aghast with horror at the atrocity. The fires with which Turenne had burned two cities and twenty villages in his desolation, were but sparks in comparison with the vast and all-pervading conflagration which now prevailed. It is said that even the military men who executed these horrible orders were ashamed, and threw the blame upon Louvois, minister of war, a man of the most savage tempera

ment.

Among the many celebrated towns thus levelled with the ground, Mannheim and Heidelberg have been too often referred to, to need further resumption of the bare and monotonous tale of murder; but there is something peculiarly touching in the fate of older and more celebrated towns on the Rhine which shared in the common ruin. We may instance the interesting town of Spires, on the left bank of the Rhine, once a chosen residence of Charlemagne and his successors. Spires had also been celebrated as a seat of the German Diet, and the scene of many interesting historical events. All these venerable recollections availed not to the unhappy city, which the French had not even the excuse of taking by storm, as it surrendered quietly on the approach of their armies. Shortly after its occupation, a proclamation was issued commanding all, without exception of sex or age, to quit the town within six days, and to betake themselves, not to their fellow-countrymen of Germany, but to Alsace, Lorraine, or Burgundy, it being death to attempt to cross the Rhine. To give emphasis to this edict, a grisly procession of the provost-marshal, with forty assistant executioners, was paraded through the town, each with a gallows, wheel, and other instruments of torture embroidered on his dress. By the appointed day, the inhabitants were driven out by beat of drum. The soldiery were then let loose through the deserted streets, and everything of value plundered. The cathedral was dismantled, the graves of the emperors burst open, and their remains scattered. The city was then systematically fired, and in a few hours the seven-and-forty streets of Spires were in a blaze. Not satisfied with this, all the resources of destructive art were employed to blow up the very foundation, so as to render the city for ever uninhabitable. The dom, or cathedral, alone bade a proud defiance to the utmost efforts of malignant ingenuity. It was mined; but its stupendous strength, and its massive round arched pillars, remained entire after the terrific explosion. For years this ancient seat of empire continued, like Babylon, a desolate wilderness. Even at this day, in spite of all attempts at restoration, it remains but a shadow of its former self. At this period, 1693, the castle of Heidelberg was also entirely ruined.

Ultimately, Louis XIV. withdrew all his claims on the Palatinate, and, humbled by repeated losses, was glad to put an end to the war; so that all the sufferings inflicted on this and adjacent districts proved to be useless as regards political advantage.

Again, from being a scene of ruin, the Palatinate returned to a

condition of prosperity. About the year 1718, the castle of Heidelberg was restored to something like its original splendour; and in this finished state it remained till 1764, when it was unfortunately set on fire by lightning, and destroyed. Since this calamity, it has remained a ruin. Meanwhile, previous to its destruction, the Electors-Palatine removed the court to Mannheim, which had grown up a considerable town on the Rhine. It is distressing to relate that even yet the Palatinate was destined to suffer from military incursion. During the wars of the French Revolution, Mannheim was bombarded in 1794 by the French, and in 1795 by the Austrians; and till this day, a portion of the palace remains a blackened ruin.

At the Peace of Lunéville, dictated in 1801 to Germany by the victorious French Republic, the principality of the Palatinate was dismembered. The larger portion, on the right bank of the Rhine, was shared between Baden and other neighbouring principalities; that on the left bank was annexed to France, along with the other territories lying on that side of the river to the north, including the Netherlands. France had thus attained what had always been, and has never ceased to be, her chief aspiration-the boundary of the Rhine. But this arrangement did not last long. After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, Germany regained her territories beyond the Rhine, and, among the rest, the Trans-Rhine Palatinate. Parts of it in the north were annexed to Rhenish Prussia and Hesse-Darmstadt; but the great bulk of it was given to Bavaria, and now forms a detached circle of that kingdom under the name of Rhenish Bavaria, the Rhenish Palatinate, or simply the Palatinate (Pfalz). It was on the borders of this province-at Weissenburg and Saarbrük -that the internecine war of 1870 was begun between France and Germany; the motive on the side of France being, partly at least, to gain this and other German lands on the west bank of the Rhine, and thus restore her boundary to what it was from 1801 to 1815. The eastern and chief division of the old Palatinate, divided into the circles of Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Mosbach, continues to form part of the grand-duchy of Baden.

HILE Scotland was suffering for the cause of religion under the persecutions of the later Stuarts, a similar and not less remarkable course of persecution was enacting in France under Louis XIV. In the one case, it was an attempt to put down Presbyterianism; in the other, to extinguish Protestantism generally; and the same species of compulsion was employed in both. As the troubles in Scotland have generally been associated with the name of the Covenanters, from the insurgents having engaged in a national covenant to defend their rights, so the war in France has been usually distinguished as the war of the Camisards, in consequence, it is said, of the leaders of the persecuted party having often appeared in a camise, or frockshirt, over their other garments.

To understand the nature of the war of the Camisards, a few preliminary explanations seem desirable.

The readers of a previous tract* will be aware that, after a long period of civil war, arising from the spread of Calvinism in France, tranquillity was restored to that country by the accession of Henry IV. to the throne. Originally a Calvinist, Henry-although he found it necessary, for political reasons, to embrace the Catholic faithwas naturally disposed to be tolerant towards his old friends and fellow-religionists; and accordingly, under his auspices, was passed the famous Edict of Nantes, dated the 30th of April 1598, by which *No.97.-Life of Henry IV., King of France.

No. 110.

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ample liberty of conscience, the privilege, with certain restrictions, of worship after their own forms, and perfect freedom from civil disabilities, were secured to the French Protestants. This Edict of Nantes was regarded by the Protestants as the great charter of their liberties, never to be repealed or infringed. During Henry's life, it was punctually respected; and under its protection the Calvinists enjoyed a peace which had long been strange to them. Restrained from open attacks on the established church, bound also to contribute to its support, they were yet permitted to worship God in their own way, to print books for their own use, to educate their children in the Protestant faith, and even to hold synods for arranging the affairs of their church-privileges which, though at the present day they may seem limited enough, were then accepted with thankfulness. At Henry's death, however, in the year 1610, the condition of the Protestants was altered for the worse. War commenced between his son and successor, Louis XIII., and the Protestants of France. At this moment the master-spirit of Richelieu took the direction of affairs. The Protestants could not cope with so powerful a genius. In November 1628, the town of Rochelle, long the principal fastness of Protestantism in France, surrendered to his hands. Richelieu, however, was a generous enemy; and, in depriving the Calvinists of their political influence, he suffered them to retain most of their religious rights, as secured by the Edict of Nantes. To use his own expression, all that he wished in making war upon the Protestants was, 'to reduce them to the condition in which all subjects ought to be to disable them from forming a separate body in the state." When this was once effected, he was content; and under Richelieu every national career of activity—agriculture, commerce, the army, and the navy-was open to the Calvinists.

REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. PERSECUTION OF THE PROTESTANTS—THE DRAGONNADES-REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

Richelieu died in December 1642, and his master, Louis XIII., survived him but a few months. He was succeeded by his son, Louis XIV., then a child of five years of age. An immense change had been brought about in France during the last reign by the efforts of Richelieu. Factions had been suppressed; the nobility humbled; the monarchy exalted; and, instead of a kingdom torn by political and civil discord, as it had been for a century previously, the young king received from his dying father a kingdom compact, peaceful, powerful, and submissive to the slightest declaration of the sovereign's will. The reign of Louis XIV. was the culminating era of the French monarchy. Louis,' says a French author, 'was born with an ideal of royalty altogether Asiatic. It consisted not in conducting his armies, for he was not a hero; not in directing diplomatic arrangements, for he was not a politician; not in organising his government,

for he was not a statesman; but in reigning, in sitting upon his throne, in receiving the laurels of his generals, the submissions of vanquished nations, the homages of allied kings, the embassies of distant monarchs, the praises of the universe.'

During the first eighteen years of Louis XIV.'s long reign, nothing of consequence happened affecting the condition of the French Protestants as it had been fixed by Richelieu. There were various reasons for this forbearance. The Cardinal Mazarin, who succeeded Richelieu as prime-minister, desired to follow up the policy of that great statesman, which, as we have seen, was tolerant towards the Protestants. The international relations of France were likewise such as to render persecution of the Calvinists impolitic. It was the era of the Civil War and Protectorate in England; and the terror of Cromwell's name was sufficient, while he lived, to check the persecuting spirit of foreign governments. The restoration of Charles II. to the throne of England in 1660, the marriage, in the same year, of Louis XIV. with Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and the death of Mazarin in 1661, were fatal events for French Protestantism. From this period we date the commencement of the persecutions of Louis XIV. One of the articles in the marriagecontract of Louis and Maria Theresa was the extirpation of heresy in France. The zeal of the Catholic clergy, long suppressed, now burst forth with fresh fury. France, divided into two religions, was universally compared by them to the household of Abraham, in which Hagar shared the honours due alone to Sarah; and the monarch was solicited to imitate the conduct of the patriarch, and drive out the bondwoman and her son.

On Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV., now about twenty-three years of age, avowed his intention of thenceforth governing alone. His ideas of his own power were of the most absolute character, as may be judged from his celebrated saying: 'L'état, c'est moi !—"The state, that is me! On Mazarin's death, the young monarch assumed the entire administration of affairs into his own hands. One of his first acts was to dismiss Fouquet, who had acted as superintendent of finance under Mazarin, and appoint in his room the celebrated Colbert, whose strict economy soon restored order and prosperity to the revenue. Colbert was a Protestant; but his appointment did not proceed from favour to his religious opinions. On the contrary, Louis began to manifest the most rooted dislike to the Protestants. The first distinct exhibition of this dislike in practice was the appointment of a commission to ascertain the number of churches, schools, and burying-grounds possessed by the Protestants, in order to reduce it strictly within the legal limits fixed by the Edict of Nantes. This proved a great hardship to the Calvinists. Many chapels, which had been erected in consequence of the increase of the Protestant population, were suppressed, as having no legal right; elementary schools for the young were likewise prohibited, because,