Refugees. This is what people called the French Protestants whom the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes forced to leave French soil and to look for sanctuary in foreign nations in order to hide from the persecutions that a blind and rash zeal made them endure in their own country. Since this time France saw herself deprived of a great number of citizens who brought to her enemies some arts, talents, and resources that they often used against her. There is not a good Frenchman alive who has not groaned for a long time from the deep wounds caused to the kingdom by the loss of so many useful subjects, Nevertheless to the shame of our century there still exist today some men who are sufficiently blind and imprudent to justify in the eyes of politics and reason the most deadly proceedings that any sovereign's council was ever able to undertake. Louis XIV in persecuting the Protestants deprived his kingdom of close to a million industrious men whom he sacrificed to the interested and ambitious purposes of some bad citizens who are the enemies of all freedom of thought, because they can only reign in the shadow of ignorance. The persecuting mentality should be repressed by all enlightened governments: if we punished those agitators who continually want to trouble the consciences of their fellow citizens when they differ in their opinions, we would see all the sects live in perfect harmony and supply citizens vying with each other to be useful to the country and faithful to their prince. How do these partisans of intolerance construe humanity and religion? Those who believe that violence can shake the faith of others provide a rather contemptible opinion of their feelings and of their own constancy. See Persecutions and Tolerance.