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. He knew well that to preserve his throne he must remain
outwardly a Protestant and must also respect the liberties of the
English nation. He cherished, however, the Roman Catholic faith
and the despotic ideals of his Bourbon mother. On his deathbed he
avowed his real belief. With great precautions for secrecy, he
was received into the Roman Catholic Church and comforted with
the consolations which it offers to the dying. While this secret
was suspected by the English people, one further fact was
perfectly clear. Their new King, James II, was a zealous Roman
Catholic, who would use all his influence to bring England back
to the Roman communion. Suspicion of the King's designs soon
became certainty and, after four years of bitter conflict with