6i6 A. D. 1684. 



hupable compliance with thefe and fuch articles, Louis condeicended to 

 permit this miierably fhattered people to exift as a free ftate. The un- 

 paralleled article of obliging the reigning doge of Genoa, who repre- 

 fents the majefty of the republic, to leave the feat of fovereignty, and 

 in his robes of ftate to abafe himfelf before the grand monarch, occa- 

 fioned a well-known witty reply of that doge to a queilion of a French 

 courtier, who aflcing him, which was the greateft rarity of all the fine 

 things he had feen at Paris ? (which, after his humiliation, Louis had 

 commanded to be fliewn to him) facetioufly replied, that he thought 

 himfelf the greateft rarity he had feen at Paris. 



1685 — We are now come to the famous revocation of what was be- 

 fore deemed the perpetual and irrevocable edift of Nantes, by which 

 the proteftants in France enjoyed the free and public exercife of their 

 religioii ; a revocation which, on one hand, proved very lamentable to 

 many hundred thoufands of honeft and innocent people in that king- 

 dom, more efpecially to fuch as by age and infirmities were difabled 

 from feeking an aiylum elfewhere : but which, on the other hand, was 

 produdive of much good to almoft all the proteftant countries of Eu- 

 rope, but more efpecially to the commerce of Holland and England, 

 while it greatly diminiftied that of France, and deprived her of great 

 funis of money carried away by thofe refugees into other countries. 



It is neither our province nor intent to defcribe Louis's motives for 

 fetting on foot a cruel perfecution of fo many of his beft and moft in- 

 duftrious fubjeds, of which fo much has been written and publiftied in 

 moft European languages, our proper province being purely to ftiew its 

 very confiderable influence on the commerce and manufadures of the 

 other nations of Europe. The people, whom Louis thus violently forced 

 out of his kingdom, were, generally throughout all France, the beft mer- 

 chants, manufadurers, and artificers, of that kingdom. There are very 

 various accounts of the total number of them : thofe who reckon up 

 all who retired from France fome time before, as well as immediately 

 upon, and alfo fome years after, this revocation, go fo high as one mil- 

 lion of men, women, and children. Poflibly this may be fomewhat 

 over-reckoned. Others, reckoning only thofe who withdrew immedi- 

 ately upon the revocation, make them only fomewhat more than 300,000 

 perlons. Thofe who had moft money retired into England and Holland ; 

 but the moft induftrious part of them fettled in Brandenburgh, where 

 they introduced the manufactures of cloth, ferges, ftuffs, druggets, crapes, 

 caps, ftockings, hats, and alfo the dying of all forts of colours. They 

 were in number about 20,000 at firft, but they foon multiplied : and 

 loon alio made ample returns to their generous benefador the eledor 

 Frederick William. Berlin now had goldfmiths, jewellers, watchmak- 

 ers, and carvers : and luch as were fettled in the open country planted 

 lobacco, and variety of fruits and pulfe. Others make the total num- 



