Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

it had come. Indeed, in perusing the era of Francis
II we seem to be reading beforehand the history of
the times of the Great Revolution. The names of
persons and parties changed, the same harrowing
tale will suit both periods. The machinery of
injustice and oppression, first constructed by the
Guises, was a second time set a-working under
Danton and Robespierre. Again is seen a Reign of
Terror; again are crowds of spies; again are
numberless denunciations, with all their terrible
accompaniments--prison cells emptied in the
morning to be filled before night, tribunals
condemning wholesale, the axe incessantly at
work, a triumphant tyranny wielding the mob as its
tool, confiscations on a vast scale, and a furious
political fanaticism madly driving the nation into
civil war.
It was evident that a crisis was approaching.
The king was a captive in the hands of the Guises.
The laws were not administered--wrong and
outrage stalked defiantly through the kingdom; and
to complain was to draw upon oneself the
punishment which ought to have visited the acts of
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