7083. PROTESTANTS, French edict respecting.—
The long expected edict for the
Protestants at length appears here [Paris].
Its analysis is this: It is an acknowledgment
(hitherto withheld by the laws,) that Protestants
can beget children, and that they can
die, and be offensive unless buried. It does
not give them permission to think, to speak,
or to worship. It enumerates the humiliations
to which they shall remain subject, and
the burthens to which they shall continue to
be unjustly exposed. What are we to think
of the condition of the human mind in a
country where such a wretched thing as this
has thrown the State into convulsions, and
how must we bless our own situation in a
country the most illiterate peasant of which is
a Solon compared with the authors of this
law?—
To William Rutledge. Washington ed. ii, 350.
Ford ed., v, 4.
(P.
Feb. 1788)
