250

niSTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

VI.

1G85.

succession. Boys and girls were torn from their parents and' sent to be educated in convents. All Calvinistic ministerswere commanded either to abjure their religion or to quittheir country within a fortnight. The other professors of thereformed faith were forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, inorder to prevent them from making their escape, the outportsand frontiers were strictly guarded. It was thought that theflocks, thus separated from the evil shepherds, would soonreturn to the true fold. But in spite of all the vigilance of themilitary police there was avast emigration. It was calculatedthat, in a few months, fifty thousand families quitted Francefor ever. Nor were the refugees such as a country can wellspare. They were generally persons of intelligent minds, ofindustrious habits, and of austere morals. In the list are tobe found names eminent in war, in science, in literature, andin art. Some of the exiles offered their swords to Williamof Orange, and distinguished themselves by the fury withwhich they fought against their persecutor. Others avengedthemselves with weapons still more formidable, and, bymeans of the presses of Holland, England, and Germany,inflamed, during thirty years, the public mind of Europeagainst the French government. A more peaceful classerected silk manufactories in the eastern suburb of London.One detachment of emigrants taught the Saxons to make thestuffs and hats of which France had hitherto enjoyed a mono-poly. Another planted the first vines in the neighbourhoodof the Cape of Good Hope.*

In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and ofBorne would have eagerly applauded a prince who had madevigorous war on heresy. But such was the hatred inspired

by the injustice and haughtiness of Lewis that, when he

1

* The contemporary tracts in various languages on the subject ofthis persecution are innumerable. An eminently clear, terse, and spi-rited summary will be found in Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV.