[107] (Huguenots) were tolerated; for the next hundred years they were
outlaws. But the toleration, which their charter (the Edict of Nantes,
1598) secured them, was of a limited kind. They were excluded, for
instance, from the army; they were excluded from Paris and other cities
and districts. And the liberty which they enjoyed was confined to them;
it was not granted to any other sect. The charter was faithfully
maintained by the two great Cardinals (Richelieu and Mazarin) who
governed France under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, but when the latter
assumed the active power in 1661 he began a series of laws against the
Protestants which culminated in the revoking of the charter (1676) and
the beginning of a Protestant persecution.

The French clergy justified this policy by the notorious text “Compel
them to come in,” and appealed to St. Augustine. Their arguments evoked
a defence of toleration by Bayle, a French Protestant who had taken
refuge in Holland. It was entitled a Philosophical Commentary on the
text “Compel them to come in” (1686) and in importance stands beside
Locke’s work which was being composed at the same time. Many of the
arguments urged by the two writers are identical. They agreed, and for
the same reasons, in excluding Roman Catholics. The

[108] most characteristic thing in Bayle’s treatise is his sceptical
argument that, even if it were a right principle to suppress error by
force, no truth is certain enough to justify us in applying the theory.
We shall see (next chapter) this eminent scholar’s contribution to
rationalism.

Though there was an immense exodus of Protestants from France, Louis did
not succeed in his design of extirpating heresy from his lands. In the