Note 458 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

See Clarendon, vii. 297. He saved Nismes from military execution on account of a riot, wherein the Huguenots seem to have been much to blame. In the treaty between England and France, 1654, the French, in agreeing to the secret article about the exclusion of the royalists, endeavoured to make it reciprocal, that the commissioners of rebels in France should not be admitted in England. This did not seem very outrageous—but Cromwell objected that the French protestants would be thus excluded from imploring the assistance of England, if they were persecuted; protesting, however, that he was very far from having any thought to draw them from their obedience, as had been imputed to him, and that he would arm against them, if they should offer frivolously and without a cause to disturb the peace of France. Thurloe, iii. 6. In fact, the French protestants were in the habit of writing to Thurloe, as this collection testifies, whenever they thought themselves injured, which happened frequently enough. Cromwell's noble zeal in behalf of the Vaudois is well known. See this volume of Thurloe, p. 412, etc. Mazarin and the catholic powers in general endeavoured to lye down that massacre; but the usurper had too much protestant spirit to believe them. Id. 536.