Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 01 by Samuel de Champlain
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page 16 of 329 (04%)
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the throne, was a Protestant, and therefore by the decree of the League
disqualified to succeed. Around his standard, the Huguenots rallied in great numbers. With him were associated the princes of Conde, of royal blood, and many other distinguished nobles. They contended for the double purpose of securing the throne to its rightful heir and of emancipating and establishing the Protestant faith. But there was another class, acting indeed with one or the other of these two great parties, nevertheless influenced by very different motives. It was composed of moderate Catholics, who cared little for the political schemes and civil power of the Roman Pontiff, who dreaded the encroachments of the King of Spain, who were firmly patriotic and desired the aggrandizement and glory of France. The ultra-Catholic party was, for a long period, by far the most numerous and the more powerful; but the Huguenots were sufficiently strong to keep up the struggle with varying success for nearly forty years. After the alliance of Henry of Navarre with Henry III. against the League, the moderate Catholics and the Huguenots were united and fought together under the royal standard until the close of the war in 1598. Champlain was personally engaged in the war in Brittany for several years. This province on the western coast of France, constituting a tongue of land jutting out as it were into the sea, isolated and remote from the great centres of the war, was among the last to surrender to the arms of Henry IV. The Huguenots had made but little progress within its borders. The Duke de Mercoeur [13] had been its governor for sixteen years, and had bent all his energies to separate it from France, organize it into a distinct kingdom, and transmit its sceptre to his own family. |
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