Great numbers of them
were dispersed through all the countries of Europe. Evelyn, in his
Diary, says that in 1685, "there had now been numbered to passe
through Geneva onely forty thousand towards Swisserland. In Holland,
Denmark, and all Germany were dispersed some hundred thousands,
besides those in England." In the Memoirs of the Reformation in
France prefixed to Saurin's Sermons, it is stated that eight hundred
thousand were banished from France, and that they carried with them
more than twenty millions of property. The refugees charged their
sufferings on the RELIGION of Rome, for Pope Innocent XI highly
approved of this persecution. He wrote a brief to the king, assuring
him that what he had done against the heretics of his kingdom would
be immortalieied by the eulogies of the Catholic church. He
delivered a discourse in the Consistory in 1689, in which he said,
"The most Christian king's zeal and piety did wonderfully appear in
extirpating heresy." He ordered the TE DEUM to be sung. Evelyn says,
"I was show'd the harangue which the bishop of Valentia on Rhone
made in the name of the cleargie, celebrating the French king for
persecuting the poor Protestants; with this expression in it: 'His
victory over heresy was greater than all the conquests of Alexander
and Caesar.
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