who were minded to distinguish themselves by a little more stubbornness, adopted the same course twenty-four hours afterwards.  All this was done gently, without violence or disorder.  There is only a parson named Chambrun, patriarch of the district, who persists in refusing to listen to reason; for the president, who did aspire to the honor of martyrdom, would, as well as the rest of the Parliament, have turned Mohammedan, if I had desired it.  You would not believe how infatuated all these people were, and are still, about the Prince of Orange, his authority, Holland, England, and the Protestants of Germany.  I should never end if I were to recount all the foolish and impertinent proposals they have made to me.”  M. de Tesse did not tell Louvois that he was obliged to have the pastors of Orange seized and carried off.  They were kept twelve years in prison at Pierre-Encise; none but M. de Chambrun, who had been taken to Valence, managed to escape and take refuge in Holland, bemoaning to the end of his days a moment’s weakness.  “I was quite exhausted by torture, and I let fall this unhappy expression:  ‘Very well, then, I will be reconciled.’  This sin has brought me down as it were into hell itself, and I have looked upon myself as a dastardly soldier who turned his back on the day of battle, and as an unfaithful servant who betrayed the interests of his master.”

The king assembled his council.  The lists of converts were so long that there could scarcely remain in the kingdom more than a few thousand recalcitrants.  “His Majesty proposed to take an ultimate resolution as regarded the Edict of Nantes,” writes the Duke of Burgundy in a memorandum found amongst his papers.  “Monseigneur represented that, according to an anonymous letter he had received the day before, the Huguenots had some expectation of what was coming upon them, that there was perhaps some reason to fear that they would take up arms, relying upon the protection of the princes of their religion, and that, supposing they dared not do so, a great number would leave the kingdom, which would be injurious to commerce and agriculture, and, for that same reason, would weaken the state.  The king replied that he had foreseen all for some time past, and had provided for all; that nothing in the world would be more painful to him than to shed a single drop of the blood of his subjects, but that he had armies and good generals whom he would employ in case of need against rebels who courted their own destruction.  As for calculations of interest, he thought them worthy of but little consideration in comparison with the advantages of a measure which would restore to religion its splendor, to the state its tranquillity, and to authority all its rights.  A resolution was carried unanimously for the suppression of the Edict of Nantes.”  The declaration, drawn up by Chancellor Le Tellier and Chateauneuf, was signed by the king on the 15th of October, 1685; it was despatched on the 17th to