France tinder Louis XIV 69 1 and banking ; " as rich as a Huguenot " had become a proverb in France. There were perhaps a million of them among fifteen million Frenchmen, and they undoubtedly formed by far the most thrifty and enterprising part of the nation. The Catholic clergy, however, did not cease to urge the' complete suppression of heresy. Louis XIV had scarcely taken the reins of government into Louis's his own hands before the perpetual nagging and injustice to pression which the Protestants had been subjected at all times took a more serious form. Upon one pretense or another their churches were demolished. Children were authorized to renounce Prot- estantism when they reached the age of seven. Rough dragoons were quartered upon the Huguenots with the hope that the in- sulting behavior of the soldiers might frighten the heretics into accepting the religion of the king. At last Louis XIV was led by his officials to believe that prac- Revocation tically all the Huguenots had been converted by these harsh ofNa^ntesand measures. In 1685, therefore, he revoked the Ecfict of Nantes, ^*^ results and the Protestants thereby became outlaws and their ministers subject to the death penalty. Even liberal-minded Catholics, like the kindly writer of fables. La Fontaine, and the charming letter writer, Madame de Se'vigne', hailed this reestablishment of " religious unity " with delight. They believed that only an insignificant and seditious remnant still clung to the beliefs of Calvin. But there could have been no more serious mistake. Thousands of the Huguenots succeeded in eluding the vigi- lance of the royal officials and fled, some to England, some to Prussia, some to America, carrying with them their skill and in- dustry to strengthen France's rivals. This was the last great and terrible example in western Europe of that fierce religious intolerance which had produced the Albigensian Crusade, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Louis XIV now set his heart upon conquering the Palatinate, i.ouis-s a Protestant land, to which he easily discovered that he had a Se Rhenfsh" claim. The rumor of his intention and the indignation occasioned Palatinate
