This work was first sketched out several years ago. Different circumstances, and latterly, the general pre-occupation of the country, have prevented the author from completing it sooner. The same causes will explain why he has comprised in a single volume a history which, if it were fully developed, would require several.
The book was, at the commencement, framed on a much more extensive plan. But the present epoch, with its uncertainties and its apprehensions, is unfavourable to lengthy undertakings. Hence all that will be found herein, is a simple abridgment of the rich and varied annals of the French Reformation.
To gain space, the indication of the sources applied to, has been reduced to the narrowest limit. It would have been easy to fill entire pages with what the Germans call the littérature of the subject. But these bibliographical details, while they must have occupied much room, would have been useful to the learned by profession alone, who do not require them; therefore, it is only when we have borrowed his own words from an author, or when we have related events, subject to controversy, that it has appeared necessary to cite our authorities.
The general histories of France, which we may suppose to be familiar to most of our readers, have also afforded an opportunity of abridging our own. A few words have sufficed for whatever may be found everywhere, such as the wars of Protestantism in the sixteenth century, the intrigues of party, and court influences mixed up with religious struggles. To explain the succession of events, something of all this had to be told, but the simplest narration was all that could be required. The essential for us, was precisely that which other historians neglect to relate—the development, the life, the internal successes and reverses of the Reformed people. Instead of taking our point of observation without, we have chosen it from within. Here, indeed, is the special History of Protestantism, in which our literature was deficient.
Each one of the periods of the French Reformation has been treated, it is true, by ancient or recent writers; but there exists in our language no work that exhibits a condensed and altogether regular view of this history. There was, then, a void to fill up. We have undertaken the task, and we hope that this book, defective as it may be, will at least give some just idea of the affairs and the men of the Reformed communion of France.
It is sad to think how little the history of the Protestants is known in their own country, and even, it must be confessed, among the members of their own churches. Yet it offers chosen intellects and noble spirits for contemplation, great examples for imitation, and precious lessons to be gathered.
Protestantism has suffered from national opinion the fate of minorities, and of vanquished minorities. When it ceased to be feared, it ceased to be known, and under the favour of this disregard and indifference, every kind of prejudice against it has been received and believed. This is a denial of justice, which it ought not to accept, and a misfortune, from which it ought to relieve itself. History is the common property of all.
Nevertheless, we treat here of only one of the two branches of French Protestantism. The Lutherans of Alsatia, or Christians of the Confession of Augsburg, annexed to our country from the reign of Louis XIV., and who form about a third of the total number of the Protestants, will be completely excluded from this book. They have a separate origin, language, and form of worship, and although all the disciples of the Reformation of the sixteenth century may be united by the most intimate ties, the followers of Luther and those of Calvin have distinct annals. The first have already in Alsatia more than one historian of note, and it was not for us to take a work in hand, which they are better able to accomplish. It is, therefore, of the Reformers, properly speaking, or of those Huguenots, whose name has so oft resounded in the France of old, that we desire to write.
No spirit of sect or of system must be looked for in this work. The latter is, perhaps, useful in a theological or a philosophical history; it allows us to measure all events and all opinions by one invariable standard, and to subordinate them to a high and controlling unity; but such has not been our design. Our office is that of a narrator rather than of a judge, and our purpose is to tell the history, not to make it speak in favour of a theory. One conceives that in ecclesiastical history generally, which has been told and re-told again and again, an author should endeavour to bring it back to a systematic point of view; that is the only way to give to his work a character of originality, and, so to speak, the reason for its existence. But for the history of the French Protestants, which has never been written as a whole, it was first requisite to collect and arrange the facts in a simple, clear, and impartial manner, without adopting a type, which might have distorted their nature. Other writers will follow who, finding these facts, will re-construct them by means of philosophy or theology.