[Footnote 10: Under these circumstances the Protestants sent the following touching petition: "It being impossible for us to live without the exercise of our religion, we are compelled, in spite of ourselves, to supplicate your majesty, with the most profound humility and respect, that you may be pleased to allow us to leave the kingdom, with our wives, our children, and our effects, to settle in foreign countries, where we can freely render to God the worship which we believe indispensable, and on which depends our happiness or our misery for eternity." This petition met only the response of aggravated severities.--_Hist. of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice_, p. 486.] [Footnote 11: History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice, p. 405.] [Footnote 12: History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice, p. 408.] [Footnote 13: Histoire de l'Édit de Nantes, par Elias Benoît, tome v., p. 953.] [Footnote 14: Boulainvilliers.] [Footnote 15: "It is painful to detect continually the hand of the clergy in these scenes of violence, spoliation, and death. The venerable Malesherbes, the Baron de Breteuil, Rulhières, Joly de Fleury, Gilbert de Voisins, Rippert de Monclus, the highest statesmen, the most eminent magistrates, who have written upon the religious affairs of this period, utter but one voice on it. They agree in signalizing the influence of the priests, an influence as obstinate as incessant, sometimes haughty, sometimes supple and humble, but always supplicating the last means of restraint and severity for the re-establishment of religious unity."--_History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice_, p. 487.] CHAPTER III. THE REGENCY AND LOUIS XV. State of France.--The Regency.--Financial Embarrassment.--Crimes of the Rulers.--Recoining the Currency.--Renewed Persecution of the Protestants.--Bishop Dubois.--Philosophy of Voltaire.--Anecdote of Franklin.--The King's Favorites.--Mademoiselle Poisson.--Her Ascendency.--_Parc aux Cerfs._--Illustrative Anecdote.--Letter to the King.--Testimony of Chesterfield.--Anecdote of La Fayette.--Death of Pompadour.--Mademoiselle Lange.--Power of Du Barry.--Death of Louis XV.