Jansenism is dead after having for a long while brooded in the depths of the most noble souls; Quietism, as a sect, did not survive its illustrious founders; faith and love have withstood the excess of zeal and the erroneous tendencies which had separated them from the aggregate of Christian virtues and doctrines; they have come back again into the pious treasury of the universal church.  Neither time nor persecutions have been able to destroy in France the strong and independent groundwork of Protestantism.  Faithful to its fundamental principle, it has triumphed over exile, the scaffold, and indifference, without other head than God himself and God alone.

Richelieu had slain the political hydra of Huguenots in France; from that time the Reformers had lived in modest retirement.  “I have no complaint to make of the little flock,” Mazarin would say; “if they eat bad grass, at any rate they do not stray.”  During the troubles of the Fronde, the Protestants had resumed, in the popular vocabulary, their old nickname of Tant s’en fault (Far from it), which had been given them at the time of the League.  “Faithful to the king in those hard times when most Frenchmen were wavering and continually looking to see which way the . wind would blow, the Huguenots had been called Tant s’en fault, as being removed from and beyond all suspicion of the League or of conspiracy against the state.  And so were they rightly designated, inasmuch as to the cry, ‘Qui vive?’ (Whom are you for?) instead of answering ‘Vive Guise!’ or ‘Vive la Ligue!’ they would answer, ’Tant s’en fault, vive le Roi!’ So that, when one Leaguer would ask another, pointing to a Huguenot, ‘Is that one of ours?’ ‘Tant s’en fault,’ would be the reply, ‘it is one of the new religion.’” Conde had represented to Cromwell all the Reformers of France as ready to rise up in his favor; the agent sent by the Protector assured him it was quite the contrary; and the bearing of the Protestants decided Cromwell to refuse all assistance to the princes.  La Rochelle packed off its governor, who was favorable to the Fronde; St. Jean d’Angely equipped soldiers for the king; Montauban, to resist the Frondeurs, repaired the fortifications thrown down by Richelieu.  “The crown was tottering upon the king’s head,” said Count d’ Harcourt to the pastors of Guienne, “but you have made it secure.”  The royal declaration of 1652, confirming and ratifying the edict of Nantes, was a recompense for the services and fidelity of the Huguenots.  They did not enjoy it long; an edict of 1656 annulled, at the same time explaining, the favorable declaration of 1652; in 1660 the last national synod was held at Loudun.  “His Majesty has resolved,” said M. de la Magdelaine, deputed from the king to the synod, “that there shall be no more such assemblies but when he considers it expedient.”  Fifteen years had rolled by since the synod of Charenton in 1645.  “We are only too firmly persuaded of the usefulness of our synods, and how entirely necessary they are for our churches, after having been so long with out them,” sorrowfully exclaimed the moderator, Peter Daille.