ceeded, the protestants alone were the vic tims. The assailants were discriminate in their choice; and the selection of the professors of the protestant faith evidently indicated that it was an organised religious per secution. The silence and inaction of the protestant powers led to the disbelief of such violence arising from such a cause; but diplomacy is observant of etiquette, and interference with the internal government might have been deemed an humiliation of royal authority. The foreign troops were also too much occupied in skirmishes, and sieges, and in re-forming the museum, to heed disturbances in the departments: no French army existed. It was awaiting its dissolution in its retreat behind the Loire. A thousand reasons occurred at that moment against any interference of authority to put a stop to these horrible outrages.

The French government, and the French people, were at that period too much occupied in the great European catastrophe that had just taken place, to bestow much attention on what they considered provincial party disputes. Catholics and protestants were names almost unknown at Paris. The Parisians, in their invectives against the protestant allies, exhausted the vocabulary of all ill-sounding epithets, on what they deemed the most nefarious of all measures, the taking their pictures; but never thought of applying to them the offensive terms of Heretic or Hugonot. Royalist and BuonaRoyalist and Buonapartist were well understood by the Parisians, and conveyed some meaning; but a contest about catholicism, and protestantism, was a subject which met with no sympathy, and about which, had they understood the nature of the contest, they would have given themselves but little concern. Their interest in affairs of religion is awakened only on some great public event. Their wrath had indeed been kindled against the piety of the court, because it had ordained a more externally strict observance of the sabbath: their ridicule had been excited by the religious processions of the Fête Dieu, and their indignation was so strongly manifested against the catholic clergy, on their refusal of canoni cal interment to an actress, that they forced the doors of the church, with the dead body,

and proceeded to chaunt the requiem themselves.

But although the affairs of another world interest little the Parisian, who is so much occupied with the present, the provincial has more leisure, and less indifference on this subject.

In remote provinces, where life glides on more calmly, and where the great events of the present times are only known by the newspapers of the capital, the inhabitant has time to ponder over the historical records of his province, and the traditions of the country around him.

No part of France has been more fertile in those traditions than that of Lower Languedoc. Protestantisin had been spread through many provinces of France in a greater or less degree, but the south was its principal abode, and Nismes had been called the protestant Rome. The word protestantism cannot, however, be strictly applied to this description of dissenters from the catholic church. It belongs rather to the Lutherans, the inhabitants of Saxony, and other parts of Germany. Those dissenters were named, in the persecuting state edicts of Louis XVI., pro-` fessors of the R. P. R. the religion pretendedly reformed; and by the court of Louis XIV. heretics, and Hugonots. The_name by which they called themselves, and were justly denominated by their friends, was simply that of Calvinists. Among them the heresies of the protestant world have made no inroads, Bengelins may have raised doubts on certain interpolated texts in protestant Germany; Eichorn, with his vast erudition, may have rendered the Hebrew Scriptures more intelligible; and Wetstein, with his unwearied industry, have collected manuscripts, and discovered ten, instead of four thousand various readings in the writings of the apostles. Pious teachers and learned professors may have confirmed the faith of their followers, by enlightening their reason, and led to a fuller belief in the holy oracles by a more satisfactory interpretation, after exploring the fountain itself of heavenly knowledge.

On his brethren of this inquisitive temper, the steady religionist of the south looks with charitable wonder. The Calvinist, whose

faith was fixed upwards of three centuries since, by the apostle of Geneva, adheres with scrupulous fidelity to all that was then taught by that great leader. At this sort of progressive religion among his protestant brethren the Calvinist stands in sullen amaze, astonished that erudition can be so misapplied, as to be made the instrument of amending what the illustrious reformer had handed down to future times as perfect.

The light which of late years has risen over the holy city, the cradle of the reformation, instead of being hailed as the star in the east, was regarded by those Calvinists only as a misleading meteor. From this venerable mother of their faith their filial eyes were averted, when they beheld her, if not arrayed in gold and scarlet, and the trappings of her Babylon, glorying at least in the tinsel of heathenish learning, applied to the examination of the sacred text, and indulging in that philosophy of the Greeks, which the Calvinist deems stumbling blocks and foolishness. So unwavering in their adherence to the doctrines of the Genevan apostle have been these faithful professors of the south, that they had escaped the dreadful accusation brought against them by the catholic clergy, in their last conversation and address to Louis XVI. when they asserted, that the church of Geneva had ceased to be a member of the christian church, since it had taught the disbelief of what they held to be its great corner-stone, and in which all other churches, whatever be their other heresies, were agreed. The steady faith of the protestants of the south had therefore never strayed from that called the doctrine of the reformation. They might have mistaken the nature of that great event; they might have reasoned amiss; they might have erred by resting in the infallibility of the opinions of him who was the founder of their faith, and precluding themselves from all further examination; but they have at all times supported the distinguished character they bore in the community, for the practice of every public virtue, and as a people zealous of good works.

What then were the crimes which have drawn down on the heads of those respectable Calvinists the persecution of which they have

been of late the victims? Crimes! Their foulest enemies bring none to their charge One leading cause of this persecution dates from far: it is a renovation of that old spirit of fanaticism, which once infected even the court; and which, driven from the powerful and the great, now sought for refuge in the lowest of the multitude.

It is with governments as with individuals a bad principle or an evil action has consequences which extend beyond the reach of those who instil the first, or commit the latter. When Louis XIV. began the persecution of the protestants of France, and which brought on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, when fanaticism was let loose with all its horrors, that monarch, alternately the puppet of love and devotion, saw none of the evils that awaited his country, when thus deprived of various sources of its wealth.-But still less did he foresee the greatest cala. mity attending those measures, in the perpetuity of that infernal spirit of persecution transmitted to future generations.

Louis XIV. half repented when it was too late: we are told by his apologists, that when he let loose his ministers of vengeance, he gave them orders to be merciful, humane, and christian-hearted. The actions of those ministers and priests, clothed in royal and celestial authority, may be obscure in history, but their persecuting principles and doctrines have outlived their memory.

When persecution is enjoined by power, and killing, to do God a service, is inculcated by the priest, let us not wonder that such a hideous doctrine has found adherents. In our own enlightened times have we not seen Frenchmen taught to believe, that violence and conquest were other names for glory?

Such are the consequences of demoralizing a people by the false principles laid down by their rulers. The persecutions of the protestants had become legal acts of the state. Louis and his ministers disappeared; but the laws they enacted remained in all their force, and the sufferings of the protestants were extreme. Pious families, shrouded by the night, bent their way, amidst darkness and danger, towards the spot assigned for their religious ceremonies; a dark-lantern guiding their perilous steps. Arrived at their temple

amidst the rocks, two walking-sticks hastily stuck in the ground, and covered with a black silk apron of the female auditors, formed what was called the pulpit of the desart. To such an assembly how eloquent must have appeared the lessons of that preacher who braved death at every word he uttered! how impressive must have been that divine service, the attending of which incurred the penalty of fetters for life!--These were the glorious days of protestantism in France; these were her proudest triumphs: she could then boast of votaries, of whom the world was not worthy; her martyrs then bore testimony to their faith at the fatal tree, or were chained for life to the oar of the galleys; and women, with the same noble feelings in the same sacred cause, shrunk not from perpetual imprisonment in the gloomy tower that overhangs the shores of the Mediterranean.

The revolution took place, fraught with all happy omens for the protestants. They cast their eyes back on the iron bondage of the past, on the edicts of the last hundred years against their fathers, and blessed the dawn of religious liberty. Yet, during the constituent assembly, how many hesitations, exceptions, and discussions, took place on the subject of the protestants! It was with some difficulty, notwithstanding the proud promulgation of equal rights, and equal laws, that they obtained the privilege of being tolcrated. Rabaut St. Ethienne fought against the Abbé Maury, under the shield of Mirabeau, who exclaimed," that he knew nothing more intolerable than toleration."

The protestants were now tolerated in the public exercise of their worship, and enjoyed their civic rights, but they received no portion of what was allotted to the ministers of religion by the government; to whom, on the contrary, they paid an annual tribute for the hire of the churches in which they officiated. Their state was that of temporary tranquillity-but it was not confirmed repose. Amidst the Saturnalian governments that followed the fall of the monarchy, religion and the priesthood were little respected. The clergy among the catholics were not deprived of their livings; but, as they were no longer paid by the government, their tem

poral state became worse than that of the protestant ministry, who continued to be supported by their respective congregations.

The cause of religion had been so mangled by the worshippers of the goddess of reason, the professors of theophilanthropism, and other kinds of vagabond divinities, and strange doctrines, that the constitutional catholic clergy began to feel the necessity of some effective means for the preservation of any faith; the most singular of which was, that of a wish to strengthen their cause by a junction with the protestant church. The result of the famous colloque of Poissy afforded no great hopes that such an union could take place. In the discussions of a protestant minister with the archbishop of his diocese, various points, in which both communions agreed, had been laid down as the basis of union. The constitutional and antipapistical fathers of this council met in Paris; most of whom were then the luminaries of the Gallican church. Their debates were liberal, and their decisions, for the greater part, conceived in the spirit of enlarged religion and charity. The union of the catholic and protestant communions also occupied their attention. But it was not deenied prudent to commit the dignity of the council, by an official communication with the chiefs of the French protestant church. An Englishman, who was well known to some of the bishops of one church, and to the pastors of the other, was invited to a conference on the subject. The groundwork of conciliation was the topic. The English protestant, after some discussion on various articles, proposed the Scriptures, to which the catholics assented. But what translation? The catholics were strenuous for that authorised by the church. The protestant alleged several textual facts against this infallibility of translation, and proposed the authority of the earliest manuscripts of the Scriptures in the national library. The conference was adjourned.

Rome was alarmed at the meeting of an unauthorised council, where hostility against ultramontane policy was so avowed. The alliance of the pope and Buonaparte was an affair of more facility than that of the catholic and protestant church. This alliance

took place, and ended in the famous concordat.

Whatever might have been the advantages to the pope, the church, or Buonaparte, from this compact, the protestants completely gained their cause. It was no longer the persecuted, or the tolerated sect. They were at once enthroned in rights equal to those of the catholic church, and became alike the objects of imperial favour.

The impolitie conduct of Buonaparte against the catholic church, in the person of its chief, operated greatly in favour of its cause, and of course was injurious to that of the protestants, particularly to those of the south, in whose provinces the banished cardinals remained in a state of surveillance.

The royal family of France returned. By some oversight in the king's charter there was mention of a state-religion, and the protestants consequently were obliged to sink back to toleration.

In protestant countries, where religious liberty may be better defined, or at least better understood, such an article as that of a state religion would have been deemed, by dissidents, the substitute of forbearance for a right there are men who view remote consequences in an unsound principle, and, as was said of the American lawyers in the first period of their revolution, "who sent tyranny in every tainted breeze." tainted breeze." Of such sagacity the French protestants were perfectly innocent. The charter had been less favourable with respect to their religious rights than the concordat; but they were justly satisfied in believing, that their religion could never have been safer, under a ruler indifferent to every system of faith, than under the protection of a pious and philosophical prince. Secure in the virtues of the monarch, and the lights and philosophy of the present times, they little dreamt that they should ever become again the objects of religious persecution.

But the lights of the present times had illuminated but partially the department of the Gard. Driven from almost every other part of France, there was a power which pays no regard to laws, and which cares still less for lights or philosophy, that hovered over this province, gloomily retired like the

bird of night, but waiting a propitious mo ment to fit abroad, and pounce upon its prey. This power was fanaticism.

The catholic inhabitants of the south had learned, from the highest authorities in the state, down to the middle of the last century, that heresy was the most dangerous of crimes, of which an immense body of the most respectable and industrious of their fellow-citizens were attainted. They had long beheld those whom the civil power, and the church, had stigmatised with the foul offences of Hugonotism, delivered over to military exe cution in this world, and to eternal reprobation in the next; and as no doubt could be entertained of the flagitiousness of their crime, so none could arise of the justice of its punishment,

The persecutions inflicted on the pro testants during a long lapse of time, and which were continued in a greater or less degree to our own days, while they exercised their patience, and strengthened their courage and their faith, confirmed the hatred of the lower classes of the catholics; who could not believe that the anathemas of their own holy and infallible church, once pronounced, were subject to the fluctuation of state politics, or of revolutions; but that the continuance of the guilt of protestantism required the continuation of its punishment, as soon as the opportunity should offerThere was another charge laid against the protestants, which, though of a more worldly nature, had not failed to procure them ene mies of a higher rank. The protestants were the wealthiest subjects of the community, because they were the most industrious; and their riches naturally excited the envy and cupidity of their neighbours; who, without absolving them from their fate in the next world, could not but envy them their prosperity in the present.

This hostile disposition was not unknown to the protestants: the iniquitous spirit had been transmitted in the race of the fanatical multitude, who were not prudent in thei abhorrence, nor were their projects of vengeance breathed silently. Their menaces, sometimes uttered in the patois of Languedoc, had lately met the ear of the protest. ants; and that of sending back the Hugonots

to the desart, seemed to be the most preva lent, since it was that state of humiliation, which was best known or remembered.

It might have been hoped, that the conduct which the protestants had observed since that glorious epocha which confirmed to them their religious rights, would have disarmed the most rigorous of their foes. They had shewed no exultation in the victory they had obtained; their joy had been confined to their own bosoms, or breathed in secret thanksgivings. The blessings of the revolution had not been perverted by them to any private advantage; they had not been forward to solicit the honours, but had always cheerfully borne their share in the burdens and charges of the state.

But no conduct, however void of offence, can disarm the malignant passions. The tranquillity enjoyed by France, during a few months after the first return of the king, presented no means to the fanatics of gratifying their rage, except by menaces. These menaces alarmed those who were the objects of them no further than as indications of hostile dispositions; but some pastors of the south, who visited Paris during that winter, asserted, that if any public event should take place, the catholics would not fail to pervert it to mischief against the protestants.

They were then far indeed from any conjecture that the disastrous event of the landing of Buonaparte on the coast of Provence was so near. He glided rapidly by the southern provinces, and established himself at Lyons. His presence affected the protestants in no other manner than as it affected all other Frenchmen. His cause was tried at Waterloo; and that battle, the most memorable of modern times, not only from the splendour of military genius it exhibited, and the heroic feats of valour it displayed, but from the mighty consequences which were the result of that immortal day, again placed Louis XVIII. on the throne of France.

Amidst the most important changes in the state, the expulsion of Buonaparte, the surrender of Paris, and the retreat of the French army across the Loire, many partial disorders took place in various parts of France In some provinces the Buonapartist

faction seemed determined not to fall without a struggle; and, in others, the royalist party forgot all moderation in their triumph. Partial insurrections were formed, and various outrages committed at Marseilles, Montpellier, Toulouse, Avignon; and the disor ders of Nismes were long believed at Paris to have the same source, and to be no other than the last convulsion of political contests.

But it was at length recognised that, when the troubles which had prevailed in other provinces were hushed into peace, the department of the Gard was still the scene of viclence and horror. It was found that some evil of a darker hue, and more portentous meaning, than the desultory warfare of political parties, hung over the devoted city of Nismes. A fanatical multitude, breathing traditionary hatred, was let loose:-the cry of "Down with the Hugonists!" resounded through the streets. Massacre and pillage prevailed; but protestants alone were the victims. The national guard of Nismes, composed of its most respectable citizens, had been dissolved, and a new enrolment of six times the number had taken place, and in which many of the fanatics had found admission. Here, and here only, by some cruel fatality, the national guard betrayed its trust, and abandoned its noble function of protecting its fellow citizens. In vain the unhappy protestants invoked its aid; no arm was stretched out to shelter, or to save them!-their property was devastated without resistance, and their murderers were undisturbed. The government caught the alarm-the complaints of the protestants assailed its ear, and general La Garde was sent to Nismes to command the military force of the department, and protect the protestants.

On his arrival at Nismes, general La Garde ordered the temples to be opened, which was announced to the public at eight o'clock on the Sunday morning. The summons was obeyed with alacrity by the protestants.— They had long been deprived of the consolation of assembling together, and they felt with the psalmist, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts !!!"

The church was crowded, but the congre gation was almost entirely composed of the higher order of citizens; who perhaps felt