The clergy went a different way to exterminate heresy, namely, by means of missionaries, ambulating controversialists, otherwise called _converters_, or _propagators of the faith_, whom we find at work from the year 1630. Some of them were monks, Capuchins and Recollets, of whom Fénélon somewhere says, that they had drawn universal contempt upon themselves by their ignorance and their fanatical rage. The others were laymen of the lowest condition—cordwainers, brokers, tailors, itinerant grinders, little shopmen—who, without any study, abandoned their trade for the championship of the (Roman) Catholic faith. These vagabonds received a fixed sum _per_ head, for every proselyte, and the rate varied according to the importance of the convert. They were careful to take certificates duly legalized, of their conquests, so that they might insure the receipt of their money. Fraud soon entered into the transaction, as might have been expected. There were wretches who joined the Reformed communion for the express purpose of deserting it, or feigned to belong to it that they might abjure, and afterwards share [the proceeds of their iniquity] with their accomplices. The converters had learned a catalogue of ridiculous subtilties and gross quibbles by heart, which they retailed on all occasions. The refutation of what was least ignoble in these polemics, was made with a master’s hand by the pastor Drelincourt, in his _Abrégé des Controverses_, whence he was called the scourge of the propagators of the faith. One of their favourite arguments consisted in putting this question: “Do you believe that the king is idolatrous and damned?” If the answer was “yes,” the result became a serious affair, pregnant with grave consequences, particularly for those who held any public appointment. If the reply was in the negative, they then asked how it was that any one could refuse to enter a church that opened the door of salvation. Or, again, if they encountered a strong resistance, they pushed their interlocutor to utter irreverent words against the Virgin and the saints; and as the laws punished what was then styled blasphemy, they denounced the offenders. As they had the priests and the Jesuits for their protectors, the majority of these “converters” were no less insolent than illiterate. They ran from town to town, knocking at the doors of consistories and synods. They even made their way, by force, into private houses, sometimes by the assistance of the judges of the district, and commenced a controversy, according to rule. So long as they were civilly invited to withdraw, they held firm. But if in a moment of anger they were thrust out, they sought to excite their unwilling host to some act of violence before witnesses, in the open street, and immediately carried their complaint before a tribunal.