Stories of plots were made the excuse to seize the
property of Protestants. Regiments of soldiers, charged with the
task, could boast of many enforced "conversions." Quartered on
Protestant households, they made the life of the inmates a burden
until they abandoned their religion. Among the means used were
torture before a slow fire, the tearing off of the finger nails,
the driving of the whole families naked into the streets and the
forbidding of any one to give them shelter, the violation of
women, and the crowding of the heretics in loathsome prisons. By
such means it took a regiment of soldiers in Rouen only a few
days to "convert" to the old faith some six hundred families.
Protestant ministers caught in France were sent to the galleys
for life. The persecutions which followed the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes outdid even Titus Oates.
Charles II died in 1685 and the scene at his deathbed encouraged
in England suspicions of Catholic policy and in France hope that
this policy was near its climax of success. Though indolent and
dissolute, Charles yet possessed striking mental capacity and
insight.
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