Protestantism in France From Death of Henry IV to the Revolution - James Aitken Wylie

The current of the nation's life was not indeed
stopped outright, but its flow became languid and
sluggish beyond the power of king or of parliament
again to quicken it. The shock was felt in every
department of national enterprise, whether mental
or industrial. It was felt at the bar, which it stripped
of some of its brightest ornaments. It was felt in the
schools of philosophy. Some of the ablest
cultivators of science it drove away. The great
astronomer and mathematician, Huygens, had to
quit France and seek asylum in Holland. It was felt
in the ranks of literature. It chased beyond the
frontier some of the finest writers and most
eloquent orators that France contained. In the list of
these illustrious refugees we find Claude, Jurieu,
Lenfant, Saurin, Basnage, Bayle, and Rapin. It was
felt in the army and navy. The Revocation drove
beyond the frontier the flower of the French
soldiers, and decreed that henceforth those banners
which had waved so proudly on many a victorious
field should be folded in humiliation and defeat.
The Revocation was felt in the iron works and
smelting furnaces on the Vrigne and at Pouru-
Saint-Remy. It was felt in the manufactures of arms
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