BOOKS.

Anisonosi not devoid of a strong national feeling, which in

• the author to ascribe a greater influence to the French Pro wEisete sr/81.par oF TILE FRENCH PROTESTANT tant REFINERS.* Refugees over the peoples among whom they took shelter t aanuuete; strictly accurate, besides occasionally pushing fulness to m ness, this history is a valuable work M Weiss brings to his task - • special research, a varied knowledge, and considerable imparti When we consider the difficulties under which the Hugue ti

were placed at the outset, he may seem to bear a little too d upon their conduct—as Frenchmen, indeed, rather than religi ists ; but his general judgments are sound and moderate, and not .wanting in a subdued indignation when describing the pense- outions to which the Protestants were subject or the political folly of their persecutors. He also explains the causes which in- duced the Government before the time of Louis the Fourteenth to regard them with suspicion, and rendered them unpopular with the masses.

From the appearance of the Huguenots as a powerful body until their reduction by Richelieu at the siege of La Roohelle, the en, .eumstanoes of the times and the necessities of their position created an imperium in imperio quite incompatible with the modern idea of the power of the state. The Protestants garrisoned fortresses, established a sort of militia, and had regular representative bodies, through whom the King communicated to his Protestant subjects. The massacre .of St. Bartholomew and the confusion of the civil ware might render this organization indispensable to the safety of the Huguenots ; the opinion of that age, accustomed to political anomalies, would less object to this independence than our own. Still there was the fact of a powerful political and military organ- ization practically acting with the national -enemies if it thought fit, • and putting its own interpretation on its own allegiance. It is true that, in theory, this organization only related to religions matters ; but secular are in fact so mixed up with religious altitirs, that it is practically impossible to separate them'; nor can armed bodies be met by paper stipulations, when perhaps a disputed construction is the original ground of the quarrel. The historian's picture of their religious and political organization, as confirmed, not created by the edict of Nantes, will convey a clear idea of the difficulty it must have imposed upon a government. "The religious and.politiftl organization of the Calvinists was anterior to the edict of Nantes, which modified it but imperfectly the assembly of Sau- nter gave it its last development, and established, in all reality, a represents- tive.republic in the bosom of the absolute monarchy. "The religious constitution of the Protestants reposed upon the consign- ries, the colloquies, the provincial synods, and the national synods. "Every church formed a consistory—that is to say, a httle democratic council, composed of ministers, deacons, and elders. It met weekly. At its meetings took place the division of the alms collected in the assembly of the faithful. Faults committedby members of the church were denounced, especially those contrary to ecclesiastical discipline. It was investigated whether the guilty persons were deserving of private exhortation or of public excommunication. In case of disobedience, the delinquent was denounced to the colloquy. "The collequies met every three months. They were composed of two deputies from each consistory of a certain district, and they decided the affairs which the first council had been unable to terminate. In them were fired the sumsthat should be sent to Protestants persecuted for religion'a sake, Censure was passed on elders, deacons, aspirants to orders, and minis- ters, who had gone astray from their duties ; and till members of a consistery =who had been guilty of prevarication were-dismissed from -their functions. '143 The provincial synods met once a year. In them each colloquy was ,represented by two deputies, and all the affairs of the province were discussed. Young clergymen who desired promotion to the ministry were examined. The rate of payment of the pastors was fixed according to the amount of the sums received in the general collection made by the consistories. To each parish its minister was assigned, end choice was made of professors of thedlagy. "The general or national synods wale convoked every three 'years ; but political circumstances often prevented their meeting. These assemblies %vre composed of lay and ecclesio&tical deputies from all the provinces of the kingdom. T elected the moderator, or presidepl, by a plurality of voices. They jud -appeals of the provincial-synods. They gale Ilnal decisions in questions Of dogma and disepline, and the statutes they enacted had forms of law in all the churches. .

"The government of the Reformed Church was, it is here seen, amassed entirely upon the representative system ; for it consisted of assemblies subor- dinate one to the other, and all formed by means of election. The cones- tones were subject to the colloquies, the colloquies to the provincial synods, the provincial synods to the national synod. The lowest ranks of this 'hier- archy were in immediate contact with the people. The consistence were com- posed of pastors and elders named by the people, or at least admitted into those assemblies with the people's publicly expressed adhesion. The collo- quies were formed of deputies'nestled by the consistence; the provincial synods, of deputies named by the Colloquies; the national synods, of repre- sentatives designated by the provincial synods. In the hands of a minority which was only too frequently oppressed, such a government had necessarily great vigour. Discipline was maintained as a means of union for all the adhercnts of the Reformed religion, as a means of defence against-a dominant and jealous church. There was mutual observation and watchfulness; and the measures adopted were rapid and 'efficatioue, because they were suscepti- of being carried into instant execution, and always conformable to the general interest of the party. • * 'The political constitution of the Protestants was, like their religious constitution, democratic and representative. Its bases were provincial coun- cils, circular assemblies, and general assemblies. "The provincial councils were composed of the notables of each province, `charged to watch over the maintenance of the rights and privileges granted to the party. They looked into complaints preferred by those of their reli- gion, and transmitted their succinct exposition to the deputies-general charged to obtain from the Xing ,redress of their grievances. The provinoisl • History of the,Erench Protestant Refugees, from the Revocation of the Edict Of Nantes to the present time. By Charles Weiss, Professor of History at the Ityciie -Buopaparte. Translated, with the assistance of the Author, by Frederick Hardman. Published by Blackwood-and Sons.

ncils were anterior to the assembly of Saumur ; but their regular meet- g dated only from that epoch, and eubsisted, notwithstanding the opposi- Li n of the Court, until the taking of La Rochelle. The circles established

b that assembly in 1611, on the model of theme of Germany, were each posed of several provinces. The name of circular assembly was given to meeting of the delegates from the provincial councils. Any province of circle had a right to convoke it when danger menaced one or several es, or the generality of the churches of France and Hearn. Did the ger become too pressing, the assemblage of circles, intruding upon the Ps al prerogative, took uponitself to convoke a general political assembly. ,The general assemblies were _held in a somewhat irregular manner. T ey were preceded, and sometimes succeeded, by provincial political as- - bliss. In the first case, these nailed the deputies of the future general assembly, and digested the documents that were to be subriiitted to its deli- none. .1n the 1:1401111a CAI; they .received •ft report OA the 'decisions adopted. The edict of Nantes • permitted these general aseembliee, but on ,the express mndition that they should be authorized by the King. Without such authorization they lost their legal character, and were held to be sedi- tious. From-the promulgation of Henry PV:s edict to 1629, nine general assemblies. took place. ,,:ln principle, the -general -aasetablies had but one well-defined object— it was the election of the deputies-general, and subsequently, the designation of six candidate to the general deputation, from which the _King selected two commismoners of the Reformed religion to be present near his person in the interval between the sessions ; but in feet their functions extended to all things that concerned the party. As long as Henry IV. lived, they did not overstep the restricted circle allotted to them; but under the reign of

XLII. they constituted themselves sovereign assemblies—following the example of the Dutch States-General—and provoked disturbances and rebellion.

,,Such was the formidable organization given to the Protestant party by the assembly of Saumur, and which subsisted until the taking of La .Rochelle."

The religious war of Richelieu was directed to the overthrow of -the secular power of the Huguenots. When he had accomplished that object, the great Cardinal respected their religious privileges, and in fact secured them full toleration. The cause of Louis the Fourteenth'sravecation of the edict of Nantes is not very easily explained. Rilligious motives or 'ecclesiastical influence operating upon an exhausted mind and body could not have caused it; for _Louis was at that time in the very prime of life, and not over scrupulous in .dealing with the Pope when his own objects were in question. Besides, he had changed his original policy of moderation in early manhood, twenty years before the final revo- cation. M. Weiss discards the religious theory : indeed, Louis at that time hated the Illtramontane party a great deal more than he did the Huguenots. In .1672, when he was scheming the sub- jugation of the United Provinces, he made the.heresy of the Dutch a reasonfor their intended overthrow: but that was thirteen years 'before hival revocation. It is probable, as M. Weiss seems to think, thatilie overweening pride of the despot—brooking no op- position even in a matter of opinion—was at the bottom of the whole affair. Though hardly to be apprehended by our age even with :the example of the Emperor of Russia before'us, the great creations of the Elizabethan poets have realizedthe blindness, vast- ness, and hardness of this passion, and.the lengths to which, as in the case of Pharoah, it would go. " Th' enormous faith of many made for one " rendered such wholesale persecution and cruelty possible in the age which believed the doctrine 'of divine right. In fact, the revocation and the previous preparations for it were popular in France. Religious ignorance and its concomitant . bigotry were gratified ; debtors got a ready way of paying their debts or postponing payment, by the obstaelesapposed to Protest- ant creditors. Cupidity, jealousy, envy, were 'delighted at the downfall of a prosperity which they were too lazy and unenter- prising to share. It was Protestant industry that created the manufactures and almost the foreign trade of Franca; while it -greatly improved its agriculture.

"Itiehelidefe Edict of Pardon was, for the Protestants, the inauguration of anew sera. Deprived of their places of refuge, and of their political organi- zation, gradually excluded from court employments and from almost all civil poets, it WAS fortunately impossible for them to impoverish themselves by luxury and idleness.. Compelled to apply themselves to agriculture, trade, and manufactitres; they abundantly compensated themselves for the former restnunta. The vast plains they possessed in Beath and the Western pro- .vinoes were covered with rich harvests. In 'Languedoc, the cantons peo- Ided!by them became the beet cultivated and the most fertile, often in spite oil the badness of the soil. Thanks to their indefatigable labour, this province, so4eng devastated by civil war, arose from its ruins. In the mountainous dideese of Alais, which includes the lower Cevennes, the chestnut-tree fumnshed the inhabitants with a ready-made bread, which those pious people collected to the manna with which God satisfied the Israelites in the desert.. Thb Algoal and the Esperou, the most elevated of that chain of mountains, were covered with forests and pastures, in which their flocks grazed. On the Esperou was remarked a plain enamelled with flowers, and abounding in springs of water, which maintained a fresh vegetation during the summers most ardent heat. The inhabitants called it the Hurt-Lion, that is to say, the Garden of God. That part of the Vivarais designated Montagne pro- daced_eorn in such great abundance that it exceeded the wants of the con- sumers. The diocese of Uzes also yielded corn in abundance, and exquisite oil and wine. In the diocese of Nismes, the valley of Vaunage was celebrated -for -the richness of its etation. The Protestants, who _possessed within sixty its limits more than temples, called it Little ;Canaan. The skilful vine-dressers of Berri restored its former prosperity to that district. Those of the Pays Messin became the elite of the population of more than twenty- five villages ; the gardeners of the same province brought their art to a degree -of perfection previously unknown. "The Protestants who dwelt in towns devoted themselves to manufactures and trade, and displayed an activity, an intelligence, and at the.sexpetime an integrity, which perhaps have never been surpassed in any country. In Gateau°, they took possession of almost the whole of the wine-trade ; in the two- governments of Brouage and Oleron, a dozen Protestant families had the raanopoly.of the trade in salt and wine, which annually amounted to from 1,200,000 to 1,00,000 livree. At Sancerre, by their persevering industry, andhy the spirit of order that animated them, the Protestants became as was aduiltted by the intendant, superior to the, Catholics in numbers, _wealth, and consideration. In the gilneralite of Aleneon, almost all the In* parted through the him& of about four thousand Protestants. Those

of Rouen attracted to their town a host of wealthy foreigners, especially Huta, to the great benefit of the country."

X. Weiss enters at length into the particular manufactures im- proved or created by the Protestants; but one must suffice for us.

"The beautiful paper-manufactures in Auvergne and the Angourmis were also in their hands. They had mills at Ambeit, at Thiers, at Chamalieree, near Clermont. Those at Ambert produced the best paper in 'Europe. The best printing of Paris, Amsterdam, and London, was done upon the Am- bed paper. This manufacture an rted a great number of :families, and brought in every year more than ,000 crowns. The manufactures of the Angounwis were not less flourishing and famous. Six hundred.miUs were at work in that province, and its papers rivalled those of Auvergne. The Dutch and English took immense nuantities of them, as well for their own use as for that of other countries in the North of Europe. In -the generalite of Bordeau.i, the canton of Casteljaloux, which was almost en- tirely peopled by Protestants, also possessed several paper-mills, Whose products were expected for the use of the Dutch printers."

The well-grounded prospect of becoming the principal manufac- turing country of Europe, which France possessed nearly two cen- turies ago, was destroyed by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. For this the genuine bigots would care nothing. .The mass of the people would not be able to understand it. The King probably slid not comprehend the full consequences of his conduct. Part he saw, and tried to prevent, by forbidding the emigration of laymen; but he could not stop the natural results of his cruelty and breach of faith. The most educated, industrious, and enterprising in- habitants of- France, foreoek her, earrying with them their know- ledge, their skill, their business habits, and as much of their capi- tal as they could realize. )rany of them also took with them a _deep hatred towards the _Monarch, which they manifested in sot by bearing arms against him.

The volume before us contains a rapid sketch of the history of the Huguenots in France from the development of their power till 'their final expatriation. The main object of the historian is to trace their,fortunes in the countries wherein they took refuge ; in Eng- land, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the I■Terth of Europe, and America. That task is executed with great pains, and after much research among the archives of the Refugees, but at a length which will have more attraction to those who from any cause may take a special interest in the subject, than for the general public. As has already been observed, an allowable national feeling is ex- hibited in the disposition to make the most of the influence of the Refugees in the countries wherein they settled ; not only in com- merce and manufactures, in which undoubtedly they were as greatly beneficial to the land of their adoption as injurious to France, but in arms, in letters, and the humanities in general. In this exposition the reader will find a good deal of new and curious information respecting an event whose results have been popularly talked about though very little known in their detaile. He will also be introduced to a variety of celebrities, some of whom he will hear of for the first time.

In America, Switzerland, parts of Germany, Russia, and the Northern kingdoms, the influence of the Refugees was alight and local, though in America and Denmark particular men might rise to distinction. In England, Holland, and Prussia, the effects were considerable, but not so great as our author estimates, and more by amalgamation than by independent operation. Owing to the policy of the Elector of Brandenburg and his-son the first King of Prussia, as well as to the disastrous effects of the German wars.of the seventeenth century, the direct improvement was greatest in Prussia. War had destroyed industry., left parts of the country _nearly void; and, independently of religious fe!..., the ruling sovereigns had the sagacity to see the benefits that would flow from encouraging a skilful .and industrious people. Some of the grants present a terrible picture of the ravages of war in -Germany.

It is remarkable that the least numerous bodies have preserved their national charaoter the longest. In Russia there is a remote colciny of Refugees that still wear the costume and speak the French of the time of Louis the Fourteenth.. In the more densely peopled

'countries, the greater millibars of tlanFreneh halm preserved Bei- " ther race, inieridine, nor limping*, nor the particular form of faith I.for which their ancestors suffered. Here is the result in England. . "Until the end of the reign of Louie XV. the descendants of the Refugees continued thus to succour those French Protestants wham religious intole- 1 ranee accumulated in galleys and prisons. But towards the end of the

eighteenth century they themselves became entire strangers 4he land il

abandoned by their ancestors, and did but vaguely call it to ! d. Gra- dually absorbed in the nation that welcomed them, they had ceased to be French. The transformation was slow, but continual and inevitable. Its progress may be traced in the successive disappearance of the churches founded at the beginning of the Refuge. In the reigns of James II. and 'William III, there were thirty-one of these in London. In 1731, they were already reduced to twenty, but these were crowded. Nine were closed between 1731 and 1782. Of the eleven that remained at the latter date, se- veral approached their end, and subsisted only by aid from without. At the :present day their nuither is reduced to two ; and soon, doubtlesa, the church of St. Martin's4e-Grand, heir to that' of Threadneedle Street, instituted by 'Edward VI., will alone assemble, for the celebration of Calvinist worship, the last remnant of the Refuge. In the course of the eighteenth century, the churches founded in the English provincial towns almost all adopted the Anglican liturgy, and the French tongue and the Reformed ritual disappeared together. The same was the case in Edinburgh, Dublin, and in the other colonies formed in Scotland and Ireland i by the Refugees. Although there is

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no longer any French service performed n Dublin, that city still _possesses two consistorms holding funds proceeding from the liberality of their found- ers. The interest of this capital is applied to the relief of poor Protestants of French origin. It is not very long since a pension was still paid to the daughter of the last French pastor. The colony of Portarlington remained lengeettrue to-the customs and language of their ancestors. It was only in 1817 that English was substituted, in the celebration of divine worship, for the old French of Louis XIV:s time, which had been preserved in singular -ptuity up to that date. "A fortelliiiis etrejniestakeiradechetelatitlre*Miliiinctinent Oftheiiitle7.1 teenth Ceitint, thte definitive anialOtha taP tile &agenda:Ms- of- the- Refu. gees with--thel English: The 'Serve wars t*hepulis,d%be 4:m44m:dal • havingrevived.the old hatred between Femme isnd ngleud, e, deseenffants systeM,:land.the loug ..etruggle which leetedotill o mid tthe Rippire, of t whose interests were complfitely Elentified wit those -tit the ivenld no 'longer-wren their omit.' “lifloat'af thend changed' their nanies, by transfating them into English; • r. The Lemititres icallediheraselvea Maskers.; the Lerelq.,:liing ; the Tonneliers,. r/oeper.; the:Lekrunes, lretuifl the _Leblance, White ;. the Lenoir; Dirk; the Loiseaus,. -Bird. Thence- forward' the French colony in London no longer existed.' At the present day the only vestige of it that remains is in the Spitaltields-diatriet, where a few .bousand artimtis, for the most part poor, still betray their origin less by their language than by their costume, which bears some resemblance to thatiof the corresponding class in. Louis XIV.'s time: The architecture of the houses they inhabit resembles that of the workmen of Lille, Amiens, and the ether manufacturing towns of Picardy. The custom of working in ,eel. lars, or in glazed garrets, is also berroned frem their original country. The aged , members of this artisan colony remember, that in their youth' the children amused themselves with games derived from France and unknown to the childrenof the indigenous families. To this day the English rgeog- nize,thedescendants of the Refugees by the vivacity of their character, and by certain phrases peculiar to then]. 'Although they consider (Lent their tenon- citizens, they are apt to reproach- them with levity and frivolity, and with no,t observing the Sabbath with sufficient strictness. The Elpitalfields wortnien there:selves-seem to have little recollection of their foreign origin. Nevertheless, in their old age, they frequently elaim the right. of ending their days in the French hospital, Which they call their Frovideuce."

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