Читать книгу The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century - Charles Bastide - Страница 24

My angry Antagonist, to make me angry also, giveth many attacks to the French Protestants … he saith that they had Milton's Book against our precious King and Holy Martyr in great veneration. That they will deny. But it is no extraordinary thing that wicked Books which say with a witty malice all that can be said for a bad cause, with a fluent and florid stile, are esteemed even by them that condemn them. Upon those terms Milton's wicked Book was entertained by Friends and Foes, that were Lovers of Human Learning, both in England and France. I had for my part such a jealousie to see that Traytour praised for his Language that I writ against him Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Cœlum.

That some of the Regicides were taken in the Congregations of the French Protestants is no disgrace to them. The Churches doors are open to all commers; false Brethren and Spies enter into it. But how much they detested their act, they exprest both in their Conversation and in printed Books, as much as the English Royalists.

His Lordship supposeth that they had a kindness for Cromwell, upon this ground, that Cromwell had a kindness for them. Had his Lordship had any ground for that assertion by any act of theirs, he would have been sure to have told us of it. It is true that Cromwell did them that kindness by his interest with Mazarin to make them injoy the benefits of the Edicts made in their favour. He knew that it was the interest of the King of England (which he would have been) to oblige his Protestant Neighbours, and to shew himself the Head of the Protestant Cause.

(A Reply to a Person of Honour, London, 1675, pp. 39–41.)

[Eldest son to Pierre Du Moulin, pastor at Charenton, Peter Du Moulin studied at Sedan and Leyden, was tutor to Richard Boyle, took orders, threw in his lot with the royalists, and became in 1660 prebendary of Canterbury.]