The cruelty went further. Protestants were forbidden to be employed as librarians and printers. They could not even be employed as labourers upon the King's highway. They could not serve in any public office whatever. They were excluded from the collection of the taxes, and from all government departments. Protestant apothecaries must shut up their shops. Protestant advocates were forbidden to plead before the courts. Protestant doctors were forbidden to practise medicine and surgery. The _sages-femmes_ must necessarily be of the Roman Catholic religion. The cruelty was extended to the family. Protestant parents were forbidden to instruct their children in their own faith. They were enjoined, under a heavy penalty, to have their children baptized by the Roman Catholic priest, and brought up in the Roman Catholic religion. When the law was disobeyed, the priests were empowered to seize and carry off the children, and educate them, at the expense of the parents, in monasteries and nunneries. Then, as regards the profession of the Protestant religion:--It was decreed by the King, that all the Protestant temples in France should be demolished, or converted to other uses. Protestant pastors were ordered to quit the country within fifteen days after the date of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. If found in the country after that period, they were condemned to death. A reward of five thousand five hundred livres was offered for the apprehension of any Protestant pastor. When apprehended he was hung. Protestant worship was altogether prohibited. If any Protestants were found singing psalms, or engaged in prayer, in their own houses, they were liable to have their entire property confiscated, and to be sent to the galleys for life. These monstrous decrees were carried into effect--at a time when France reigned supreme in the domain of intellect, poetry, and the arts--in the days of Racine, Corneille, Molière--of Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fénélon. Louis XIV. had the soldier, the hangman, and the priest at his command; but they all failed him. They could imprison, they could torture, they could kill, they could make the Protestants galley-slaves; they could burn their Bibles, and deprive them of everything that they valued; but the impregnable rights of conscience defied them. The only thing left for the Protestants was to fly from France in all directions. They took refuge in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England. The flight from France had begun before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but after that act the flight rapidly increased. Not less than a million of persons are supposed to have escaped from France in consequence of the Revocation.