As, however, these proved insufficient to the attain- ment of the desired end, and the law still guaranteed the legal existence of the as j-et unconverted Protes- tants, more vigorous steps were taken prior to the final one in the direction of annoyance and severitj'. With- out, therefore, revoking the existing law, it was sub- verted by new edicts of the most vexatious and harass- ing character. Many of these may be found detailed under the article Hugufcxots.
There was, however, another form of operation in this effort of exterminating Protestantism by conversion. Human wickedness, in this effort, found out the way to commit a new crime. This new crime, unique and pre- eminent in the achievements of malicious ingenuity, had to be described by a new name, and the world thus heard for the first time of the Dragonnade — the dra- gooning of people out of one religion into another. The process was that of quartering soldiers — Romanists, of course, the bigotrj' of the Romanist being combined with the brutality of the soldier — in the families and houses of Protestants. The commanders were instruct- ed to quarter them on Protestant families, and to keep them there until the families were brought over to the Catholic faith, and then to transfer them to others of the same character and for the same object. As the army employed for this purpose was a large one, so whole districts at once were subjected to this intolerable annoyance and oppression. Multitudes, of course, yield- ed ; and where they subsequently recanted their act of weakness, they became subject to banishment and con- fiscation. The suffering involved may be more easily imagined than described. " The dragoons," says one who passed through it, "fixed their crosses to their musquetoons, so as the more readily to compel their hosts to kiss them ; and if the kiss was not given, they drove the crosses against their stomachs and faces. They had as little mercy for the children as for the adults, beating them with these crosses or with the flats of their swords, so violently as not seldom to maim them. The wretches also subjected the women to their barbarities: they whipped them, they disfigured them, they dragged them by the hair through the mud or along the stones. Sometimes they would seize the la- borers on the highway, or when following their carts, and drive them to the Romish churches, pricking them like oxen with their own goads to quicken their pace."
LOUIS XIV
628
LOUVARD
If, ill any case, these outrages were resisted, and there was anything like a Protestant gathering, the result was a massacre. The mere collection of such population, to indicate that they were not all carried over to the na- tional Church, was thus treated. "L'pon the assumption, therefore, that these agencies, after having operated for four or live j'ears, had accomplished their intended pur- pose ; that Protestantism, to any calculable degree, had ceased to exist, in 1G85 the Edict of Nantes, as no longer of any use or necessity, was abrogated. To proclaim the falsehood and cruelty of this pretence, and the pro- ceedings based upon it, they were followed b}' enact- ments against the non-existent Protestantism (see vol. iv, p. 396, col. 1). The only privilege left to the Prot- estants was the permission of enjoj'ing their religion in private. The non-intent of this concession was best exhibited bj^ the declaration of an ordinance of Louis himself thirty years later (1715), " that every man who had continued to reside in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1G85 had given conclusive proof that he was a Catholic, because only as a Catholic he would have been allowed to dwell there, and, there- fore, if any man persisted in Protestantism, he must be treated as a relajjsed heretic. In other words, if such a one emigrated in 1685 as a Protestant, he was con- demned to the galleys. If he did not, he was regarded as a Catholic, and at any subsequent period could be proceeded against for his Protestantism as a relapsed Catholic."
Within five months after his ordinance against Prot- estants just mentioned the career of Louis terminated. To use the language of another, " He was an intirm and aged man. He had survived his children and his grandchildren. He had been overwhelmed by the vic- tories of Eugene and Marlborough. He was oppressed with debt. He was hated I)}' the people who had idol- ized him, and was compelled to listen to the indig- nant invectives which the whole civilized world poured forth against his blind and inhuman persecutions. He died declaring to his spiritual advisers that, being him- self ignorant of ecclesiastical questions, he had acted un- der their guidance and as their agent in all that he had done against either the Jansenists or the Protestant heretics, and on those his spiritual advisers he devolved the responsibility to the Supreme Judge." There can be no question that in many cases the persecuting policy of Louis was quickened by the influence of Madame de Maintenon and her ecclesiastical advisers; that in many cases his subordinate agents pursued courses of outrage and cruelty exceeding his intentions; that such men as Bossuet, Arnauld, Flechier, and the whole Galilean Church, in approving this policy, identified themselves with it in its guilt and in its consequences; but, after all, it was essentially his policy. It was the carrying out in ecclesiastical the autocratic principle enunciated with reference to civil matters. The concentration of all power in the hands of the sovereign required that he should lie not only the State, but the Church.