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It was not, therefore, difficult to bring about, for the moment, a union with the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans, as its object was to keep down their detested rivals. At dawn of day an army was opposed to the Calvinists which was far superior in force to their own.
Still harsher measures were adopted; and the climax came in 1685 with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, following on the "dragonnades" in Alsace. Protestantism was proscribed. The effect was not the forcible conversion of the Calvinists. but their wholesale emigration; the transfer to foreign states of an admirable industrial and military population.
And the day was to come, too, when the Calvinists, regaining ascendency in their turn, were to hunt the heterodox as they had themselves been hunted; and this, at the very moment when their fellow Calvinists of England were driven by the Church of that kingdom into the American wilderness. Toleration that intolerable term of insult to all who love liberty had not yet been discovered.
The Roman Controversialists of the seventeenth century used to go further still, and boldly assert that to leave Rome was to go to Socinianism; and the Calvinists, on their side, would sometimes argue that 'Arminianism was a shoeing horn to draw on Socinianism. A great number of the Unitarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were themselves scarcely distinguishable from the orthodox.
Relations of the Republic to France Queen's Severity towards Catholics and Calvinists Relative Positions of England and France Timidity of Germany Apathy of Protestant Germany Indignation of the Netherlanders Henry III. of France The King and his Minions Henry of Guise Henry of Navarre Power of France Embassy of the States to France Ignominious position of the Envoys Views of the French Huguenots Efforts to procure Annexation Success of Des Pruneaux.
The Grottes de Meschers are said to have been used by the Huguenots at a time when it was perilous to assemble in a house for preaching or psalm-singing. But it is also quite possible that they served as refuges as well to the Catholics, when the Calvinists had the upper hand; as, indeed, they had for long.
Far from evincing a tolerant spirit towards the Roman Catholics, when it was in their power, they even oppressed the Calvinists; who indeed just as little deserved toleration, since they were unwilling to practise it. For such a peace the times were not yet ripe the minds of men not yet sufficiently enlightened. How could one party expect from another what itself was incapable of performing?
The good Cardinal received the Pope's applause for his energy in this matter, and I doubt not his hand fell heavily on the Calvinists. Of the Duke who died so young, the Venetian ambassador thought it worth while to write what I think it worth while to quote, as illustrating the desire of the Senate to have careful knowledge of its neighbors: "He is a boy of melancholy complexion.
"There are conclusions," says Grotius, in a letter written by him in the same year, "in the canons of the Synod of Dort, of which, if good Melancthon were again to make his appearance, he would express his disapprobation, and with which Bullinger would be no less grieved; there are others, which alienate all the Lutherans from the Calvinists; although amity and concord are desirable between them and us at this juncture.
Thousands and thousands collect together, a dreadful rush is made to the Meer Bridge. We are betrayed! we are prisoners! is the general cry. Destruction to the papists, death to him who has betrayed us! a sullen murmur, portentous of a revolt, runs through the multitude. They begin to suspect that all that has taken place has been set on foot by the Roman Catholics to destroy the Calvinists.
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