It is as well to remember that living as we do in a Protestant country, our historians have been strongly biassed in their favour, and that whilst the horrors of St. Bartholomew’s Day are always depicted in the most lurid manner, little or nothing is said about the bloodshed and cruelties inflicted by the Calvinists on the Catholics in those parts of the country where they happened to be numerous and powerful. The two factions hated one another for the love of God; it was a cruel period, and, as Baron Rothschild remarks in his “Characteristics from French History,” “There was nothing to choose between Protestants and Catholics in their savage hatred of each other. The Protestants butchered the Catholics whenever they had an opportunity, and all that happened at St. Bartholomew was that the Catholics made a good score.” And this view naturally presents itself to any unprejudiced reader of the history of the period. After frightful massacres and civil wars, the accession of Henry IV. (himself a Calvinist) to the throne of France in 1589, gave promise of a more tolerant spirit, and in April, 1598, he promulgated the famous Edict of Nantes giving the Protestants a certain amount of religious freedom. This wise measure was confirmed by his successors Louis XIII. in 1610, and Louis XIV. in 1652. But later on, Louis XIV., under the influence of Madame de Montespan and the Romish Church, saw fit to revoke the Edict of Nantes in October, 1658, an act which was in its consequences one of the most disastrous for the commerce and prosperity of France. It was the aim of Louis, and his ministers, to compel the members of the Reformed Church to abjure their heresies, and return to the Catholic Church, and in some remote country districts, or places where the Huguenots were few and isolated, the plan succeeded. But in the main it failed, as all forced religious conversions ever have failed, a lesson which kings and priests have always before them, and yet never seem to learn. The forced exile of the Huguenot Ministers, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was the signal for flight to thousands of French Protestants of both sexes, and of all classes and ages, and in spite of the penalties proclaimed against emigration, and the punishments inflicted upon those who were arrested in the attempt to leave their country, an enormous number of persons did effect their escape to the various Protestant States in Europe, and even to the then newly-settled American colonies, but principally to our shores. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANT HOSPITAL.] They brought with them the art of manufacturing silk, and founded a prosperous colony in Spitalfields, where their descendants yet remain. Glass making, jewellery, and other trades in which taste and skill are required, were also understood by them; they rapidly became naturalized, and useful citizens, and the names and histories of many of our wealthy families attest their Huguenot descent.