French persecutions.
Jones Vol II — Pgs 321-2
During the reign of Louis XIII the Protestants had multiplied in France to such an extent, that, at the period of his death, A.D. 1643, they were computed to exceed two millions. Their religious privileges had been guaranteed to them by the well-known edict of Nantz. Louis XIV was only five years of age when his father died, and of course, the queen mother was appointed sole regent during his minority. When the young king came of age, in 1652, the edict of Nantz was again confirmed. But his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarine, with his confessors and clergy, were continually impressing his mind with the expediency of revoking that edict: and when the management of affairs devolved upon his own hands, in 1661, he resolved to effect the destruction of the Protestants. In prosecution of this design he began by excluding the Calvinists from his household, and from all places of profit and trust. He next caused several laws to be passed in favor of the catholic religion. Then rigorous methods were adopted to compel the Calvinists to change their religion — their places of worship were shut up — and at length, October 22, 1685, he revoked the edict of Nantz, and banished them from the kingdom. The cruelties that were inflicted upon them at that time, if possible, surpass in atrocity any thing that is to be found in the persecutions of the first Christians by the Heathens. “They cast some,” says Monsieur Claude, “into large fires, and took them out when they were half roasted. They hanged others with ropes under their arms, and plunged them several times into wells, till they promised to renounce their religion. They tied them like criminals on the rack, and by means of a funnel, poured wine into their mouths, till, being intoxicated, they declared, that they consented to turn Catholics. Some they cut and slashed with pen-knives, others they took up by the nose with red hot tongs, and led them up and down the rooms till they promised to turn Catholics.” These cruel proceedings caused eight hundred thousand persons to quit the kingdom.
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