The period of about half a century with which these volumes are concerned may properly be regarded as the formative age of the Huguenots of France. It included the first planting of the reformed doctrines, and the steady growth of the Reformation in spite of obloquy and persecution, whether exercised under the forms of law or vented in lawless violence. It saw the gathering and the regular organization of the reformed communities, as well as their consolidation into one of the most orderly and zealous churches of the Protestant family. It witnessed the failure of the bloody legislation of three successive monarchs, and the equally abortive efforts of a fourth monarch to destroy the Huguenots, first with the sword and afterward with the dagger. At the close of this period the faith and resolution of the Huguenots had survived four sanguinary wars into which they had been driven by their implacable enemies. They were just entering upon a fifth war, under favorable auspices, for they had made it manifest to all men that their success depended less upon the lives of leaders, of whom they might be robbed by the hand of the assassin, than upon a conviction of the righteousness of their cause, which no sophistry of their opponents could dissipate.