of foreign policy, of which I have already given some account, and in which he clearly showed that his proceedings against the Protestants had not been caused by hatred of their religious tenets. For, the same party which he attacked at home, he supported abroad. He put down the French Protestants, because they were a turbulent faction that troubled the state, and wished to suppress the exercise of all opinions unfavourable to themselves. But so far from carrying on a crusade against their religion, he, as I have already observed, encouraged it in other countries; and, though a bishop of the Catholic church, he did not hesitate, by treaties, by money, and by force of arms, to support the Protestants against the House of Austria, maintain the Lutherans against the Emperor of Germany, and uphold the Calvinists against the King of Spain.
