Consequently the Protestant movement in France
failed to become a national movement. Against the wretched Henry III who
would have temporized with it, and the gallant Henry IV who honestly
espoused it, the oppressed peasantry and townsmen made common cause by
enlisting under the banner of the ultra-Catholic Guises. The mass of
the people saw nothing in Protestantism but an idea favoured by the
aristocracy and which they could not comprehend. Hence the great king
who would have been glad to make France a Protestant country could only
obtain his crown by renouncing his religion, while seeking to protect
it by his memorable Edict of Nantes. But what a generous despot could
grant, a bigoted despot might revoke; and before another century had
elapsed, the good work done by Henry IV. was undone by Louis XIV., the
Edict of Nantes was set aside, the process of casting out the most
valuable political element in the community was carried to completion,
and seven percent of the population of France was driven away and added
to the Protestant populations of northern Germany and England and
America. The gain to these countries and the damage to France was far
greater than the mere figures would imply; for in determining the
character of a community a hundred selected men and women are more
potent than a thousand men and women taken at random.
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