As they could raise 25,000 soldiers at a time when the national army in time of peace was only 10,000, their position seemed absolutely impregnable.

So favorable was the Edict to the Huguenots that it was bitterly opposed by the Catholic clergy and by the Parlement of Paris.

Only the personal insistence of the king finally carried it.
[Sidenote: Reasons for failure of French Protestantism] Protestantism was stronger in the sixteenth century in France than it ever was thereafter.

During the eighty-seven years while the Edict of Nantes was in force it lost much ground, and when that Edict was revoked by a doting king and persecution began afresh, the Huguenots were in no condition to resist.

[Sidenote: 1685] From a total constituency at its maximum of perhaps a fifth or a sixth of the whole population, the Protestants have now sunk to less than two per cent.
(650,000 out of 39,000,000).