The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 by Various
page 68 of 311 (21%)
page 68 of 311 (21%)
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and crush the hope of humanity.
In these days of fear, a Huguenot colony sailed for the New World. The calm, stern man who represented and led the Protestantism of France felt to his inmost heart the peril of the time. He would fain build up a city of refuge for the persecuted sect. Yet Gaspar de Coligny, too high in power and rank to be openly assailed, was forced to act with caution. He must act, too, in the name of the Crown, and in virtue of his office of Admiral of France. A nobleman and a soldier,--for the Admiral of France was no seaman,--he shared the ideas and habits of his class; nor is there reason to believe him to have been in advance of others of his time in a knowledge of the principles of successful colonization. His scheme promised a military colony, not a free commonwealth. The Huguenot party was already a political, as well as a religious party. At its foundation lay the religious element, represented by Geneva, the martyrs, and the devoted fugitives who sang the psalms of Marot among rocks and caverns. Joined to these were numbers on whom the faith sat lightly, whose hope was in commotion and change. Of these, in great part, was the Huguenot noblesse, from Condé, who aspired to the crown,-- "Ce petit homme tant joli, Qui toujours chante, toujours rit,"-- to the younger son of the impoverished seigneur whose patrimony was his sword. More than this, the restless, the factious, the discontented began to link their fortunes to a party whose triumph would involve confiscation of the bloated wealth of the only rich class in France. An element of the great revolution was already mingling in the strife of religions. America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung unbroken |
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