Chapter XXIX: Book V (2)

M. Martin, the president of the consistory of Geneva, which was then a French town, presented his homage to the emperor in the name of his colleagues and of all the Protestants. The answer of Napoleon deserves to be remembered in history: “It is with pleasure that I see the pastors of the Reformed churches of France here assembled. I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to express how much I have always been satisfied with everything that has been told me of the fidelity and good conduct of the pastors and citizens of the different Protestant communions. I am desirous it should be known that my intention and my firm will are to maintain freedom of worship. The empire of the law ends where the indefinite empire of the conscience begins; and neither the law nor the sovereign can prevail against this freedom. Such are my principles and those of the nation, and if any member of my family, whose lot it may be to succeed me, should forget the oath I have sworn, and, deceived by the inspiration of a false conscience, should violate it, I devote him to public animadversion, and I authorize you to style him a Nero.”

The emperor kept his promise faithfully. There was no persecution against the Protestants during his reign; [they suffered] no violence of any kind against their civil or religious rights; [they enjoyed] a full and continued security. But it was an internal liberty confined within the walls of the places of worship. There was a strict prohibition against any disturbance, or any movement in religious matters. Neither journals nor associations, neither controversy nor proselytism were permitted; and if by any act or thought it was ventured to pass beyond the precincts wherein they were restrained, the iron hand of Napoleon immediately drove them back.

We have heard it said that a (Roman) Catholic village having formed the design of entering the Reformed communion, a pastor, conceiving that he had the right of doing so, visited it for the purpose; but he immediately found himself confronted by the imperial government, which ordered him to return home and remain quiet. The pastor was compelled to submit and obey. How many circumstances [there were] like this are unknown!

If Napoleon forbade the religious sects to step beyond their places of worship, he reserved the privilege of entering and commanding there himself whenever he thought expedient. For instance, on the 19th of February, 1806, he instituted two _fêtes_ upon the simple report of the council of state; one for the anniversary of his birth, the other for that of his coronation and the battle of Austerlitz. The decree ran, “A discourse shall be preached in the churches and in the places of worship, by a minister of religion, upon the glory of the French armies, and upon the extent of the duty imposed on every citizen to consecrate his life to his sovereign and the country.”

And, indeed, French Protestantism has, properly speaking, no history during the fourteen years of the Consulate and the Empire. Weak in numbers, scattered, without bond or union, without a common discipline, constrained to be humble and silent, and to avoid all occasion of disturbing the official classification of religions, the community of the Protestants dragged on a uniform and obscure existence. “The ministers preached,” says M. Samuel Vincent, “and the people listened; the consistories met, and worship preserved its forms. Beyond this, no one troubled himself, no one thought, and religion was a thing beyond the life of all. This lasted a long while.”[139]

We are not aware of the publication of a single important book upon dogma, ecclesiastical history, or sacred eloquence, in the course of Napoleon’s reign. A few occasional sermons, some courses of religious instruction, some abridgments of sacred history, three or four translations of English and German works, constitute the Protestant literature of this epoch. We do not comprise such works as the _Essay_ of Charles Villers, in which literature, arts, and philosophy engaged the attention more than religion.

If we confine ourselves to the actual limits of France, there were not more than two hundred pastors in 1807; the number is more than double now. The flocks of many were spread over so wide a breadth of country, that the pastors were necessarily compelled to lead a kind of nomade life, which, in itself, would be a sufficient reason for not judging them severely. Nor can we, indeed, form an idea of all the good they did in their humble labours, of all the unfortunates they consoled, the poor they succoured, or all the souls they edified and brought back to God. Their burthen was heavier than that of the men who succeeded them, and their task was less thankful. They had to contend at the same time against the too great extent of their ecclesiastical districts, and against the lukewarmness of the people, who cared for nothing but the military triumphs of Napoleon.

Some of these pastors maintained relations with the German societies of the Moravian Brethren, and gathered round them the faithful, who were influenced by the same convictions. “They were in general,” says M. Vincent, “peaceable and inoffensive people, who dogmatized little, and made religion to consist of love, particularly of love for Jesus; whilst they assembled in small numbers, without show or pretension, with the intention of a very mild and moderate proselytism.”[140]

The French seminary of Lausanne had been transported to Geneva; but as it was inadequate to the wants of the pastoral body, the emperor created a Faculty of Protestant theology at Montauban (1808-1810). The chain of associations was thus renewed for one of the most ancient and celebrated of the chief towns of the French Reformation. Montauban had lost its theological academy in 1661 by the intrigues of the Jesuits; Napoleon restored it. Men pass away, and persecutions expire; but the institutions necessary to human intelligence and conscience fall only to rise again.

Projects of reunion between the Christian communions were proposed about this period. Public authority did not interfere again as in the time of Richelieu and Louis XIV.; it did not even appear to attach the slightest importance to the notion, which simply originated with a few private individuals.

The archbishop of Besançon, M. Claude Lecoz, who had been a member of the Legislative Assembly, a constitutional bishop in 1791, and the author of some very severe pamphlets against Pope Pius VI. on the subject of the civil constitution of the clergy, felt it incumbent upon him to evince his zeal for the (Roman) Catholic faith. In the month of November, 1804, he addressed a public letter to MM. Marron, Rabaut-Pomier, and Mastrezat, pastors at Paris, in which he invited them to profit by the visit of Pius VII. to France, in order to return to the Romish church. “With what eagerness,” said he, “would the pontiff acquiesce in every means of reconciliation compatible with the rights of truth! With what joy would he open his arms to children, whose estrangement distracts his paternal bosom!” The pastors of Paris replied, that no project of reunion was practicable with the condition of returning as erring and repentant sheep to the Church of Rome; and that, moreover, complete religious unity seemed to them utterly impossible.

M. de Beaufort, a lawyer of some talent, entered the lists in his turn; taking up the question on political grounds, he contended that a word from Napoleon would reunite the different churches. M. Lecoz answered this new antagonist with some asperity; M. de Beaufort rejoined in vehement terms, and the project of reconciliation terminated in reciprocal invectives.

M. Tabaraud, formerly a priest of the congregation of the Oratory, also published a book with reference to the union of the Protestant communions. He had defended their civil lights in 1788, against a diatribe of the bishop of La Rochelle, upon the edict of Louis XVI.; and as he was an inflexible adversary of Ultramontane opinions, and an enlightened Jansenist, he had a stronger title than the generality of his cloth to be listened to with favour. His attempts, however, had no greater success than the preceding, and we have only to admire the learning he displayed in the historical exposition of his subject. Where can be the point of junction between the absolute authority in matters of dogma, which Rome will not renounce, and the right of examination, which the Reformation cannot be induced to surrender? The most ingenious combinations must fail to supply the want of a common ground.

IV.

When the dynasty of the Bourbons returned in 1814, the Protestants made no effort to form a distinct political party. As agriculturists, proprietors, members of the liberal and enlightened classes, they did not regret the military domination of Napoleon. Those among them, who were merchants and engaged in industrial pursuits, rejoiced at the prospect of a peace that opened a wider field to their activity. If they could not repress some disquietude in seeing a descendant of the prince who had revoked the Edict of Nantes upon the throne, their recollections reverted to the king who had bestowed it, and the memory of Henry IV. reassured them against that of Louis XIV.

It might have been expected that the Bourbons, who had to contend with so many adversaries, would not causelessly have irritated a million and a half of peaceable citizens; and who could have supposed, moreover, that they would have attacked Protestantism in France, when Louis XVIII. said that he owed his crown, next to God, to a Protestant prince, the regent of Great Britain.

The first acts of the restoration were dictated by a spirit of impartiality and prudence. The Count d’Artois, afterwards Charles X., having gone to Nismes in 1814, gave a very gracious reception to the Reformed, and distributed several decorations of the Legion of Honour among them. Policy, perhaps, had as much to do with this as confidence; but the Protestants, satisfied with the protection promised to them, might refrain from scrutinizing intentions.

The charter given by Louis XVIII. said, in its 5th article, “Every one professes his religion with equal liberty, and obtains the same protection for his form of worship.” It is true, it added in the 6th article, that the Catholic, Roman, and Apostolic religion was the religion of the state. Nevertheless, the equality between creeds having been proclaimed first and formally, the distinction granted to (Roman) Catholicism would be, according to the terms of the Constitution, nothing more than a simple privilege of honour, without any hurtful or oppressive privilege, and the Protestants were all disposed to concede the honour of the first place to the Romish church, provided their rights were as much respected as those of the (Roman) Catholics.

If the charter, therefore, had been well understood by the masses of the (Roman) Catholics, duly carried out by people in power, and sincerely admitted by the members of the ancient privileged orders, there would have been no Protestant party, in the political sense of the word, nor collision of any kind. But the first were wanting in intelligence; there was no spirit of justice in the next, or love of liberal institutions in the last.

In the south, particularly, the workmen and the peasants, who belonged to the Romish church, openly threatened the Reformed with new persecutions, and were not sufficiently contradicted and repressed by the local authorities. Sinister reports were spread abroad. It was rumoured that the places of worship would be closed, and the public services of the Reformed interdicted. (Roman) Catholics of the lower order, when they met Protestants in the streets, shouted out: _Vive le roi!_ (_long live the king_), as if they were the only royalists. Those of the highest classes, who called themselves respectable people, openly insulted the most honourable men of the Reformed communion.

The emigrants, who had returned with the Bourbons, and others of the nobility, who, shut up for five-and-twenty years in their castles, had only learned to curse the Revolution, were indignant at the liberties granted by Louis XVIII., and, ignorant of any direct means to abolish the charter, they fell into the old plans of the conspirators of 1790. A religious contest, which should make a second Vendée of the southern provinces, might bring the fundamental law into question; and the occult government, so frequently denounced by the sincerest friends of the Bourbons in the two legislative chambers, began its secret work. It has been said that these men were more inveterate royalists than the king himself. But it was not so: they had interests wholly different from those of the king, interests of position and caste, and their aim was to satisfy and secure them at any price, were it at the expense of the kingly office itself.

Fresh addresses were signed, as in 1790, demanding that there should be only one religion in France. Handbills were distributed in many of the churches, with these words: “The faithful are requested to say five _Paters_ and five _Aves_ every day, for the prosperity of the kingdom and the re-establishment of the Jesuits.” The anti-Protestant controversy reappeared in many of the pulpits under the most bitter and violent forms, denouncing heresy as a public calamity; and the Reformed, pursued with as many provocations, were in a manner forced to adopt political opinions in unison with their religious convictions.

We wish to do justice without delay to those, to whom justice is due. The fault of the attempt, which we are about to narrate, is not chargeable to the majority of the (Roman) Catholics; on the contrary, they were as indignant against them, and regretted them as much as the Protestants. Nor must it be allowed to fall on the majority of the priests. They were no longer to be seen in the foremost ranks of persecution, as they had been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The populace, excited by some of the secret leaders, acted without the priests, and often in spite of the priests. Many of the Roman ecclesiastics courageously interposed to shield the victims. We shall have occasion to cite an admirable instance of this.

Such was the situation of the south when the emperor disembarked upon the coasts of France. The Protestants of Nismes offered the Duke d’Angoulême their services as royal volunteers. The prince was ready to accept them, when the fanatics repulsed them with this insult: “We will not endure these rascally Protestants!” Their purses were, however, taken, if not their persons.

On Napoleon’s re-entry into Paris, the Protestants resumed the places and the legitimate influence, of which they had been deprived. They could count upon the protection of the laws, and testified a satisfaction that may be easily comprehended. But they were far from committing the excesses with which they have been reproached. The faction of 1815 felt it necessary to accuse them with expressly invented crimes, in order to extenuate their own. All the massacres of the Hundred Days, which have been ascribed to them, are confined, as the official documents attest, to the death of two royal volunteers, who were killed at Arpillargues (Gard), in a disturbance they had themselves provoked, by obstinately persisting in marching through the village with fifty of their companions, sword in hand.

As soon as the defeat of Waterloo was known at Nismes, the royalist bands were reorganized, and ordered the municipal council to declare immediately for the government of Louis XVIII., although no order of any kind had arrived from Paris. The council replied that it was necessary to wait for official instructions, and published a proclamation, in which it said: “Fellow-countrymen of every opinion, for whom we have equal solicitude, in the name of the efforts we have made to avert the disasters which threaten our country, in the name of your dearest interests, in the name of God, who enjoins upon you clemency and concord, do not be deaf to our voice.” (18th July, 1815.)

The following day a courier announced the return of the king to the capital, and the Reformed population quietly resumed the white cockade. This prompt submission did not satisfy the men who had adopted the white and green colours, attesting by this that they served another cause than that of royalty. Then terror rose and spread itself over the south.

On the 14th of July, a hideous populace, recruited at Nismes, Beaucaire, and the surrounding places, attacked the garrison, which, weakened by the numerous desertions after the news of the emperor’s fall, did not reckon more than two hundred men. These brave soldiers, besieged in their barracks, were aware that any resistance would produce only a useless effusion of blood, and consented to capitulate. The next day, at break of dawn, having laid down their arms in compliance with an express arrangement, they marched out of their quarters, four abreast, with firm though sorrowful demeanour. But the miscreants through whom they had to pass, fired upon them in treacherous violation of the surrender, and trampled underfoot the corpses of the murdered veterans.

All regular authority was at an end in Nismes. Pillage, incendiarism, and assassination, desolated this great city. The details are horrible. “Of crimes upon crimes,” says M. Lauze de Peret, with energetic eloquence, “shall I have to speak; of wretches without fear, of peace without repose, of entire submission without security, of a city without guardianship, of victims without defence, and of chiefs mute without being absent.”[141]

The Count René de Bernis, the royal commissioner, and the Marquis d’Arbaud-Jonques, appointed prefect of the department after the Marquis Jules de Calvières, who was only provisional prefect, have published justificatory memoirs. These have, however, been contradicted upon almost every point by M. Madier de Montjau, in his petition to the Chamber of Deputies, and by other respectable citizens. It is right that persecutors should learn that truth has necessarily its day; it is also right that they should remember that history does not stop to pick from the gore the names of the subordinate cut-throats, but that it casts the blame and odium upon those who ought to have withheld and punished them.

This spirit of savage fanaticism soon spread beyond the precincts of Nismes. The whole surrounding country was abandoned to the fury of some hundreds of brigands, who, while they imposed ruinous contributions, devastated property, sacked houses, maltreated the most inoffensive citizens, insulted women, profaned the sacredness of the burial-grounds, and finally massacred those, whose position or some false rumour marked out for popular vengeance, huzzaed for the Cross! and the King! committing at the same time crimes equally opposed to the holiest interests of religion and royalty.

If the unhappy Protestants assembled anywhere in arms for their common defence, or for the protection of the asylum of the aged and the cradle of the young, they were treated as factious rebels. They were dragged before judges, who would not, or dared not do them justice; and these contemptible tribunals raged against the victims, instead of striking the murderers.

Among other towns, that of Uzès had been invaded by a band of robbers, on which occasion a priest evinced remarkable self-devotion. The authorities were either alarmed or were accomplices, and the national guard remained passive. “One single man, a worthy minister of the law of charity, a priest of the God, who has commanded all mankind to live together as brethren, the abbé Palhien, set a different example. He encountered Graffan (Quatretaillons) near the church of Saint Etienne; he prayed, he insisted, he knelt to him: but he followed him in vain to the fatal place, he pleaded in vain the words of religion to this bandit armed for the defence of the altar and the throne. On this memorable day, Uzès appeared to contain but one single Christian, one single Frenchman.”[142]

Terror lasted for several months. Towards the end of August, four thousand Austrians arrived in the department of Gard. They had been made to believe that the Protestants menaced public tranquillity, and that it was necessary to defend both law and order against their hatred. They advanced with great precaution, sword in hand, as if they had entered an enemy’s country, and were surprised to find a peaceful population, abandoned to the fury of robbers, and decimated by assassination.

It may be asked how such disorders could have happened without exciting universal indignation, at such a period and in a country like France. The answer is, that the whole country was at that time delivered up to a violent reaction. There was no liberty of the press; no right, save that of the conqueror; the spirit of party oppressed and disorganized everything. The official journal of Gard, which was published in the police offices or in those of the prefecture, did not hesitate to contest the most evident facts, nor to deny the most authentic,—to boast of the clemency and the generosity of the enemies of the Protestants, with the corpses of the victims before their eyes. And if any one, even away from this unfortunate province, uttered a free thought respecting these atrocities, he was reputed as a calumniator and a rebel.

M. Voyer-d’Argenson experienced this, when in the session of the 23rd October, 1815, he demanded an inquiry, affirming that his heart bled to hear the reports of the massacres of Protestants in the south. He was violently interrupted with cries of order, and notwithstanding the forms of speech which he employed in his explanations were expressive of doubt, the call to order was agreed to by a large majority. Did the chamber of 1815 think that by stopping M. Voyer-d’Argenson’s mouth, it could smother the terrible cry for blood and the voice of truth?

The government was better instructed than it cared to make known. Louis XVIII. was an enlightened prince, who was aware of the true position of affairs, and he was not a little anxious respecting the impression which the crimes of the south would produce upon the opinion of France and of Europe. England and Prussia, the two countries whose armies had restored his crown on the battle-field of Waterloo, began to show signs of disquietude; and the cabinet of London, interrogated in the House of Commons, appealed to the guarantees of the charter in favour of the French Protestants.

The Duke d’Angoulême was sent, in the month of November, to the southern provinces. He found the places of worship of Nismes closed,—all public exercise of religion had been suspended from the middle of July,—that a part of the Protestant population had been driven from their homes by the dread of massacres,—that others were hidden in their houses as if they were a proscribed race, whilst assassins stalked boldly abroad, the magistrates powerless, and the laws inoperative.

Some delegates of the consistory, confounded by the crowd of civil functionaries, in order that they might avoid the ill-treatment of the populace, went to pay their respects to the duke, and met with a most favourable reception. He gave them an order to reopen their places of worship from the following Thursday, the 9th of November. But none were opened until Sunday, and then but one. The result proved that too much reliance had been placed upon the good disposition of the people and their leaders. Tumultuous assemblages collected round the religious edifice, shouting: “Down with the Protestants! Death to the Protestants! Let us have back our churches! Scourge them back to the desert!” The doors were broken open, and a band of wretches burst into the place of meeting. The General Lagarde, who was endeavouring, with some fellow-officers, to repress the assailants, was shot through the heart; and perhaps this disaster prevented the commission of still greater crime; for the populace, struck with dismay, hastily fled, thinking only of their own safety.

This assassination of a soldier of high rank, committed before the whole town, obeying the orders of a prince of the blood, left the government no longer the opportunity of denying the excesses of the reaction or of temporizing. On the 21st of November, Louis XVIII. published an ordinance with the following preamble: “An atrocious crime has stained our town of Nismes. Despite the constitutional charter, which recognises the Catholic religion as the religion of the State, but which guarantees to other creeds protection and liberty (the minister thought of this very tardily), seditious crowds have dared to oppose the opening of a Protestant place of worship. Our military commandant, whilst striving to disperse them by persuasion before using force, has been assassinated, and his murderer has fled from the officers of justice. If such a crime were to remain unpunished, public order and government would be at an end, and our ministers guilty of not executing the laws.”

Notwithstanding the more than usual solemnity of this ordinance, which commanded the arrest not only of the assassin of General Lagarde, but also of the authors, fautors, and accomplices of the disturbance of the 12th of November, the judges punished no one. Even the murderer of the general was acquitted; and the other bandits, who had devastated half the province with incendiarism and assassination, were allowed to display an insolent and odious impunity upon the very scene of their misdeeds. Witnesses were afraid to come forward to give testimony against them, and mysterious protectors gained their absolution.

The Protestant worship was at length re-established in Nismes, after an interruption of six months, on the 17th of December, 1815. Yet the apprehensions of the Reformed were not calmed, and security did not fully return until the issue of the ordinance of the 5th of September, 1816, which again raised the hopes and the strength of the liberal party.

We will not terminate the narrative of the troubles of Gard, without paying a just tribute of respect to the pastors of this province. Some threw themselves before their armed parishioners, conjuring them in the name of the Gospel, not to return evil for evil. One particularly, M. Juillerat Chasseur, now president of the consistory of Paris, who was called to officiate on the fatal day of the 12th November, continued his prayers with a serene countenance and unfaltering voice, in the midst of the shouts of death from an enraged populace, and compelled the respect of these madmen, who had cast aside all reverence for the majesty of the sanctuary. He felt that the least sign of weakness on his part might have led to a frightful catastrophe. Such courage is both more grand and rare than that of the soldier on the battle-field.

In the other departments, saving two or three exceptions of little importance, the Protestants were neither molested in their worship, nor assailed in their persons or their property. Public opinion came to the assistance of the law, and deprived intolerance of its hope of again renewing the persecutions of the olden times.

V.

After the re-establishment of order, two opposite influences began to act upon the conduct of political power towards the Protestants; whence there ensued more or less contradictory acts, and a singular mixture of good-will and hostility until the Revolution of 1830.

On one side the promises of the Charter; the desire of not alienating so many citizens, who reckoned, in proportion to their number, more electors than the (Roman) Catholics; respect for opinion, the national conscience, which would have revolted against every direct measure of persecution; the fear, in short, of giving new weapons to the opposition, which was ready to take up the cause of the Protestants as their own; these reasons were quite sufficient to recommend to the Bourbons and their ministers the maintenance of a prudent reserve.

But on the other side, the natural and intimate alliance, which existed between the ancient dynasty and the old religion; the necessity of meeting the requirements of the clergy in order to gain their support in the struggle against the new spirit; the growing influence of the Jesuits, and the congregations, particularly under the reign of Charles X.; the conduct and the demands of the members of the Right, who laboured incessantly for the restoration of (Roman) Catholicism for the sake of political interest; perhaps also some vague distrust of the tendencies of Protestantism, and some disagreeable recollections of which the descendants of Louis XIV. have never been able to rid themselves completely; all this explains the hostility, sometimes hidden, sometimes avowed, which the Reformed might complain of after the Restoration.

To look first of all at the favourable side, we will remark that the numbers of the Protestant faith sensibly and constantly increased. New pastoral districts were created, new places of worship built, and more abundant means of elementary instruction were granted out of the public purse. This increase was even more rapid under Charles X. than under Louis XIII.; and the cause of this is easy to be indicated: whatever was given to the Protestants, facilitated the passing of the prodigal grants which were lavished upon the (Roman) Catholics, and a few thousand more francs for the former, covered with a varnish of impartiality the millions distributed to the latter.

In the annual presentations of public bodies, the two kings never failed to reassure the Protestants of their protection and good-will. When he ascended the throne, Charles X., who felt that he was under a still greater obligation than his predecessor to give solemn guarantees to liberty of conscience and of worship, said to the consistory of Paris: “Assure yourselves, gentlemen, of my protection, as you did of that of the king, of whom you have been deprived. All Frenchmen are equal in my eyes; all Frenchmen have an equal right to my love, my protection, and my favour.”

A Protestant committee, composed of peers and deputies, was formed under the ministry of M. Decazes, and was continued under that of M. de Villèle. Not only did the government offer it no opposition, but it approved and seconded this non-official commission. In 1824, M. Georges Cuvier was placed at the head of the Faculties of Protestant theology; and four years later, under the ministry of M. de Martignac, he exercised the functions of director of the non-Catholic worship. The learning and integrity of this illustrious man were well fitted to inspire the Protestants with confidence against the enterprises of the clerical party.

From 1817 to 1830, in a word, we have to complain of no important act of intolerance; we might relate favours sometimes, and always security for the mass of the Protestant population. It is but justice due to the elder branch of the Bourbons, and we do it with the more willingness, that the last of the race is an exile from his country.

But the same justice also requires that we should present the reverse of the picture, always taking care to add, in order that nothing owing to great misfortunes may be omitted, that for the words and acts unfavourable to the Protestants, the imprudent counsellors, who surrounded the princes, are more responsible than the princes themselves.

A powerful and restless faction was bent on interpreting after its own fashion, the article of the Charter which constituted the (Roman) Catholic religion the religion of the state. It was no longer merely a question of the first rank of honour, but of a real pre-eminence applied to every institution, and to every measure of public authority. According to these strange commentators upon the fundamental law, the 6th article, which granted an official prerogative to Roman Catholicism, ought to override the 5th article, which established equality of protection and liberty for every creed, whilst according to common sense, logic, and the very order in which the articles were placed, the special privilege should be subordinate to the general principle.[143]

The Jesuits and their allies openly declared that to put all religious communions upon the same footing, was an anti-Catholic, anti-social, and impious maxim. A ministerial bishop did not hesitate to declare that the non-Catholic creeds were only tolerated, and M. de Peyronnet pronounced these imprudent words in his defence of the law of sacrilege in the tribune: “I recognise an equality of protection promised to the creeds sanctioned in the kingdom, and I respect it; but an equality of creeds, I do not recognise at all.”

The law, of which we speak, confounded the spiritual with the temporal, and importing the (Roman) Catholic dogma into the domain of legislation, established a great inequality between the two creeds. No profanation of Protestant worship any longer incurred the penalty of imprisonment, whilst profanation of the (Roman) Catholic worship was punished with the pain of death, and even, in the project of the government, with that against parricides. This alone ought to have told Charles X. and his ministers that they were pursuing a fatal course. Protestantism lost nothing by the measure; the cause of the Bourbons and the priests suffered immensely.

Another consequence, which it was attempted to deduce from the principle of the state religion, was that non-Catholics should be compelled to do some act, if not of adoration, at least of homage and indirect participation in certain ceremonies of (Roman) Catholicism. Thus it was insisted that they should hang the fronts of their houses with tapestry on the passage of the (Roman) Catholic processions, under penalty of process and fine. Yet it had already been made a question whether processions without the precincts of the churches were not a violation of the organic articles, and generally whether, in a well-organized society, any creed whatsoever should have the right of transporting the celebration of its particular rites into the public streets and highways. But without insisting upon these two points, it may be conceived that the Protestants would energetically refuse to decorate their houses; for they must perceive in this, a serious attack upon their ancient discipline, a defiance of the independence of their personal faith, and an attempt against the equality of creeds, and against their very liberty itself.

In order to try the point, the Jesuits had put forward some functionaries of subordinate degree, such as the Count de Narbonne-Lara, sub-prefect of Florac, who suddenly and upon his own authority, published a circular ordering the inhabitants, of whatsoever religion [they might be], to decorate the front of their houses against the passing of the Holy Sacrament. The consistory of Barre answered this sub-prefect, on the 19th of May, 1818, with a categorical refusal, appealing at the same time to the discipline of the Protestants and to the Charter.

Similar attempts were made in other places, and several citizens were fined for not having obeyed this iniquitous assumption. But there was one M. Paul Roman, of Lourmarin, who would not submit to the sentence of the inferior tribunals. He appealed to the supreme court, and won his cause after a prolonged hearing. M. Odillon Barrot supported him with his eloquence, and proved that religious liberty was altogether involved in the question. “This cause,” he said, “is not that of a Protestant; it is not even that of the Protestants solely; it is that of every citizen, whatever may be his religion, whatever may be his religious opinions, apparent or not apparent; the whole body of citizens are represented by M. Roman in this matter.”

The Court of Cassation passed a decree on the 20th November, 1818, conformable to justice, law, and the rights of minorities. An affair of the same kind was also tried at Marseilles in 1820, and decided in like manner to that we have mentioned, in favour of the Protestant appellant. The government itself renounced this illegal exaction, in spite of the clamours of the fanatics, and the point was definitively settled.

Another pretence was set up, more dangerous in its principles, more serious in its effects, more obstinate in every respect, and from which even the politicians of the present day have not yet completely freed themselves. This consisted in restricting the Protestants to certain boundaries, as if Protestantism was such an evil that it was necessary to confine it within the narrowest possible limits. It appeared as if the disciples of the Reformation were told, “Since you exist in the kingdom, we tolerate you; but remain where you are, and guard yourselves from trespassing. Unity of faith is our rule, dissent the exception; and far from authorizing it to spread, we will restrict it to the fullest extent of our power.”

Nothing could be more opposed [than this] to the Charter, which assured equal liberty to all creeds. For as the Romish clergy had always and everywhere the right of proselytizing in the bosom of Protestantism, it is evident that if the pastors were refused the privilege of making proselytes in their turn among the (Roman) Catholics, equal liberty was nothing but a bitter mockery.

The Charter would not be respected, at least in one sense, unless the priests were interdicted from converting Protestants, as well as the pastors from converting (Roman) Catholics. Now this was a condition, which the Roman clergy would never accept; it could not; it ought not [accept it]; it would have been a disgraceful prevarication on their part, and they would have been right in not subjecting themselves to it, even in Protestant countries. But then there is no logical or legitimate resting-place, but the common right, or liberty of proselytism for all.

The government of the Restoration did not always do its duty in this matter. It invented administrative fetters, judiciary obstacles, and obstinately relied upon the 21st article of the penal code, according to which no association of more than twenty persons, could be formed without the concurrence of the authorities. By applying this article to religious assemblies, it was clear that the establishment of every new assembly, the opening of any new place of worship, depended upon the pleasure of the civil authority. Liberty of religion ceased to exist for the French Protestants beyond, or without those places of worship which were counted and numbered by the State. This was almost returning to the vicious maxims of the first years of the reign of Louis XIV.

Incessant contests, as might have been expected, were the result of such an application of the law. We will cite only two circumstances, in which the two greatest towns of France were concerned. In 1825, the consistory of Paris, although it demanded the free exercise of religion, not for converted (Roman) Catholics, but for Protestants by birth, was hindered from opening a place of worship in the commune of Ageux, “because,” ran the administrative decree, “the establishment of feeble fractions of a dissenting population in the midst of a population of an homogeneous creed, would not be without inconvenience!” This was the very language of the persecutors of the sixteenth century. In 1826, some communes of the neighbourhood of Lyons expressed a desire to hear the doctrines of the Reformation preached; the authorities interposed in spite of the reclamations of the consistory. But in these two cases the hands of government were strengthened both by this version of the law, and public opinion.

While the attempt was made to imprison Protestantism within its official walls, all the doors were thrown wide open to the proselytism of the (Roman) Catholic clergy. Three pastors having embraced the Romish faith under the Restoration, their pamphlets against the communion they had abandoned obtained the honour of being printed at the royal press, and they were even rewarded with a pension.

The idea was also conceived of resuming the ambulating missions of the seventeenth century, with a double task, instead of one; for they were charged with the conversion of the followers of Voltaire, as well as those of Calvin. These vulgar declaimers travelled with their crosses from town to town, and village to village, vociferating in the public places senseless invectives against the Reformation and philosophy. Far from winning either Protestants or unbelievers, they only disgusted the more healthy and enlightened portion of the (Roman) Catholics. Many respectable priests were themselves ashamed of such discreditable auxiliaries, feeling that the power of (Roman) Catholicism was not to be re-established by scenes, in which the populace were the chief actors.

The defenders of the two communions maintained controversies in a higher region, which did not at least do violence to the laws of public decency. Some men of eminent reputation, although but mediocre theologians,—M. de Bonald, M. Joseph de Maistre, and M. de Lamennais, who has since refuted his own opinions more effectually than any of his antagonists could have done, assailed the Reformation with extreme pertinacity, and were much more successful in assailing it than the justness of their arguments warranted. They were creditably met, however, by MM. Stapfer, Samuel Vincent, Henri Pyt, and others, opponents who, less known to fame, indeed, defended the Protestant creed with more logic and vigour.

The substance of these polemics did not, generally, bear much resemblance to the great discussions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Religion, in those times, was supported on each side for the sake of religion itself; it was dogma, and particularly the dogma of the Holy Supper, that engaged controversialists. Under the Restoration, the most renowned advocates of (Roman) Catholicism took up another ground. Religion had become a political weapon. Putting aside doctrinal matters, the [disputants] exerted themselves to effect the establishment of the position, that the unity and authority of the Roman (Catholic) Church secure the power of princes, obedience to the laws, and the maintenance of social order better than Protestantism. Heavenly interests were of secondary importance to those of the earth, or were not considered at all.

Doubtless it might be possible to meet with some discussions purely dogmatical or ecclesiastical, at this period; but they attracted little notice, and awakened no echo amongst the masses of the country. The tide of humanity seems to have retreated from its ancient landmarks, to hollow out a new bed on unknown shores.

There is no other fact deserving mention in the external condition of French Protestantism, until the Revolution of 1830. The 3rd article of the Charter, which declared all citizens to be equally admissible to civil and military offices, might, and ought to have been observed under certain circumstances. The professorial chairs of instruction were rarely conferred upon, and were as lightly taken away from, the Protestants. The same partiality was shown, although in a less degree, in the distribution of public appointments; where the merit was equal, to say no more, the (Roman) Catholic nearly always prevailed against the Protestant; and this dislike continued to increase every day, as the ill-fated Charles X. gave himself up more unreservedly to the counsels of those who ruined him.

VI.

In treating of the internal condition of Protestantism, we shall make mention, as we have done when speaking of the preceding periods, less of opinions considered in themselves, than of the men who were their most distinguished representatives.

When the peace of 1815 had allayed the storms which had shaken thrones and nations, the popular mind experienced a calm approaching to the void. The illusions of glory, the dreams of distant conquests vanished. There was now leisure to breathe, to think of oneself, and the want of something, upon which to fix the mind, was experienced. One class turned itself to the cultivation of the sciences, literature, social questions, historical studies, or to industrial works; another, much less numerous, sought from religious belief a satisfaction of the wants of their conscience and their heart.

The freedom once more permitted of making ideas known, facilitated and gave life to this religious movement: not that faith is unable to grow beneath outward oppression, for we may see splendid examples to the contrary in the history of Protestantism; but the independence of thought and action is the true atmosphere of spiritual existence.

Finally, the return to religious subjects was strengthened by the relations that were re-established between the Protestants of France and those of other countries. The Reformation had, for half a century, inspired great works, and founded great associations; it had despatched its missionaries to the extremities of the globe, and distributed the Bible in every human tongue by millions of copies. When French Protestantism was brought into contact with these noble aspirations of Christian life, it learned to know its duties better, and to fulfil them with greater fidelity.

Many pious souls resumed the ancient faith of the Reformed churches, and displayed in acts of religion and proselytism, an energy, a zeal, and an ardour of which later generations had lost the tradition. This change was not always well understood, not only by the masses, but by men of superior intelligence, and provoked painful dissensions. The names of Methodist and Rationalist, the one borrowed from Germany, the other from England, became party cries.

These divisions just began to appear when Protestant France lost a man, who, having inherited the doctrines taught in the churches of the desert, yet having abstained from the new conflicts, might have given a lofty and powerful impulse to theological studies, from the position he occupied in the faculty of Montauban. His faith, his learning, and his worth, entitle him to a place in this history.

M. Daniel Encontre was born at Nismes in 1762. His father, who had been one of the pastors of the desert, was only able to bestow upon his education the rare opportunities of leisure afforded by a wandering and restless life. But the young Encontre did more by himself than others would have done under the most able masters. “In him was again witnessed the phenomenon, which had been in former times so much admired in the youth of Pascal. Debarred from the privilege of studying mathematics, he divined them. Before the age of nineteen, without books, obliged to work in secret and by stealth, his power of genius was such that he succeeded in penetrating so far into the science as to reach the infinitesimal calculus, the object of his astonishing aspiration. He cultivated at the same time, and with the same energy, under the eyes, and with his father’s consent, the study of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages; and his success was so surprising, particularly in the two last, that they were soon as familiar to him as his mother tongue.”[144]

He went to the academies of Lausanne and Geneva to finish his studies, and exhibited there so much superiority, that his fellow-students compared him to their most skilful professors. His religious convictions were not without their troubles and storms; but he returned to the faith by the avenue of doubt, and rested in it more firmly.

On his return to France, Encontre preached the Gospel to the desert flocks. His success in preaching was, however, small, because he was deficient in those physical qualities, without which the best discourses do not engage [the attention of] the multitude. His stature was small, his voice husky, his action more hasty than imposing. An extinction of voice intervened to decide the question with his conscience; and he quitted the pulpit of the house of worship for the chair of the academies.

The Revolution, which deprived so many of their lives, did not leave his existence undisturbed. He sought an asylum at Montpellier, where, says the biographer whom we have quoted, “he was reduced, in order to earn his bread, to give lessons in stone-cutting to master masons and workmen. He who was worthy of teaching by the side of a Lagrange, a Laharpe, or a Fourcroy, thought himself even fortunate in being able to procure employment in the quarries.” Nor did he forget, in these times of proscription, that he was the minister of Jesus Christ, and at the peril of his life he celebrated baptisms, blessed marriages, gave religious instruction, and supported the piety of the faithful at Montpellier and in its neighbourhood.

At the opening of the central schools, he presented himself to contest for the chair of literature. Another candidate, fearing the rivalry of M. Encontre, besought him to withdraw, which he immediately did, and offered himself successfully for the chair of pure mathematics. It was only such a man, who could do such an act: his encyclopædical mind, equally versed in literature, the sciences, and theology, was profound and original in all. The celebrated Fourcroy has said of him, “I have seen in France two or three heads that might be compared with his, but I have never found one that was superior.”

Appointed dean of the faculty of sciences at Montpellier, he exercised a legitimate ascendancy, and enriched the collections of the learned societies with many excellent papers. A career, as peaceful as it was honourable, lay before him, when the voice of the Reformed churches called him, in 1814, to the professorship of theology of Montauban. M. Encontre sacrificed everything to a vocation pointed out to him under the austere image of duty, and only expressed his fear that he should be found unequal to his new task—a modesty equalled only by his genius.

On his arrival at Montauban, where the double functions of professor and dean had been confided to him, he imparted firmness to the professorship of theology by the solidity of his doctrine, the extent of his learning, and the authority of his character. All acknowledged that he had a right to exact much from every one, since he exacted more from himself.

Unhappily his strength was soon exhausted by the labours of his office; yet although suffering and ill, he continued to consecrate the remainder of his expiring life. Seeing that his end was near, he proceeded to Montpellier, where the ashes of his first wife and daughter reposed, and died there on the 16th of September, 1818. “There is only one voice in the Protestant church of France as to the irreparable loss it has sustained,” said the editor of the _Archives of Christianity_, on the announcement of this sorrowful news.

M. Daniel Encontre engaged himself upon philosophical and religious subjects in some sketches which obtained deserved success. His letter to M. Combe-d’Ounous on Plato, and his dissertation upon the true system of the world compared with the Mosaic relation, prove that he made profound researches upon questions, which have in all ages most deeply interested the human mind.

However, French Protestantism strove to found some new institutions. The general meeting of the Bible Society of France was convoked on the 6th of December, 1819. We quote the following observation from the president’s speech, which has an historical value: “According to our by-laws and the government authorization, the Bible Society of Paris consists solely of Protestants. It appears, and we ought not to complain of it, that the government has thus invited the Reformed to make each other’s acquaintance to edify one another, and to become more exemplary, by intercommunication.” Such, in effect, was, next to the essential motive of religious faith, one of the principal objects of the members of the Bible Society under the Restoration; namely, that of offering to the Protestants scattered over the face of the kingdom, without any common organization, a central rallying-point around which they might assemble for reciprocal assistance, an advantage of vital importance when considered with reference to the intrigues and encroachments of the clerical party.

Other associations were successively established: _The Religious Tract Society_, in 1822; and _The Society for the Encouragement of Primary Instruction among the Protestants of France_, in 1829. Each of these institutions contributed its share in fortifying and extending the empire of Christian piety.

Among the men, who laboured to found these societies, displaying as much intelligence as devotion, the Baron Auguste de Staël should be named.

He was the grandson of Necker, the son of Madame de Staël and the brother of the Duchess de Broglie. The Protestant churches welcomed in him one of those pious laymen, so useful in former times, who united political influence with a Christian spirit; and they were glad, allowing for the difference of time and circumstances, to salute him as the future Duplessis-Mornay, or the Wilberforce of the French Reformation.

Born at Coppet, in the canton of Vaud, in 1790, he received his first religious lessons from the venerable pastor Cellerier. His biographer says: “We do not doubt that M. de Staël owed a great part of his just ideas on religion, and of the excellent sentiments he so early displayed, to his connection and intimacy with this tried and faithful minister; and we can confidently affirm that the scholar ever entertained the liveliest and most tender remembrance of his teacher.”[145]

The part he took in the establishment of the Bible Society helped to develop his pious tendencies. Having accepted the task of drawing up the Reports of the Committee, and of going from house to house to exhort the faithful to make sacrifices for the dissemination of the Scriptures, he learned better to appreciate the holy books himself.

During a visit to England in the spring of 1822, he became acquainted with Wilberforce and other eminent Christians, whose words and examples strengthened his sentiments of piety. The _Letters upon England_, which he published in 1825, give but an imperfect idea of the observations he collected upon this subject; for the author confined himself to a treatise upon the religion and the Christian communions of Great Britain in a volume which he was not able to complete.

M. de Staël applied his zeal and efforts to several labours that might be called _mixed_, because, although evangelical faith lay at the base, their object was temporal improvement. We may mention among them the foundation of Savings-banks, popular elementary instruction, and the abolition of the slave-trade.