feared nor loved them." The extermination
of the Huguenots was a favourite project
with Cardinal Richelieu, and it was at his
instigation that the second siege of Rochelle
was undertaken—known even to the most
careless student of history for the horrors of
famine which the besieged endured. Miserably
disappointed as they were at the failure
of the looked-for assistance from England,
the mayor of the town, Guiton, rejected the
conditions of peace which Cardinal Richelieu
offered; namely, that they would raze their
fortifications to the ground, and suffer the
Catholics to enter. But there was a traitorous
faction in the town; and, on Guiton's
rejection of the terms, this faction collected
in one night a crowd of women and children
and aged persons, and drove them beyond
the lines; they were useless, and yet they
ate food. Driven out from the beloved city,
tottering, faint, and weary, they were fired
at by the enemy; and the survivors came
pleading back to the walls of Rochelle, pleading
for a quiet shelter to die in, even if their
death were caused by hunger. When two-
thirds of the inhabitants had perished; when
the survivors were insufficient to bury their
dead; when ghastly corpses out-numbered the
living—miserable, glorious Rochelle, stronghold
of the Huguenots, opened its gates to
receive the Roman Catholic Cardinal, who
celebrated mass in the church of St.
Marguerite, once the beloved sanctuary of
Protestant worship. As we cling to the memory
of the dead, so did the Huguenots remember
Rochelle. Years—long years of suffering—
gone by, a village sprang up, not twenty
miles from New York, and the name of that
village was New Rochelle; and the old men
told with tears of the sufferings their parents
had undergone when they were little children,
far away across the sea, in the " pleasant" land
of France.

Richelieu was otherwise occupied after this
second siege of Rochelle, and had to put his
schemes for the extermination of the Huguenots
on one side. So they lived in a kind of
trembling uncertain peace during the
remainder of the reign of Louis the Thirteenth.
But they strove to avert persecution by
untiring submission. It was not until sixteen
hundred and eighty-three that the Huguenots
of the south of France resolved to profess
their religion, and refuse any longer to be
registered among those of the Roman Catholic
faith; to be martyrs, rather than apostates
or hypocrites. On an appointed Sabbath, the
old deserted Huguenot churches were
re-opened; nay, those in ruins, of which but
a few stones remained to tell the tale of
having once been holy ground, were peopled
with attentive hearers, listening to the word
of God as preached by reformed ministers.
Languedoc, Cevennes, Dauphigny, seemed
alive with Huguenots—even as the
Highlands were, at the chieftain's call, alive with
armed men, whose tartans had been hidden
but a moment before in the harmonious and
blending colours of the heather.

Dragonnades took place, and cruelties were
perpetrated, which it is as well, for the
honour of human nature, should be
forgotten. Twenty-four thousand conversions
were announced to Le Grand Louis, who
fully believed in them. The more far-seeing
Madame de Maintenon hinted at her doubts
in the famous speech, "Even if the fathers
are hypocrites, the children will be
Catholics."

And then came the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. A multitude of weak
reasons were alleged, as is generally the
case where there is not one that is really
good, or presentable; such as that the Edict
was never meant to be perpetual; that
(by the blessing of Heaven and the
dragonnades) the Huguenots had returned to the
true faith, therefore the Edict was useless—a
mere matter of form, &c. &c.

As a " mere matter of form," some penalties
were decreed against the professors of
the extinct heresy. Every Huguenot place of
worship was to be destroyed; every minister
who refused to conform was to be sent to the
Hôpitaux des Forçats at Marseilles and at
Valence. If he had been noted for his zeal
he was to be considered " obstinate," and sent
to slavery for life in such of the West Indian
islands as belonged to the French. The
children of Huguenot parents were to be
taken from them by force, and educated by
the Roman Catholic monks or nuns. These
are but a few of the enactments contained in
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

And now come in some of the traditions
which I have heard and collected.

A friend of mine, a descendant from some
of the Huguenots who succeeded in emigrating
to England, has told me the following
particulars of her great-great-grandmother's
escape. This lady's father was a Norman
farmer, or rather small landed proprietor.
His name was Lefebvre; he had two sons,
grown men, stout and true; able to protect
themselves and choose their own line of
conduct. But he had also one little daughter,
Magdalen, the child of his old age, and
the darling of his house; keeping it alive and
glad with her innocent prattle. His small
estate was far away from any large town,
with its corn fields and orchards surrounding
the old ancestral house. There was plenty
always in it; and though the wife was an
invalid, there was always a sober
cheerfulness present, to give a charm to the
abundance.

The family Lefebvre lived almost entirely
on the produce of the estate, and had little need
for much communication with their nearest
neighbours, with whom, however, as kindly,
well-meaning people, they were on good
terms, although they differed in their
religion. In those days coffee was scarcely
known, even in large cities; honey supplied