Protestantism was stronger in the sixteenth century in France than it ever was thereafter. During the eighty-seven years while the Edict of Nantes was in force it lost much ground, and when that Edict was revoked by a doting king and persecution began afresh, the Huguenots were in no condition to resist. [Sidenote: 1685] From a total constituency at its maximum of perhaps a fifth or a sixth of the whole population, the Protestants have now sunk to less than two per cent. (650,000 out of 39,000,000). The history of the rise and decline of the Huguenot movement is a melancholy record of persecution and of heroism. How great the number of martyrs was can never be known accurately. Apart from St. Bartholomew there were several lesser massacres, the wear and tear of a generation of war, and {230} the unremitting pressure of the law that claimed hundreds of victims a year. [Sidenote: Hostility of government] Three principal causes can be assigned for the failure of the Reformation to do more than fight a drawn battle in France. The first and least important of these was the steady hostility of the government. This hostility was assured by the mutually advantageous alliance between the throne and the church sealed in the Concordat of Bologna of 1516. But that the opposition of the government, heavily as it weighed, was not and could not be the decisive force in defeating Protestantism is proved, in my judgment, by the fact that even when the Huguenots had a king of their own persuasion they were unable to obtain the mastery. Had their faith won the support not only of a considerable minority, but of the actual majority of the people, they could surely at this time have secured the government and made France a Protestant state. [Sidenote: Protestantism came too late]