Finally, in a religious point of view, properly speaking, M. de Châteaubriand’s sentence respecting the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,[97] which we have already mentioned elsewhere, has at this point a new and striking application. Beholding the narrow and pernicious bigotry of the king, the hideous profanations sanctioned by the body of the [Roman Catholic] clergy, the military transformed into missionaries, mourning and blood mingled with religion, all laws, human and divine, trodden underfoot by those, whose especial duty it was to defend them, beholding all this, the upper classes of the nation threw themselves into the wildest scepticism. On the death of Louis XIV. the court was full of unbelievers, and Voltaire sprung ready armed from the bosom of that generation. It has been pretended that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was popular. If this were true, it would be the most overwhelming accusation against the Church of Rome, that it had thus educated and fashioned France. But it is only half true. The Revocation was popular among the priests, who, by the mouths of Fléchier and Bossuet, exhorted their hearers to make the heavens resound with their thanksgivings and their acclamations. It was popular with courtiers, the Marquis Dangeau and Madame de Sévigné, who worshipped the very footsteps of the monarch. It was popular with the lowest classes of the country, particularly in the southern provinces, who blindly obeyed the inspirations of their spiritual guides. Perhaps, at the furthest, it was popular with some ministers and government officials, who saw no hope for civil and political unity, but through religious unity. But was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes popular among the officers of the army and navy, among the provincial nobility, even among the court nobility, who had not entirely sacrificed their independence of mind, or even among the middle classes, destined to rise in influence in the eighteenth century, and to govern in the nineteenth? Good reason for doubting it may be gathered from what we have stated above; and if we can now perceive but few traces of their opposition, it is because it was difficult to utter a single word freely under Louis XIV. To sum up all in one word—everything suffered by the Revocation; royalty suffered; the political strength of France suffered; national wealth, industry, and morality suffered; the spirit of religion suffered; nay, even the (Roman) Catholic clergy suffered. Thus evil begets nothing but misfortune! BOOK IV. FROM THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES UNTIL THE EDICT OF TOLERATION. (1685-1787.) I.