The sermons of the pastors were collected by spies in the pay of the Jesuits, and if there were found any terms, however slight, against the teachings of (Roman) Catholicism, these pastors were cited before the tribunals under the accusation of blasphemy. Many individuals were exposed to the same treatment, and (Roman) Catholics who were at law with the Reformed, were often found to tax them with some blasphemy, for the purpose of gaining an undue advantage over the adverse party. It daily became more difficult for the Reformed to obtain admission to public offices. They had been at first kept out of high employments; access to the less important places was next closed, and by degrees they were debarred from the very smallest, unless in the towns and cantons where they still retained the majority. In many provinces, a profession of the (Roman) Catholic faith was exacted from simple artisans before they could obtain a license to pursue their calling. Even the corporation of laundresses at Paris laid a remonstrance before the council, that their community having been instituted by Saint Louis, could not admit heretics, and this reclamation was gravely confirmed (singular monument of folly!) by a decree of the 21st of August, 1665. It was thereupon remarked that these washerwomen had in their corporation many abandoned women, of whom they did not complain, and that they disturbed themselves much more about heresy than about evil manners. The example had been set them, it is true, by the priests, by the court, and particularly by Louis XIV. Colbert, however, persisted in employing the Reformed in financial employments. A Protestant from Germany, Bartholomew Herward, had been appointed intendant of the finances under the ministry of Mazarin, notwithstanding the opposition of the commissioners of the clergy, authentically signified to the chancellor. Herward next became comptroller-general. “He favoured those of his religion,” says Elie Benoit; “the finances became the refuge of the Reformed, to whom all other employments were refused. They entered into the farms and commissions, and made themselves so necessary in affairs of this nature, that even Fouquet and Colbert could not dispense with them, and were forced to retain them as people of proved fidelity, and of acknowledged capacity.”[86] Colbert, in fact, relied upon their spirit of order, economy, and probity, and cared very little about their religion, provided the people in his service were but honest. Rulhières has a curious remark upon this subject in his _Eclaircissements historiques_: “The fact is, that the financiers then enjoyed general esteem for the first time; they were not attacked either by Molière, Lafontaine, or Boileau. This silence of the satirists about the financiers, during the period, in which the greatest number of these offices were filled by Protestants,” Rulhières adds, “is it not infinitely honourable to them?”[87]