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

permitted to grow up uneducated, nor could a
beggar be seen. The flourishing condition of Bearn
showed what the mightier realms of Spain and
France would have become, had their peoples been
so wise as to welcome the Reformation. The code
of the wise queen continued in operation in the
territories of the House of D'Albret down to almost
our own times. She is still remembered in these
parts, where she is spoken of as the "good queen."
We have dwelt the longer upon these portraits
because one main end of history is to present us
with such. The very contemplation of them is
ennobling. In a recital like the present, which
brings before us some of the worst of men that
have ever lived, and portrays some of the darkest
scenes that have ever been enacted, to meet at
times and characters, like those we have just passed
in review, helps to make us forget the wickedness
and worthlessness on which the mind is apt to
dwell disproportionately, if not exclusively. All is
not dark in the scene we are surveying; beams of
glory break in through the deep shadows. Majestic
and kingly spirits pass across the stage, whose
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