English speech have been labouring for the political regeneration of
mankind. But for this alliance of forces, it is quite possible that the
fateful seventeenth century might have seen despotism triumphant in
England as on the continent of Europe, and the progress of civilization
indefinitely arrested. [Sidenote: The moment of Cromwell's triumph was
the most critical moment in history]

In illustration of this possibility, observe what happened in France
at the very time when the victorious English tendencies were shaping
themselves in the reign of Elizabeth. In France there was a strong
Protestant movement, but it had no such independent middle-class to
support it as that which existed in England; nor had it been able to
profit by such indispensable preliminary work as that which Wyclif had
done; the horrible slaughter of the Albigenses had deprived France of
the very people who might have played a part in some way analogous to
that of the Lollards. Consequently the Protestant movement in France
failed to become a national movement. Against the wretched Henry III who
would have temporized with it, and the gallant Henry IV who honestly
espoused it, the oppressed peasantry and townsmen made common cause by
enlisting under the banner of the ultra-Catholic Guises. The mass of
the people saw nothing in Protestantism but an idea favoured by the
aristocracy and which they could not comprehend. Hence the great king
who would have been glad to make France a Protestant country could only
obtain his crown by renouncing his religion, while seeking to protect
it by his memorable Edict of Nantes. But what a generous despot could
grant, a bigoted despot might revoke; and before another century had
elapsed, the good work done by Henry IV. was undone by Louis XIV., the
Edict of Nantes was set aside, the process of casting out the most
valuable political element in the community was carried to completion,
and seven percent of the population of France was driven away and added