His name will reappear more than once in the course of this history. After exercising the pastoral function in Languedoc, where he displayed considerable energy, he was called to Charenton in 1666. He there took the first place after the death of Drelincourt and Daillé, without contest. “M. Claude,” says his biographer, Ladevèze, “particularly shone as president of an assembly. He appeared in this position for several years in the Consistory of Charenton; as well as in more than one synod of the Isle of France, where he was moderator. However complicated might be the matters submitted to the synod, and however disguised by ignorance or party manœuvres, M. Claude had so exact a spirit of discernment, that he unravelled all this chaos in a moment.” It would be easy to extend the list of doctors and pastors, who have acquired a name in the French Reformation during the seventeenth century. They generally preceded the great defenders of the (Roman) Catholic communion,—Arnauld, Nicole, Bossuet,—and in a degree, compelled their appearance. Why were such flourishing studies arrested by persecution? Why were men, who bore with so firm a hand the glorious burden of Calvin and Theodore de Bèze, driven to waste their pens upon their miserably dispersed places of worship and academies? This was indeed a disgrace to the Church of Rome and a misfortune for France. XII. We now resume the chain of events, of which the picture will be both sad and sorrowful. We will soften the outlines, but not efface them; for we are writing history. We may collect the lesson, that intolerance stands upon a slippery precipice, from which, the moment she has made a slip, she is dragged from iniquity to iniquity, and from violence to violence, until she reaches the most atrocious excesses—a moral which perhaps is not absolutely useless, even at this day. Mazarin died in 1661; his death was a loss to the Reformed. Although he inspired them with little confidence, and was not friendly to them, this cardinal preferred the use of stratagem to that of force; and as he sought to support his foreign policy by the Protestant power, he dared not impose too hard a yoke upon the French Calvinists. After his decease, Louis XIV. resolved to govern alone, and persecution increased. Not that this prince was naturally cruel; had he been so, he would have restrained himself out of respect for his own greatness; but he had been educated in hatred of the Huguenots. Other motives, which we shall explain, intervened later to strengthen the prejudices of his childhood, and the obliteration of heresy was one of the fixed ideas of his reign. He may have varied as to the means, have faltered between the course of persuasion and that of persecution, have even seemed to retrace his steps, and to defer until more favourable opportunities the execution of this great undertaking; but through all these fluctuations and adjournments, his object never changed.