Note 40 — BOOK II. FROM THE OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY TO THE EDICT OF NANTES. (1561-1598.)

Etudes, Hist. vol. ii. p. 198. This remark is applicable to all great ideas, political as well as religious. In the days of the Revolution, the people overturned the monuments of the old régime. Symbols bear before the masses the penalty of their origin and of their destination. One example, which we may select from a thousand, will illustrate the ardent passion of the iconoclasts of the sixteenth century. The great church of Sainte Croix, at Orleans, had been entered in the night, and pillaged during the first religious war. Condé and Coligny hastened to put a stop to these disorders. The prince even pointed an arquebuse at a soldier, who stood upon a ladder ready to break an image. “My lord,” said the Huguenot to him, “have patience till I have broken this image, and then let me die, if you will.”