subjects? In what way did his most Christian majesty, the magnificent Louis, signalize that part of his kingly career which immediately preceded the birth of Voltaire? In the famous dragonnades, in which a rude and licentious soldiery were encouraged in every excess of cruelty and outrage, because, to use the language of the minister Louvois, "His majesty was desirous that the heaviest penalties should be put in force against those who are not willing embrace his religion; and those who have the false glory to remain longest firm in their opinions, must be driven to the last extremities."
They were so driven. It will therefore suffice to repeat that at length the Edict of Nantes was formally repealed, Protestants refused liberty of conscience, their temples demolished, their children torn from them, and, to crown all, attempts were even made to impede their emigration. They were to be enclosed like wild beasts and hunted down at leisure.
Such were the facts and horrors that must, in the first instance, have encountered and confirmed the incipient skepticism of Voltaire. What calm man, of any or of no religion, can now hear of them without shuddering and execration? and what such feel now it is reasonable to suppose that a mind predisposed like that of Voltaire must have felt then.
Next to fanaticism-and superstition, Voltaire appears to have endeavored with the utmost anxiety to rectify the injustice of the public tribunals, espe-
