fitting objects of it themselves. France in that age was a profoundly religious country. There was ignorance, there was superstition, there was bigotry; but there was Faith—a Faith that itself worked true miracles, even while it believed in unreal ones. At this time also, one of those devotional movements began among the clergy in France, which from time to time occur in national churches, without it being possible for the historian to assign any adequate human cause for their immediate date or extension. Numberless friars and priests traversed the rural districts and towns of France, preaching to the people that they must seek from Heaven a deliverance from the pillages of the soldiery, and the insolence of the foreign oppressors.[1] The idea of a Providence that works only by general laws was wholly alien to the feelings of the age. Every political event, as well as every natural phænomenon, was believed to be the immediate result of a special mandate of God. This led to the belief that his holy angels and saints were constantly employed in executing his commands and mingling in the affairs of men. The church encouraged these feelings; and at the same time sanctioned the concurrent popular belief that hosts of evil spirits were also ever actively interposing in the current of earthly events, with
- ↑ See Sismondi, vol. xiii. p. 114; Michelet, vol. v. livre x.
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