Joined to these were numbers on whom the faith sat lightly, whose hope was in commotion and change. 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. The Huguenot party was already a political, as well as a religious party.
EVER FORWARD FLEUR DE LIS FREE
His scheme promised a military colony, not a free commonwealth. 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. He must act, too, in the name of the Crown, and in virtue of his office of Admiral of France. Yet Caspar de Coligny, too high in power and rank to be openly assailed, was forced to act with caution. He would fain build up a city of refuge for the persecuted sect. The Calm, stern man who represented and led the Protestantism of France felt to his inmost heart the peril of the time. In these days of fear, a Huguenot colony sailed for the New World. As on the hill by the field of Dreux, her veteran bands of pikemen, dark masses of organized ferocity, stood biding their time while the battle surged below, then swept downward to the slaughter, - so did Spain watch and wait to trample and crush the hope of humanity. In the gloom without lay Spain, imminent and terrible. None could pierce the future perhaps none dared to contemplate it: the wild rage of fanaticism and hate, friend grappling with friend, brother with brother, father with son altars profaned, hearthstones made desolate the robes of Justice herself bedrenched with murder. Surely and swiftly she glided towards the abyss of the religious wars. IN the year 1562 a cloud of black and deadly portent was thickening over France.
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