to do, instead of which, crusades were preached against them and their innocent blood, which has been so inhumanly shed, still cries up to heaven. Even if the papal hierarchy and Christianity had not been one and the same thing, there would still have arisen in our mountains great preachers and reformers of the church. When the papal authority began to totter, such teachers as these spread themselves among our mountains and Calvin's disciples found minds, which had been long prepared to receive his doctrines. This form of faith is here as natural and holy as yours may be in other parts, and he only could resolve on extirpating them by persecution, who misunderstands the beautiful and tolerating spirit of Christianity, indeed it appears to me, that he must be entirely inimical to this religion of love. Since Luther and Calvin, a civil war has raged through every province for nearly a century; dearly was this cherished liberty to be paid for, of which the popes and bishops have so unjustly robbed mankind. A light shone in the midst of this gloom, our fourth Henry stepped forward and extended the olive-branch of peace over all his dominions. By the edict of Nantes liberty of conscience was ensured by a royal oath, and by the unanimous consent of the parliament, and confirmed by all the states and provinces: his successor renewed this oath, and our ruler, Louis XIV, could not be recognised king, before he agreed to reign over Evangelical as well as Roman Catholic subjects: thus was the oath which he took for himself and his posterity ratified to us; he has reigned many years with happiness and renown, but now in his old age, surrounded by ambitious and superstitious minds, now that his bright star has long set, now that his country is impoverished and exhausted; that his armies are defeated; that enemies threaten his frontiers, and even his very capital,--now that Germany, England, and Holland, here in the neighbourhood, Savoy, menace us with the most dire misfortune,--now his conscience awakes, he thinks to be able to conquer heaven and fortune, by suffering Catholic subjects only to call him king. He sends with inconceivable blindness--converting ministers into these mountains; and threats, compulsion, massacre and pillage are the exhortations employed towards this unfortunate people; now we have witnessed these horrors in our very neighbourhood; however zealous you may be for your party, my son, I know that your humane heart has been agonised more than once by these proceedings. Suddenly--could he do it, ask yourself if he might? the king revokes that edict and voluntarily absolves himself from his oath, without at the same time consulting that of his predecessors, of the parliament, and of all the states in the kingdom; he himself destroys, in his religious madness, that which binds him to the citizen, that attaches the subject to him, the sacred palladium, the undefilable is profaned and annihilated, and the