The Ascendency of Fratice under Louis XIV 287 merit, intelligence, education, and, most of all, for all inde- pendence of character and sentiment in others ; his mis- takes of judgment in matters of importance ; his familiarity and favor reserved entirely for those to whom he felt him- self superior in acquirements and ability ; and, above every- thing else, a jealousy of his own authority which determined and took precedence of every other sort of justice, reason, and consideration whatever. VI. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) As the culmination of a consistent policy of repression, all the privileges of the Protestants were finally withdrawn by annulling the Edict of Nantes. Louis, by the grace of God king of France and Navarre, to all present and to coine, greeting : King Henry the Great, our grandfather of glorious memory, being desirous that the peace which he had procured for his subjects after the grievous losses they had sustained in the course of domestic and foreign wars, should not be troubled on account of the R.P.R., 1 as had happened in the reigns of the kings, his predecessors, by his edict, granted at Nantes in the month of April, 1598, regulated the procedure to be adopted with regard to those of the said religion, and the places in which they might meet for public worship, estab- lished extraordinary judges to administer justice to them, and, in fine, provided in particular articles for whatever could be thought necessary for maintaining the tranquillity of his kingdom and for diminishing mutual aversion between the members of the two religions, so as to put himself in a better position to labor, as he had resolved to do, for the reunion to the Church of those who had so lightly withdrawn from it. As the intention of the king, our grandfather, was frus- trated by his sudden death, and as the execution of the said 1 I.e. Religion pretendue reformee, " the religion called the Reformed." See above, p. 184 n. 341. Revo- cation of the Edict of Nantes (October 22, 1685). Objects of Henry IV in granting the edict.
