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Title: The Huguenots in France

Author: Samuel Smiles

Release date: September 4, 2008 [eBook #26524]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE ***

Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other
inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.

THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE

By Dr. SAMUEL SMILES

Author of "Self Help"

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED
BROADWAY HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL
MDCCCCIII

LONDON AND COUNTY PRINTING WORKS,
BAZAAR BUILDINGS, LONDON, W.C.

CONTENTS.

THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE AFTER THE REVOCATION OF THE
EDICT OF NANTES.
CHAPTER PAGE

I. REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES 1
II. EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION—CHURCH IN THE DESERT 12
III. CLAUDE BROUSSON, THE HUGUENOT ADVOCATE 30
IV. CLAUDE BROUSSON, PASTOR AND MARTYR 50
V. OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC 75
VI. INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS 99
VII. EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER 130
VIII. END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION 166
IX. GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH 190
X. ANTOINE COURT 205

XI. REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT 218
XII. THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT—PAUL RABAUT 235
XIII. END OF THE PERSECUTIONS—THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 253

MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED HUGUENOT REFUGEES.
I. STORY OF SAMUEL DE PÉCHELS 285
II. CAPTAIN RAPIN, AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF ENGLAND" 316
III. CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 368

A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS.
I. INTRODUCTORY—EARLY PERSECUTIONS OF THE VAUDOIS 383
II. THE VALLEY OF THE ROMANCHE—BRIANÇON 401
III. VAL LOUISE—HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF 420
IV. THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSE 437
V. GUILLESTRE AND THE VALLEY OF QUEYRAS 455
VI. THE VALLEY OF THE PELICE—LA TOUR—ANGROGNA—THE
PRA DE TOUR 472
VII. THE GLORIOUS RETURN: AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE
ITALIAN VAUDOIS 493

MAPS.

The Country of the Cevennes 98
"The Country of Felix Neff" (Dauphiny) 382
The Valley of Luserne 472

PREFACE.

In preparing this edition for the press, I have ventured to add three short
memoirs of distinguished Huguenot Refugees and their descendants.

Though the greatest number of Huguenots banished from France at the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes were merchants and manufacturers, who
transferred their skill and arts to England, which was not then a
manufacturing country; a large number of nobles and gentry emigrated to
this and other countries, leaving their possessions to be confiscated by the
French king.

The greater number of the nobles entered the armies of the countries in
which they took refuge. In Holland, they joined the army of the Prince of
Orange, afterwards William III., King of England. After driving the armies
of Louis XIV. out of Ireland, they met the French at Ramilies, Blenheim,
and Malplacquet, and other battles in the Low Countries. A Huguenot
engineer directed the operations at the siege of Namur, which ended in its
capture. Another conducted the siege of Lille, which was also taken.

But perhaps the greatest number of Huguenot nobles entered the Prussian
service. Their descendants revisited France on more than one occasion.
They overran the northern and eastern parts of France in 1814 and 1815;
and last of all they vanquished the descendants of their former persecutors
at Sedan in 1870. Sedan was, prior to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
the renowned seat of Protestant learning; while now it is known as the scene
of the greatest military catastrophe which has occurred in modern history.

The Prime Minister of France, M. Jules Simon, not long ago recorded the
fateful effects of Louis XIV.'s religious intolerance. In discussing the
perpetual ecclesiastical questions which still disturb France, he recalled the
fact that not less than eighty of the German staff in the late war were

representatives of Protestant families, driven from France by the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

The first of the appended memoirs is that of Samuel de Péchels, a noble
of Languedoc, who, after enduring great privations, reached England
through Jamaica, and served as a lieutenant in Ireland under William III.
Many of his descendants have been distinguished soldiers in the service of
England. The second is Captain Rapin, who served faithfully in Ireland, and
was called away to be tutor to the young Duke of Portland. He afterwards
spent his time at Wesel on the Rhine, where he wrote his "History of
England." The third is Captain Riou, "the gallant and the good," who was
killed at the battle of Copenhagen. These memoirs might be multiplied to
any extent; but those given are enough to show the good work which the
Huguenots and their descendants have done in the service of England.[Back
to Contents]

INTRODUCTION.

Six years since, I published a book entitled The Huguenots: their
Settlements, Churches, and Industries, in England and Ireland. Its object
was to give an account of the causes which led to the large migrations of
foreign Protestants from Flanders and France into England, and to describe
their effects upon English industry as well as English history.

It was necessary to give a brief résumé of the history of the Reformation
in France down to the dispersion of the Huguenots, and the suppression of
the Protestant religion by Louis XIV. under the terms of the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes.

Under that Act, the profession of Protestantism was proclaimed to be
illegal, and subject to the severest penalties. Hence, many of the French
Protestants who refused to be "converted," and had the means of
emigrating, were under the necessity of leaving France and endeavouring to
find personal freedom and religious liberty elsewhere.

The refugees found protection in various countries. The principal portion
of the emigrants from Languedoc and the south-eastern provinces of France
crossed the frontier into Switzerland, and settled there, or afterwards
proceeded into the states of Prussia, Holland, and Denmark, as well as into
England and Ireland. The chief number of emigrants from the northern and
western seaboard provinces of France, emigrated directly into England,
Ireland, America, and the Cape of Good Hope. In my previous work, I
endeavoured to give as accurate a description as was possible of the
emigrants who settled in England and Ireland, to which, the American
editor of the work (the Hon. G. P. Disosway) has added an account of those
who settled in the United States of America.

But besides the Huguenots who contrived to escape from Franco during
the dragonnades which preceded and the persecutions which followed the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, there was still a very large number of
Huguenots remaining in France who had not the means wherewith to fly
from their country. These were the poorer people, the peasants, the small
farmers, the small manufacturers, many of whom were spoiled of their
goods for the very purpose of preventing them from emigrating. They were
consequently under the necessity of remaining in their native country,
whether they changed their religion by force or not. It is to give an account
of these people, as a supplement to my former book, that the present work
is written.

It is impossible to fix precisely the number of the Huguenots who left
France to avoid the cruelties of Louis XIV., as well as of those who perforce
remained to endure them. It shakes one's faith in history to observe the
contradictory statements published with regard to French political or
religious facts, even of recent date. A general impression has long prevailed
that there was a Massacre of St. Bartholemew in Paris in the year 1572; but
even that has recently been denied, or softened down into a mere political
squabble. It is not, however, possible to deny the fact that there was a
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, though it has been vindicated as
a noble act of legislation, worthy even of the reputation and character of
Louis the Great.

No two writers agree as to the number of French citizens who were
driven from their country by the Revocation. A learned Roman Catholic,
Mr. Charles Butler, states that only 50,000 persons "retired" from France;
whereas M. Capefigue, equally opposed to the Reformation, who consulted
the population tables of the period (although the intendants made their
returns as small as possible in order to avoid the reproach of negligence),
calculates the emigration at 230,000 souls, namely, 1,580 ministers, 2,300
elders, 15,000 gentlemen, the remainder consisting almost entirely of
traders and artisans.

These returns, quoted by M. Capefigue, were made only a few years after
the Revocation, although the emigration continued without intermission for
many years later. M. Charles Coquerel says that whatever horror may be

felt for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew of 1572, the persecutions which
preceded and followed the Act of Revocation in 1685, "kept France under a
perpetual St. Bartholomew for about sixty years." During that time it is
believed that more than 1,000,000 Frenchmen either left the kingdom, or
were killed, imprisoned, or sent to the galleys in their efforts to escape.

The Intendant of Saintonge, a King's officer, not likely to exaggerate the
number of emigrants, reported in 1698, long before the emigration had
ceased, that his province had lost 100,000 Reformers. Languedoc suffered
far more; whilst Boulainvilliers reports that besides the emigrants who
succeeded in making their escape, the province lost not fewer than 100,000
persons by premature death, the sword, strangulation, and the wheel.

The number of French emigrants who resorted to England may be
inferred from the fact that at the beginning of last century there were not
fewer than thirty-five French Protestant churches in London alone, at a time
when the population of the metropolis was not one-fourth of what it is now;
while there were other large French settlements at Canterbury, Norwich,
Southampton, Bristol, Exeter, &c., as well as at Dublin, Lisburn,
Portarlington, and other towns in Ireland.

Then, with respect to the much larger number of Protestants who
remained in France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, there is the
same difference of opinion. A deputation of Huguenot pastors and elders,
who waited upon the Duc de Noailles in 1682 informed him that there were
then 1,800,000 Protestant families in France. Thirty years after that date,
Louis XIV. proclaimed that there were no Protestants whatever in France;
that Protestantism had been entirely suppressed, and that any one found
professing that faith must be considered as a "relapsed heretic," and
sentenced to imprisonment, the galleys, or the other punishments to which
Protestants were then subject.

After an interval of about seventy-five years, during which Protestantism
(though suppressed by the law) contrived to lead a sort of underground life
—the Protestants meeting by night, and sometimes by day, in caves,
valleys, moors, woods, old quarries, hollow beds of rivers, or, as they
themselves called it, "in the Desert"—they at length contrived to lift their
heads into the light of day, and then Rabaut St. Etienne stood up in the

Constituent Assembly at Paris, in 1787, and claimed the rights of his
Protestant fellow-countrymen—the rights of "2,000,000 useful citizens."
Louis XVI. granted them an Edict of Tolerance, about a hundred years after
Louis XIV. had revoked the Edict of Nantes; but the measure proved too
late for the King, and too late for France, which had already been sacrificed
to the intolerance of Louis XIV. and his Jesuit advisers.

After all the sufferings of France—after the cruelties to which her people
have been subjected by the tyranny of her monarchs and the intolerance of
her priests,—it is doubtful whether she has yet learnt wisdom from her
experience and trials. France was brought to ruin a century ago by the
Jesuits who held the entire education of the country in their hands. They
have again recovered their ground, and the Congreganistes are now what
the Jesuits were before. The Sans-Culottes of 1793 were the pupils of the
priests; so were the Communists of 1871.[1] M. Edgar Quinet has recently
said to his countrymen: "The Jesuitical and clerical spirit which has sneaked
in among you and all your affairs has ruined you. It has corrupted the spring
of life; it has delivered you over to the enemy.... Is this to last for ever? For
heaven's sake spare us at least the sight of a Jesuits' Republic as the
coronation of our century."

In the midst of these prophecies of ruin, we have M. Veuillot frankly
avowing his Ultramontane policy in the Univers. He is quite willing to go
back to the old burnings, hangings, and quarterings, to prevent any freedom
of opinion about religious matters. "For my part," he says, "I frankly avow
my regret not only that John Huss was not burnt sooner, but that Luther was
not burnt too. And I regret further that there has not been some prince
sufficiently pious and politic to have made a crusade against the
Protestants."

M. Veuillot is perhaps entitled to some respect for boldly speaking out
what he means and thinks. There are many amongst ourselves who mean
the same thing, without having the courage to say so—who hate the
Reformation quite as much as M. Veuillot does, and would like to see the
principles of free examination and individual liberty torn up root and
branch.

With respect to the proposed crusade against Protestantism, it will be
seen from the following work what the "pious and politic" Louis XIV.
attempted, and how very inefficient his measures eventually proved in
putting down Protestantism, or in extending Catholicism. Louis XIV. found
it easier to make martyrs than apostates; and discovered that hanging,
banishment, the galleys, and the sword were not amongst the most
successful of "converters."

The history of the Huguenots during the time of their submergence as an
"underground church" is scarcely treated in the general histories of France.
Courtly writers blot them out of history as Louis XIV. desired to blot them
out of France. Most histories of France published in England contain little
notice of them. Those who desire to pursue the subject further, will obtain
abundant information, more particularly from the following works:—

Elie Bénoît: Histoire de l'Édit de Nantes. Charles Coquerel: Histoire
des Églises du Désert. Napoleon Peyrat: Histoire des Pasteurs du Désert.
Antoine Court: Histoire des Troubles de Cevennes. Edmund Hughes:
Histoire de la Restauration du Protestantisme en France au xviii. Siècle. A.
Bonnemère: Histoire des Camisardes. Adolphe Michel: Louvois et Les
Protestantes. Athanase Coquerel Fils; Les Forçats pour La Foi, &c., &c.

It remains to be added that part of this work—viz., the "Wars of the
Camisards," and the "Journey in the Country of the Vaudois"—originally
appeared in Good Words.

S.S.

London, October, 1873.[Back to Contents]

THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE.

CHAPTER I.

REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was signed by Louis XIV. of
France, on the 18th of October, 1685, and published four days afterwards.

Although the Revocation was the personal act of the King, it was
nevertheless a popular measure, approved by the Catholic Church of
France, and by the great body of the French people.

The King had solemnly sworn, at the beginning of his reign, to maintain,
the tolerating Edict of Henry IV.—the Huguenots being amongst the most
industrious, enterprising, and loyal of his subjects. But the advocacy of the
King's then Catholic mistress, Madame de Maintenon, and of his Jesuit
Confessor, Père la Chaise, overcame his scruples, and the deed of
Revocation of the Edict was at length signed and published.

The aged Chancellor, Le Tellier, was so overjoyed at the measure, that on
affixing the great seal of France to the deed, he exclaimed, in the words of
Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen the salvation."

Three months later, the great Bossuet, the eagle of Meaux, preached the
funeral sermon of Le Tellier; in the course of which he testified to the
immense joy of the Church at the Revocation of the Edict. "Let us," said he,
"expand our hearts in praises of the piety of Louis. Let our acclamations
ascend to heaven, and let us say to this new Constantine, this new
Theodosius, this new Marcian, this new Charlemagne, what the thirty-six
fathers formerly said in the Council of Chalcedon: 'You have affirmed the
faith, you have exterminated the heretics; it is a work worthy of your reign,
whose proper character it is. Thanks to you, heresy is no more. God alone
can have worked this marvel. King of heaven, preserve the King of earth: it
is the prayer of the Church, it is the prayer of the Bishops.'"[2]

Madame de Maintenon also received the praises of the Church. "All good
people," said the Abbé de Choisy, "the Pope, the bishops, and all the clergy,
rejoice at the victory of Madame de Maintenon." Madame enjoyed the
surname of Director of the Affairs of the Clergy; and it was said by the

ladies of St. Cyr (an institution founded by her), that "the cardinals and the
bishops knew no other way of approaching the King save through her."

It is generally believed that her price for obtaining the King's consent to
the Act of Revocation, was the withdrawal by the clergy of their opposition
to her marriage with the King; and that the two were privately united by the
Archbishop of Paris at Versailles, a few days after, in the presence of Père la
Chaise and two more witnesses. But Louis XIV. never publicly recognised
De Maintenon as his wife—never rescued her from the ignominious
position in which she originally stood related to him.

People at court all spoke with immense praises of the King's intentions
with respect to destroying the Huguenots. "Killing them off" was a matter
of badinage with the courtiers. Madame de Maintenon wrote to the Duc de
Noailles, "The soldiers are killing numbers of the fanatics—they hope soon
to free Languedoc of them."

That picquante letter-writer, Madame de Sévigné, often referred to the
Huguenots. She seems to have classed them with criminals or wild beasts.
When residing in Low Brittany during a revolt against the Gabelle, a friend
wrote to her, "How dull you must be!" "No," replied Madame de Sévigné,
"we are not so dull—hanging is quite a refreshment to me! They have just
taken twenty-four or thirty of these men, and are going to throw them off."

A few days after the Edict had been revoked, she wrote to her cousin
Bussy, at Paris: "You have doubtless seen the Edict by which the King
revokes that of Nantes. There is nothing so fine as that which it contains,
and never has any King done, or ever will do, a more memorable act."
Bussy replied to her: "I immensely admire the conduct of the King in
destroying the Huguenots. The wars which have been waged against them,
and the St. Bartholomew, have given some reputation to the sect. His
Majesty has gradually undermined it; and the edict he has just published,
maintained by the dragoons and by Bourdaloue,[3] will soon give them the
coup de grâce."

In a future letter to Count Bussy, Madame de Sévigné informed him of "a
dreadfully fatiguing journey which her son-in-law M. de Grignan had made
in the mountains of Dauphiny, to pursue and punish the miserable

Huguenots, who issued from their holes, and vanished like ghosts to avoid
extermination."

De Baville, however, the Lieutenant of Languedoc, kept her in good
heart. In one of his letters, he said, "I have this morning condemned
seventy-six of these wretches (Huguenots), and sent them to the galleys."
All this was very pleasant to Madame de Sévigné.

Madame de Scuderi, also, more moderately rejoiced in the Act of
Revocation. "The King," she wrote to Bussy, "has worked great marvels
against the Huguenots; and the authority which he has employed to unite
them to the Church will be most salutary to themselves and to their
children, who will be educated in the purity of the faith; all this will bring
upon him the benedictions of Heaven."

Even the French Academy, though originally founded by a Huguenot,
publicly approved the deed of Revocation. In a discourse uttered before it,
the Abbé Tallemand exclaimed, when speaking of the Huguenot temple at
Charenton, which had just been destroyed by the mob, "Happy ruins, the
finest trophy France ever beheld!" La Fontaine described heresy as now
"reduced to the last gasp." Thomas Corneille also eulogized the zeal of the
King in "throttling the Reformation." Barbier D'Aucourt heedlessly, but
truly, compared the emigration of the Protestants "to the departure of the
Israelites from Egypt." The Academy afterwards proposed, as the subject of
a poem, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and Fontenelle had the
fortune, good or bad, of winning the prize.

The philosophic La Bruyère contributed a maxim in praise of the
Revocation. Quinault wrote a poem on the subject; and Madame
Deshoulières felt inspired to sing "The Destruction of Heresy." The Abbé de
Rancé spoke of the whole affair as a prodigy: "The Temple of Charenton
destroyed, and no exercise of Protestantism, within the kingdom; it is a kind
of miracle, such as we had never hoped to have seen in our day."

The Revocation was popular with the lower class, who went about
sacking and pulling down the Protestant churches. They also tracked the
Huguenots and their pastors, where they found them evading or breaking
the Edict of Revocation; thus earning the praises of the Church and the fines

offered by the King for their apprehension. The provosts and sheriffs of
Paris represented the popular feeling, by erecting a brazen statue of the
King who had rooted out heresy; and they struck and distributed medals in
honour of the great event.

The Revocation was also popular with the dragoons. In order to "convert"
the Protestants, the dragoons were unduly billeted upon them. As both
officers and soldiers were then very badly paid, they were thereby enabled
to live at free quarters. They treated everything in the houses they occupied
as if it were their own, and an assignment of billets was little loss than the
consignment of the premises to the military, to use for their own purposes,
during the time they occupied them.[4]

The Revocation was also approved by those who wished to buy land
cheap. As the Huguenots were prevented holding their estates unless they
conformed to the Catholic religion, and as many estates were accordingly
confiscated and sold, land speculators, as well as grand seigneurs who
wished to increase their estates, were constantly on the look-out for good
bargains. Even before the Revocation, when the Huguenots were selling
their land in order to leave the country, Madame de Maintenon wrote to her
nephew, for whom she had obtained from the King a grant of 800,000
francs, "I beg of you carefully to use the money you are about to receive.
Estates in Poitou may be got for nothing; the desolation of the Huguenots
will drive them to sell more. You may easily acquire extensive possessions
in Poitou."

The Revocation was especially gratifying to the French Catholic Church.
The Pope, of course, approved of it. Te Deums were sung at Rome in
thanksgiving for the forced conversion of the Huguenots. Pope Innocent XI.
sent a brief to Louis XIV., in which he promised him the unanimous praises
of the Church, "Amongst all the proofs," said he, "which your Majesty has
given of natural piety, not the least brilliant is the zeal, truly worthy of the
most Christian King, which has induced you to revoke all the ordinances
issued in favour of the heretics of your kingdom."[5]

The Jesuits were especially elated by the Revocation. It had been brought
about by the intrigues of their party, acting on the King's mind through
Madame de Maintenon and Père la Chaise. It enabled them to fill their

schools and nunneries with the children of Protestants, who were compelled
by law to pay for their education by Jesuit priests. To furnish the required
accommodation, nearly the whole of the Protestant temples that had not
been pulled down were made over to the Jesuits, to be converted into
monastic schools and nunneries. Even Bossuet, the "last father of the
Church," shared in the spoils of the Huguenots. A few days after the Edict
had been revoked, Bossuet applied for the materials of the temples of
Nauteuil and Morcerf, situated in his diocese; and his Majesty ordered that
they should be granted to him.[6]

Now that Protestantism had been put down, and the officers of Louis
announced from all parts of the kingdom that the Huguenots were becoming
converted by thousands, there was nothing but a clear course before the
Jesuits in France. For their religion was now the favoured religion of the
State.

It is true there were the Jansenists—declared to be heretical by the Popes,
and distinguished for their opposition to the doctrines and moral teaching of
the Jesuits—who were suffering from a persecution which then drove some
of the members of Port Royal into exile, and eventually destroyed them.
But even the Jansenists approved the persecution of the Protestants. The
great Arnault, their most illustrious interpreter, though in exile in the Low
Countries, declared that though the means which Louis XIV. had employed
had been "rather violent, they had in nowise been unjust."

But Protestantism being declared destroyed, and Jansenism being in
disgrace, there was virtually no legal religion in France but one—that of the
Roman Catholic Church. Atheism, it is true, was tolerated, but then Atheism
was not a religion. The Atheists did not, like the Protestants, set up rival
churches, or appoint rival ministers, and seek to draw people to their
assemblies. The Atheists, though they tacitly approved the religion of the
King, had no opposition to offer to it—only neglect, and perhaps concealed
contempt.

Hence it followed that the Court and the clergy had far more toleration
for Atheism than for either Protestantism or Jansenism. It is authentically
related that Louis XIV. on one occasion objected to the appointment of a
representative on a foreign mission on account of the person being

supposed to be a Jansenist; but on its being discovered that the nominee was
only an Atheist, the objection was at once withdrawn.[7]

At the time of the Revocation, when the King and the Catholic Church
were resolved to tolerate no religion other than itself, the Church had never
seemed so powerful in France. It had a strong hold upon the minds of the
people. It was powerful in its leaders and its great preachers; in fact, France
has never, either before or since, exhibited such an array of preaching
genius as Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fléchier, and Massillon.

Yet the uncontrolled and enormously increased power conferred upon the
French Church at that time, most probably proved its greatest calamity. Less
than a hundred years after the Revocation, the Church had lost its influence
over the people, and was despised. The Deists and Atheists, sprung from the
Church's bosom, were in the ascendant; and Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot,
and Mirabeau, were regarded as greater men than either Bossuet,
Bourdaloue, Fléchier, or Massillon.

Not one of the clergy we have named, powerful orators though they were,
ever ventured to call in question the cruelties with which the King sought to
compel the Protestants to embrace the dogmas of their Church. There were
no doubt many Catholics who deplored the force practised on the
Huguenots; but they were greatly in the minority, and had no power to
make their opposition felt. Some of them considered it an impious sacrilege
to compel the Protestants to take the Catholic sacrament—to force them to
accept the host, which Catholics believed to be the veritable body of Christ,
but which the Huguenots could only accept as bread, over which some
function had been performed by the priests, in whose miraculous power of
conversion they did not believe.

Fénélon took this view of the forcible course employed by the Jesuits;
but he was in disgrace as a Jansenist, and what he wrote on the subject
remained for a long time unknown, and was only first published in 1825.
The Duc de Saint-Simon, also a Jansenist, took the same view, which he
embodied in his "Memoirs;" but these were kept secret by his family, and
were not published for nearly a century after his death.

Thus the Catholic Church remained triumphant. The Revocation was
apparently approved by all, excepting the Huguenots. The King was
flattered by the perpetual conversions reported to be going on throughout
the country—five thousand persons in one place, ten thousand in another,
who had abjured and taken the communion—at once, and sometimes
"instantly."

"The King," says Saint-Simon, "congratulated himself on his power and
his piety. He believed himself to have renewed the days of the preaching of
the Apostles, and attributed to himself all the honour. The Bishops wrote
panegyrics of him; the Jesuits made the pulpits resound with his praises....
He swallowed their poison in deep draughts."[8]

Louis XIV. lived for thirty years after the Edict of Nantes had been
revoked. He had therefore the fullest opportunity of observing the results of
the policy he had pursued. He died in the hands of the Jesuits, his body
covered with relics of the true cross. Madame de Maintenon, the "famous
and fatal witch," as Saint-Simon called her, abandoned him at last; and the
King died, lamented by no one.

He had banished, or destroyed, during-his reign, about a million of his
subjects, and those who remained did not respect him. Many regarded him
as a self-conceited tyrant, who sought to save his own soul by inflicting
penance on the backs of others. He loaded his kingdom with debt, and
overwhelmed his people with taxes. He destroyed the industry of France,
which had been mainly supported by the Huguenots. Towards the end of his
life he became generally hated; and while his heart was conveyed to the
Grand Jesuits, his body, which was buried at St. Denis, was hurried to the
grave accompanied by the execrations of the people.

Yet the Church remained faithful to him to the last. The great Massillon
preached his funeral sermon; though the message was draped in the livery
of the Court. "How far," said he, "did Louis XIV. carry his zeal for the
Church, that virtue of sovereigns who have received power and the sword
only that they may be props of the altar and defenders of its doctrine!
Specious reasons of State! In vain did you oppose to Louis the timid views
of human wisdom, the body of the monarchy enfeebled by the flight of so
many citizens, the course of trade slackened, either by the deprivation of

their industry, or by the furtive removal of their wealth! Dangers fortify his
zeal. The work of God fears not man. He believes even that he strengthens
his throne by overthrowing that of error. The profane temples are destroyed,
the pulpits of seduction are cast down. The prophets of falsehood are torn
from their flocks. At the first blow dealt to it by Louis, heresy falls,
disappears, and is reduced either to hide itself in the obscurity whence it
issued, or to cross the seas, and to bear with it into foreign lands its false
gods, its bitterness, and its rage."[9]

Whatever may have been the temper which the Huguenots displayed
when they were driven from France by persecution, they certainly carried
with them something far more valuable than rage. They carried with them
their virtue, piety, industry, and valour, which proved the source of wealth,
spirit, freedom, and character, in all those countries—Holland, Prussia,
England, and America—in which these noble exiles took refuge.

We shall next see whether the Huguenots had any occasion for
entertaining the "rage" which the great Massillon attributed to them.[Back to
Contents]

CHAPTER II.

EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION.

The Revocation struck with civil death the entire Protestant population of
France. All the liberty of conscience which they had enjoyed under the
Edict of Nantes, was swept away by the act of the King. They were
deprived of every right and privilege; their social life was destroyed; their
callings were proscribed; their property was liable to be confiscated at any
moment; and they were subjected to mean, detestable, and outrageous
cruelties.

From the day of the Revocation, the relation of Louis XIV. to his
Huguenot subjects was that of the Tyrant and his Victims. The only resource

which remained to the latter was that of flying from their native country;
and an immense number of persons took the opportunity of escaping from
France.

The Edict of Revocation proclaimed that the Huguenot subjects of France
must thenceforward be of "the King's religion;" and the order was
promulgated throughout the kingdom. The Prime Minister, Louvois, wrote
to the provincial governors, "His Majesty desires that the severest rigour
shall be shown to those who will not conform to His Religion, and those
who seek the foolish glory of wishing to be the last, must be pushed to the
utmost extremity."

The Huguenots were forbidden, under the penalty of death, to worship
publicly after their own religious forms. They were also forbidden, under
the penalty of being sent to the galleys for life, to worship privately in their
own homes. If they were overheard singing their favourite psalms, they
were liable to fine, imprisonment, or the galleys. They were compelled to
hang out flags from their houses on the days of Catholic processions; but
they were forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to look out of their windows
when the Corpus Domini was borne along the streets.

The Huguenots were rigidly forbidden to instruct their children in their
own faith. They were commanded to send them to the priest to be baptized
and brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, under the penalty of five
hundred livres fine in each case. The boys were educated in Jesuit schools,
the girls in nunneries, the parents being compelled to pay the required
expenses; and where the parents were too poor to pay, the children were at
once transferred to the general hospitals. A decree of the King, published in
December, 1685, ordered that every child of five years and upwards was to
be taken possession of by the authorities, and removed from its Protestant
parents. This decree often proved a sentence of death, not only to the child,
but to its parents.

The whole of the Protestant temples throughout France were subject to
demolition. The expelled pastors were compelled to evacuate the country
within fifteen days. If, in the meantime, they were found performing their
functions, they were liable to be sent to the galleys for life. If they
undertook to marry Protestants, the marriages were declared illegal, and the

children bastards. If, after the expiry of the fifteen days, they were found
lingering in France, the pastors were then liable to the penalty of death.

Protestants could neither be born, nor live, nor die, without state and
priestly interference. Protestant sages-femmes were not permitted to
exercise their functions; Protestant doctors were prohibited from practising;
Protestant surgeons and apothecaries were suppressed; Protestant advocates,
notaries, and lawyers were interdicted; Protestants could not teach, and all
their schools, public and private, were put down. Protestants were no longer
employed by the Government in affairs of finance, as collectors of taxes, or
even as labourers on the public roads, or in any other office. Even
Protestant grocers were forbidden to exercise their calling.

There must be no Protestant librarians, booksellers, or printers. There
was, indeed, a general raid upon Protestant literature all over France. All
Bibles, Testaments, and books of religious instruction, were collected and
publicly burnt. There were bonfires in almost every town. At Metz, it
occupied a whole day to burn the Protestant books which had been seized,
handed over to the clergy, and condemned to be destroyed.

Protestants were even forbidden to hire out horses, and Protestant grooms
were forbidden to give riding lessons. Protestant domestics were forbidden
to hire themselves as servants, and Protestant mistresses were forbidden to
hire them under heavy penalties. If they engaged Protestant servants, they
were liable to be sent to the galleys for life. They were even prevented
employing "new converts."

Artisans were forbidden to work without certificates that their religion
was Catholic. Protestant apprenticeships were suppressed. Protestant
washerwomen were excluded from their washing-places on the river. In
fact, there was scarcely a degradation that could be invented, or an insult
that could be perpetrated, that was not practised upon those poor Huguenots
who refused to be of "the King's religion."

Even when Protestants were about to take refuge in death, their troubles
were not over. The priests had the power of forcing their way into the dying
man's house, where they presented themselves at his bedside, and offered
him conversion and the viaticum. If the dying man refused these, he was

liable to be seized after death, dragged from the house, pulled along the
streets naked, and buried in a ditch, or thrown upon a dunghill.[10]

For several years before the Revocation, while the persecutions of the
Huguenots had been increasing, many had realised their means, and fled
abroad into Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England. But after the
Revocation, emigration from France was strictly forbidden, under penalty
of confiscation of the whole goods and property of the emigrant. Any
person found attempting to leave the country, was liable to the seizure of all
that belonged to him, and to perpetual imprisonment at the galleys; one half
the amount realised by the sale of the property being paid to the informers,
who thus became the most active agents of the Government. The Act also
ordered that all landed proprietors who had left France before the
Revocation, should return within four months, under penalty of confiscation
of all their property.

Amongst those of the King's subjects who were the most ready to obey
his orders were some of the old Huguenot noble families, such as the
members of the houses of Bouillon, Coligny, Rohan, Tremouille, Sully, and
La Force. These great vassals, whom a turbulent feudalism had probably in
the first instance induced to embrace Protestantism, were now found ready
to change their profession of religion in servile obedience to the monarch.

The lesser nobility were more faithful and consistent. Many of them
abandoned their estates and fled across the frontier, rather than live a daily
lie to God by forswearing the religion of their conscience. Others of this
class, on whom religion sat more lightly, as the only means of saving their
property from confiscation, pretended to be converted to Roman
Catholicism; though, we shall find, that these "new converts," as they were
called, were treated with as much suspicion on the one side as they were
regarded with contempt on the other.

There were also the Huguenot manufacturers, merchants, and employers
of labour, of whom a large number closed their workshops and factories,
sold off their goods, converted everything into cash, at whatever sacrifice,
and fled across the frontier into Switzerland—either settling there, or
passing through it on their way to Germany, Holland, or England.

It was necessary to stop this emigration, which was rapidly diminishing
the population, and steadily impoverishing the country. It was indeed a
terrible thing for Frenchmen, to tear themselves away from their country—
Frenchmen, who have always clung so close to their soil that they have
rarely been able to form colonies of emigration elsewhere—it was breaking
so many living fibres to leave France, to quit the homes of their fathers,
their firesides, their kin, and their race. Yet, in a multitude of cases, they
were compelled to tear themselves by the roots out of the France they so
loved.

Yet it was so very easy for them to remain. The King merely required
them to be "converted." He held that loyalty required them to be of "his
religion." On the 19th of October, 1685, the day after he had signed the Act
of Revocation, La Reynée, lieutenant of the police of Paris, issued a notice
to the Huguenot tradespeople and working-classes, requiring them to be
converted instantly. Many of them were terrified, and conformed
accordingly. Next day, another notice was issued to the Huguenot
bourgeois, requiring them to assemble on the following day for the purpose
of publicly making a declaration of their conversion.

The result of those measures was to make hypocrites rather than
believers, and they took effect upon the weakest and least-principled
persons. The strongest, most independent, and high-minded of the
Huguenots, who would not be hypocrites, resolved passively to resist them,
and if they could not be allowed to exercise freedom of conscience in their
own country, they determined to seek it elsewhere. Hence the large increase
in the emigration from all parts of France immediately after the Act of
Revocation had been proclaimed.[11] All the roads leading to the frontier or
the sea-coast streamed with fugitives. They went in various forms and
guises—sometimes in bodies of armed men, at other times in solitary
parties, travelling at night and sleeping in the woods by day. They went as
beggars, travelling merchants, sellers of beads and chaplets, gipsies,
soldiers, shepherds, women with their faces dyed and sometimes dressed in
men's clothes, and in all manner of disguises.

To prevent this extensive emigration, more violent measures were
adopted. Every road out of France was posted with guards. The towns,

highways, bridges, and ferries, were all watched; and heavy rewards were
promised to those who would stop and bring back the fugitives. Many were
taken, loaded with irons, and dispatched by the most public roads through
France—as a sight to be seen by other Protestants—to the galleys at
Marseilles, Brest, and other ports. As they went along they were subject to
every sort of indignity in the towns and villages through which they passed.
They were hooted, stoned, spit upon, and loaded with insult.

Many others went by sea, in French as well as in foreign ships. Though
the sailors of France were prohibited the exercise of the reformed religion,
under the penalty of fines, corporal punishment, and seizure of the vessels
where the worship was allowed, yet many of the emigrants contrived to get
away by the help of French ship captains, masters of sloops, fishing-boats,
and coast pilots—who most probably sympathized with the views of those
who wished to fly their country rather than become hypocrites and forswear
their religion. A large number of emigrants, who went hurriedly off to sea in
little boats, must have been drowned, as they were never afterwards heard
of.

There were also many English ships that appeared off the coast to take
the flying Huguenots away by night. They also escaped in foreign ships
taking in their cargoes in the western harbours. They got cooped up in casks
or wine barraques, with holes for breathing places; others contrived to get
surreptitiously into the hold, and stowed themselves away among the goods.
When it became known to the Government that many Protestants were
escaping in this way, provision was made to meet the case; and a Royal
Order was issued that, before any ship was allowed to set sail for a foreign
port, the hold should be fumigated with deadly gas, so that any hidden
Huguenot who could not otherwise be detected, might thus be suffocated!
[12]

In the meantime, however, numerous efforts were being made to convert
the Huguenots. The King, his ministers, the dragoons, the bishops, and
clergy used all due diligence. "Everybody is now missionary," said the
fascinating Madame de Sévigné; "each has his mission—above all the
magistrates and governors of provinces, helped by the dragoons. It is the
grandest and finest thing that has ever been imagined and executed."[13]

The conversions effected by the dragoons were much more sudden than
those effected by the priests. Sometimes a hundred or more persons were
converted by a single troop within an hour. In this way Murillac converted
thousands of persons in a week. The regiment of Ashfeld converted the
whole province of Poitou in a month.

De Noailles was very successful in his conversions. He converted Nismes
in twenty-four hours; the day after he converted Montpellier; and he
promised in a few weeks to deliver all Lower Languedoc from the leprosy
of heresy. In one of his dispatches soon after the Revocation, he boasted
that he had converted 350 nobility and gentry, 54 ministers, and 25,000
individuals of various classes.

The quickness of the conversions effected by the dragoons is easily to be
accounted for. The principal cause was the free quartering of soldiers in the
houses of the Protestants. The soldiers knew what was the object for which
they were thus quartered. They lived freely in all ways. They drank, swore,
shouted, beat the heretics, insulted their women, and subjected them to
every imaginable outrage and insult.

One of their methods of making converts was borrowed from the
persecutions of the Vaudois. It consisted in forcing the feet of the intended
converts into boots full of boiling grease, or they would hang them up by
the feet, sometimes forgetting to cut them down until they were dead. They
would also force them to drink water perpetually, or make them sit under a
slow dripping upon their heads until they died of madness. Sometimes they
placed burning coals in their hands, or used an instrument of torture
resembling that known in Scotland as the thumbscrews.[14] Many of their
attempts at conversion were accompanied by details too hideous to be
recorded.

Of those who would not be converted, the prisons were kept full. They
were kept there without the usual allowance of straw, and almost without
food. In winter they had no fire, and at night no lamp. Though ill, they had
no doctors. Besides the gaoler, their only visitors were priests and monks,
entreating them to make abjuration. Of course many died in prison—feeble
women, and aged and infirm men. In the society of obscene criminals, with

whom many were imprisoned, they prayed for speedy deliverance by death,
and death often came to their help.

More agreeable, but still more insulting, methods of conversion were also
attempted. Louis tried to bribe the pastors by offering them an increase of
annual pay beyond their former stipends. If there were a Protestant judge or
advocate, Louvois at once endeavoured to bribe him over. For instance,
there was a heretical syndic of Strasbourg, to whom Louvois wrote, "Will
you be converted? I will give you 6,000 livres of pension.—Will you not? I
will dismiss you."

Of course many of the efforts made to convert the Huguenots proved
successful. The orders of the Prime Minister, the free quarters afforded to
the dragoons, the preachings and threatenings of the clergy, all contributed
to terrify the Protestants. The fear of being sent to the galleys for life—the
threat of losing the whole of one's goods and property—the alarm of seeing
one's household broken up, the children seized by the priests and sent to the
nearest monkery or nunnery for maintenance and education—all these
considerations doubtless had their effect in increasing the number of
conversions.

Persecution is not easy to bear. To have all the powers and authorities
employed against one's life, interests, and faith, is what few can persistently
oppose. And torture, whether it be slow or sudden, is what many persons,
by reason of their physical capacity, have not the power to resist. Even the
slow torment of dragoons quartered in the houses of the heretics—their
noise and shoutings, their drinking and roistering, the insults and outrages
they were allowed to practise—was sufficient to compel many at once to
declare themselves to be converted.

Indeed, pain is, of all things, one of the most terrible of converters. One
of the prisoners condemned to the galleys, when he saw the tortures which
the victims about him had to endure by night and by day, said that
sufferings such as these were "enough to make one conform to Buddhism or
Mahommedanism as well as to Popery"; and doubtless it was force and
suffering which converted the Huguenots, far more than love of the King or
love of the Pope.

By all these means—forcible, threatening, insulting, and bribing—
employed for the conversion of the Huguenots, the Catholics boasted that in
the space of three months they had received an accession of five hundred
thousand new converts to the Church of Rome.

But the "new converts" did not gain much by their change. They were
forced to attend mass, but remained suspected. Even the dragoons who
converted them, called them dastards and deniers of their faith. They tried,
if they could, to avoid confession, but confess they must. There was the
fine, confiscation of goods, and imprisonment at the priest's back.

Places were set apart for them in the churches, where they were penned
up like lepers. A person was stationed at the door with a roll of their names,
to which they were obliged to answer. During the service, the most
prominent among them were made to carry the lights, the holy water, the
incense, and such things, which to Huguenots were an abomination. They
were also required to partake of the Host, which Protestants regarded as an
awful mockery of the glorious Godhead.

The Duc de Saint-Simon, in his memoirs, after referring to the unmanly
cruelties practised by Louis XIV. on the Huguenots, "without the slightest
pretext or necessity," characterizes this forced participation in the Eucharist
as sacrilegious and blasphemous folly, notwithstanding that nearly all the
bishops lent themselves to the practice. "From simulated abjuration," he
says, "they [the Huguenots] are dragged to endorse what they do not believe
in, and to receive the divine body of the Saint of saints whilst remaining
persuaded that they are only eating bread which they ought to abhor. Such
is the general abomination born of flattery and cruelty. From torture to
abjuration, and from that to the communion, there were only twenty-four
hours' distance; and the executioners were the conductors of the converts,
and their witnesses. Those who in the end appeared to have become
reconciled, when more at leisure did not fail, by their flight or their
behaviour, to contradict their pretended conversion."[15]

Indeed, many of the new converts, finding life in France to be all but
intolerable, determined to follow the example of the Huguenots who had
already fled, and took the first opportunity of disposing of their goods and
leaving the country. One of the first things they did on reaching a foreign

soil, was to attend a congregation of their brethren, and make
"reconnaisances," or acknowledgment of their repentance for having
attended mass and pretended to be converted to the Roman Catholic
Church.[16] At one of the sittings of the Threadneedle Street Huguenot
Church in London, held in May, 1687—two years after the Revocation—
not fewer than 497 members were again received into the Church which, by
force, they had pretended to abandon.

Not many pastors abjured. A few who yielded in the first instance
through terror and stupor, almost invariably returned to their ancient faith.
They were offered considerable pensions if they would conform and
become Catholics. The King promised to augment their income by one-
third, and if they became advocates or doctors in law, to dispense with their
three years' study, and with the right of diploma.

At length, most of the pastors had left the country. About seven hundred
had gone into Switzerland, Holland, Prussia, England, and elsewhere. A few
remained going about to meetings of the peasantry, at the daily risk of
death; for every pastor taken was hung. A reward of 5,500 livres was
promised to whoever should take a pastor, or cause him to be taken. The
punishment of death was also pronounced against all persons who should be
discovered attending such meetings.

Nevertheless, meetings of the Protestants continued to be held, with
pastors or without. They were, for the most part, held at night, amidst the
ruins of their pulled-down temples. But this exposed them to great danger,
for spies were on the alert to inform upon them and have them
apprehended.

At length they selected more sheltered places in remote quarters, where
they met for prayer and praise, often resorting thither from great distances.
They were, however, often surprised, cut to pieces by the dragoons, who
hung part of the prisoners on the neighbouring trees, and took the others to
prison, from whence they were sent to the galleys, or hung on the nearest
public gibbet.

Fulcran Rey was one of the most celebrated of the early victims. He was
a native of Nismes, twenty-four years old. He had just completed his

theological studies; but there were neither synods to receive him to pastoral
ordination, nor temples for him to preach in. The only reward he could earn
by proceeding on his mission was death, yet he determined to preach. The
first assemblies he joined were in the neighbourhood of Nismes, where his
addresses were interrupted by assaults of the dragoons. The dangers to his
co-religionaries were too great in the neighbourhood of this populous town;
and he next went to Castres and the Vaunage; after which he accepted an
invitation to proceed into the less populous districts of the Cevennes.

He felt the presentiment of death upon him in accepting the invitation;
but he went, leaving behind him a letter to his father, saying that he was
willing, if necessary, to give his life for the cause of truth. "Oh! what
happiness it would give me," he said, "if I might be found amongst the
number of those whom the Lord has reserved to announce his praise and to
die for his cause!"

His apostolate was short but glorious. He went from village to village in
the Cevennes, collected the old worshippers together, prayed and preached
to them, encouraging all to suffer in the name of Christ. He remained at this
work for about six weeks, when a spy who accompanied him—one whom
he had regarded as sincere a Huguenot as himself—informed against him
for the royal reward, and delivered him over to the dragoons.

Rey was at first thrown into prison at Anduze, when, after a brief
examination by the local judge, he was entrusted to thirty soldiers, to be
conveyed to Alais. There he was subjected to further examination, avowing
that he had preached wherever he had found faithful people ready to hear
him. At Nismes, he was told that he had broken the law, in preaching
contrary to the King's will. "I obey the law of the King of kings," he replied;
"it is right that I should obey God rather than man. Do with me what you
will; I am ready to die."

The priests, the judges, and other persons of influence endeavoured to
induce him to change his opinions. Promises of great favours were offered
him if he would abjure; and when the intendant Baville informed him of the
frightful death before him if he refused, he replied, "My life is not of value
to me, provided I gain Christ." He remained firm. He was ordered to be put

to the torture. He was still unshaken. Then he was delivered over to the
executioner. "I am treated," he said, "more mildly than my Saviour."

On his way to the place of execution, two monks walked by his side to
induce him to relent, and to help him to die. "Let me alone," he said, "you
annoy me with your consolations." On coming in sight of the gallows at
Beaucaire, he cried, "Courage, courage! the end of my journey is at hand. I
see before me the ladder which leads to heaven."

The monks wished to mount the ladder with him. "Return," said he, "I
have no need of your help. I have assistance enough from God to take the
last step of my journey." When he reached the upper platform, he was
about, before dying, to make public his confession of faith. But the
authorities had arranged beforehand that this should be prevented. When he
opened his mouth, a roll of military drums muffled his voice. His radiant
look and gestures spoke for him. A few minutes more, and he was dead; and
when the paleness of death spread over his face, it still bore the reflex of joy
and peace in which he had expired. "There is a veritable martyr," said many
even of the Catholics who were witnesses of his death.

It was thought that the public hanging of a pastor would put a stop to all
further ministrations among the Huguenots. But the sight of the bodies of
their brethren hung on the nearest trees, and the heads of their pastors
rolling on the scaffold, did not deter them from continuing to hold religious
meetings in solitary places, more especially in Languedoc, Viverais, and the
provinces in the south-east of France.

Between the year 1686, when Fulcran Rey was hanged at Beaucaire, and
the year 1698, when Claude Brousson was hanged at Montpellier, not fewer
than seventeen pastors were publicly executed; namely, three at Nismes,
two at St. Hippolyte and Marsillargues in the Cevennes, and twelve on the
Peyrou at Montpellier—the public place on which Protestant Christians in
the South of France were then principally executed.

There has been some discussion lately as to the massacre of the
Huguenots about a century before this period. It has been held that the St.
Bartholomew Massacre was only a political squabble, begun by the
Huguenots, in which they got the worst of it. The number of persons killed

on the occasion has been reduced to a very small number. It has been
doubted whether the Pope had anything to do with the medal struck at
Rome, bearing the motto Ugonottorum Strages ("Massacre of the
Huguenots"), with the Pope's head on one side, and an angel on the other
pursuing and slaying a band of flying heretics.

Whatever may be said of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, there can be
no mistake about the persecutions which preceded and followed the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They were continued for more than half
a century, and had the effect of driving from France about a million of the
best, most vigorous, and industrious of Frenchmen. In the single province
of Languedoc, not less than a hundred thousand persons (according to
Boulainvilliers) were destroyed by premature death, one-tenth of whom
perished by fire, strangulation, or the wheel.

It could not be said that Louis XIV. and the priests were destroying
France and tearing its flesh, and that Frenchmen did not know it. The
proclamations, edicts and laws published against the Huguenots were
known to all Frenchmen. Bénoît[17] gives a list of three hundred and thirty-
three issued by Louis XIV. during the ten years subsequent to the
Revocation, and they were continued, as we shall find, during the
succeeding reign.

"We have," says M. Charles Coquerel, "a horror of St. Bartholomew!
Will foreigners believe it, that France observed a code of laws framed in the
same infernal spirit, which maintained a perpetual St. Bartholomew's day in
this country for about sixty years! If they cannot call us the most barbarous
of people, their judgment will be well founded in pronouncing us the most
inconsistent."[18]

M. De Félice, however, will not believe that the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes was popular in France. He takes a much more patriotic view of
the French people. He cannot believe them to have been wilfully guilty of
the barbarities which the French Government committed upon the
Huguenots. It was the King, the priests, and the courtiers only! But he
forgets that these upper barbarians were supported by the soldiers and the
people everywhere. He adds, however, that if the Revocation were popular,
"it would be the most overwhelming accusation against the Church of

Rome, that it had thus educated and fashioned France."[19] There is,
however, no doubt whatever that the Jesuits, during the long period that
they had the exclusive education of the country in their hands, did thus
fashion France; for, in 1793, the people educated by them treated King,
Jesuits, priests, and aristocracy, in precisely the same manner that they had
treated the Huguenots about a century before.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER III.

CLAUDE BROUSSON, THE HUGUENOT ADVOCATE.

To give an account in detail of the varieties of cruelty inflicted on the
Huguenots, and of the agonies to which they were subjected for many years
before and after the passing of the Act of Revocation, would occupy too
much space, besides being tedious through the mere repetition of like
horrors. But in order to condense such an account, we think it will be more
interesting if we endeavour to give a brief history of the state of France at
that time, in connection with the biography of one of the most celebrated
Huguenots of his period, both in his life, his piety, his trials, and his
endurance—that of Claude Brousson, the advocate, the pastor, and the
martyr of Languedoc.

Claude Brousson was born at Nismes in 1647. He was designed by his
parents for the profession of the law, and prosecuted his studies at the
college of his native town, where he graduated as Doctor of Laws.

He commenced his professional career about the time when Louis XIV.
began to issue his oppressive edicts against the Huguenots. Protestant
advocates were not yet forbidden to practise, but they already laboured
under many disabilities. He continued, however, for some time to exercise
his profession, with much ability, at Castres, Castelnaudry, and Toulouse.
He was frequently employed in defending Protestant pastors, and in
contesting the measures for suppressing their congregations and levelling

their churches under existing edicts, some time before the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes had been finally resolved upon.

Thus, in 1682, he was engaged in disputing the process instituted against
the ministers and elders of the church at Nismes, with the view of obtaining
an order for the demolition of the remaining Protestant temple of that city.
[20] The pretext for suppressing this church was, that a servant girl from the
country, being a Catholic, had attended worship and received the sacrament
from the hands of M. Peyrol, one of the ministers.

Brousson defended the case, observing, at the conclusion of his speech,
that the number of Protestants was very great at Nismes; that the ministers
could not be personally acquainted with all the people, and especially with
occasional visitors and strangers; that the ministers were quite unacquainted
with the girl, or that she professed the Roman Catholic religion: "facts
which rendered it probable that she was sent to the temple for the purpose
of furnishing an occasion for the prosecution." Sentence was for the present
suspended.

Another process was instituted during the same year for the suppression
of the Protestant church at Uzes, and another for the demolition of the large
Protestant temple at Montpellier. The pretext for destroying the latter was of
a singular character.

A Protestant pastor, M. Paulet, had been bribed into embracing the
Roman Catholic religion, in reward for which he was appointed counsellor
to the Presidial Court of Montpellier. But his wife and one of his daughters
refused to apostatize with him. The daughter, though only between ten and
eleven years old, was sent to a convent at Teirargues, where, after enduring
considerable persecution, she persisted in her steadfastness, and was
released after a twelvemonth's confinement. Five years later she was again
seized and sent to another convent; but, continuing immovable against the
entreaties and threats of the abbess and confessor, she was again set at
liberty.

An apostate priest, however, who had many years before renounced the
Protestant faith, and become director and confessor of the nuns at
Teirargues, forged two documents; the one to show that while at the

convent, Mdlle. Paulet had consented to embrace the Catholic religion, and
the other containing her formal abjuration. It was alleged that her abjuration
had been signified to Isaac Dubourdieu, of Montpellier, one of the most
distinguished pastors of the French Church; but that, nevertheless, he had
admitted her to the sacrament. This, if true, was contrary to law; upon
which the Catholic clergy laid information against the pastor and the young
lady before the Parliament of Toulouse, when they obtained sentence of
imprisonment against the former, and the penance of amende honorable
against the latter.

The demolition of temples was the usual consequence of convictions like
these. The Duc de Noailles, lieutenant-general of the province, entered the
city on the 16th of October, 1682, accompanied by a strong military force;
and at a sitting of the Assembly of the States which shortly followed, the
question of demolishing the Protestant temple at Montpellier was brought
under consideration. Four of the Protestant pastors and several of the elders
had before waited upon De Noailles to claim a respite until they should
have submitted their cause to the King in Council.

The request having been refused, one of the deputation protested against
the illegality of the proceedings, and had the temerity to ask his excellency
whether he was aware that there were eighteen hundred thousand Protestant
families in France? Upon which the Duke, turning to the officer of his
guard, said, "Whilst we wait to see what will become of these eighteen
hundred thousand Protestant families, will you please conduct these
gentlemen to the citadel?"[21]

The great temple of Montpellier was destroyed immediately on receipt of
the King's royal mandate. It required the destruction of the place within
twenty-four hours; "but you will give me pleasure," added the King, in a
letter to De Noailles, "if you accomplish it in two."

It was, perhaps, scarcely necessary, after the temple had been destroyed,
to make any effort to justify these high-handed proceedings. But Mdlle.
Paulet, on whose pretended conversion to Catholicism the proceedings had
been instituted, was now requested to admit the authenticity of the
documents. She was still imprisoned in Toulouse; and although entreated
and threatened by turns to admit their truth, she steadfastly denied their

genuineness, and asking for a pen, she wrote under each of them, "I affirm
that the above signature was not written by my hand.—Isabeau de Paulet."

Of course the documents were forged; but they had answered their
purpose. The Protestant temple of Montpellier lay in ruins, and Isabeau de
Paulet was recommitted to prison. On hearing of this incident, Brousson
remarked, "This is what is called instituting a process against persons after
they have been condemned"—a sort of "Jedwood justice."

The repetition of these cases of persecution—the demolition of their
churches, and the suppression of their worship—led the Protestants of the
Cevennes, Viverais, and Dauphiny to combine for the purpose of
endeavouring to stem the torrent of injustice. With this object, a meeting of
twenty-eight deputies took place in the house of Brousson, at Toulouse, in
the month of May, 1683. As the Assembly of the States were about to take
steps to demolish the Protestant temple at Montauban and other towns in
the south, and as Brousson was the well-known advocate of the persecuted,
the deputies were able to meet at his house to conduct their deliberations,
without exciting the jealousy of the priests and the vigilance of the police.

What the meeting of Protestant deputies recommended to their brethren
was embodied in a measure, which was afterwards known as "The Project."
The chief objects of the project were to exhort the Protestant people to
sincere conversion, and the exhibition of the good life which such
conversion implies; constant prayer to the Holy Spirit to enable them to
remain steadfast in their profession and in the reading and meditation of the
Scriptures; encouragements to them to hold together as congregations for
the purpose of united worship; "submitting themselves unto the common
instructions and to the yoke of Christ, in all places wheresoever He shall
have established the true discipline, although the edicts of earthly
magistrates be contrary thereto."

At the same time, Brousson drew up a petition to the Sovereign, humbly
requesting him to grant permission to the Huguenots to worship God in
peace after their consciences, copies of which were sent to Louvois and the
other ministers of State. On this and other petitions, Brousson observes,
"Surely all the world and posterity will be surprised, that so many respectful
petitions, so many complaints of injuries, and so many solid reasons urged

for their removal, produced no good result whatever in favour of the
Protestants."

The members of the churches which had been interdicted, and whose
temples had been demolished, were accordingly invited to assemble in
private, in the neighbouring fields or woods—not in public places, nor
around the ruins of their ancient temples—for the purpose of worshipping
God, exciting each other to piety by prayer and singing, receiving
instruction, and celebrating the Lord's Supper.

Various meetings were accordingly held, in the following month of July,
in the Cevennes and Viverais. At St. Hypolite, where the temple of the
Protestants had been destroyed, about four thousand persons met in a field
near the town, when the minister preached to them from the text—"Render
unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are
God's." The meeting was conducted with the utmost solemnity; and a
Catholic priest who was present, on giving information to the Bishop of
Nismes of the transaction, admitted that the preacher had advanced nothing
but what the bishop himself might have spoken.

The dragoons were at once sent to St. Hypolite to put an end to these
meetings, and to "convert" the Protestants. The town was almost wholly
Protestant. The troops were quartered in numbers in every house; and the
people soon became "new converts."

The losses sustained by the inhabitants of the Cevennes from this forced
quartering of the troops upon them—and Anduze, Sauvé, St. Germain,
Vigan, and Ganges were as full of them as St. Hypolite—may be inferred
from the items charged upon the inhabitants of St. Hypolite alone[22]:—

To the regiment of Montpezat, for a billet for
50,000 livres.
sixty-five days
To the three companies of Red Dragoons, for
30,000 "
ninety-five days
To three companies of Villeneuve's Dragoons, for
6,000 "
thirty days

To three companies of the Blue Dragoons of
37,000 "
Languedoc, for three months and nine days
To a company of Cravates (troopers) for fourteen
1,400 "
days
To the transport of three hundred and nine
10,000 "
companies of cavalry and infantry
To provisions for the troops 60,000 "
To damage sustained by the destruction done by
the soldiers, of furniture, and losses by the 50,000 "
seizure of property, &c.
———
Total 244,400

Meetings of the persecuted were also held, under the terms of "The
Project," in Viverais and Dauphiny. These meetings having been repeated
for several weeks, the priests of the respective districts called upon their
bishops for help to put down this heretical display. The Bishop of Valence
(Daniel de Cosmac) accordingly informed them that he had taken the
necessary steps, and that he had been apprised that twenty thousand soldiers
were now on their march to the South to put down the Protestant
movement.

On their arrival, the troops were scattered over the country, to watch and
suppress any meetings that might be held. The first took place on the 8th of
August, at Chateaudouble, a manufacturing village in Drome. The assembly
was surprised by a troop of dragoons; but most of the congregation
contrived to escape. Those who were taken were hung upon the nearest
trees.

Another meeting was held about a fortnight later at Bezaudun, which was
attended by many persons from Bourdeaux, a village about half a league
distant. While the meeting was at prayer, intelligence was brought that the
dragoons had entered Bourdeaux, and that it was a scene of general pillage.
The Bourdeaux villagers at once set out for the protection of their families.
The troopers met them, and suddenly fell upon them. A few of the villagers
were armed, but the principal part defended themselves with stones. Of

course they were overpowered; many were killed by the sword, and those
taken prisoners were immediately hanged.

A few, who took to flight, sheltered themselves in a barn, where the
soldiers found them, set fire to the place, and murdered them as they
endeavoured to escape from the flames. One young man was taken prisoner,
David Chamier,[23] son of an advocate, and related to some of the most
eminent Protestants in France. He was taken to the neighbouring town of
Montelimar, and, after a summary trial, he was condemned to be broken to
death upon the wheel. The sentence was executed before his father's door;
but the young man bore his frightful tortures with astonishing courage.

The contumacious attitude of the Protestants after so many reports had
reached Louis XIV. of their entire "conversion," induced him to take more
active measures for their suppression. He appointed Marshal Saint-Ruth
commander of the district—a man who was a stranger to mercy, who
breathed only carnage, and who, because of his ferocity, was known as "The
Scourge of the Heretics."

Daniel de Cosmac, Bishop of Valence, had now the help of Saint-Ruth
and his twenty thousand troops. The instructions Saint-Ruth received from
Louvois were these: "Amnesty has no longer any place for the Viverais,
who continue in rebellion after having been informed of the King's gracious
designs. In one word, you are to cause such a desolation in that country that
its example may restrain all other Huguenots, and may teach them how
dangerous it is to rebel against the King."

This was a work quite congenial to Saint-Ruth[24]—rushing about the
country, scourging, slaughtering, laying waste, and suppressing the
assemblies—his soldiers rushing upon their victims with cries of "Death or
the Mass!"

Tracking the Protestants in this way was like "a hunt in a great
enclosure." When the soldiers found a meeting of the people going on, they
shot them down at once, though unarmed. If they were unable to fly, they
met death upon their knees. Antoine Court recounts meetings in which as
many as between three and four hundred persons, old men, women, and
children, were shot dead on the spot.

De Cosmac, the bishop, was very active in the midst of these massacres.
When he went out to convert the people, he first began by sending out
Saint-Ruth with the dragoons. Afterwards he himself followed to give
instructions for their "conversion," partly through favours, partly by money.
"My efforts," he himself admitted, "were not always without success; yet I
must avow that the fear of the dragoons, and of their being quartered in the
houses of the heretics, contributed much more to their conversion than
anything that I did."

The same course was followed throughout the Cevennes. It would be a
simple record of cruelty to describe in detail the military proceedings there:
the dispersion of meetings; the hanging of persons found attending them;
the breaking upon the wheel of the pastors captured, amidst horrible
tortures; the destruction of dwellings and of the household goods which
they contained. But let us take the single instance of Homel, formerly pastor
of the church at Soyon.

Homel was taken prisoner, and found guilty of preaching to his flock
after his temple had been destroyed. For this offence he was sentenced to be
broken to death upon the wheel. To receive this punishment he was
conducted to Tournon, in Viverais, where the Jesuits had a college. He first
received forty blows of the iron bar, after which he was left to languish with
his bones broken, for forty hours, until he died. During his torments, he
said: "I count myself happy that I can die in my Master's service. What! did
my glorious Redeemer descend from heaven and suffer an ignominious
death for my salvation, and shall I, to prolong a miserable life, deny my
blessed Saviour and abandon his people?" While his bones were being
broken on the wheel, he said to his wife: "Farewell, once more, my beloved
spouse! Though you witness my bones broken to shivers, yet is my soul
filled with inexpressible joy." After life was finally extinct, his heart was
taken to Chalençon to be publicly exhibited, and his body was exposed in
like manner at Beauchatel.

De Noailles, the governor, when referring in one of his dispatches to the
heroism displayed by the tortured prisoners, said: "These wretches go to the
wheel with the firm assurance of dying martyrs, and ask no other favour

than that of dying quickly. They request pardon of the soldiers, but there is
not one of them that will ask pardon of the King."

To return to Claude Brousson. After his eloquent defence of the
Huguenots of Montauban—the result of which, of course, was that the
church was ordered to be demolished—and the institution of processes for
the demolition of fourteen more Protestant temples, Brousson at last
became aware that the fury of the Catholics and the King was not to be
satisfied until they had utterly crushed the religion which he served.

Brousson was repeatedly offered the office of counsellor of Parliament,
equivalent to the office of judge, if he would prove an apostate; but the
conscience of Brousson was not one that could be bought. He also found
that his office of defender of the doomed Huguenots could not be
maintained without personal danger, whilst (as events proved) his defence
was of no avail to them; and he resolved, with much regret, to give up his
profession for a time, and retire for safety and rest to his native town of
Nismes.

He resided there, however, only about four months. Saint-Ruth and De
Noailles were now overawing Upper Languedoc with their troops. The
Protestants of Nismes had taken no part in "The Project;" their remaining
temple was still open. But they got up a respectful petition to the King,
imploring his consideration of their case. Roman Catholics and Protestants,
they said, had so many interests in common, that the ruin of the one must
have the effect of ruining the other,—the flourishing manufactures of the
province, which were mostly followed by the Protestants, being now
rapidly proceeding to ruin. They, therefore, implored his Majesty to grant
them permission to prosecute their employments unmolested on account of
their religious profession; and lastly, they conjured the King, by his piety,
by his paternal clemency, and by every law of equity, to grant them freedom
of religious worship.

It was of no use. The hearts of the King, his clergy, and his ministers,
were all hardened against them. A copy of the above petition was presented
by two ministers of Nismes and several influential gentlemen of Lower
Languedoc to the Duke de Noailles, the governor of the province. He
treated the deputation with contempt, and their petition with scorn. Writing

to Louvois, the King's prime minister, De Noailles said: "Astonished at the
effrontery of these wretched persons, I did not hesitate to send them all
prisoners to the Citadel of St. Esprit (in the Cevennes), telling them that if
there had been petites maisons[25] enough in Languedoc I should not have
sent them there."

Nismes was now placed under the same ban as Vivarais, and denounced
as "insurrectionary." To quell the pretended revolt, as well as to capture
certain persons who were supposed to have been accessory to the framing
of the petition, a detachment of four hundred dragoons was ordered into the
place. One of those to be apprehended was Claude Brousson. Hundreds of
persons knew of his abode in the city, but notwithstanding the public
proclamation (which he himself heard from the window of the house where
he was staying), and the reward offered for his apprehension, no one
attempted to betray him.

After remaining in the city for three days, he adopted a disguised dress,
passed out of the Crown Gate, and in the course of a few days found a safe
retreat in Switzerland.

Peyrol and Icard, two of the Protestant ministers whom the dragoons
were ordered to apprehend, also escaped into Switzerland, Peyrol settling at
Lausanne, and Icard becoming the minister of a Huguenot church in
Holland. But although the ministers had escaped, all the property they had
left behind them was confiscated to the Crown. Hideous effigies of them
were prepared and hung on gibbets in the market-place of Nismes by the
public executioner, the magistrates and dragoons attending the sham
proceeding with the usual ceremony.

At Lausanne, where Claude Brousson settled for a time, he first
attempted to occupy himself as a lawyer; but this he shortly gave up to
devote himself to the help of the persecuted Huguenots. Like Jurieu and
others in Holland, who flooded Europe with accounts of the hideous
cruelties of Louis XIV. and his myrmidons the clergy and dragoons, he
composed and published a work, addressed to the Roman Catholic party as
well as to the Protestants of all countries, entitled, "The State of the
Reformed Church of France." He afterwards composed a series of letters
specially addressed to the Roman Catholic clergy of France.

But expostulation was of no use. With each succeeding year the
persecution became more bitter, until at length, in 1685, the Edict was
revoked. In September of that year Brousson learnt that the Protestant
church of his native city had been suppressed, and their temple given over
to a society of female converters; that the wives and daughters of the
Protestants who refused to abjure their faith had been seized and imprisoned
in nunneries and religious seminaries; and that three hundred of their
husbands and fathers were chained together and sent off in one day for
confinement in the galleys at Marseilles.

The number of Huguenots resorting to Switzerland being so great,[26] and
they often came so destitute, that a committee was formed at Lausanne to
assist the emigrants, and facilitate their settlement in the canton, or enable
them to proceed elsewhere. Brousson was from the first an energetic
member of this committee. Part of their work was to visit the Protestant
states of the north, and find out places to which the emigrants might be
forwarded, as well as to collect subscriptions for their conveyance.

In November 1685, a month after the Revocation, Brousson and La Porte
set out for Berlin with this object. La Porte was one of the ministers of the
Cevennes, who had fled before a sentence of death pronounced against him
for having been concerned in "The Project." At Berlin they were received
very cordially by the Elector of Brandenburg, who had already given great
assistance to the Huguenot emigrants, and expressed himself as willing to
do all that he could for their protection. Brousson and La Porte here met the
Rev. David Ancillon, who had been for thirty-three years pastor at Metz,[27]
and was now pastor of the Elector at Berlin; Gaultier, banished from
Montpellier; and Abbadie, banished from Saumur—all ministers of the
Huguenot Church there; with a large number of banished ministers and
emigrant Protestants from all the provinces of France.

The Elector suggested to Brousson that while at Berlin he should
compose a summary account of the condition of the French Protestants,
such as should excite the interest and evoke the help of the Protestant rulers
and people of the northern States. This was done by Brousson, and the
volume was published, entitled "Letters of the Protestants of France who
have abandoned all for the cause of the Gospel, to other Protestants; with a

particular Letter addressed to Protestant Kings, Electors, Rulers, and
Magistrates." The Elector circulated this volume, accompanying it with a
letter written in his name, to all the princes of the Continent professing the
Augsburg Confession; and it was thus mainly owing to the Elector's
intercession that the Huguenots obtained the privilege of establishing
congregations in several of the states of Germany, as well as in Sweden and
Denmark.

Brousson remained nearly five months at Berlin, after which he departed
for Holland to note the progress of the emigration in that country, and there
he met a large number of his countrymen. Nearly two hundred and fifty
Huguenot ministers had taken refuge in Holland; there were many
merchants and manufacturers who had set up their branches of industry in
the country; and there were many soldiers who had entered the service of
William of Orange. While in Holland, Brousson resided principally with his
brother, a banished Huguenot, who had settled at Amsterdam as a merchant.

Having accomplished all that he could for his Huguenot brethren in exile,
Brousson returned to Lausanne, where he continued his former labours. He
bethought him very much of the Protestants still remaining in France,
wandering like sheep without shepherds, deprived of guidance, books, and
worship—the prey of ravenous wolves,—and it occurred to him whether the
Protestant pastors had done right in leaving their flocks, even though by so
doing they had secured the safety of their own lives. Accordingly, in 1686,
he wrote and published a "Letter to the Pastors of France at present in
Protestant States, concerning the Desolation of their own Churches, and
their own Exile."

In this letter he says:—"If, instead of retiring before your persecutors,
you had remained in the country; if you had taken refuge in forests and
caverns; if you had gone from place to place, risking your lives to instruct
and rally the people, until the first shock of the enemy was past; and had
you even courageously exposed yourselves to martyrdom—as in fact those
have done who have endeavoured to perform your duties in your absence—
perhaps the examples of constancy, or zeal, or of piety you had discovered,
might have animated your flocks, revived their courage, and arrested the

fury of your enemies." He accordingly exhorted the Protestant ministers
who had left France to return to their flocks at all hazards.

This advice, if acted on, was virtually condemning the pastors to death.
Brousson was not a pastor. Would he like to return to France at the daily
risk of the rack and the gibbet? The Protestant ministers in exile defended
themselves. Bénoît, then residing in Germany, replied in a "History and
Apology for the Retreat of the Pastors." Another, who did not give his
name, treated Brousson's censure as that of a fanatic, who meddled with
matters beyond his vocation. "You who condemn the pastors for not
returning to France at the risk of their lives," said he, "why do you not first
return to France yourself?"

Brousson was as brave as his words. He was not a pastor, but he might
return to the deserted flocks, and encourage and comfort them. He could no
longer be happy in his exile at Lausanne. He heard by night the groans of
the prisoners in the Tower of Constance, and the noise of the chains borne
by the galley slaves at Toulon and Marseilles. He reproached himself as if it
were a crime with the repose which he enjoyed. Life became insupportable
to him and he fell ill. His health was even despaired of; but one day he
suddenly rose up and said to his wife, "I must set out; I will go to console,
to relieve, to strengthen my brethren, groaning under their oppressions."

His wife threw herself at his feet. "Thou wouldst go to certain death," she
said; "think of me and thy little children." She implored him again and
again to remain. He loved his wife and children, but he thought a higher
duty called him away from them. When his friends told him that he would
be taken prisoner and hung, he said, "When God permits his servants to die
for the Gospel, they preach louder from the grave than they did during life."
He remained unshaken. He would go to the help of the oppressed with the
love of a brother, the faith of an apostle, and the courage of a martyr.

Brousson knew the danger of the office he was about to undertake. There
had, as we have seen, been numerous attempts made to gather the Protestant
people together, and to administer consolation to them by public prayers
and preaching. The persons who conducted these services were not regular
pastors, but only private members of their former churches. Some of them
were very young men, and they were nearly all uneducated as regards

clerical instruction. One of the most successful was Isaac Vidal, a lame
young man, a mechanic of Colognac, near St. Hypolite, in the Cevennes.
His self-imposed ministrations were attended by large numbers of people.
He preached for only six months and then died—a natural death, for nearly
all who followed him were first tortured and then hung.

We have already referred to Fulcran Rey, who preached for about nine
months, and was then executed. In the same year were executed Meyrueis,
by trade a wool-carder, and Rocher, who had been a reader in one of the
Protestant churches. Emanuel Dalgues, a respectable inhabitant of Salle, in
the Cevennes, also received the crown of martyrdom. Ever since the
Revocation of the Edict, he had proclaimed the Gospel o'er hill and dale, in
woods and caverns, to assemblies of the people wherever he could collect
them. He was executed in 1687. Three other persons—Gransille, Mercier,
and Esclopier—who devoted themselves to preaching, were transported as
slaves to America; and David Mazel, a boy twelve years of age, who had a
wonderful memory, and preached sermons which he had learned by heart,
was transported, with his father and other frequenters of the assemblies, to
the Carribee Islands.

At length Brousson collected about him a number of Huguenots willing
to return with him into France, in order to collect the Protestant people
together again, to pray with them, and even to preach to them if the
opportunity occurred. Brousson's companions were these: Francis Vivens,
formerly a schoolmaster in the Cevennes; Anthony Bertezene, a carpenter,
brother of a preacher who had recently been condemned to death; and seven
other persons named Papus, La Pierre, Serein, Dombres, Poutant, Boisson,
and M. de Bruc, an aged minister, who had been formerly pastor of one of
the churches in the Cevennes. They prepared to enter France in four distinct
companies, in the month of July, 1689.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IV.

CLAUDE BROUSSON, PASTOR AND MARTYR.

Brousson left Lausanne on the 22nd of July, accompanied by his dear
friend, the Rev. M. de Bruc. The other members of the party had preceded
them, crossing the frontier at different places. They all arrived in safety at
their destination, which was in the mountain district of the Cevennes. They
resorted to the neighbourhood of the Aigoual, the centre of a very
inaccessible region—wild, cold, but full of recesses for hiding and worship.
It was also a district surrounded by villages, the inhabitants of which were
for the most part Protestant.

The party soon became diminished in number. The old pastor, De Bruc,
found himself unequal to the fatigue and privations attending the work. He
was ill and unable to travel, and was accordingly advised by his
companions to quit the service and withdraw from the country.

Persecution also destroyed some of them. When it became known that
assemblies for religious observances were again on foot, an increased force
of soldiers was sent into the district, and a high price was set on the heads
of all the preachers that could be apprehended. The soldiers scoured the
country, and, helped by the paid spies, they shortly succeeded in
apprehending Boisson and Dombres, at St. Paul's, north of Anduze, in the
Cevennes. They were both executed at Nismes, being first subjected to
torture on the rack, by which their limbs were entirely dislocated. They
were then conveyed to the place of execution, praying and singing psalms
on the way, and finished their course with courage and joy.

When Brousson first went into the Cevennes, he did not undertake to
preach to the people. He was too modest to assume the position of a pastor;
he merely undertook, as occasion required, to read the Scriptures in
Protestant families and in small companies, making his remarks and
exhortations thereupon. He also transcribed portions of his own meditations
on the Scriptures, and gave them away for distribution from hand to hand
amongst the people.

When it was found that his instructions were much appreciated, and that
numbers of people assembled to hear him read and exhort, he was strongly
urged to undertake the office of public instructor amongst them, especially
as their ministers were being constantly diminished by execution.

He had been about five months in the Cevennes, and was detained by a
fall of snow on one of the mountains, where his abode was a sheepcote,
when the proposal that he should become a preacher was first made to him.
Vivens was one of those who most strongly supported the appeal made to
Brousson. He spent many hours in private prayer, seeking the approval of
God for the course he was about to undertake. Vivens also prayed in the
several assemblies that Brousson might be confirmed, and that God would
be pleased to pour upon him his Holy Spirit, and strengthen him so that he
might become a faithful and successful labourer in this great calling.

Brousson at length consented, believing that duty and conscience alike
called upon him to give the best of his help to the oppressed and persecuted
Protestants of the mountains. "Brethren," he said to them, when they called
upon him to administer to them the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist
—"Brethren, I look above you, and hear the most High God calling me
through your mouths to this most responsible and sacred office; and I dare
not be disobedient to his heavenly call. By the grace of God I will comply
with your pious desires; dedicate and devote myself to the work of the
ministry, and spend the remainder of my life in unwearied pains and
endeavours for promoting God's glory, and the consolation of precious
souls."

Brousson received his call to the ministry in the Cevennes amidst the
sound of musketry and grapeshot which spread death among the ranks of
his brethren. He was continuously tracked by the spies of the Jesuits, who
sought his apprehension and death; and he was hunted from place to place
by the troops of the King, who followed him in his wanderings into the
most wild and inaccessible places.

The perilous character of his new profession was exhibited only a few
days after his ordination, by the apprehension of Olivier Souverain at St.
Jean de Gardonenque, for preaching the Gospel to the assemblies. He was
at once conducted to Montpellier and executed on the 15th of January,
1690.

During the same year, Dumas, another preacher in the Cevennes, was
apprehended and fastened by the troopers across a horse in order to be
carried to Montpellier. His bowels were so injured and his body so crushed

by this horrible method of conveyance, that Dumas died before he was half
way to the customary place of martyrdom.

Then followed the execution of David Quoite, a wandering and hunted
pastor in the Cevennes for several years. He was broken on the wheel at
Montpellier, and then hanged. "The punishment," said Louvreleuil, his
tormentor, "which broke his bones, did not break his hardened heart: he
died in his heresy." After Quoite, M. Bonnemère, a native of the same city,
was also tortured and executed in like manner on the Peyrou.

All these persons were taken, executed, destroyed, or imprisoned, during
the first year that Brousson commenced his perilous ministry in the
Cevennes.

About the same time three women, who had gone about instructing the
families of the destitute Protestants, reading the Scriptures and praying with
them, were apprehended by Baville, the King's intendant, and punished.
Isabeau Redothière, eighteen years of age, and Marie Lintarde, about a year
younger, both the daughters of peasants, were taken before Baville at
Nismes.

"What! are you one of the preachers, forsooth?" said he to Redothière.
"Sir," she replied, "I have exhorted my brethren to be mindful of their duty
towards God, and when occasion offered, I have sought God in prayer for
them; and, if your lordship calls that preaching, I have been a preacher."
"But," said the Intendant, "you know that the King has forbidden this."
"Yes, my lord," she replied, "I know it very well, but the King of kings, the
God of heaven and earth, He hath commanded it." "You deserve death,"
replied Baville.

But the Intendant awarded her a severer fate. She was condemned to be
imprisoned for life in the Tower of Constance, a place echoing with the
groans of women, most of whom were in chains, perpetually imprisoned
there for worshipping God according to conscience.

Lintarde was in like manner condemned to imprisonment for life in the
castle of Sommières, and it is believed she died there. Nothing, however, is
known of the time when she died. When a woman was taken and

imprisoned in one of the King's torture-houses, she was given up by her
friends as lost.

A third woman, taken at the same time, was more mercifully dealt with.
Anne Montjoye was found assisting at one of the secret assemblies. She
was solicited in vain to abjure her faith, and being condemned to death, was
publicly executed.

Shortly after his ordination, Brousson descended from the Upper
Cevennes, where the hunt for Protestants was becoming very hot, into the
adjacent valleys and plains. There it was necessary for him to be
exceedingly cautious. The number of dragoons in Languedoc had been
increased so as to enable them regularly to patrol the entire province, and a
price had been set upon Brousson's head, which was calculated to quicken
their search for the flying pastor.

Brousson was usually kept informed by his Huguenot friends of the
direction taken by the dragoons in their patrols, and hasty assemblies were
summoned in their absence. The meetings were held in some secret place—
some cavern or recess in the rocks. Often they were held at night, when a
few lanterns were hung on the adjacent trees to give light. Sentinels were
set in the neighbourhood, and all the adjoining roads were watched. After
the meeting was over the assemblage dispersed in different directions, and
Brousson immediately left for another district, travelling mostly by night,
so as to avoid detection. In this manner he usually presided at three or four
assemblies each week, besides two on the Sabbath day—one early in the
morning and another at night.

At one of his meetings, held at Boucoiran on the Gardon, about half way
between Nismes and Anduze, a Protestant nobleman—a nouveau convertis,
who had abjured his religion to retain his estates—was present, and stood
near the preacher during the service. One of the Government spies was
present, and gave information. The name of the Protestant nobleman was
not known. But the Intendant, to strike terror into others, seized six of the
principal landed proprietors in the neighbourhood—though some of them
had never attended any of the assemblies since the Revocation—and sent
two of them to the galleys, and the four others to imprisonment for life at
Lyons, besides confiscating the estates of the whole to the Crown.

Brousson now felt that he was bringing his friends into very great
trouble, and, out of consideration for them, he began to think of again
leaving France. The dragoons were practising much cruelty on the
Protestant population, being quartered in their houses, and at liberty to
plunder and extort money to any extent. They were also incessantly on the
look out for the assemblies, being often led by mounted priests and spies to
places where they had been informed that meetings were about to be held.
Their principal object, besides hanging the persons found attending, was to
seize the preachers, more especially Brousson and Vivens, believing that the
country would be more effectually "converted," provided they could be
seized and got out of the way.

Brousson, knowing that he might be seized and taken prisoner at any
moment, had long considered whether he ought to resist the attempts made
to capture him. He had at first carried a sword, but at length ceased to wear
it, being resolved entirely to cast himself on Providence; and he also
instructed all who resorted to his meetings to come to them unarmed.

In this respect Brousson differed from Vivens, who thought it right to
resist force by force; and in the event of any attempt being made to capture
him, he considered it expedient to be constantly provided with arms. Yet he
had only once occasion to use them, and it was the first and last time. The
reward of ten thousand livres being now offered for the apprehension of
Brousson and Vivens, or five thousand for either, an active search was made
throughout the province. At length the Government found themselves on the
track of Vivens. One of his known followers, Valderon, having been
apprehended and put upon the rack, was driven by torture to reveal his
place of concealment. A party of soldiers went in pursuit, and found Vivens
with three other persons, concealed in a cave in the neighbourhood of Alais.

Vivens was engaged in prayer when the soldiers came upon him. His
hand was on his gun in a moment. When asked to surrender he replied with
a shot, not knowing the number of his opponents. He followed up with two
other shots, killing a man each time, and then exposing himself, he was
struck by a volley, and fell dead. The three other persons in the cave being
in a position to hold the soldiers at defiance for some time, were promised
their lives if they would surrender. They did so, and with the utter want of

truth, loyalty, and manliness that characterized the persecutors, the promise
was belied, and the three prisoners were hanged, a few days after, at Alais.
Vivens' body was taken to the same place. The Intendant sat in judgment
upon it, and condemned it to be drawn through the streets upon a hurdle and
then burnt to ashes.

Brousson was becoming exhausted by the fatigues and privations he had
encountered during his two years' wanderings and preachings in the
Cevennes; and he not only desired to give the people a relaxation from their
persecution, but to give himself some absolutely necessary rest. He
accordingly proceeded to Nismes, his birthplace, where many people knew
him; and where, if they betrayed him, they might easily have earned five
thousand livres. But so much faith was kept by the Protestants amongst one
another, that Brousson felt that his life was quite as safe amongst his
townspeople as it had been during the last two years amongst the
mountaineers of the Cevennes.

It soon became known to the priests, and then to the Intendant, that
Brousson was resident in concealment at Nismes; and great efforts were
accordingly made for his apprehension. During the search, a letter of
Brousson's was found in the possession of M. Guion, an aged minister, who
had returned from Switzerland to resume his ministry, according as he
might find it practicable. The result of this discovery was, that Guion was
apprehended, taken before the Intendant, condemned to be executed, and
sent to Montpellier, where he gave up his life at seventy years old—the
drums beating, as usual, that nobody might hear his last words. The house
in which Guion had been taken at Nismes was ordered to be razed to the
ground, in punishment of the owner who had given him shelter.

After spending about a month at Nismes, Brousson was urged by his
friends to quit the city. He accordingly succeeded in passing through the
gates, and went to resume his former work. His first assembly was held in a
commodious place on the Gardon, between Valence, Brignon, and St.
Maurice, about ten miles distant from Nismes. Although he had requested
that only the Protestants in the immediate neighbourhood should attend the
meeting, so as not to excite the apprehensions of the authorities, yet a
multitude of persons came from Uzes and Nismes, augmented by

accessions from upwards of thirty villages. The service was commenced
about ten o'clock, and was not completed until midnight.

The concourse of persons from all quarters had been so great that the
soldiers could not fail to be informed of it. Accordingly they rode towards
the place of assemblage late at night, but they did not arrive until the
meeting had been dissolved. One troop of soldiers took ambush in a wood
through which the worshippers would return on their way back to Uzes. The
command had been given to "draw blood from the conventicles." On the
approach of the people the soldiers fired, and killed and wounded several.
About forty others wore taken prisoners. The men were sent to the galleys
for life, and the women were thrown into gaol at Carcassone—the Tower of
Constance being then too full of prisoners.

After this event, the Government became more anxious in their desire to
capture Brousson. They published far and wide their renewed offer of
reward for his apprehension. They sent six fresh companies of soldiers
specially to track him, and examine the woods and search the caves
between Uzes and Alais. But Brousson's friends took care to advise him of
the approach of danger, and he sped away to take shelter in another quarter.
The soldiers were, however, close upon his heels; and one morning, in
attempting to enter a village for the purpose of drying himself—having
been exposed to the winter's rain and cold all night—he suddenly came
upon a detachment of soldiers! He avoided them by taking shelter in a
thicket, and while there, he observed another detachment pass in file, close
to where he was concealed. The soldiers were divided into four parties, and
sent out to search in different directions, one of them proceeding to search
every house in the village into which Brousson had just been about to enter.

The next assembly was held at Sommières, about eight miles west of
Nismes. The soldiers were too late to disperse the meeting, but they
watched some of the people on their return. One of these, an old woman,
who had been observed to leave the place, was shot on entering her cottage;
and the soldier, observing that she was attempting to rise, raised the butt
end of his gun and brained her on the spot.

The hunted pastors of the Cevennes were falling off one by one. Bernard
Saint Paul, a young man, who had for some time exercised the office of

preacher, was executed in 1692. One of the brothers Du Plans was executed
in the same year, having been offered his life if he would conform to the
Catholic religion. In the following year Paul Colognac was executed, after
being broken to death on the wheel at Masselargais, near to which he had
held his last assembly. His arms, thighs, legs, and feet were severally
broken with the iron bar some hours before the coup de grace, or
deathblow, was inflicted. Colognac endured his sufferings with heroic
fortitude. He was only twenty-four. He had commenced to preach at twenty,
and laboured at the work for only four years.

Brousson's health was fast giving way. Every place that he frequented
was closely watched, so that he had often to spend the night under the
hollow of a rock, or under the shelter of a wood, exposed to rain and snow,
—and sometimes he had even to contend with a wolf for the shelter of a
cave. Often he was almost perishing for want of food; and often he found
himself nearly ready to die for want of rest. And yet, even in the midst of
his greatest perils, his constant thought was of the people committed to him,
and for whose eternal happiness he continued to work.

As he could not visit all who wished to hear him, he wrote out sermons
that might be read to them. His friend Henry Poutant, one of those who
originally accompanied him from Switzerland and had not yet been taken
prisoner by the soldiers, went about holding meetings for prayer, and
reading to the people the sermons prepared for them by Brousson.

For the purpose of writing out his sermons, Brousson carried about with
him a small board, which he called his "Wilderness Table." With this placed
upon his knees, he wrote the sermons, for the most part in woods and caves.
He copied out seventeen of these sermons, which he sent to Louis XIV., to
show him that what "he preached in the deserts contained nothing but the
pure word of God, and that he only exhorted the people to obey God and to
give glory to Him."

The sermons were afterwards published at Amsterdam, in 1695, under
the title of "The Mystic Manna of the Desert." One would have expected
that, under the bitter persecutions which Brousson had suffered during so
many years, they would have been full of denunciation; on the contrary,

they were only full of love. His words were only burning when he censured
his hearers for not remaining faithful to their Church and to their God.

At length, the fury of Brousson's enemies so increased, and his health
was so much impaired, that he again thought of leaving France. His lungs
were so much injured by constant exposure to cold, and his voice had
become so much impaired, that he could not preach. He also heard that his
family, whom he had left at Lausanne, required his assistance. His only son
was growing up, and needed education. Perhaps Brousson had too long
neglected those of his own household; though he had every confidence in
the prudence and thoughtfulness of his wife.

Accordingly, about the end of 1693, Brousson made arrangements for
leaving the Cevennes. He set out in the beginning of December, and arrived
at Lausanne about a fortnight later, having been engaged on his
extraordinary mission of duty and peril for four years and five months. He
was received like one rescued from the dead. His health was so injured, that
his wife could scarcely recognise her husband in that wan, wasted, and
weatherbeaten creature who stood before her. In fact, he was a perfect
wreck.

He remained about fifteen months in Switzerland, during which he
preached in the Huguenots' church; wrote out many of his pastoral letters
and sermons; and, when his health had become restored, he again proceeded
on his travels into foreign countries. He first went into Holland. He had
scarcely arrived there, when intelligence reached him from Montpellier of
the execution, after barbarous torments, of his friend Papus,—one of those
who had accompanied him into the Cevennes to preach the Gospel some six
years before. There were now very few of the original company left.

On hearing of the martyrdom of Papus, Brousson, in a pastoral letter
which he addressed to his followers, said: "He must have died some day;
and as he could not have prolonged his life beyond the term appointed, how
could his end have been more happy and more glorious? His constancy, his
sweetness of temper, his patience, his humility, his faith, his hope, and his
piety, affected even his judges and the false pastors who endeavoured to
seduce him, as also the soldiers and all that witnessed his execution. He

could not have preached better than he did by his martyrdom; and I doubt
not that his death, will produce abundance of fruit."

While in Holland, Brousson took the opportunity of having his sermons
and many of his pastoral letters printed at Amsterdam; after which he
proceeded to make a visit to his banished Huguenot friends in England. He
also wished to ascertain from personal inquiry the advisability of
forwarding an increased number of French emigrants—then resident in
Switzerland—for settlement in this country. In London, he met many of his
friends from the South of France—for there were settled there as ministers,
Graverol of Nismes, Satur of Montauban, four ministers from Montpellier
for whom he had pleaded in the courts at Toulouse—the two Dubourdieus
and the two Berthaus—fathers and sons. There were also La Coux from
Castres, De Joux from Lyons, Roussillon from Montredon, Mestayer from
St. Quentin, all settled in London as ministers of Huguenot churches.

After staying in England for only about a month, Brousson was suddenly
recalled to Holland to assume the office to which he was appointed without
solicitation, of preacher to the Walloon church at the Hague. Though his
office was easy—for he had several colleagues to assist him in the duties—
and the salary was abundant for his purposes, while he was living in the
society of his wife and family—Brousson nevertheless very soon began to
be ill at ease. He still thought of the abandoned Huguenots "in the Desert";
without teachers, without pastors, without spiritual help of any kind. When
he had undertaken the work of the ministry, he had vowed that he would
devote his time and talents to the support and help of the afflicted Church;
and now he was living at ease in a foreign country, far removed from those
to whom he considered his services belonged. These thoughts were
constantly recurring and pressing upon his mind; and at length he ceased to
have any rest or satisfaction in his new position.

Accordingly, after only about four months' connection with the Church at
the Hague, Brousson decided to relinquish the charge, and to devote himself
to the service of the oppressed and afflicted members of his native Church
in France. The Dutch Government, however, having been informed of his
perilous and self-sacrificing intention, agreed to continue his salary as a

pastor of the Walloon Church, and to pay it to his wife, who henceforth
abode at the Hague.

Brousson determined to enter France from the north, and to visit districts
that were entirely new to him. For this purpose he put himself in charge of a
guide. At that time, while the Protestants were flying from France, as they
continued to do for many years, there were numerous persons who acted as
guides for those not only flying from, but entering the country. Those who
guided Protestant pastors on their concealed visits to France, were men of
great zeal and courage—known to be faithful and self-denying—and
thoroughly acquainted with the country. They knew all the woods, and
fords, and caves, and places of natural shelter along the route. They made
the itinerary of the mountains and precipices, of the byways and deserts,
their study. They also knew of the dwellings of the faithful in the towns and
villages where Huguenots might find relief and shelter for the night. They
studied the disguises to be assumed, and were prepared with a stock of
phrases and answers adapted for every class of inquiries.

The guide employed by Brousson was one James Bruman—an old
Huguenot merchant, banished at the Revocation, and now employed in
escorting Huguenot preachers back to France, and escorting flying
Huguenot men, women, and children from it.[28] The pastor and his guide
started about the end of August, 1695. They proceeded by way of Liége;
and travelling south, they crossed the forest of Ardennes, and entered
France near Sedan.

Sedan, recently the scene of one of the greatest calamities that has ever
befallen France, was, about two centuries ago, a very prosperous place. It
was the seat of a great amount of Protestant learning and Protestant
industry. One of the four principal Huguenot academies of France was
situated in that town. It was suppressed in 1681, shortly before the
Revocation, and its professors, Bayle, Abbadie, Basnage, Brazy, and Jurieu,
expelled the country. The academy buildings themselves had been given
over to the Jesuits—the sworn enemies of the Huguenots.

At the same time, Sedan had been the seat of great woollen
manufactures, originally founded by Flemish Protestant families, and for
the manufacture of arms, implements of husbandry, and all kinds of steel

and iron articles.[29] At the Revocation, the Protestants packed up their tools
and property, suddenly escaped across the frontier, near which they were,
and went and established themselves in the Low Countries, where they
might pursue their industries in safety. Sedan was ruined, and remained so
until our own day, when it has begun to experience a little prosperity from
the tourists desirous of seeing the place where the great French Army
surrendered.

When Brousson visited the place, the remaining Protestants resided
chiefly in the suburban villages of Givonne and Daigny. He visited them in
their families, and also held several private meetings, after which he was
induced to preach in a secluded place near Sedan at night.

This assembly, however, was reported to the authorities, who
immediately proceeded to make search for the heretic preacher. A party of
soldiers, informed by the spies, next morning invested the house in which
Brousson slept. They first apprehended Bruman, the guide, and thought that
in him they had secured the pastor. They next rummaged the house, in order
to find the preacher's books. But Brousson, hearing them coming in, hid
himself behind the door, which, being small, hardly concealed his person.

After setting a guard all round the house, ransacking every room in it,
and turning everything upside down, they left it; but two of the children,
seeing Brousson's feet under the door, one of them ran after the officer of
the party, and exclaimed to him, pointing back, "Here, sir, here!" But the
officer, not understanding what the child meant, went away with his
soldiers, and Brousson's life was, for the time, saved.

The same evening, Brousson changed his disguise to that of a wool-
comber, and carrying a parcel on his shoulder, he set out on the same
evening with another guide. He visited many places in which Protestants
were to be found—in Champagne, Picardy, Normandy, Nevernois, and
Burgundy. He also visited several of his friends in the neighbourhood of
Paris.

We have not many details of his perils and experiences during his
journey. But the following passage is extracted from a letter addressed by
him to a friend in Holland: "I assure you that in every place through which I

passed, I witnessed the poor people truly repenting their fault (i.e. of having
gone to Mass), weeping day and night, and imploring the grace and
consolations of the Gospel in their distress. Their persecutors daily oppress
them, and burden them with taxes and imposts; but the more discerning of
the Roman Catholics acknowledge that the cruelties and injustice done
towards so many innocent persons, draw down misery and distress upon the
kingdom. And truly it is to be apprehended that God will abandon its
inhabitants to their wickedness, that he may afterwards pour down his most
terrible judgments upon that ungrateful and vaunting country, which has
rejected his truth and despised the day of visitation."

During the twelve months that Brousson was occupied with his perilous
journey through France, two more of his friends in the Cevennes suffered
martyrdom—La Porte on the 7th of February, 1696, and Henri Guerin on
the 22nd of June following. Both were broken alive on the wheel before
receiving the coup de grace.

Towards the close of the year, Brousson arrived at Basle, from whence he
proceeded to visit his friends throughout the cantons of Switzerland, and
then he returned to Holland by way of the Rhine, to rejoin his family at the
Hague.

At that time, the representatives of the Allies were meeting at Ryswick
the representatives of Louis XIV., who was desirous of peace. Brousson and
the French refugee ministers resident in Holland endeavoured to bring the
persecutions of the French Protestants under the notice of the Conference.
But Louis XIV. would not brook this interference. He proposed going on
dealing with the heretics in his own way. "I do not pretend," he said, "to
prescribe to William III. rules about his subjects, and I expect the same
liberty as to my own."

Finding it impossible to obtain redress for his fellow-countrymen under
the treaty of Ryswick, which was shortly after concluded, Brousson at
length prepared to make his third journey into France in the month of
August 1697. He set out greatly to the regret of his wife, who feared it
might be his last journey, as indeed it proved to be. In a letter which he
wrote to console her, from some remote place where he was snowed up
about the middle of the following December, he said: "I cannot at present

enter into the details of the work the Lord has given me grace to labour in;
but it is the source of much consolation to a large number of his poor
people. It will be expedient that you do not mention where I am, lest I
should be traced. It may be that I cannot for some time write to you; but I
walk under the conduct of my God, and I repeat that I would not for
millions of money that the Lord should refuse me the grace which renders it
imperative for me to labour as I now do in His work."[30]

When the snow had melted sufficiently to enable Brousson to escape
from the district of Dauphiny, near the High Alps, where he had been
concealed, he made his way across the country to the Viverais, where he
laboured for some time. Here he heard of the martyrdom of the third of the
brothers Du Plans, broken on the wheel and executed like the others on the
Peyrou at Montpellier.

During the next nine months, Brousson laboured in the north-eastern
provinces of Languedoc (more particularly in the Cevennes and Viverais),
Orange, and Dauphiny. He excited so much interest amongst the
Protestants, who resorted from a great distance to attend his assemblies, that
the spies (who were usually pretended Protestants) soon knew of his
presence in the neighbourhood, and information was at once forwarded to
the Intendant or his officers.

Persecution was growing very bitter about this time. By orders of the
bishops the Protestants were led by force to Mass before the dragoons with
drawn swords, and the shops of merchants who refused to go to Mass
regularly were ordered to be closed. Their houses were also filled with
soldiers. "The soldiers or militia," said Brousson to a friend in Holland,
"frequently commit horrible ravages, breaking open the cabinets, removing
every article that is saleable, which are often purchased by the priests at
insignificant prices; the rest they burn and break up, after which the soldiers
are removed; and when the sufferers think themselves restored to peace,
fresh billets are ordered upon them. Many are consequently induced to go to
Mass with weeping and lamentation, but a great number remain inflexible,
and others fly the kingdom."

When it became known that Brousson, in the course of his journeyings,
had arrived, about the end of August, 1698, in the neighbourhood of

Nismes, Baville was greatly mortified; and he at once offered a reward of
six hundred louis d'or for his head. Brousson nevertheless entered Nismes,
and found refuge amongst his friends. He had, however, the imprudence to
post there a petition to the King, signed by his own hand, which had the
effect of at once setting the spies upon his track. Leaving the city itself, he
took refuge in a house not far from it, whither the spies contrived to trace
him, and gave the requisite information to the Intendant. The house was
soon after surrounded by soldiers, and was itself entered and completely
searched.

Brousson's host had only had time to make him descend into a well,
which had a niche in the bottom in which he could conceal himself. The
soldiers looked down the well a dozen times, but could see nothing.
Brousson was not in the house; he was not in the chimneys; he was not in
the outhouses. He must be in the well! A soldier went down the well to
make a personal examination. He was let down close to the surface of the
water, and felt all about. There was nothing! Feeling awfully cold, and
wishing to be taken out, he called to his friends, "There is nothing here, pull
me up." He was pulled up accordingly, and Brousson was again saved.

The country about Nismes being beset with spies to track the Protestants
and prevent their meetings, Brousson determined to go westward and visit
the scattered people in Rouerge, Pays de Foix, and Bigorre, proceeding as
far as Bearn, where a remnant of Huguenots still lingered, notwithstanding
the repeated dragooning to which the district had been subjected. It was at
Oberon that he fell into the hands of a spy, who bore the same name as a
Protestant friend to whom his letter was addressed. Information was given
to the authorities, and Brousson was arrested. He made no resistance, and
answered at once to his name.

When the Judas who had betrayed him went to M. Pénon, the intendant
of the province, to demand the reward set upon Brousson's head, the
Intendant replied with indignation, "Wretch! don't you blush to look upon
the man in whose blood you traffic? Begone! I cannot bear your presence!"

Brousson was sent to Pau, where he was imprisoned in the castle of Foix,
at one time the centre of the Reformation movement in the South of France

—where Calvin had preached, where Jeanne d'Albret had lived, and where
Henry IV. had been born.

From Pau, Brousson was sent to Montpellier, escorted by dragoons. At
Toulouse the party took passage by the canal of Languedoc, which had then
been shortly open. At Somail, during the night, Brousson saw that all the
soldiers were asleep. He had but to step on shore to regain his liberty; but
he had promised to the Intendant of Bearn, who had allowed him to go
unfettered, that he would not attempt to escape. At Agade there was a
detachment of a hundred soldiers, ready to convey the prisoner to Baville,
Intendant of Languedoc. He was imprisoned in the citadel of Montpellier,
on the 30th October, 1698.

Baville, who knew much of the character of Brousson—his peacefulness,
his piety, his self-sacrifice, and his noble magnanimity—is said to have
observed on one occasion, "I would not for a world have to judge that man."
And yet the time had now arrived when Brousson was to be judged and
condemned by Baville and the Presidial Court. The trial was a farce,
because it had been predetermined that Brousson should die. He was
charged with preaching in France contrary to the King's prohibition. This he
admitted; but when asked to whom he had administered the Sacrament, he
positively refused to disclose, because he was neither a traitor nor informer
to accuse his brethren. He was also charged with having conspired to
introduce a foreign army into France under the command of Marshal
Schomberg. This he declared to be absolutely false, for he had throughout
his career been a man of peace, and sought to bring back Christ's followers
by peaceful means only.

His defence was of no avail. He was condemned to be racked, then to be
broken on the wheel, and afterwards to be executed. He received the
sentence without a shudder. He was tied on the rack, but when he refused to
accuse his brethren he was released from it. Attempts were made by several
priests and friars to add him to the number of "new converts," but these
were altogether fruitless. All that remained was to execute him finally on
the public place of execution—the Peyrou.

The Peyrou is the pride of modern Montpellier. It is the favourite
promenade of the place, and is one of the finest in Europe. It consists of a

broad platform elevated high above the rest of the town, and commanding
extensive views of the surrounding country. In clear weather, Mont
Ventoux, one of the Alpine summits, may be seen across the broad valley of
the Rhône on the east, and the peak of Mont Canizou in the Pyrenees on the
west. Northward stretches the mountain range of the Cevennes, the bold Pic
de Saint-Loup the advanced sentinel of the group; while in the south the
prospect is bounded by the blue line of the Mediterranean.

The Peyrou is now pleasantly laid out in terraced walks and shady
groves, with gay parterres of flowers—the upper platform being surrounded
with a handsome stone balustrade. An equestrian statue of Louis XIV.
occupies the centre of the area; and a triumphal arch stands at the entrance
to the promenade, erected to commemorate the "glories" of the same
monarch, more particularly the Revocation by him of the Edict of Nantes—
one of the entablatures of the arch displaying a hideous figure, intended to
represent a Huguenot, lying trampled under foot of the "Most Christian
King."

The Peyrou was thus laid out and ornamented in the reign of his
successor, Louis XV., "the Well-beloved," during which the same policy for
which Louis XIV. was here glorified by an equestrian statue and a triumphal
arch continued to be persevered in—of imprisoning, banishing, hanging, or
sending to the galleys such of the citizens of France as were not of "the
King's religion."

But during the reign of Louis XIV. himself, the Peyrou was anything but
a pleasure-ground. It was the infamous place of the city—the place de
Grève—a desert, barren, blasted table-land, where sometimes half-a-dozen
decaying corpses might be seen swinging from the gibbets on which they
had been hung. It was specially reserved, because of its infamy, for the
execution of heretics against Rome; and here, accordingly, hundreds of
Huguenot martyrs—whom power, honour, and wealth failed to bribe or to
convert—were called upon to seal their faith with their blood.

Brousson was executed at this place on the 4th of November, 1698. It
was towards evening, while the sun was slowly sinking behind the western
mountains, that an immense multitude assembled on the Peyrou to witness
the martyrdom of the devoted pastor. Not fewer than twenty thousand

persons were there, including the principal nobility of the city and province,
besides many inhabitants of the adjoining mountain district of the
Cevennes, some of whom had come from a great distance to be present. In
the centre of the plateau, near where the equestrian statue of the great King
now stands, was a scaffold, strongly surrounded by troops to keep off the
crowd. Two battalions, drawn up in two lines facing each other, formed an
avenue of bayonets between the citadel, near at hand, and the place of
execution.

A commotion stirred the throng; and the object of the breathless interest
excited shortly appeared in the person of a middle-sized, middle-aged man,
spare, grave, and dignified in appearance, dressed in the ordinary garb of a
pastor, who walked slowly towards the scaffold, engaged in earnest prayer,
his eyes and hands lifted towards heaven. On mounting the platform, he
stood forward to say a few last words to the people, and give to many of his
friends, whom he knew to be in the crowd, his parting benediction. But his
voice was instantly stifled by the roll of twenty drums, which continued to
beat a quick march until the hideous ceremony was over, and the martyr,
Claude Brousson, had ceased to live.[31]

Strange are the vicissitudes of human affairs! Not a hundred years passed
after this event, before the great grandson of the monarch, at whose instance
Brousson had laid down his life, appeared upon a scaffold in the Place
Louis XIV. in Paris, and implored permission to say his few last words to
the people. In vain! His voice was drowned by the drums of Santerre![Back to
Contents]

CHAPTER V.

OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC.

Although the arbitrary measures of the King were felt all over France,
they nowhere excited more dismay and consternation than in the province
of Languedoc. This province had always been inhabited by a spirited and

energetic people, born lovers of liberty. They were among the earliest to call
in question the despotic authority over mind and conscience claimed by the
see of Rome. The country is sown with the ashes of martyrs. Long before
the execution of Brousson, the Peyrou at Montpellier had been the Calvary
of the South of France.

As early as the twelfth century, the Albigenses, who inhabited the district,
excited the wrath of the Popes. Simple, sincere believers in the Divine
providence, they rejected Rome, and took their stand upon the individual
responsibility of man to God. Count de Foix said to the legate of Innocent
III.: "As to my religion, the Pope has nothing to do with it. Every man's
conscience must be free. My father has always recommended to me this
liberty, and I am content to die for it."

A crusade was waged against the Albigenses, which lasted for a period of
about sixty years. Armies were concentrated upon Languedoc, and after
great slaughter the heretics were supposed to be exterminated.

But enough of the people survived to perpetuate the love of liberty in
their descendants, who continued to exercise a degree of independence in
matters of religion and politics almost unknown in other parts of France.
Languedoc was the principal stronghold of the Huguenots in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries; and when, in 1685, Louis XIV. revoked the Edict
of Nantes, which interdicted freedom of worship under penalty of
confiscation, banishment, and death, it is not surprising that such a policy
should have occasioned widespread consternation, if not hostility and open
resistance.

At the period of the Revocation there were, according to the Intendant of
the province, not fewer than 250,000 Protestants in Languedoc, and these
formed the most skilled, industrious, enterprising, and wealthy portion of
the community. They were the best farmers, vine-dressers, manufacturers,
and traders. The valley of Vaunage, lying to the westward of Nismes, was
one of the richest and most highly cultivated parts of France. It contained
more than sixty temples, its population being almost exclusively Protestant;
and it was known as "The Little Canaan," abounding as it did in corn, and
wine, and oil.

The greater part of the commerce of the South of France was conducted
by the Protestant merchants of Nismes, of whom the Intendant wrote to the
King in 1699, "If they are still bad Catholics, at any rate they have not
ceased to be very good traders."

The Marquis d'Aguesseau bore similar testimony to the intelligent
industry of the Huguenot population. "By an unfortunate fatality," said he,
"in nearly every kind of art the most skilful workmen, as well as the richest
merchants, belong to the pretended reformed religion."

The Marquis, who governed Languedoc for many years, was further of
opinion that the intelligence of the Protestants was in a great measure due to
the instructions of their pastors. "It is certain," said he, "that one of the
things which holds the Huguenots to their religion is the amount of
information which they receive from their instructors, and which it is not
thought necessary to give in ours. The Huguenots will be instructed, and it
is a general complaint amongst the new converts not to find in our religion
the same mental and moral discipline they find in their own."

Baville, the intendant, made an observation to a similar effect in a
confidential communication which he made to the authorities at Paris in
1697, in which he boasted that the Protestants had now all been converted,
and that there were 198,483 new converts in Languedoc. "Generally
speaking," he said, "the new converts are much better off, being more
laborious and industrious than the old Catholics of the province. The new
converts must not be regarded as Catholics; they almost all preserve in their
heart their attachment to their former religion. They may confess and
communicate as much as you will, because they are menaced and forced to
do so by the secular power. But this only leads to sacrilege. To gain them,
their hearts must be won. It is there that religion resides, and it can only be
solely established by effecting that conquest."

From the number, as well as the wealth and education, of the Protestants
of Languedoc, it is reasonable to suppose that the emigration from this
quarter of France should have been very considerable during the
persecutions which followed the Revocation. Of course nearly all the
pastors fled, death being their punishment if they remained in France.
Hence many of the most celebrated French preachers in Holland, Germany,

and England were pastors banished from Languedoc. Claude and Saurin
both belonged to the province; and among the London preachers were the
Dubourdieus, the Bertheaus, Graverol, and Pégorier.

It is also interesting to find how many of the distinguished Huguenots
who settled in England came from Languedoc. The Romillys and Layards
came from Montpellier; the Saurins from Nismes; the Gaussens from
Lunel; and the Bosanquets from Caila;[32] besides the Auriols, Arnauds,
Péchels, De Beauvoirs, Durands, Portals, Boileaus, D'Albiacs, D'Oliers,
Rious, and Vignoles, all of whom belonged to the Huguenot landed gentry
of Languedoc, who fled and sacrificed everything rather than conform to
the religion of Louis XIV.

When Brousson was executed at Montpellier, it was believed that
Protestantism was finally dead. At all events, it was supposed that those of
the Protestants who remained, without becoming converted, were at length
reduced to utter powerlessness. It was not believed that the smouldering
ashes contained any sparks that might yet be fanned into flames. The
Huguenot landed proprietors, the principal manufacturers, the best of the
artisans, had left for other countries. Protestantism was now entirely
without leaders. The very existence of Protestantism in any form was
denied by the law; and it might perhaps reasonably have been expected that,
being thus crushed out of sight, it would die.

But there still remained another important and vital element—the
common people—the peasants, the small farmers, the artisans, and
labouring classes—persons of slender means, for the most part too poor to
emigrate, and who remained, as it were, rooted to the soil on which they
had been born. This was especially the case in the Cevennes, where, in
many of the communes, almost the entire inhabitants were Protestants; in
others, they formed a large proportion of the population; while in all the
larger towns and villages they were very numerous, as well as widely
spread over the whole province.

The mountainous district of the Cevennes is the most rugged, broken, and
elevated region in the South of France. It fills the department of Lozère, as

well as the greater part of Gard and Herault. The principal mountain-chain,
about a hundred leagues in length, runs from north-east to south-west, and
may almost be said to unite the Alps with the Pyrenees. From the centre of
France the surface rises with a gradual slope, forming an inclined plane,
which reaches its greatest height in the Cevennic chain, several of the
summits of which are about five thousand five hundred feet above the sea
level. Its connection with the Alpine range is, however, broken abruptly by
the deep valley of the Rhône, running nearly due north and south.

The whole of this mountain district maybe regarded as a triangular
plateau rising gradually from the northwest, and tilted up at its south-
eastern angle. It is composed for the most part of granite, overlapped by
strata belonging to the Jurassic-system; and in many places, especially in
Auvergne, the granitic rocks have been burst through by volcanoes, long
since extinct, which rise like enormous protuberances from the higher parts
of the platform. Towards the southern border of the district, the limestone
strata overlapping the granite assume a remarkable development, exhibiting
a series of flat-topped hills bounded by perpendicular cliffs some six or
eight hundred feet high.

"These plateaux," says Mr. Scrope, in his interesting account of the
geology of Central France, "are called 'causses' in the provincial dialect, and
they have a singularly dreary and desert aspect from the monotony of their
form and their barren and rocky character. The valleys which separate them
are rarely of considerable width. Winding, narrow, and all but impassable
cliff-like glens predominate, giving to the Cevennes that peculiarly intricate
character which enabled its Protestant inhabitants, in the beginning of the
last century, to offer so stubborn and gallant a resistance to the atrocious
persecutions of Louis XIV."

Such being the character of this mountain district—rocky, elevated, and
sterile—the people inhabiting it, though exceedingly industrious, are for the
most very poor. Sheep-farming is the principal occupation of the people of
the hill country; and in the summer season, when the lower districts are
parched with drought, tens of thousands of sheep may be seen covering the
roads leading to the Upper Cevennes, whither they are driven for pasture.
There is a comparatively small breadth of arable land in the district. The

mountains in many places contain only soil enough to grow juniper-bushes.
There is very little verdure to relieve the eye—few turf-clad slopes or earth-
covered ledges to repay the tillage of the farmer. Even the mountains of
lower elevation are for the most part stony deserts. Chestnut-trees, it is true,
grow luxuriantly in the sheltered places, and occasionally scanty crops of
rye on the lower mountain-sides. Mulberry-trees also thrive in the valleys,
their leaves being used for the feeding of silkworms, the rearing of which
forms one of the principal industries of the district.

Even in the immediate neighbourhood of Nismes—a rich and beautiful
town, abounding in Roman remains, which exhibit ample evidences of its
ancient grandeur—the country is arid, stony, and barren-looking, though
here the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree, wherever there is soil enough,
grow luxuriantly in the open air. Indeed, the country very much resembles
in its character the land of Judea, being rocky, parched, and in many places
waste, though in others abounding in corn and wine and oil. In the interior
parts of the district the scenery is wild and grand, especially in the valleys
lying under the lofty mountain of Lozère. But the rocks and stones are
everywhere in the ascendant.

A few years ago we visited the district; and while proceeding in the old-
fashioned diligence which runs between Alais and Florac—for the district is
altogether beyond the reach of railways—a French contractor,
accompanying a band of Italian miners, whom he was taking into the
mountains to search for minerals, pointing to the sterile rocks, exclaimed to
us, "Messieurs, behold the very poorest district in France! It contains
nothing but juniper-bushes! As for its agriculture, it produces nothing;
manufactures, nothing; commerce, nothing! Rien, rien, rien!"

The observation of this French entrepreneur reminds us of an anecdote
that Telford, the Scotch engineer, used to relate of a countryman with
reference to his appreciation of Scotch mountain beauty. An English artist,
enraptured by the scenery of Ben MacDhui, was expatiating on its
magnificence, and appealed to the native guide for confirmation of his
news. "I dinna ken aboot the scenery," replied the man, "but there's plenty o'
big rocks and stanes; an' the kintra's awfu' puir." The same observation
might doubtless apply to the Cevennes. Yet, though the people may be poor,

they are not miserable or destitute, for they are all well-clad and
respectable-looking peasants, and there is not a beggar to be seen in the
district.

But the one country, as the other, grows strong and brave men. These
barren mountain districts of the Cevennes have bred a race of heroes; and
the men are as simple and kind as they are brave. Hospitality is a
characteristic of the people, which never fails to strike the visitor
accustomed to the exactions which are so common along the hackneyed
tourist routes.

As in other parts of France, the peasantry here are laborious almost to
excess. Robust and hardy, they are distinguished for their perseverance
against the obstacles which nature constantly opposes to them. Out-door
industry being suspended in winter, during which they are shut up in their
cabins for nearly six months by the ice and snow, they occupy themselves
in preparing their wool for manufacture into cloth. The women card, the
children spin, the men weave; and each cottage is a little manufactory of
drugget and serge, which is taken to market in spring, and sold in the low-
country towns. Such was the industry of the Cevennes nearly two hundred
years since, and such it remains to the present day.

The people are of a contented nature, and bear their poverty with
cheerfulness and even dignity. While they partake of the ardour and strong
temper which characterize the inhabitants of the South of France, they are
probably, on the whole, more grave and staid than Frenchmen generally,
and are thought to be more urbane and intelligent; and though they are
unmanageable by force, they are remarkably accessible to kindness and
moral suasion.

Such, in a few words, are the more prominent characteristics of the
country and people of the Cevennes.

When the popular worship of the mountain district of Languedoc—in
which the Protestants constituted the majority of the population—was
suppressed, great dismay fell upon the people; but they made no signs of

resistance to the royal authority. For a time they remained comparatively
passive, and it was at first thought they were indifferent. Their astonished
enemies derisively spoke of them as displaying "the patience of a
Huguenot,"—the words having passed into a proverb.

But their persecutors did not know the stuff of which these mountaineers
were made. They had seen their temples demolished one after another, and
their pastors banished, leaving them "like poor starved sheep looking for the
pasture of life." Next they heard that such of their pastors as had been
apprehended for venturing to minister to them in "the Desert" had been
taken to Nismes and Montpellier and hanged. Then they began to feel
excited and indignant. For they could not shake off their own belief and
embrace another man's, even though that man was their king. If Louis XIV.
had ordered them to believe that two and two make six, they could not
possibly believe, though they might pretend to do so, that it made any other
number than four. And so it was with the King's order to them to profess a
faith which they could not bring their minds to believe in.

These poor people entertained the conviction that they possessed certain
paramount rights as men. Of these they held the right of conscience to be
one of the principal. They were willing to give unto Cæsar the things that
were Cæsar's; but they could not give him those which belonged unto God.
And if they were forced to make a choice, then they must rather disobey
their King than the King of kings.

Though deprived of their leaders and pastors, the dispossessed
Huguenots emerged by degrees from their obscurity, and began to recognise
each other openly. If their temples were destroyed, there remained the
woods and fields and mountain pastures, where they might still meet and
worship God, even though it were in defiance of the law. Having taken
counsel together, they resolved "not to forsake the assembling of
themselves together;" and they proceeded, in all the Protestant districts in
the South of France—in Viverais, Dauphiny, and the Cevennes—to hold
meetings of the people, mostly by night, for worship—in woods, in caves,
in rocky gorges, and in hollows of the hills. Then began those famous
assemblies of "the Desert," which were the nightmare of Louvois and the
horror of Louis XIV.

When it came to the knowledge of the authorities that such meetings
were being held, large bodies of troops were sent into the southern
provinces, with orders to disperse them and apprehend the ringleaders.
These orders were carried out with much barbarity. Amongst various
assemblies which were discovered and attacked in the Cevennes, were those
of Auduze and Vigan, where the soldiers fell upon the defenceless people,
put the greater number to the sword, and hanged upon the nearest trees
those who did not succeed in making their escape.

The authorities waited to see the effect of these "vigorous measures;" but
they were egregiously disappointed. The meetings in the Desert went on as
before, and even increased in number. Then milder means were tried. Other
meetings were attacked in like manner, and the people found attending them
taken prisoners. They were then threatened with death unless they became
converted, and promised to attend Mass. They declared that they preferred
death. A passion for martyrdom even seemed to be spreading amongst the
infatuated people!

Then the peasantry began secretly to take up arms for their defence. They
had thus far been passive in their resistance, and were content to brave
death provided they could but worship together. At length they felt
themselves driven in their despair to resist force by force—acting, however,
in the first place, entirely on the defensive—"leaving the issue," to use the
words of one of their solemn declarations, "to the providence of God."

They began—these poor labourers, herdsmen, and wool-carders—by
instituting a common fund for the purpose of helping their distressed
brethren in surrounding districts. They then invited such as were disposed to
join them to form themselves into companies, so as to be prepared to come
together and give their assistance as occasion required. When meetings in
the Desert were held, it became the duty of these enrolled men to post
themselves as sentinels on the surrounding heights, and give notice of the
approach of their enemies. They also constituted a sort of voluntary police
for their respective districts, taking notice of the changes of the royal
troops, and dispatching information by trusty emissaries, intimating the
direction of their march.

The Intendant, Baville, wrote to Louvois, minister of Louis XIV. during
the persecutions, expressing his surprise and alarm at the apparent
evidences of organization amongst the peasantry. "I have just learned," said
he in one letter,[33] "that last Sunday there was an assembly of nearly four
hundred men, many of them armed, at the foot of the mountain of Lozère. I
had thought," he added, "that the great lesson taught them at Vigan and
Anduze would have restored tranquillity to the Cevennes, at least for a time.
But, on the contrary, the severity of the measures heretofore adopted seems
only to have had the effect of exasperating and hardening them in their
iniquitous courses."

As the massacres had failed, the question next arose whether the
inhabitants might not be driven into exile, and the country entirely cleared
of them. "They pretend," said Louvois, "to meet in 'the Desert;' why not
take them at their word, and make the Cevennes really a Desert?" But there
were difficulties in the way of executing this plan. In the first place, the
Protestants of Languedoc were a quarter of a million in number. And,
besides, if they were driven out of it, what would become of the industry
and the wealth of this great province—what of the King's taxes?

The Duke de Noailles advised that it would be necessary to proceed with
some caution in the matter. "If his Majesty," he wrote to Baville, "thinks
there is no other remedy than changing the whole people of the Cevennes, it
would be better to begin by expelling those who are not engaged in
commerce, who inhabit inaccessible mountain districts, where the severity
of the climate and the poverty of the soil render them rude and barbarous, as
in the case of those people who recently met at the foot of the Lozère.
Should the King consent to this course, it will be necessary to send here at
least four additional battalions of foot to execute his orders."[34]

An attempt was made to carry out this measure of deportation of the
people, but totally failed. With the aid of spies, stimulated by high rewards,
numerous meetings in the Desert were fallen upon by the troops, and those
who were not hanged were transported—some to Italy, some to
Switzerland, and some to America. But transportation had no terrors for the
people, and the meetings continued to be held as before.

Baville then determined to occupy the entire province with troops, and to
carry out a general disarmament of the population. Eight regiments of
regular infantry were sent into the Cevennes, and fifty regiments of militia
were raised throughout the province, forming together an army of some
forty thousand men. Strong military posts were established in the
mountains, and new forts and barracks were erected at Alais, Anduze, St.
Hyppolyte, and Nismes. The mountain-roads being almost impassable,
many of them mere mule paths, Baville had more than a hundred new high-
roads and branch-roads constructed and made practicable for the passage of
troops and transport of cannon.

By these means the whole country became strongly occupied, but still the
meetings in the Desert went on. The peasantry continued to brave all risks
—of exile, the galleys, the rack, and the gibbet—and persevered in their
assemblies, until the very ferocity of their persecutors became wearied. The
people would not be converted either by the dragoons or the priests who
were stationed amongst them. In the dead of the night they would sally
forth to their meetings in the hills; though their mountains were not too
steep, their valleys not too secluded, their denies not too impenetrable to
protect them from pursuit and attack, for they were liable at any moment to
be fallen upon and put to the sword.

The darkness, the dangers, the awe and mystery attending these midnight
meetings invested them with an extraordinary degree of interest and even
fascination. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the devotion
of these poor people should have run into fanaticism and superstition.
Singing the psalms of Marot by night, under the shadow of echoing rocks,
they fancied they heard the sounds of heavenly voices filling the air. At
other times they would meet amidst the ruins of their fallen sanctuaries, and
mysterious sounds of sobbing and wailing and groaning would seem as if to
rise from the tombs of their fathers.

Under these distressing circumstances—in the midst of poverty,
suffering, and terror—a sort of religious hysteria suddenly developed itself
amongst the people, breaking out and spreading like many other forms of
disease, and displaying itself chiefly in the most persecuted quarters of

Dauphiny, Viverais, and the Cevennes. The people had lost their pastors;
they had not the guidance of sober and intelligent persons; and they were
left merely to pray and to suffer. The terrible raid of the priests against the
Protestant books had even deprived most of the Huguenots of their Bibles
and psalm-books, so that they were in a great measure left to profit by their
own light, such as it was.

The disease to which we refer, had often before been experienced, under
different forms, amongst uneducated people when afflicted by terror and
excitement; such, for instance, as the Brotherhood of the Flagellants, which
followed the attack of the plague in the Middle Ages; the Dancing Mania,
which followed upon the Black Death; the Child's Pilgrimages, the
Convulsionaires, the Revival epilepsies and swoons, which have so often
accompanied fits of religious devotion worked up into frenzy; these
diseases being merely the result of excitement of the senses, which
convulse the mind and powerfully affect the whole nervous system.

The "prophetic malady," as we may call it, which suddenly broke out
amongst the poor Huguenots, began with epileptic convulsions. They fell to
the ground senseless, foamed at the mouth, sobbed, and eventually revived
so far as to be able to speak and "prophesy," like a mesmerised person in a
state of clairvoyance. The disease spread rapidly by the influence of morbid
sympathy, which, under the peculiar circumstances we have described,
exercises an amazing power over human minds. Those who spoke with
power were considered "inspired." They prayed and preached ecstatically,
the most inspired of the whole being women, boys, and even children.

One of the first "prophets" who appeared was Isabel Vincent, a young
shepherdess of Crest, in Dauphiny, who could neither read nor write. Her
usual speech was the patois of her country, but when she became inspired
she spoke perfectly, and, according to Michelet, with great eloquence. "She
chanted," he says, "at first the Commandments, then a psalm, in a low and
fascinating voice. She meditated a moment, then began the lamentation of
the Church, tortured, exiled, at the galleys, in the dungeons: for all those
evils she blamed our sins only, and called all to penitence. Then, starting
anew, she spoke angelically of the Divine goodness."

Boucher, the intendant of the province, had her apprehended and
examined. She would not renounce. "You may take my life," she said, "but
God will raise up others to speak better things than I have done." She was at
last imprisoned at Grenoble, and afterwards in the Tower of Constance.

As Isabel Vincent had predicted, many prophets followed in her steps,
but they did not prophesy as divinely as she. They denounced "Woe, woe"
upon their persecutors. They reviled Babylon as the oppressor of the House
of Israel. They preached the most violent declamations against Rome,
drawn from the most lugubrious of the prophets, and stirred the minds of
their hearers into the most furious indignation.

The rapidity with which the contagion of convulsive prophesying spread
was extraordinary. The adherents were all of the poorer classes, who read
nothing but the Bible, and had it nearly by heart. It spread from Dauphiny
to Viverais, and from thence into the Cevennes. "I have seen," said Marshal
Villars, "things that I could never have believed if they had not passed
under my own eyes—an entire city, in which all the women and girls,
without exception, appeared possessed by the devil; they quaked and
prophesied publicly in the streets."[35]

Flottard says there were eight thousand persons in one province who had
inspiration. All were not, however, equally inspired. There were four
degrees of ecstasy: first, the being called; next, the inspiration; then, the
prophesy; and, lastly, the gift, which was the inspiration in the highest
degree.

All this may appear ludicrous to some. And yet the school of credulity is
a very wide one. Even in these enlightened times in which we live, we hear
of tables turning, spelling out words, and "prophesying" in their own way.
There are even philosophers, men of science, and literati who believe in
spiritualists that rise on sofas and float about in the air, who project
themselves suddenly out of one window and enter by another, and do many
other remarkable things. And though our spiritual table-rapping and floating
about may seem to be of no possible use, the "prophesying" of the
Camisards was all but essential to the existence of the movement in which
they were engaged.

The population became intensely excited by the prevalence of this
enthusiasm or fanaticism. "When a Huguenot assembly," says Brueys, "was
appointed, even before daybreak, from all the hamlets round, the men,
women, boys, girls, and even infants, came in crowds, hurrying from their
huts, pierced through the woods, leapt over the rocks, and flew to the place
of appointment."[36]

Mere force was of no avail against people who supposed themselves to
be under supernatural influences. The meetings in the Desert, accordingly,
were attended with increased and increasing fascination, and Baville, who
had reported to the King the entire pacification and conversion of
Languedoc, to his dismay found the whole province bursting with
excitement, which a spark at any moment might fire into frenzy. And that
spark was shortly afterwards supplied by the archpriest Chayla, director of
missions at Pont-de-Montvert.

Although it was known that many of the peasantry attended the meetings
armed, there had as yet been no open outbreak against the royal authority in
the Cevennes. At Cheilaret, in the Vivarais, there had been an encounter
between the troops and the peasantry; but the people were speedily
dispersed, leaving three hundred dead and fifty wounded on the field.

The Intendant Baville, after thus pacifying the Vivarais, was proceeding
on his way back to Montpellier, escorted by some companies of dragoons
and militia, passing through the Cevennes by one of the new roads he had
caused to be constructed along the valley of the Tarn, by Pont-de-Montvert
to Florac. What was his surprise, on passing through the village of Pont-de-
Montvert, to hear the roll of a drum, and shortly after to perceive a column
of rustics, some three or four hundred in number, advancing as if to give
him battle. Baville at once drew up his troops and charged the column,
which broke and fled into an adjoining wood. Some were killed and others
taken prisoners, who were hanged next day at St. Jean-du-Gard. A reward of
five hundred louis d'or was advertised for the leader, who was shortly after
tracked to his hiding-place in a cavern situated between Anduze and Alais,
and was there shot, but not until after he had killed three soldiers with his
fusil.

After this event persecution was redoubled throughout the Cevennes. The
militia ran night and day after the meetings in the Desert. All persons found
attending them, who could be captured, were either killed on the spot or
hanged. Two companies of militia were quartered in Pont-de-Montvert at
the expense of the inhabitants; and they acted under the direction of the
archpriest Du Chayla. This priest, who was a native of the district, had been
for some time settled as a missionary in Siam engaged in the conversion of
Buddhists, and on his return to France he was appointed to undertake the
conversion of the people of the Cevennes to the faith of Rome.

The village of Pont-de-Montvert is situated in the hollow of a deep valley
formed by the mountain of Lozère on the north, and of Bougès on the south,
at the point at which two streams, descending from their respective
summits, flow into the Tarn. The village is separated by these streams into
three little hamlets, which are joined together by the bridge which gives its
name to the place. The addition of "Mont Vert," however, is a misnomer; for
though seated at the foot of a steep mountain, it is not green, but sterile,
rocky, and verdureless. The village is best reached from Florac, from which
it is about twenty miles distant. The valley runs east and west, and is
traversed by a tolerably good road, which at the lower part follows the
windings of the Tarn, and higher up runs in and out along the mountain
ledges, at every turn presenting new views of the bold, grand, and
picturesque scenery which characterizes the wilder parts of the Cevennes.
Along this route the old mule-road is still discernible in some places—a
difficult, rugged, mountain path, which must have kept the district sealed up
during the greater part of the year, until Baville constructed the new road
for the purpose of opening up the country for the easier passage of troops
and munitions of war.

A few poor hamlets occur at intervals along the road, sometimes perched
on apparently inaccessible rocks, and at the lower part of the valley an
occasional château is to be seen, as at Miral, picturesquely situated on a
height. But the country is too poor by nature—the breadth of land in the
bottom of the ravine being too narrow and that on the mountain ledges too
stony and sterile—ever to have enabled it to maintain a considerable

population. On all sides little is to be seen but rocky mountain sides, stony
and precipitous, with bold mountain peaks extending beyond them far away
in the distance.

Pont-de-Montvert is the centre of a series of hamlets, the inhabitants of
which were in former times almost exclusively Protestant, as they are now;
and where meetings in the Desert were of the most frequent occurrence.
Strong detachments of troops were accordingly stationed there and at Florac
for the purpose of preventing the meetings and overawing the population.
Besides soldiers, the authorities also established missions throughout the
Cevennes, and the principal inspector of these missions was the archpriest
Chayla. The house in which he resided at Pont-de-Montvert is still pointed
out. It is situated near the north end of the bridge over the Tarn; but though
the lower part of the building remains as it was in his time, the upper
portion has been for the most part rebuilt.

Chayla was a man of great force of character—zealous, laborious, and
indefatigable—but pitiless, relentless, and cruel. He had no bowels of
compassion. He was deaf to all appeals for mercy. With him the penalty of
non-belief in the faith of Rome was imprisonment, torture, death. Eight
young priests lived with him, whose labours he directed; and great was his
annoyance to find that the people would not attend his ministrations, but
continued to flock after their own prophet-preachers in the Desert.

Moral means having failed, he next tried physical. He converted the
arched cellars of his dwelling into dungeons, where he shut up those guilty
of contumacy; and day by day he put them to torture. It seems like a satire
on religion to say that, in his attempt to convert souls, this vehement
missionary made it one of his principal studies to find out what amount of
agony the bodies of those who differed from him would bear short of actual
death. He put hot coals into their hands, which they were then made to
clench; wrapped round their fingers cotton steeped in oil, which was then
set on fire; besides practising upon them the more ordinary and
commonplace tortures. No wonder that the archpriest came to be detested
by the inhabitants of Pont-de-Montvert.

At length, a number of people in the district, in order to get beyond reach
of Chayla's cruelty, determined to emigrate from France and take refuge in

Geneva. They assembled one morning secretly, a cavalcade of men and
women, and set out under the direction of a guide who knew the mountain
paths towards the east. When they had travelled a few hours, they fell into
an ambuscade of militia, and were marched back to the archpriest's quarters
at Pont-de-Montvert. The women were sent to Mende to be immured in
convents, and the men were imprisoned in the archpriest's dungeons. The
parents of some of the captives ran to throw themselves at his feet, and
implored mercy for their sons; but Chayla was inexorable. He declared
harshly that the prisoners must suffer according to the law—that the
fugitives must go the galleys, and their guide to the gibbet.

On the following Sunday, the 23rd of July, 1702, one of the preaching
prophets, Pierre Seguier of Magistavols, a hamlet lying to the south of Pont-
de-Montvert, preached to an assembly on the neighbouring mountain of
Bougès; and there he declared that the Lord had ordered him to take up
arms to deliver the captives and exterminate the archpriest of Moloch.
Another and another preacher followed in the same strain, the excited
assembly encouraging them by their cries, and calling upon them to execute
God's vengeance on the persecutors of God's people.

That same night Seguier and his companions went round amongst the
neighbouring hamlets to summon an assemblage of their sworn followers
for the evening of the following day. They met punctually in the Altefage
Wood, and under the shadow of three gigantic beech trees, the trunks of
which were standing but a few years ago, they solemnly swore to deliver
their companions and destroy the archpriest.

When night fell, a band of fifty determined men marched down the
mountain towards the bridge, led by Seguier. Twenty of them were armed
with guns and pistols. The rest carried scythes and hatchets. As they
approached the village, they sang Marot's version of the seventy-fourth
Psalm. The archpriest heard the unwonted sound as they came marching
along. Thinking it was a nocturnal assembly, he cried to his soldiers, "Run
and see what this means." But the doors of the house were already invested
by the mountaineers, who shouted out for "The prisoners! the prisoners!"
"Back, Huguenot canaille!" cried Chayla from the window. But they only
shouted the louder for "The prisoners!"

The archpriest then directed the militia to fire, and one of the peasants
fell dead. Infuriated, they seized the trunk of a tree, and using it as a
battering-ram, at once broke in the door. They next proceeded to force the
entrance to the dungeon, in which they succeeded, and called upon the
prisoners to come forth. But some of them were so crippled by the tortures
to which they had been subjected, that they could not stand. At sight of their
sufferings the fury of the assailants increased, and, running up the staircase,
they called out for the archpriest. "Burn the priest and the satellites of
Baal!" cried their leader; and heaping together the soldiers' straw beds, the
chairs, and other combustibles, they set the whole on fire.

Chayla, in the hope of escaping, jumped from a window into the garden,
and in the fall broke his leg. The peasants discovered him by the light of the
blazing dwelling. He called for mercy. "No," said Seguier, "only such mercy
as you have shown to others;" and he struck him the first blow.

The others followed. "This for my father," said the next, "whom you
racked to death!"

"This for my brother," said another, "whom you sent to the galleys!"

"This for my mother, who died of grief!"

This for my sister, my relatives, my friends, in exile, in prison, in misery!

And thus blow followed blow, fifty-two in all, half of which would
probably have been mortal, and the detested Chayla lay a bleeding mass at
their feet![Back to Contents]

Map of the Country of the Cevennes.

CHAPTER VI.

INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS.

The poor peasants, wool-carders, and neatherds of the Cevennes, formed
only a small and insignificant section of the great body of men who were
about the same time engaged in different countries of Europe in vindicating
the cause of civil and religious liberty. For this cause, a comparative
handful of people in the Low Countries, occupying the Dutch United
Provinces, had banded themselves together to resist the armies of Spain,
then the most powerful monarchy in the world. The struggle had also for
some time been in progress in England and Scotland, where it culminated in
the Revolution of 1688; and it was still raging in the Vaudois valleys of
Piedmont.

The object contended for in all these cases was the same. It was the
vindication of human freedom against royal and sacerdotal despotism. It

could only have been the direst necessity that drove a poor, scattered,
unarmed peasantry, such as the people of the Cevennes, to take up arms
against so powerful a sovereign as Louis XIV. Their passive resistance had
lasted for fifteen long years, during which many of them had seen their
kindred racked, hanged, or sent to the galleys; and at length their patience
was exhausted, and the inevitable outburst took place. Yet they were at any
moment ready to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance,
provided only a reasonable degree of liberty of worship were assured to
them. This, however, their misguided and bigoted monarch, would not
tolerate; for he had sworn that no persons were to be suffered in his
dominions save those who were of "the King's religion."

The circumstances accompanying the outbreak of the Protestant
peasantry in the Cevennes in many respects resembled those which attended
the rising of the Scotch Covenanters in 1679. Both were occasioned by the
persistent attempts of men in power to enforce a particular form of religion
at the point of the sword. The resisters of the policy were in both cases
Calvinists;[37] and they were alike indomitable and obstinate in their
assertion of the rights of conscience. They held that religion was a matter
between man and his God, and not between man and his sovereign or the
Pope. The peasantry in both cases persevered in their own form of worship.
In Languedoc, the mountaineers of the Cevennes held their assemblies in
"The Desert;" and in Scotland, the "hill-folk" of the West held their
meetings on the muirs. In the one country as in the other, the monarchy sent
out soldiers as their missionaries—Louis XIV. employing the dragoons of
Louvois and Baville, and Charles II. those of Claverhouse and Dalzell.
These failing, new instruments of torture were invented for their
"conversion." But the people, in both cases, continued alike stubborn in
their adherence to their own simple and, as some thought, uncouth form of
faith.

The French Calvinist peasantry, like the Scotch, were great in their
preachers and their prophets. Both devoted themselves with enthusiasm to
psalmody, insomuch that "psalm-singers" was their nickname in both
countries. The one had their Clement Marot by heart, the other their
Sternhold and Hopkins. Huguenot prisoners in chains sang psalms in their
dungeons, galley slaves sang them as they plied at the oar, fugitives in the

halting-places of their flight, the condemned as they marched to the
gallows, and the Camisards as they rushed into battle. It was said of the
Covenanters that "they lived praying and preaching, and they died praying
and fighting;" and the same might have been said of the Huguenot
peasantry of the Cevennes.

The immediate cause of the outbreak of the insurrection in both countries
was also similar. In the one case, it was the cruelty of the archpriest Chayla,
the inventor of a new machine of torture called "the Squeezers,"[38] and in
the other the cruelty of Archbishop Sharpe, the inventor of that horrible
instrument called "the Iron Boot," that excited the fury of the people; and
the murder of the one by Seguier and his band at Pont-de-Montvert, as of
the other by Balfour of Burley and his companions on Magus Muir, proved
the signal for a general insurrection of the peasantry in both countries. Both
acts were of like atrocity; but they corresponded in character with the
cruelties which had provoked them. Insurrections, like revolutions, are not
made of rose-water. In such cases, action and reaction are equal; the
violence of the oppressors usually finding its counterpart in the violence of
the oppressed.

The insurrection of the French peasantry proved by far the most
determined and protracted of the two; arising probably from the more
difficult character of the mountain districts which they occupied and the
quicker military instincts of the people, as well as because several of their
early leaders and organizers were veteran soldiers who had served in many
campaigns. The Scotch insurgents were suppressed by the English army
under the Duke of Monmouth in less than two months after the original
outbreak, though their cause eventually triumphed in the Revolution of
1688; whereas the peasantry of the Cevennes, though deprived of all
extraneous help, continued to maintain a heroic struggle for several years,
but were under the necessity of at last succumbing to the overpowering
military force of Louis XIV., after which the Huguenots of France
continued to be stamped out of sight, and apparently out of existence, for
nearly a century.

In the preceding chapter, we left the archpriest Chayla a corpse at the feet
of his murderers. Several of the soldiers found in the château were also
killed, as well as the cook and house-steward, who had helped to torture the
prisoners. But one of the domestics, and a soldier, who had treated them
with kindness, were, at their intercession, pardoned and set at liberty. The
corpses were brought together in the garden, and Seguier and his
companions, kneeling round them—a grim and ghastly sight—sang psalms
until daybreak, the uncouth harmony mingling with the crackling of the
flames of the dwelling overhead, and the sullen roar of the river rushing
under the neighbouring bridge.

When the grey of morning appeared, the men rose from their knees,
emerged from the garden, crossed the bridge, and marched up the main
street of the village. The inhabitants had barricaded themselves in their
houses, being in a state of great fear lest they should be implicated in the
murder of the archpriest. But Seguier and his followers made no further halt
in Pont-de-Montvert, but passed along, still singing psalms, towards the
hamlet of Frugères, a little further up the valley of the Tarn.

Seguier has been characterised as "the Danton of the Cevennes." This
fierce and iron-willed man was of great stature—bony and dark-visaged,
without upper teeth, his hair hanging loose over his shoulders—and of a
wild and mystic appearance, occasioned probably by the fits of ecstasy to
which he was subject, and the wandering life he had for so many years led
as a prophet-preacher in the Desert. This terrible man had resolved upon a
general massacre of the priests, and he now threw himself upon Frugères
for the purpose of carrying out the enterprise begun by him at Pont-de-
Montvert. The curé of the hamlet, who had already heard of Chayla's
murder, fled from his house at sound of the approaching psalm-singers, and
took refuge in an adjoining rye-field. He was speedily tracked thither, and
brought down by a musket-ball; and a list of twenty of his parishioners,
whom he had denounced to the archpriest, was found under his cassock.

From Frugères the prophet and his band marched on to St. Maurice de
Ventalong, so called because of the winds which at certain seasons blow so
furiously along the narrow valley in which it is situated; but the prior of the
convent, having been warned of the outbreak, had already mounted his

horse and taken to flight. Here Seguier was informed of the approach of a
body of militia who were on his trail; but he avoided them by taking refuge
on a neighbouring mountain-side, where he spent the night with his
companions in a thicket.

Next morning, at daybreak, he descended the mountain, crossed the track
of his pursuers, and directed himself upon St. André de Lancèze. The whole
country was by this time in a state of alarm; and the curé of the place, being
on the outlook, mounted the clock-tower and rang the tocsin. But his
parishioners having joined the insurgents, the curé was pursued, captured in
the belfry, and thrown from its highest window. The insurgents then
proceeded to gut the church, pull down the crosses, and destroy all the
emblems of Romanism on which they could lay their hands.

Seguier and his band next hurried across the mountains towards the
south, having learnt that the curés of the neighbourhood had assembled at
St. Germain to assist at the obsequies of the archpriest Chayla, whose body
had been brought thither from Pont-de-Montvert on the morning after his
murder. When Seguier was informed that the town and country militia were
in force in the place, he turned aside and went in another direction. The
curés, however, having heard that Seguier was in the neighbourhood, fled
panic-stricken, some to the château of Portes, others to St. André, while a
number of them did not halt until they had found shelter within the walls of
Alais, some twenty miles distant.

Thus four days passed. On the fifth night Seguier appeared before the
château of Ladevèze, and demanded the arms which had been deposited
there at the time of the disarmament of the peasantry. The owner replied by
a volley of musketry, which killed and wounded several of the insurgents, at
the same time ringing the alarm-bell. Seguier, furious at this resistance, at
once burst open the gates, and ordered a general massacre of the household.
This accomplished, he ransacked the place of its arms and ammunition, and
before leaving set the castle on fire, the flames throwing a lurid glare over
the surrounding country. Seguier's band then descended the mountain on
which the château is situated, and made for the north in the direction of
Cassagnas, arriving at the elevated plateau of Font-Morte a little before
daybreak.

In the meantime, Baville, the intendant of the province, was hastening to
Pont-de-Montvert to put down the insurrection and avenge the death of the
archpriest. The whole country was roused. Troops were dispatched in hot
haste from Alais; the militia were assembled from all quarters and marched
upon the disturbed district. The force was placed under the orders of
Captain Poul, an old soldier of fortune, who had distinguished himself in
the German wars, and in the recent crusade against the Italian Vaudois. It
was because of the individual prowess which Captain Poul had displayed in
his last campaign, that, at the peace of Ryswick, Baville requested that he
should be attached to the army of Languedoc, and employed in putting
down the insurgents of the Cevennes.

Captain Poul was hastening with his troops to Florac when, having been
informed of the direction in which Seguier and his band had gone, he turned
aside at Barre, and after about an hour's march eastward, he came up with
them at Font-Morte. They suddenly started up from amongst the broom
where they had lain down to sleep, and, firing off their guns upon the
advancing host, without offering any further resistance, fled in all
directions. Poul and his men spurred after them, cutting down the fugitives.
Coming up with Seguier, who was vainly trying to rally his men, Poul took
him prisoner with several others, and they were forthwith chained and
marched to Florac. As they proceeded along the road, Poul said to Seguier,
"Well, wretch! now I have got you, how do you expect to be treated after
the crimes you have committed?" "As I would myself have treated you, had
I taken you prisoner," was the reply.

Seguier stood before his judges calm and fearless. "What is your name?"
he was asked. "Pierre Seguier." "Why do they call you Esprit?" "Because
the Spirit of God is in me." "Your abode?" "In the Desert, and shortly in
heaven." "Ask pardon of the King!" "We have no other King but the
Eternal." "Have you no feeling of remorse for your crimes?" "My soul is as
a garden full of shady groves and of peaceful fountains."

Seguier was condemned to have his hands cut off at the wrist, and he
burnt alive at Pont-de-Montvert. Nouvel, another of the prisoners, was
broken alive at Ladevèze, and Bonnet, a third, was hanged at St. André.
They all suffered without flinching. Seguier's last words, spoken amidst the

flames, were, "Brethren, wait, and hope in the Eternal. The desolate Carmel
shall yet revive, and the solitary Lebanon shall blossom as the rose!" Thus
perished the grim, unflinching prophet of Magistavols, the terrible avenger
of the cruelties of Chayla, the earliest leader in the insurrection of the
Camisards!

It is not exactly known how or when the insurgents were first called
Camisards. They called themselves by no other name than "The Children of
God" (Enfants de Dieu); but their enemies variously nicknamed them "The
Barbets," "The Vagabonds," "The Assemblers," "The Psalm-singers," "The
Fanatics," and lastly, "The Camisards." This name is said to have been
given them because of the common blouse or camisole which they wore—
their only uniform. Others say that it arose from their wearing a white shirt,
or camise, over their dress, to enable them to distinguish each other in their
night attacks; and that this was not the case, is partly countenanced by the
fact that in the course of the insurrection a body of peasant royalists took
the field, who designated themselves the "White Camisards," in
contradistinction from the others. Others say the word is derived from
camis, signifying a roadrunner. But whatever the origin of the word may be,
the Camisards was the name most commonly applied to the insurgents, and
by which they continue to be known in local history.

Captain Poul vigorously followed up the blow delivered at Font-Morte.
He apprehended all suspected persons in the Upper Cevennes, and sent
them before the judges at Florac. Unable to capture the insurgents who had
escaped, he seized their parents, their relations, and families, and these were
condemned to various punishments. But what had become of the insurgents
themselves? Knowing that they had nothing but death to expect, if taken,
they hid themselves in caves known only to the inhabitants of the district,
and so secretly that Poul thought they had succeeded in making their escape
from France. The Intendant Baville arrived at the same conclusion, and he
congratulated himself accordingly on the final suppression of the outbreak.
Leaving sundry detachments of troops posted in the principal villages, he
returned to Alais, and invited the fugitive priests at once to return to their
respective parishes.

After remaining in concealment for several days, the surviving insurgents
met one night to consult as to the steps they were to take, with a view to
their personal safety. They had by this time been joined by several
sympathizers, amongst others by three veteran soldiers—Laporte,
Espérandieu, and Rastelet—and by young Cavalier, who had just returned
from Geneva, where he had been in exile, and was now ready to share in the
dangers of his compatriots. The greater number of those present were in
favour of bidding a final adieu to France, and escaping across the frontier
into Switzerland, considering that the chances of their offering any
successful resistance to their oppressors, were altogether hopeless. But
against this craven course Laporte raised his voice.

"Brethren," said he, "why depart into the land of the stranger? Have we
not a country of our own, the country of our fathers? It is, you say, a
country of slavery and death! Well! Free it! and deliver your oppressed
brethren. Never say, 'What can we do? we are few in number, and without
arms!' The God of armies shall be our strength. Let us sing aloud the psalm
of battles, and from the Lozère even to the sea Israel will arise! As for arms,
have we not our hatchets? These will bring us muskets! Brethren, there is
only one course worthy to be pursued. It is to live for our country; and, if
need be, to die for it. Better die by the sword than by the rack or the
gallows!"

From this moment, not another word was said of flight. With one voice,
the assembly cried to the speaker, "Be our chief! It is the will of the
Eternal!" "The Eternal be the witness of your promises," replied Laporte; "I
consent to be your chief!" He assumed forthwith the title of "Colonel of the
Children of God," and named his camp "The camp of the Eternal!"

Laporte belonged to an old Huguenot family of the village of
Massoubeyran, near Anduze. They were respectable peasants, some of
whom lived by farming and others by trade. Old John Laporte had four
sons, of whom the eldest succeeded his father as a small farmer and cattle-
breeder, occupying the family dwelling at Massoubeyran, still known there
as the house of "Laporte-Roland." It contains a secret retreat, opening from
a corner of the floor, called the "Cachette de Roland," in which the
celebrated chief of this name, son of the owner, was accustomed to take

refuge; and in this cottage, the old Bible of Roland's father, as well as the
halbert of Roland himself, continue to be religiously preserved.

Two of Laporte's brothers were Protestant ministers. One of them was the
last pastor of Collet-de-Deze in the Cevennes. Banished because of his
faith, he fled from France at the Revocation, joined the army of the Prince
of Orange in Holland, and came over with him to England as chaplain of
one of the French regiments which landed at Torbay in 1688. Another
brother, also a pastor, remained in the Cevennes, preaching to the people in
the Desert, though at the daily risk of his life, and after about ten years'
labour in this vocation, he was apprehended, taken prisoner to Montpellier,
and strangled on the Peyrou in the year 1696.

The fourth brother was the Laporte whom we have just described in
undertaking the leadership of the hunted insurgents remaining in the Upper
Cevennes. He had served as a soldier in the King's armies, and at the peace
of Ryswick returned to his native village, the year after his elder brother had
suffered martyrdom at Montpellier. He settled for a time at Collet-de-Deze,
from which his other brother had been expelled, and there he carried on the
trade of an ironworker and blacksmith. He was a great, brown, brawny man,
of vehement piety, a constant frequenter of the meetings in the Desert, and a
mighty psalm-singer—one of those strong, massive, ardent-natured men
who so powerfully draw others after them, and in times of revolution
exercise a sort of popular royalty amongst the masses. The oppression
which had raged so furiously in the district excited his utmost indignation,
and when he sought out the despairing insurgents in the mountains, and
found that they were contemplating flight, he at once gave utterance to the
few burning words we have cited, and fixed their determination to strike at
least another blow for the liberty of their country and their religion.

The same evening on which Laporte assumed the leadership (about the
beginning of August, 1702) he made a descent on three Roman Catholic
villages in the neighbourhood of the meeting-place, and obtained
possession of a small stock of powder and balls. When it became known
that the insurgents were again drawing together, others joined them.
Amongst these were Castonet, a forest-ranger of the Aigoal mountain
district in the west, who brought with him some twelve recruits from the

country near Vebron. Shortly after, there arrived from Vauvert the soldier
Catinet, bringing with him twenty more. Next came young Cavalier, from
Ribaute, with another band, armed with muskets which they had seized
from the prior of St. Martin, with whom they had been deposited.

Meanwhile Laporte's nephew, young Roland, was running from village to
village in the Vaunage, holding assemblies and rousing the people to come
to the help of their distressed brethren in the mountains. Roland was a
young man of bright intelligence, gifted with much of the preaching power
of his family. His eloquence was of a martial sort, for he had been bred a
soldier, and though young, had already fought in many battles. He was
everywhere received with open arms in the Vaunage.

"My brethren," said he, "the cause of God and the deliverance of Israel is
at stake. Follow us to the mountains. No country is better suited for war—
we have the hill-tops for camps, gorges for ambuscades, woods to rally in,
caves to hide in, and, in case of flight, secret tracts trodden only by the
mountain goat. All the people there are your brethren, who will throw open
their cabins to you, and share their bread and milk and the flesh of their
sheep with you, while the forests will supply you with chestnuts. And then,
what is there to fear? Did not God nourish his chosen people with manna in
the desert? And does He not renew his miracles day by day? Will not his
Spirit descend upon his afflicted children? He consoles us, He strengthens
us, He calls us to arms, He will cause his angels to march before us! As for
me, I am an old soldier, and will do my duty!"[39]

These stirring words evoked an enthusiastic response. Numbers of the
people thus addressed by Roland declared themselves ready to follow him
at once. But instead of taking with him all who were willing to join the
standard of the insurgents, he directed them to enrol and organize
themselves, and await his speedy return; selecting for the present only such
as were in his opinion likely to make efficient soldiers, and with these he
rejoined his uncle in the mountains.

The number of the insurgents was thus raised to about a hundred and fifty
—a very small body of men, contemptible in point of numbers compared
with the overwhelming forces by which they were opposed, but all
animated by a determined spirit, and commanded by fearless and

indomitable leaders. The band was divided into three brigades of fifty each;
Laporte taking the command of the companions of Seguier; the new-comers
being divided into two bodies of like number, who elected Roland and
Castanet as their respective chiefs.

Laporte occupied the last days of August in drilling his troops, and
familiarising them with the mountain district which was to be the scene of
their operations. While thus engaged, he received an urgent message from
the Protestant herdsmen of the hill-country of Vebron, whose cattle, sheep,
and goats a band of royalist militia, under Colonel Miral, had captured, and
were driving northward towards Florac. Laporte immediately ran to their
help, and posted himself to intercept them at the bridge of Tarnon, which
they must cross. On the militia coming up, the Camisards fell upon them
furiously, on which they took to flight, and the cattle were driven back in
triumph to the villages.

Laporte then led his victorious troops towards Collet, the village in which
his brother had been pastor. The temple in which he ministered was still
standing—the only one in the Cevennes that had not been demolished, the
Seigneur of the place intending to convert it into a hospital. Collet was at
present occupied by a company of fusiliers, commanded by Captain
Cabrières. On nearing the place, Laporte wrote to this officer, under an
assumed name, intimating that a religious assembly was to be held that
night in a certain wood in the neighbourhood. The captain at once marched
thither with his men, on which Laporte entered the village, and reopened
the temple, which had continued unoccupied since the day on which his
brother had gone into exile. All that night Laporte sang psalms, preached,
and prayed by turns, solemnly invoking the help of the God of battles in this
holy war in which he was engaged for the liberation of his country. Shortly
before daybreak, Laporte and his companions retired from the temple, and
after setting fire to the Roman Catholic church, and the houses of the
consul, the captain, and the curé, he left the village, and proceeded in a
northerly direction.

That same morning, Captain Poul arrived at the neighbouring valley of
St. Germain, for the purpose of superintending the demolition of certain
Protestant dwellings, and then he heard of Laporte's midnight expedition.

He immediately hastened to Collet, assembled all the troops he could
muster, and put himself on the track of the Camisards. After a hot march of
about two hours in the direction of Coudouloux, Poul discerned Laporte and
his band encamped on a lofty height, from the scarped foot of which a
sloping grove of chestnuts descended into the wide grassy plain, known as
the "Champ Domergue."

The chestnut grove had in ancient times been one of the sacred places of
the Druids, who celebrated their mysterious rites in its recesses, while the
adjoining mountains were said to have been the honoured haunts of certain
of the divinities of ancient Gaul. It was therefore regarded as a sort of
sacred place, and this circumstance was probably not without its influence
in rendering it one of the most frequent resorts of the hunted Protestants in
their midnight assemblies, as well as because it occupied a central position
between the villages of St. Frézal, St. Andéol, Dèze, and Violas. Laporte
had now come hither with his companions to pray, and they were so
engaged when the scouts on the look-out announced the approach of the
enemy.

Poul halted his men to take breath, while Laporte held a little council of
war. What was to be done? Laporte himself was in favour of accepting
battle on the spot, while several of his lieutenants advised immediate flight
into the mountains. On the other hand, the young and impetuous Cavalier,
who was there, supported the opinion of his chief, and urged an immediate
attack; and an attack was determined on accordingly.

The little band descended from their vantage-ground on the hill, and
came down into the chestnut wood, singing the sixty-eighth Psalm—"Let
God arise, let his enemies be scattered." The following is the song itself, in
the words of Marot. When the Huguenots sang it, each soldier became a
lion in courage.
"Que Dieu se montre seulement
Et l'on verra dans un moment
Abandonner la place;
Le camp des ennemies épars,
Épouvanté de toutes parts,
Fuira devant sa face.

On verra tout ce camp s'enfuir,
Comme l'on voit s'évanouir;
Une épaisse fumée;
Comme la cire fond au feu,
Ainsi des méchants devant
Dieu, La force est consumée.

L'Éternel est notre recours;
Nous obtenons par son secours,
Plus d'une déliverance.
C'est Lui qui fut notre support,
Et qui tient les clefs de la mort,
Lui seul en sa puissance.

A nous défendre toujours prompt,
Il frappe le superbe front
De la troupe ennemie;
On verra tomber sous ses coups
Ceux qui provoquent son courroux
Par leur méchante vie."

This was the "Marseillaise" of the Camisards, their war-song in many
battles, sung by them as a pas de charge to the music of Goudimal. Poul,
seeing them approach from under cover of the wood, charged them at once,
shouting to his men, "Charge, kill, kill the Barbets!"[40] But "the Barbets,"
though they were only as one to three of their assailants, bravely held their
ground. Those who had muskets kept up a fusillade, whilst a body of
scythemen in the centre repulsed Poul, who attacked them with the bayonet.
Several of these terrible scythemen were, however, slain, and three were
taken prisoners.

Laporte, finding that he could not drive Poul back, retreated slowly into
the wood, keeping up a running fire, and reascended the hill, whither Poul
durst not follow him. The Royalist leader was satisfied with remaining
master of the hard-fought field, on which many of his soldiers lay dead,
together with a captain of militia.

The Camisard chiefs then separated, Laporte and his band taking a
westerly direction. The Royalists, having received considerable
reinforcements, hastened from different directions to intercept him, but he
slipped through their fingers, and descended to Pont-de-Montvert, from
whence he threw himself upon the villages situated near the sources of the
western Gardon. At the same time, to distract the attention of the Royalists,

the other Camisard leaders descended, the one towards the south, and the
other towards the east, disarming the Roman Catholics, carrying off their
arms, and spreading consternation wherever they went.

Meanwhile, Count Broglie, Captain Poul, Colonel Miral, and the
commanders of the soldiers and militia all over the Cevennes, were hunting
the Protestants and their families wherever found, pillaging their houses,
driving away their cattle, and burning their huts; and it was evident that the
war on both sides was fast drifting into one of reprisal and revenge.
Brigands, belonging to neither side, organized themselves in bodies, and
robbed Protestants and Catholics with equal impartiality.

One effect of this state of things was rapidly to increase the numbers of
the disaffected. The dwellings of many of the Protestants having been
destroyed, such of the homeless fugitives as could bear arms fled into the
mountains to join the Camisards, whose numbers were thus augmented,
notwithstanding the measures taken for their extermination.

Laporte was at last tracked by his indefatigable enemy, Captain Poul,
who burned to wipe out the disgrace which he conceived himself to have
suffered at Champ-Domergue. Information was conveyed to him that
Laporte and his band were in the neighbourhood of Molezon on the western
Gardon, and that they intended to hold a field-meeting there on Sunday, the
22nd of October.

Poul made his dispositions accordingly. Dividing his force into two
bodies, he fell upon the insurgents impetuously from two sides, taking them
completely by surprise. They hastily put themselves in order of battle, but
their muskets, wet with rain, would not fire, and Laporte hastened with his
men to seek the shelter of a cliff near at hand. While in the act of springing
from one rock to another, he was seen to stagger and fall. He had been shot
dead by a musket bullet, and his career was thus brought to a sudden close.
His followers at once fled in all directions.

Poul cut off Laporte's head, as well as the heads of the other Camisards
who had been killed, and sent them in two baskets to Count Broglie. Next
day the heads were exposed on the bridge of Anduze; the day after on the

castle wall of St. Hypolite; after which these ghastly trophies of Poul's
victory were sent to Montpellier to be permanently exposed on the Peyrou.

Such was the end of Laporte, the second leader of the Camisards.
Seguier, the first, had been chief for only six days; Laporte, the second, for
only about two months. Again Baville supposed the pacification of the
Cevennes to be complete. He imagined that Poul, in cutting off Laporte's
head, had decapitated the insurrection. But the Camisard ranks had never
been so full as now, swelled as they were by the persecutions of the
Royalists, who, by demolishing the homes of the peasantry, had in a
measure forced them into the arms of the insurgents. Nor were they ever
better supplied with leaders, even though Laporte had fallen. No sooner did
his death become known, than the "Children of God" held a solemn
assembly in the mountains, at which Roland, Castanet, Salomon, Abraham,
and young Cavalier were present; and after lamenting the death of their
chief, they with one accord elected Laporte's nephew, Roland, as his
successor.

A few words as to the associates of Roland, whose family and origin
have already been described. André Castanet of Massavaque, in the Upper
Cevennes, had been a goatherd in his youth, after which he worked at his
father's trade of a wool-carder. An avowed Huguenot, he was, shortly after
the peace of Ryswick, hunted out of the country because of his attending the
meetings in the Desert; but in 1700 he returned to preach and to prophesy,
acting also as a forest-ranger in the Aigoal Mountains. Of all the chiefs he
was the greatest controversialist, and in his capacity of preacher he
distinguished himself from his companions by wearing a wig. There must
have been something comical in his appearance, for Brueys describes him
as a little, squat, bandy-legged man, presenting "the figure of a little bear."
But it was an enemy who drew the picture.

Next there was Salomon Conderc, also a wool-carder, a native of the
hamlet of Mazelrode, south of the mountain of Bougès. For twenty years
the Condercs, father and son, had been zealous worshippers in the Desert—
Salomon having acted by turns as Bible-reader, precentor, preacher, and
prophet. We have already referred to the gift of prophesying. All the leaders

of the Camisards were prophets. Elie Marion, in his "Théâtre Sacré de
Cevennes," thus describes the influence of the prophets on the Camisard
War:—

"We were without strength and without counsel," says he; "but our
inspirations were our succour and our support. They elected our leaders,
and conducted them; they were our military discipline. It was they who
raised us, even weakness itself, to put a strong bridle upon an army of more
than twenty thousand picked soldiers. It was they who banished sorrow
from our hearts in the midst of the greatest peril, as well as in the deserts
and the mountain fastnesses, when cold and famine oppressed us. Our
heaviest crosses were but lightsome burdens, for this intimate communion
that God allowed us to have with Him bore up and consoled us; it was our
safety and our happiness."

Many of the Condercs had suffered for their faith. The archpriest Chayla
had persecuted them grievously. One of their sisters was seized by the
soldiery and carried off to be immured in a convent at Mende, but was
rescued on the way by Salomon and his brother Jacques. Of the two,
Salomon, though deformed, had the greatest gift in prophesying, and hence
the choice of him as a leader.

Abraham Mazel belonged to the same hamlet as Conderc. They were
both of the same age—about twenty-five—of the same trade, and they were
as inseparable as brothers. They had both been engaged with Seguier's band
in the midnight attack on Pont-de-Montvert, and were alike committed to
the desperate enterprise they had taken in hand. The tribe of Mazel abounds
in the Cevennes, and they had already given many martyrs to the cause.
Some emigrated to America, some were sent to the galleys; Oliver Mazel,
the preacher, was hanged at Montpellier in 1690, Jacques Mazel was a
refugee in London in 1701, and in all the combats of the Cevennes there
were Mazels leading as well as following.

Nicholas Joany, of Genouillac, was an old soldier, who had seen much
service, having been for some time quartermaster of the regiment of
Orleans. Among other veterans who served with the Camisards, were
Espérandieu and Rastelet, two old sub-officers, and Catinat and Ravenel,
two thorough soldiers. Of these Catinat achieved the greatest notoriety. His

proper name was Mauriel—Abdias Mauriel; but having served as a dragoon
under Marshal Catinat in Italy, he conceived such an admiration for that
general, and was so constantly eulogizing him, that his comrades gave him
the nickname of Catinat, which he continued to bear all through the
Camisard war.

But the most distinguished of all the Camisard chiefs, next to Roland,
was the youthful John Cavalier, peasant boy, baker's apprentice, and
eventually insurgent leader, who, after baffling and repeatedly defeating the
armies of Louis XIV., ended his remarkable career as governor of Jersey
and major-general in the British service.

Cavalier was a native of Ribaute, a village on the Gardon, a little below
Anduze. His parents were persons in humble circumstances, as may be
inferred from the fact that when John was of sufficient age he was sent into
the mountains to herd cattle, and when a little older he was placed
apprentice to a baker at Anduze.

His father, though a Protestant at heart, to avoid persecution, pretended to
be converted to Romanism, and attended Mass. But his mother, a fervent
Calvinist, refused to conform, and diligently trained her sons in her own
views. She was a regular attender of meetings in the Desert, to which she
also took her children.

Cavalier relates that on one occasion, when a very little fellow, he went
with her to an assembly which was conducted by Claude Brousson; and
when he afterwards heard that many of the people had been apprehended
for attending it, of whom some were hanged and others sent to the galleys,
the account so shocked him that he felt he would then have avenged them if
he had possessed the power.

As the boy grew up, and witnessed the increasing cruelty with which
conformity was enforced, he determined to quit the country; and,
accompanied by twelve other young men, he succeeded in reaching Geneva
after a toilsome journey of eight days. He had not been at Geneva more than
two months, when—heart-sore, solitary, his eyes constantly turned towards
his dear Cevennes—he accidentally heard that his father and mother had
been thrown into prison because of his flight—his father at Carcassone, and

his mother in the dreadful tower of Constance, near Aiguesmortes, one of
the most notorious prisons of the Huguenots.

He at once determined to return, in the hope of being able to get them set
at liberty. On his reaching Ribaute, to his surprise he found them already
released, on condition of attending Mass. As his presence in his father's
house might only serve to bring fresh trouble upon them—he himself
having no intention of conforming—he went up for refuge into the
mountains of the Cevennes.

The young Cavalier was present at the midnight meeting on the Bougès,
at which it was determined to slay the archpriest Chayla. He implored leave
to accompany the band; but he was declared to be too young for such an
enterprise, being a boy of only sixteen, so he was left behind with his
friends.

Being virtually an outlaw, Cavalier afterwards joined the band of
Laporte, under whom he served as lieutenant during his short career. At his
death the insurrection assumed larger proportions, and recruits flocked
apace to the standard of Roland, Laporte's successor. Harvest-work over,
the youths of the Lower Cevennes hastened to join him, armed only with
bills and hatchets. The people of the Vaunage more than fulfilled their
promise to Roland, and sent him five hundred men. Cavalier also brought
with him from Ribaute a further number of recruits, and by the end of
autumn the Camisards under arms, such as they were, amounted to over a
thousand men.

Roland, unable to provide quarters or commissariat for so large a number,
divided them into five bodies, and sent them into their respective
cantonments (so to speak) for the winter. Roland himself occupied the
district known as the Lower Cevennes, comprising the Gardonnenque and
the mountain district situated between the rivers Vidourle and the western
Gardon. That part of the Upper Cevennes, which extends between the
Anduze branch of the Gardon and the river Tarn, was in like manner
occupied by a force commanded by Abraham Hazel and Solomon Conderc,
while Andrew Castanet led the people of the western Cevennes, comprising
the mountain region of the Aigoal and the Esperou, near the sources of the
Gardon d'Anduze and the Tarnon. The rugged mountain district of the

Lozère, in which the Tarn, the Ceze, and the Alais branch of the Gardon
have their origin, was placed under the command of Joany. And, finally, the
more open country towards the south, extending from Anduze to the sea-
coast, including the districts around Alais, Uzes, Nismes, as well as the
populous valley of the Vaunage, was placed under the direction of young
Cavalier, though he had scarcely yet completed his seventeenth year.

These chiefs were all elected by their followers, who chose them, not
because of any military ability they might possess, but entirely because of
their "gifts" as preachers and "prophets." Though Roland and Joany had
been soldiers, they were also preachers, as were Castanet, Abraham, and
Salomon; and young Cavalier had already given remarkable indications of
the prophetic gift. Hence, when it became the duty of the band to which he
belonged to select a chief, they passed over the old soldiers, Espérandieu,
Raslet, Catinat, and Ravenel, and pitched upon the young baker lad of
Ribaute, not because he could fight, but because he could preach; and the
old soldiers cheerfully submitted themselves to his leadership.

The portrait of this remarkable Camisard chief represents him as a little
handsome youth, fair and ruddy complexioned, with lively and prominent
blue eyes, and a large head, from whence his long fair hair hung floating
over his shoulders. His companions recognised in him a supposed striking
resemblance to the scriptural portrait of David, the famous shepherd of
Israel.

The Camisard legions, spread as they now were over the entire Cevennes,
and embracing Lower Languedoc as far as the sea, were for the most part
occupied during the winter of 1702-3 in organizing themselves, obtaining
arms, and increasing their forces. The respective districts which they
occupied were so many recruiting-grounds, and by the end of the season
they had enrolled nearly three thousand men. They were still, however, very
badly armed. Their weapons included fowling-pieces, old matchlocks,
muskets taken from the militia, pistols, sabres, scythes, hatchets, billhooks,
and even ploughshares. They were very short of powder, and what they had
was mostly bought surreptitiously from the King's soldiers, or by
messengers sent for the purpose to Nismes and Avignon. But Roland,

finding that such sources of supply could not be depended upon, resolved to
manufacture his own powder.

A commissariat was also established, and the most spacious caves in the
most sequestered places were sought out and converted into magazines,
hospitals, granaries, cellars, arsenals, and powder factories. Thus Mialet,
with its extensive caves, was the head-quarters of Roland; Bouquet and the
caves at Euzet, of Cavalier; Cassagnacs and the caves at Magistavols, of
Salomon; and so on with the others. Each chief had his respective canton,
his granary, his magazine, and his arsenal. To each retreat was attached a
special body of tradesmen—millers, bakers, shoemakers, tailors, armourers,
and other mechanics; and each had its special guards and sentinels.

We have already referred to the peculiar geological features of the
Cevennes, and to the limestone strata which embraces the whole granitic
platform of the southern border almost like a frame. As is almost invariably
the case in such formations, large caves, occasioned by the constant
dripping of water, are of frequent occurrence; and those of the Cevennes,
which are in many places of great extent, constituted a peculiar feature in
the Camisard insurrection. There is one of such caves in the neighbourhood
of the Protestant town of Ganges, on the river Herault, which often served
as a refuge for the Huguenots, though it is now scarcely penetrable because
of the heavy falls of stone from the roof. This cavern has two entrances, one
from the river Herault, the other from the Mendesse, and it extends under
the entire mountain, which separates the two rivers. It is still known as the
"Camisards' Grotto." There are numerous others of a like character all over
the district; but as those of Mialet were of special importance—Mialet, "the
Metropolis of the Insurrection," being the head-quarters of Roland—it will
be sufficient if we briefly describe a visit paid to them in the month of June,
1870.

The town of Anduze is the little capital of the Gardonnenque, a district
which has always been exclusively Protestant. Even at the present day, of
the 5,200 inhabitants of Anduze, 4,600 belong to that faith; and these
include the principal proprietors, cultivators, and manufacturers of the town
and neighbourhood. During the wars of religion, Anduze was one of the

Huguenot strongholds. After the death of Henry IV. the district continued to
be held by the Duc de Rohan, the ruins of whose castle are still to be seen
on the summit of a pyramidal hill on the north of the town. Anduze is
jammed in between the precipitous mountain of St. Julien, which rises
behind it, and the river Gardon, along which a modern quay-wall extends,
forming a pleasant promenade as well as a barrier against the furious
torrents which rush down from the mountains in winter.

A little above the town, the river passes through a rocky gorge formed by
the rugged grey cliffs of Peyremale on the one bank and St. Julien on the
other. The bare precipitous rocks rise up on either side like two cyclopean
towers, flanking the gateway of the Cevennes. The gorge is so narrow at
bottom that there is room only for the river running in its rocky bed below,
and a roadway along either bank—that on the eastern side having been
partly formed by blasting out the cliff which overhangs it.

After crossing the five-arched bridge which spans the Gardon, the road
proceeds along the eastern bank, up the valley towards Mialet. It being
market-day at Anduze, well-clad peasants were flocking into the town,
some in their little pony-carts, others with their baskets or bundles of
produce, and each had his "Bon jour, messieurs!" for us as we passed. So
long as the road held along the bottom of the valley, passing through the
scattered hamlets and villages north of the town, our little springless cart
got along cleverly enough. But after we had entered the narrower valley
higher up, and the cultivated ground became confined to a little strip along
either bank, then the mountain barriers seemed to rise in front of us and on
all sides, and the road became winding, steep, and difficult.

A few miles up the valley, the little hamlet of Massoubeyran, consisting
of a group of peasant cottages—one of which was the birthplace of Roland,
the Camisard chief—was seen on a hill-side to the right; and about two
miles further on, at a bend of the road, we came in sight of the village of
Mialet, with its whitewashed, flat-roofed cottages—forming a little group of
peasants' houses lying in the hollow of the hills. The principal building in it
is the Protestant temple, which continues to be frequented by the
inhabitants; the Annuaire Protestant for 1868-70, stating the Protestant
population of the district to be 1,325. Strange to say, the present pastor, M.

Seguier, bears the name of the first leader of the Camisard insurrection; and
one of the leading members of the consistory, M. Laporte, is a lineal
descendant of the second and third leaders.

From its secluded and secure position among the hills, as well as because
of its proximity to the great Temelac road constructed by Baville, which
passed from Anduze by St. Jean-de-Gard into the Upper Cevennes, Mialet
was well situated as the head-quarters of the Camisard chief. But it was
principally because of the numerous limestone caves abounding in the
locality, which afforded a ready hiding-place for the inhabitants in the event
of the enemies' approach, as well as because they were capable of being
adapted for the purpose of magazines, stores, and hospitals, that Mialet
became of so much importance as the citadel of the insurgents. One of such
caverns or grottoes is still to be seen about a mile below Mialet, of
extraordinary magnitude. It extends under the hill which rises up on the
right-hand side of the road, and is entered from behind, nearly at the
summit. The entrance is narrow and difficult, but the interior is large and
spacious, widening out in some places into dome-shaped chambers, with
stalactites hanging from the roof. The whole extent of this cavern cannot be
much less than a quarter of a mile, judging from the time it took to explore
it and to return from the furthest point in the interior to the entrance. The
existence of this place had been forgotten until a few years ago, when it was
rediscovered by a man of Anduze, who succeeded in entering it, but, being
unable to find his way out, he remained there for three days without food,
until the alarm was given and his friends came to his rescue and delivered
him.

Immediately behind the village of Mialet, under the side of the hill, is
another large cavern, with other grottoes branching out of it, capable, on an
emergency, of accommodating the whole population. This was used by
Roland as his principal magazine. But perhaps the most interesting of these
caves is the one used as a hospital for the sick and wounded. It is situated
about a mile above Mialet, in a limestone cliff almost overhanging the river.
The approach to it is steep and difficult, up a footpath cut in the face of the
rock. At length a little platform is reached, about a hundred feet above the
level of the river, behind which is a low wall extending across the entrance
to the cavern. This wall is pierced with two openings, intended for two

culverins, one of which commanded the road leading down the pass, and
the other the road up the valley from the direction of the village. The outer
vault is large and roomy, and extends back into a lofty dome-shaped cavern
about forty feet high, behind which a long tortuous vault extends for several
hundred feet. The place is quite dry, and sufficiently spacious to
accommodate a large number of persons; and there can be no doubt as to
the uses to which it was applied during the wars of the Cevennes.

The person who guided us to the cave was an ordinary working man of
the village—apparently a blacksmith—a well-informed, intelligent person
—who left his smithy, opposite the Protestant temple at which our pony-
cart drew up, to show us over the place; and he took pride in relating the
traditions which continue to be handed down from father to son relating to
the great Camisard war of the Cevennes.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VII.

EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER.

The country round Nismes, which was the scene of so many contests
between the Royalists and the Camisard insurgents at the beginning of last
century, presents nearly the same aspect as it did then, excepting that it is
traversed by railways in several directions. The railway to Montpellier on
the west, crosses the fertile valley of the Vaunage, "the little Canaan," still
rich in vineyards as of old. That to Alais on the north, proceeds for the most
part along the valley of the Gardon, the names of the successive stations
reminding the passing traveller of the embittered contests of which they
were the scenes in former times: Nozières, Boucoiran, Ners, Vezenobres,
and Alais itself, now a considerable manufacturing town, and the centre of
an important coal-mining district.

The country in the neighbourhood of Nismes is by no means picturesque.
Though undulating, it is barren, arid, and stony. The view from the Tour
Magne, which is very extensive, is over an apparently skeleton landscape,

the bare rocks rising on all sides without any covering of verdure. In
summer the grass is parched and brown. There are few trees visible; and
these mostly mulberry, which, when, cropped, have a blasted look. Yet,
wherever soil exists, in the bottoms, the land is very productive, yielding
olives, grapes, and chestnuts in great abundance.

As we ascend the valley of the Gardon, the country becomes more
undulating and better wooded. The villages and farmhouses have all an old-
fashioned look; not a modern villa is to be seen. We alight from the train at
the Ners station—Ners, where Cavalier drove Montrevel's army across the
river, and near which, at the village of Martinargues, he completely
defeated the Royalists under Lajonquière. We went to see the scene of the
battle, some three miles to the south-east, passing through a well-tilled
country, with the peasants busily at work in the fields. From the high
ground behind Ners a fine view is obtained of the valley of the Gardon,
overlooking the junction of its two branches descending by Alais and
Anduze, the mountains of the Cevennes rising up in the distance. To the left
is the fertile valley of Beaurivage, celebrated in the Pastorals of Florian,
who was a native of the district.

Descending the hill towards Ners, we were overtaken by an aged peasant
of the village, with a scythe over his shoulder, returning from his morning's
work. There was the usual polite greeting and exchange of salutations—for
the French peasant is by nature polite—and a ready opening was afforded
for conversation. It turned out that the old man had been a soldier of the
first empire, and fought under Soult in the desperate battle of Toulouse in
1814. He was now nearly eighty, but was still able to do a fair day's work in
the fields. Inviting us to enter his dwelling and partake of his hospitality, he
went down to his cellar and fetched therefrom a jug of light sparkling wine,
of which we partook. In answer to an inquiry whether there were any
Protestants in the neighbourhood, the old man replied that Ners was "all
Protestant." His grandson, however, who was present, qualified this
sweeping statement by the remark, sotto voce, that many of them were
"nothing."

The conversation then turned upon the subject of Cavalier and his
exploits, when our entertainer launched out into a description of the battle

of Martinargues, in which the Royalists had been "toutes abattus." Like
most of the Protestant peasantry of the Cevennes, he displayed a very
familiar acquaintance with the events of the civil war, and spoke with
enthusiasm and honest pride of the achievements of the Camisards.

We have in previous chapters described the outbreak of the insurrection
and its spread throughout the Upper Cevennes; and we have now rapidly to
note its growth and progress to its culmination and fall.

While the Camisards were secretly organizing their forces under cover of
the woods and caves of the mountain districts, the governor of Languedoc
was indulging in the hope that the insurrection had expired with the death of
Laporte and the dispersion of his band. But, to his immense surprise, the
whole country was suddenly covered with insurgents, who seemed as if to
spring from the earth in all quarters simultaneously. Messengers brought
him intelligence at the same time of risings in the mountains of the Lozère
and the Aigoal, in the neighbourhoods of Anduze and Alais, and even in the
open country about Nismes and Calvisson, down almost to the sea-coast.

Wherever the churches had been used as garrisons and depositories of
arms, they were attacked, stormed, and burnt. Cavalier says he never
meddled with any church which had not been thus converted into a "den of
thieves;" but the other leaders were less scrupulous. Salomon and Abraham
destroyed all the establishments and insignia of their enemies on which they
could lay hands—crosses, churches, and presbyteries. The curé of Saint-
Germain said of Castanet in the Aigoal that he was "like a raging torrent."
Roland and Joany ran from village to village ransacking dwellings,
châteaux, churches, and collecting arms. Knowing every foot of the
country, they rapidly passed by mountain tracks from one village to
another; suddenly appearing in the least-expected quarters, while the troops
in pursuit of them had passed in other directions.

Cavalier had even the hardihood to descend upon the low country, and to
ransack the Catholic villages in the neighbourhood of Nismes. By turns he
fought, preached, and sacked churches. About the middle of November,
1702, he preached at Aiguevives, a village not far from Calvisson, in the

Vaunage. Count Broglie, commander of the royal troops, hastened from
Nismes to intercept him. But pursuing Cavalier was like pursuing a shadow;
he had already made his escape into the mountains. Broglie assembled the
inhabitants of the village in the church, and demanded to be informed who
had been present with the Camisard preacher. "All!" was the reply: "we are
all guilty." He seized the principal persons of the place and sent them to
Baville. Four were hanged, twelve were sent to the galleys, many more
were flogged, and a heavy fine was levied on the entire village.

Meanwhile, Cavalier had joined Roland near Mialet, and again
descended upon the low country, marching through the villages along the
valley of the Vidourle, carrying off arms and devastating churches. Broglie
sent two strong bodies of troops to intercept them; but the light-footed
insurgents had already crossed the Gardon.

A few days later (December 5th), they were lying concealed in the forest
of Vaquières, in the neighbourhood of Cavalier's head-quarters at Euzet.
Their retreat having been discovered, a strong force of soldiers and militia
was directed upon them, under the command of the Chevalier Montarnaud
(who, being a new convert, wished to show his zeal), and Captain Bimard
of the Nismes militia.

They took with them a herdsman of the neighbourhood for their guide,
not knowing that he was a confederate of the Camisards. Leading the
Royalists into the wood, he guided them along a narrow ravine, and hearing
no sound of the insurgents, it was supposed that they were lying asleep in
their camp.

Suddenly three sentinels on the outlook fired off their pieces. At this
signal Ravenel posted himself at the outlet of the defile, and Cavalier and
Catinat along its two sides. Raising their war-song, the sixty-eighth psalm
the Camisards furiously charged the enemy. Captain Bimard fell at the first
fire. Montarnaud turned and fled with such of the soldiers and militia as
could follow him; and not many of them succeeded in making their escape
from the wood.

"After which complete victory," says Cavalier, "we returned to the field
of battle to give our hearty thanks to Almighty God for his extraordinary

assistance, and afterwards stripped the corpses of the enemy, and secured
their arms. We found a purse of one hundred pistoles in Captain Bimard's
pocket, which was very acceptable, for we stood in great need thereof, and
expended part of it in buying hats, shoes, and stockings for those who
wanted them, and with the remainder bought six great mule loads of brandy,
for our winter's supply, from a merchant who was sending it to be sold at
Anduze market."[41]

On the Sunday following, Cavalier held an assembly for public worship
near Monteze on the Gardon, at which about five hundred persons were
present. The governor of Alais, being informed of the meeting, resolved to
put it down with a strong hand; and he set out for the purpose at the head of
a force of about six hundred horse and foot. A mule accompanied him,
laden with ropes with which to bind or hang the rebels. Cavalier had timely
information, from scouts posted on the adjoining hills, of the approach of
the governor's force, and though the number of fighting men in the
Camisard assembly was comparatively small, they resolved to defend
themselves.

Sending away the women and others not bearing arms, Cavalier posted
his little band behind an old entrenchment on the road along which the
governor was approaching, and awaited his attack. The horsemen came on
at the charge; but the Camisards, firing over the top of the entrenchment,
emptied more than a dozen saddles, and then leaping forward, saluted them
with a general discharge. At this, the horsemen turned and fled, galloping
through the foot coming up behind them, and throwing them into complete
disorder. The Camisards pulled off their coats, in order the better to pursue
the fugitives.

The Royalists were in full flight, when they were met by a reinforcement
of two hundred men of Marsilly's regiment of foot. But these, too, were
suddenly seized by the panic, and turned and fled with the rest, the
Camisards pursuing them for nearly an hour, in the course of which they
slew more than a hundred of the enemy. Besides the soldiers' clothes, of
which they stripped the dead, the Camisards made prize of two loads of
ammunition and a large quantity of arms, which they were very much in

need of, and also of the ropes with which the governor had intended to hang
them.

Emboldened by these successes, Cavalier determined on making an
attack on the strong castle of Servas, occupying a steep height on the east of
the forest of Bouquet. Cavalier detested the governor and garrison of this
place because they too closely watched his movements, and overlooked his
head-quarters, which were in the adjoining forest; and they had, besides,
distinguished themselves by the ferocity with which they attacked and
dispersed recent assemblies in the Desert.

Cavalier was, however, without the means of directly assaulting the
place, and he waited for an opportunity of entering it, if possible, by
stratagem. While passing along the road between Alais and Lussan one day,
he met a detachment of about forty men of the royal army, whom he at once
attacked, killing a number of them, and putting the rest to flight. Among the
slain was the commanding officer of the party, in whose pockets was found
an order signed by Count Broglie directing all town-majors and consuls to
lodge him and his men along their line of march. Cavalier at once
determined on making use of this order as a key to open the gates of the
castle of Servas.

He had twelve of his men dressed up in the clothes of the soldiers who
had fallen, and six others in their ordinary Camisard dress bound with ropes
as prisoners of war. Cavalier himself donned the uniform of the fallen
officer; and thus disguised and well armed, the party moved up the steep
ascent to the castle. On reaching the outer gate Cavalier presented the order
of Count Broglie, and requested admittance for the purpose of keeping his
pretended Camisard prisoners in safe custody for the night. He was at once
admitted with his party. The governor showed him round the ramparts,
pointing out the strength of the place, and boasting of the punishments he
had inflicted on the rebels.

At supper Cavalier's soldiers took care to drop into the room, one by one,
apparently for orders, and suddenly, on a signal being given, the governor
and his attendants were seized and bound. At the same time the guard
outside was attacked and overpowered. The outer gates were opened, the

Camisards rushed in, the castle was taken, and the garrison put to the
sword.

Cavalier and his band carried off with them to their magazine at Bouquet
all the arms, ammunition, and provisions they could find, and before
leaving they set fire to the castle. There must have been a large store of
gunpowder in the vaults of the place besides what the Camisards carried
away, for they had scarcely proceeded a mile on their return journey when a
tremendous explosion took place, shaking the ground like an earthquake,
and turning back, they saw the battlements of the detested Château Servas
hurled into the air.

Shortly after, Roland repeated at Sauvé, a little fortified town hung along
the side of a rocky hill a few miles to the south of Anduze, the stratagem
which Cavalier had employed at Servas, and with like success. He disarmed
the inhabitants, and carried off the arms and provisions in the place: and
though he released the commandant and the soldiers whom he had taken
prisoners, he shot a persecuting priest and a Capuchin monk, and destroyed
all the insignia of Popery in Sauvé.

These terrible measures caused a new stampede of the clergy all over the
Cevennes. The nobles and gentry also left their châteaux, the merchants
their shops and warehouses, and took refuge in the fortified towns. Even the
bishops of Mende, Uzes, and Alais barricaded and fortified their episcopal
palaces, and organized a system of defence as if the hordes of Attila had
been at their gates.

With each fresh success the Camisards increased in daring, and every day
the insurrection became more threatening and formidable. It already
embraced the whole mountain district of the Cevennes, as well as a
considerable extent of the low country between Nismes and Montpellier.
The Camisard troops, headed by their chiefs, marched through the villages
with drums beating in open day, and were quartered by billet on the
inhabitants in like manner as the royal regiments. Roland levied imposts
and even tithes throughout his district, and compelled the farmers, at the
peril of their lives, to bring their stores of victual to the "Camp of the
Eternal." In the midst of all, they held their meetings in the Desert, at which

the chiefs preached, baptized, and administered the sacrament to their
flocks.

The constituted authorities seemed paralyzed by the extent of the
insurrection, and the suddenness with which it spread. The governor of the
province had so repeatedly reported to his royal master the pacification of
Languedoc, that when this last and worst outbreak occurred he was
ashamed to announce it. The peace at Ryswick had set at liberty a large
force of soldiers, who had now no other occupation than to "convert" the
Protestants and force them to attend Mass. About five hundred thousand
men were now under arms for this purpose—occupied as a sort of police
force, very much to their own degradation as soldiers.

A large body of this otherwise unoccupied army had been placed under
the direction of Baville for the purpose of suppressing the rebellion—an
army of veteran horse and foot, whose valour had been tried in many hard-
fought battles. Surely it was not to be said that this immense force could be
baffled and defied by a few thousand peasants, cowherds, and wool-carders,
fighting for what they ridiculously called their "rights of conscience!"
Baville could not believe it; and he accordingly determined again to apply
himself more vigorously than ever to the suppression of the insurrection, by
means of the ample forces placed at his disposal.

Again the troops were launched against the insurgents, and again and
again they were baffled in their attempts to overtake and crush them. The
soldiers became worn out by forced marches, in running from one place to
another to disperse assemblies in the Desert. They were distracted by the
number of places in which the rebels made their appearance. Cavalier ran
from town to town, making his attacks sometimes late at night, sometimes
in the early morning; but before the troops could come up he had done all
the mischief he intended, and was perhaps fifty miles distant on another
expedition. If the Royalists divided themselves into small bodies, they were
in danger of being overpowered; and if they kept together in large bodies,
they moved about with difficulty, and could not overtake the insurgents, "by
reason," said Cavalier, "we could go further in three hours than they could
in a whole day; regular troops not being used to march through woods and
mountains as we did."

At length the truth could not be concealed any longer. The States of
Languedoc were summoned to meet at Montpellier, and there the desperate
state of affairs was fully revealed. The bishops of the principal dioceses
could with difficulty attend the meeting, and were only enabled to do so by
the assistance of strong detachments of soldiers—the Camisards being
masters of the principal roads. They filled the assembly with their
lamentations, and declared that they had been betrayed by the men in
power. At their urgent solicitation, thirty-two more companies of Catholic
fusiliers and another regiment of dragoons were ordered to be immediately
embodied in the district. The governor also called to his aid an additional
regiment of dragoons from Rouergue; a battalion of marines from the ships-
of-war lying at Marseilles and Toulon; a body of Miguelets from
Roussillon, accustomed to mountain warfare; together with a large body of
Irish officers and soldiers, part of the Irish Brigade.

And how did it happen that the self-exiled Irish patriots were now in the
Cevennes, helping the army of Louis XIV. to massacre the Camisards by
way of teaching them a better religion? It happened thus: The banishment of
the Huguenots from France, and their appearance under William III. in
Ireland to fight at the Boyne and Augrhim, contributed to send the Irish
Brigade over to France—though it must be confessed that the Irish Brigade
fought much better for Louis XIV. than they had ever done for Ireland.

After the surrender of Limerick in 1691, the principal number of the Irish
followers of James II. declared their intention of abandoning Ireland and
serving their sovereign's ally the King of France. The Irish historians allege
that the number of the brigade at first amounted to nearly thirty thousand
men.[42] Though, they fought bravely for France, and conducted themselves
valiantly in many of her great battles, they were unfortunately put forward
to do a great deal of dirty work for Louis XIV. One of the first campaigns
they were engaged in was in Savoy, under Catinat, in repressing the Vaudois
or Barbets.

The Vaudois peasantry were for the most part unarmed, and their only
crime was their religion. The regiments of Viscount Clare and Viscount
Dillon, principally distinguished themselves against the Vaudois. The war

was one of extermination, in which many of the Barbets were killed. Mr.
O'Connor states that between the number of the Alpine mountaineers cut
off, and the extent of devastation and pillage committed amongst them by
the Irish, Catinat's commission was executed with terrible fidelity; the
memory of which "has rendered their name and nation odious to the
Vaudois. Six generations," he remarks, "have since passed, away, but
neither time nor subsequent calamities have obliterated the impression
made by the waste and desolation of this military incursion."[43] Because of
the outrages and destruction committed upon the women and children in the
valleys in the absence of their natural defenders, the Vaudois still speak of
the Irish as "the foreign assassins."

The Brigade having thus faithfully served Louis XIV. in Piedmont, were
now occupied in the same work in the Cevennes. The historian of the
Brigade does not particularise the battles in which they were engaged with
the Camisards, but merely announces that "on several occasions, the Irish
appear to have distinguished themselves, especially their officers."

When Cavalier heard of the vast additional forces about to be thrown into
the Cevennes, he sought to effect a diversion by shifting the theatre of war.
Marching down towards the low country with about two hundred men, he
went from village to village in the Vaunage, holding assemblies of the
people. His whereabouts soon became known to the Royalists, and Captain
Bonnafoux, of the Calvisson militia, hearing that Cavalier was preaching
one day at the village of St. Comes, hastened to capture him.

Bonnafoux had already distinguished himself in the preceding year, by
sabring two assemblies surprised by him at Vauvert and Caudiac, and his
intention now was to serve Cavalier and his followers in like manner.
Galloping up to the place of meeting, the Captain was challenged by the
Camisard sentinel; and his answer was to shoot the man dead with his
pistol. The report alarmed the meeting, then occupied in prayer; but rising
from their knees, they at once formed in line and advanced to meet the foe,
who turned and fled at their first discharge.

Cavalier next went southward to Caudiac, where he waited for an
opportunity of surprising Aimargues, and putting to the sword the militia,
who had long been the scourge of the Protestants in that quarter. He entered
the latter town on a fair day, and walked about amongst the people; but,
finding that his intention was known, and that his enterprise was not likely
to succeed, he turned aside and resolved upon another course. But first it
was necessary that his troops should be supplied with powder and
ammunition, of which they had run short. So, disguising himself as a
merchant, and mounted on a horse with capacious saddlebags, he rode off to
Nismes, close at hand, to buy gunpowder. He left his men in charge of his
two lieutenants, Ravanel and Catinat, who prophesied to him that during his
absence they would fight a battle and win a victory.

Count Broglie had been promptly informed by the defeated Captain
Bonnafoux that the Camisards were in the neighbourhood; and he set out in
pursuit of them with a strong body of horse and foot. After several days'
search amongst the vineyards near Nismes and the heathery hills about
Milhaud, Broglie learnt that the Camisards were to be found at Caudiac.
But when he reached that place he found the insurgents had already left, and
taken a northerly direction. Broglie followed their track, and on the
following day came up with them at a place called Mas de Gaffarel, in the
Val de Bane, about three miles west of Nismes, The Royalists consisted of
two hundred militia, commanded by the Count and his son, and two troops
of dragoons, under Captain la Dourville and the redoubtable Captain Poul.

The Camisards had only time to utter a short prayer, and to rise from their
knees and advance singing their battle psalm, when Poul and his dragoons
were upon them. Their charge was so furious that Ravanel and his men
were at first thrown into disorder; but rallying, and bravely fighting, they
held their ground. Captain Poul was brought to the ground by a stone hurled
from a sling by a young Vauvert miller named Samuelet; Count Broglie
himself was wounded by a musket-ball, and many of his dragoons lay
stretched on the field. Catinat observing the fall of Poul, rushed forward, cut
off his head with a sweep of his sabre, and mounting Poul's horse, almost
alone chased the Royalists, now flying in all directions. Broglie did not
draw breath until he had reached the secure shelter of the castle of Bernis.

While these events were in progress, Cavalier was occupied on his
mission of buying gunpowder in Nismes. He was passing along the
Esplanade—then, as now, a beautiful promenade—when he observed from
the excitement of the people, running about hither and thither, that
something alarming had occurred. On making inquiry he was told that "the
Barbets" were in the immediate neighbourhood, and it was even feared they
would enter and sack the city. Shortly after, a trooper was observed
galloping towards them at full speed along the Montpellier Road, without
arms or helmet. He was almost out of breath when he came up, and could
only exclaim that "All is lost! Count Broglie and Captain Poul are killed,
and the Barbets are pursuing the remainder of the royal troops into the
city!"

The gates were at once ordered to be shut and barricaded; the générale
was beaten; the troops and militia were mustered; the priests ran about in
the streets crying, "We are undone!" Some of the Roman Catholics even
took shelter in the houses of the Protestants, calling upon them to save their
lives. But the night passed, and with it their alarm, for the Camisards did
not make their appearance. Next morning a message arrived from Count
Broglie, shut up in the castle of Bernis, ordering the garrison to come to his
relief.

In the meantime, Cavalier, with the assistance of his friends in Nismes,
had obtained the articles of which he was in need, and prepared to set out
on his return journey. The governor and his detachment were issuing from
the western gate as he left, and he accompanied them part of the way, still
disguised as a merchant, and mounted on his horse, with a large
portmanteau behind him, and saddlebags on either side full of gunpowder
and ammunition. The Camisard chief mixed with the men, talking with
them freely about the Barbets and their doings. When he came to the St.
Hypolite road he turned aside; but they warned him that if he went that way
he would certainly fall into the hands of the Barbets, and lose not only his
horse and his merchandise, but his life. Cavalier thanked them for their
advice, but said he was not afraid of the Barbets, and proceeded on his way,
shortly rejoining his troop at the appointed rendez-vous.

The Camisards crossed the Gardon by the bridge of St. Nicholas, and
were proceeding towards their head-quarters at Bouquet, up the left bank of
the river, when an attempt was made by the Chevalier de St. Chaptes, at the
head of the militia of the district, to cut off their retreat. But Ravanel
charged them with such fury as to drive the greater part into the Gardon,
then swollen by a flood, and those who did not escape by swimming were
either killed or drowned.

Thus the insurrection seemed to grow, notwithstanding all the measures
taken to repress it. The number of soldiers stationed in the province was
from time to time increased; they were scattered in detachments all over the
country, and the Camisards took care to give them but few opportunities of
exhibiting their force, and then only when at a comparative disadvantage.
The Royalists, at their wits' end, considered what was next to be done in
order to the pacification of the country. The simple remedy, they knew, was
to allow these poor simple people to worship in their own way without
molestation. Grant them this privilege, and they were at any moment ready
to lay down their arms, and resume their ordinary peaceful pursuits.

But this was precisely what the King would not allow. To do so would be
an admission of royal fallibility which neither he nor his advisers were
prepared to make. To enforce conformity on his subjects, Louis XIV. had
already driven some half-a-million of the best of them into exile, besides
the thousands who had perished on gibbets, in dungeons, or at the galleys.
And was he now to confess, by granting liberty of worship to these
neatherds, carders, and peasants, that the rigorous policy of "the Most
Christian King" had been an entire mistake?

It was resolved, therefore, that no such liberty should be granted, and that
these peasants, like the rest of the King's subjects, were to be forced, at the
sword's point if necessary, to worship God in his way, and not in theirs.
Viewed in this light, the whole proceeding would appear to be a ludicrous
absurdity, but for its revolting impiety and the abominable cruelties with
which it was accompanied. Yet the Royalists even blamed themselves for
the mercy which they had hitherto shown to the Protestant peasantry; and
the more virulent amongst them urged that the whole of the remaining

population that would not at once conform to the Church of Rome, should
forthwith be put to the sword!

Brigadier Julien, an apostate Protestant, who had served under William of
Orange in Ireland, and afterwards under the Duke of Savoy in Piedmont,
disappointed with the slowness of his promotion, had taken service under
Louis XIV., and was now employed as a partizan chief in the suppression of
his former co-religionists in Languedoc. Like all renegades, he was a bitter
and furious persecutor; and in the councils of Baville his voice was always
raised for the extremest measures. He would utterly exterminate the
insurgents, and, if necessary, reduce the country to a desert. "It is not
enough," said he, "merely to kill those bearing arms; the villages which
supply the combatants, and which give them shelter and sustenance, ought
to be burnt down: thus only can the insurrection be suppressed."

In a military point of view Julien was probably right; but the savage
advice startled even Baville. "Nothing can be easier," said he, "than to
destroy the towns and villages; but this would be to make a desert of one of
the finest and most productive districts of Languedoc." Yet Baville himself
eventually adopted the very policy which he now condemned.

In the first place, however, it was determined to pursue and destroy
Cavalier and his band. Eight hundred men, under the Count de Touman,
were posted at Uzes; two battalions of the regiment of Hainault, under
Julien, at Anduze; while Broglie, with a strong body of dragoons and
militia, commanded the passes at St. Ambrose. These troops occupied, as it
were, the three sides of a triangle, in the centre of which Cavalier was
known to be in hiding in the woods of Bouquet. Converging upon him
simultaneously, they hoped to surround and destroy him.

But the Camisard chief was well advised of their movements. To draw
them away from his magazines, Cavalier marched boldly to the north, and
slipping through between the advancing forces, he got into Broglie's rear,
and set fire to two villages inhabited by Catholics. The three bodies at once
directed themselves upon the burning villages; but when they reached them
Cavalier had made his escape, and was nowhere to be heard of. For four
days they hunted the country between the Garden and the Ceze, beating the

woods and exploring the caves; and then they returned, harassed and vexed,
to their respective quarters.

While the Royalists were thus occupied, Cavalier fell upon a convoy of
provisions which Colonel Marsilly was leading to the castle of Mendajols,
scattered and killed the escort, and carried off the mules and their loads to
the magazines at Bouquet. During the whole of the month of January, the
Camisards, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, were constantly
on the move, making their appearance in the most unexpected quarters;
Roland descending from Mialet on Anduze, and rousing Broglie from his
slumbers by a midnight fusillade; Castanet attacking St. André, and making
a bonfire of the contents of the church; Joany disarming Genouillac; and
Lafleur terrifying the villages of the Lozère almost to the gates of Mende.

Although the winters in the South of France, along the shores of the
Mediterranean, are comparatively mild and genial, it is very different in the
mountain districts of the interior, where the snow lies thick upon the
ground, and the rivers are bound up by frost. Cavalier, in his Memoirs,
describes the straits to which his followers were reduced in that inclement
season, being "destitute of houses or beds, victuals, bread, or money, and
left to struggle with hunger, cold, snow, misery, and poverty."

"General Broglie," he continues, "believed and hoped that though he
had not been able to destroy us with the sword, yet the insufferable
miseries of the winter would do him that good office. Yet God Almighty
prevented it through his power, and by unexpected means his
Providence ordered the thing so well that at the end of the winter we
found ourselves in being, and in a better condition than we expected....
As for our retiring places, we were used in the night-time to go into
hamlets or sheepfolds built in or near the woods, and thought ourselves
happy when we lighted upon a stone or piece of timber to make our
pillows withal, and a little straw or dry leaves to lie upon in our clothes.
We did in this condition sleep as gently and soundly as if we had lain
upon a down bed. The weather being extremely cold, we had a great
occasion for fire; but residing mostly in woods, we used to get great
quantity of faggots and kindle them, and so sit round about them and
warm ourselves. In this manner we spent a quarter of a year, running up

and down, sometimes one way and sometimes another, through great
forests and upon high mountains, in deep snow and upon ice. And
notwithstanding the sharpness of the weather, the small stock of our
provisions, and the marches and counter-marches we were continually
obliged to make, and which gave us but seldom the opportunity of
washing the only shirt we had upon our back, not one amongst us fell
sick. One might have perceived in our visage a complexion as fresh as if
we had fed upon the most delicious meats, and at the end of the season
we found ourselves in a good disposition heartily to commence the
following campaign."[44]

The campaign of 1703, the third year of the insurrection, began
unfavourably for the Camisards. The ill-success of Count Broglie as
commander of the royal forces in the Cevennes, determined Louis XIV.—
from whom the true state of affairs could no longer be concealed—to
supersede him by Marshal Montrevel, one of the ablest of his generals. The
army of Languedoc was again reinforced by ten thousand of the best
soldiers of France, drawn from the armies of Germany and Italy. It now
consisted of three regiments of dragoons and twenty-four battalions of foot
—of the Irish Brigade, the Miguelets, and the Languedoc fusiliers—which,
with the local militia, constituted an effective force of not less than sixty
thousand men!

Such was the irresistible army, commanded by a marshal of France, three
lieutenant-generals, three major-generals, and three brigadier-generals, now
stationed in Languedoc, to crush the peasant insurrection. No wonder that
the Camisard chiefs were alarmed when the intelligence reached them of
this formidable force having been set in motion for their destruction.

The first thing they determined upon was to effect a powerful diversion,
and to extend, if possible, the area of the insurrection. For this purpose,
Cavalier, at the head of eight hundred men, accompanied by thirty baggage
mules, set out in the beginning of February, with the object of raising the
Viverais, the north-eastern quarter of Languedoc, where the Camisards had
numerous partizans. The snow was lying thick upon the ground when they
set out; but the little army pushed northward, through Rochegude and
Barjac. At the town of Vagnas they found their way barred by a body of six

hundred militia, under the Count de Roure. These they attacked with great
fury and speedily put to flight.

But behind the Camisarde was a second and much stronger royalist force,
eighteen hundred men, under Brigadier Julien, who had hastened up from
Lussan upon Cavalier's track, and now hung upon his rear in the forest of
Vagnas. Next morning the Camisards accepted battle, fought with their
usual bravery, but having been trapped into an ambuscade, they were
overpowered by numbers, and at length broke and fled in disorder, leaving
behind them their mules, baggage, seven drums, and a quantity of arms,
with some two hundred dead and wounded. Cavalier himself escaped with
difficulty, and, after having been given up for lost, reached the rendez-vous
at Bouquet in a state of complete exhaustion, Ravanel and Catinat having
preceded him thither with, the remains of his broken army.

Roland and Cavalier now altered their tactics. They resolved to avoid
pitched battles such as that at Vagnas, where they were liable to be crushed
at a blow, and to divide their forces into small detachments constantly on
the move, harassing the enemy, interrupting their communications, and
falling upon detached bodies whenever an opportunity for an attack
presented itself.

To the surprise of Montrevel, who supposed the Camisards finally
crushed at Vagnas, the intelligence suddenly reached him of a multitude of
attacks on fortified posts, burning of châteaux and churches, captures of
convoys, and defeats of detached bodies of Royalists.

Joany attacked Genouillac, cut to pieces the militia who defended it, and
carried off their arms and ammunition, with other spoils, to the camp at
Faux-des-Armes. Shortly after, in one of his incursions, he captured a
convoy of forty mules laden with cloth, wine, and provisions for Lent; and,
though hotly pursued by a much superior force, he succeeded in making his
escape into the mountains.

Castanet was not less active in the west—sacking and burning Catholic
villages, and putting their inhabitants to the sword by way of reprisal for
similar atrocities committed by the Royalists. At the same time, Montrevel
pillaged and burned Euzet and St. Jean de Ceirarges, villages inhabited by

Protestants; and there was not a hamlet but was liable at any moment to be
sacked and destroyed by one or other of the contending parties.

Nor was Roland idle. Being greatly in want of arms and ammunition, as
well as of shoes and clothes for his men, he collected a considerable force,
and made a descent, for the purpose of obtaining them, on the rich and
populous towns of the south; more particularly on the manufacturing town
of Ganges, where the Camisards had many friends. Although Roland, to
divert the attention of Montrevel from Ganges, sent a detachment of his
men into the neighbourhood of Nismes to raise the alarm there, it was not
long before a large royalist force was directed against him.

Hearing that Montrevel was marching upon Ganges, Roland hastily left
for the north, but was overtaken near Pompignan by the marshal at the head
of an army of regular horse and foot, including several regiments of local
militia, Miguelets, marines, and Irish. The Royalists were posted in such a
manner as to surround the Camisards, who, though they fought with their
usual impetuosity, and succeeded in breaking through the ranks of their
enemies, suffered a heavy loss in dead and wounded. Roland himself
escaped with difficulty, and with his broken forces fled through Durfort to
his stronghold at Mialet.

After the battle, Marshal Montrevel returned to Ganges, where he levied
a fine of ten thousand livres on the Protestant population, giving up their
houses to pillage, and hanging a dozen of those who had been the most
prominent in abetting the Camisards during their recent visit. At the game
time, he reported to head-quarters at Paris that he had entirely destroyed the
rebels, and that Languedoc was now "pacified."

Much to his surprise, however, not many weeks elapsed before Cavalier,
who had been laid up by the small-pox during Roland's expedition to
Ganges, again appeared in the field, attacking convoys, entering the villages
and carrying off arms, and spreading terror anew to the very gates of
Nismes. He returned northwards by the valley of the Rhône, driving before
him flocks and herds for the provisioning of his men, and reached his
retreat at Bouquet in safety. Shortly after, he issued from it again, and
descended upon Ners, where he destroyed a detachment of troops under
Colonel de Jarnaud; next day he crossed the Gardon, and cut up a

reinforcement intended for the garrison of Sommières; and the day after he
was heard of in another place, attacking a convoy, and carrying off arms,
ammunition, and provisions.

Montrevel was profoundly annoyed at the failure of his efforts thus far to
suppress the insurrection. It even seemed to increase and extend with every
new measure taken to crush it. A marshal of France, at the head of sixty
thousand men, he feared lest he should lose credit with his friends at court
unless he were able at once to root out these miserable cowherds and wool-
carders who continued to bid defiance to the royal authority which he
represented; and he determined to exert himself with renewed vigour to
exterminate them root and branch.

In this state of irritation the intelligence was one day brought to the
marshal while sitting over his wine after dinner at Nismes, that an assembly
of Huguenots was engaged in worship in a mill situated on the canal outside
the Port-des-Carmes. He at once ordered out a battalion of foot, marched on
the mill, and surrounded it. The soldiers burst open the door, and found
from two to three hundred women, children, and old men engaged in
prayer; and proceeded to put them to the sword. But the marshal, impatient
at the slowness of the butchery, ordered the men to desist and to fire the
place. This order was obeyed, and the building, being for the most part of
wood, was soon wrapped in flames, from amidst which rose the screams of
women and children. All who tried to escape were bayoneted, or driven
back into the burning mill. Every soul perished—all excepting a girl, who
was rescued by one of Montrevel's servants. But the pitiless marshal
ordered both the girl and her deliverer to be put to death. The former was
hanged forthwith, but the lackey's life was spared at the intercession of
some sisters of mercy accidentally passing the place.

In the same savage and relentless spirit, Montrevel proceeded to extirpate
the Huguenots wherever found. He caused all suspected persons in twenty-
two parishes in the diocese of Nismes to be seized and carried off. The men
were transported to North America, and the women and children imprisoned
in the fortresses of Roussillon.

But the most ruthless measures were those which were adopted in the
Upper Cevennes: there nothing short of devastation would satisfy the

marshal. Thirty-two parishes were completely laid waste; the cattle, grain,
and produce which they contained were seized and carried into the towns of
refuge garrisoned by the Royalists—Alais, Anduze, Florac, St. Hypolite,
and Nismes—so that nothing should be left calculated to give sustenance to
the rebels. Four hundred and sixty-six villages and hamlets were reduced to
mere heaps of ashes and blackened ruins, and such of their inhabitants as
were not slain by the soldiery fled with their families into the wilderness.

All the principal villages inhabited by the Protestants were thus
completely destroyed, together with their mills and barns, and every
building likely to give them shelter. Mialet was sacked and burnt—Roland,
still suffering from his wounds, being unable to strike a blow in defence of
his stronghold. St. Julien was also plundered and levelled, and its
inhabitants carried captive to Montpellier, where the women and children
were imprisoned, and the men sent to the galleys.

When Cavalier heard of the determination of Montrevel to make a desert
of the country, he sent word to him that for every Huguenot village
destroyed he would destroy two inhabited by the Romanists. Thus the
sacking and burning on the one side was immediately followed by increased
sacking and burning on the other. The war became one of mutual
destruction and extermination, and the unfortunate inhabitants on both sides
were delivered over to all the horrors of civil war.

So far, however, from the Camisards being suppressed, the destruction of
the dwellings of the Huguenots only served to swell their numbers, and they
descended from their mountains upon the Catholics of the plains in
increasing force and redoubled fury. Montlezan was utterly destroyed—all
but the church, which was strongly barricaded, and resisted Cavalier's
attempts to enter it. Aurillac, also, was in like manner sacked and gutted,
and the destroying torrent swept over all the towns and villages of the
Cevennes.

Cavalier was so ubiquitous, so daring, and often so successful in his
attacks, that of all the Camisard leaders he was held to be the most
dangerous, and a high price was accordingly set upon his head by the
governor. Hence many attempts were made to betray him. He was haunted
by spies, some of whom even succeeded in obtaining admission to his

ranks. More than once the spies were detected—it was pretended through
prophetic influence—and immediately shot. But on one occasion Cavalier
and his whole force narrowly escaped destruction through the betrayal of a
pretended follower.

While the Royalists were carrying destruction through the villages of the
Upper Cevennes, Cavalier, Salomon, and Abraham, in order to divert them
from their purpose, resolved upon another descent into the low country,
now comparatively ungarrisoned. With this object they gathered together
some fifteen hundred men, and descended from the mountains by Collet,
intending to cross the Gardon at Beaurivage. On Sunday, the 29th of April,
they halted in the wood of Malaboissière, a little north of Mialet, for a day's
preaching and worship; and after holding three services, which were largely
attended, they directed their steps to the Tower of Belliot, a deserted
farmhouse on the south of the present high road between Alais and Anduze.

The house had been built on the ruins of a feudal castle, and took its
name from one of the old towers still standing. It was surrounded by a dry
stone wall, forming a court, the entrance to which was closed by hurdles.
On their arrival at this place late at night, the Camisards partook of the
supper which had been prepared for them by their purveyor on the occasion
—a miller of the neighbourhood, named Guignon—whose fidelity was
assured not only by his apparent piety, but by the circumstance that two of
his sons belonged to Cavalier's band.

No sooner, however, had the Camisards lain down to sleep than the
miller, possessed by the demon of gold, set out directly for Alais, about
three miles distant, and, reaching the quarters of Montrevel, sold the secret
of Cavalier's sleeping-place to the marshal for fifty pieces of gold, and
together with it the lives of his own sons and their fifteen hundred
companions.

The marshal forthwith mustered all the available troops in Alais,
consisting of eight regiments of foot (of which one was Irish) and two of
dragoons, and set out at once for the Tower of Belliot, taking the precaution
to set a strict guard upon all the gates, to prevent the possibility of any
messenger leaving the place to warn Cavalier of his approach. The
Royalists crept towards the tower in three bodies, so as to cut off their

retreat in every direction. Meanwhile, the Camisards, unapprehensive of
danger, lay wrapped in slumber, filling the tower, the barns, the stables, and
outhouses.

The night was dark, and favoured the Royalists' approach. Suddenly, one
of their divisions came upon the advanced Camisard sentinels. They fired,
but were at once cut down. Those behind fled back to the sleeping camp,
and raised the cry of alarm. Cavalier started up, calling his men "to arms,"
and, followed by about four hundred, he precipitated himself on the heads
of the advancing columns. Driven back, they rallied again, more troops
coming up to their support, and again they advanced to the attack.

To his dismay, Cavalier found the enemy in overwhelming force,
enveloping his whole position. By great efforts he held them back until
some four or five hundred more of his men had joined him, and then he
gave way and retired behind a ravine or hollow, probably forming part of
the fosse of the ancient château. Having there rallied his followers, he
recrossed the ravine to make another desperate effort to relieve the
remainder of his troop shut up in the tower.

A desperate encounter followed, in the midst of which two of the royalist
columns, mistaking each other for enemies in the darkness, fired into each
other and increased the confusion and the carnage. The moon rose on this
dreadful scene, and revealed to the Royalists the smallness of the force
opposed to them. The struggle was renewed again and again; Cavalier still
seeking to relieve those shut up in the tower, and the Royalists, now
concentrated and in force, to surround and destroy him.

At length, after the struggle had lasted for about five hours, Cavalier, in
order to save the rest of his men, resolved on retiring before daybreak; and
he succeeded in effecting his retreat without being pursued by the enemy.

The three hundred Camisards who continued shut up in the tower refused
to surrender. They transformed the ruin into a fortress, barricading every
entrance, and firing from every loophole. When their ammunition was
expended, they hurled stones, joists, and tiles down upon their assailants
from the summit of the tower. For four more hours they continued to hold
out. Cannon were sent for from Alais, to blow in the doors; but before they

arrived all was over. The place had been set on fire by hand grenades, and
the imprisoned Camisards, singing psalms amidst the flames to their last
breath, perished to a man.

This victory cost Montrevel dear. He lost some twelve hundred dead and
wounded before the fatal Tower of Belliot; whilst Cavalier's loss was not
less than four hundred dead, of whom a hundred and eighteen were found at
daybreak along the brink of the ravine. One of these was mistaken for the
body of Cavalier; on which Montrevel, with characteristic barbarity,
ordered the head to be cut off and sent to Cavalier's mother for
identification!

From the slight glimpses we obtain of the man Montrevel in the course of
these deplorable transactions, there seems to have been something ineffably
mean and spiteful in his nature. Thus, on another occasion, in a fit of rage at
having been baffled by the young Camisard leader, he dispatched a
squadron of dragoons to Ribaute for the express purpose of pulling down
the house in which Cavalier had been born!

A befitting sequel to this sanguinary struggle at the Tower of Belliot was
the fate of Guignon, the miller, who had betrayed the sleeping Camisards to
Montrevel. His crime was discovered. The gold was found upon him. He
was tried, and condemned to death. The Camisards, under arms, assembled
to see the sentence carried out. They knelt round the doomed man, while the
prophets by turn prayed for his soul, and implored the clemency of the
Sovereign Judge. Guignon professed the utmost contrition, besought the
pardon of his brethren, and sought leave to embrace for the last time his two
sons—privates in the Camisard ranks. The two young men, however,
refused the proffered embrace with a gesture of apparent disgust; and they
looked on, the sad and stern spectators of the traitor's punishment.

Again Montrevel thought he had succeeded in crushing the insurrection,
and that he had cut off its head with that of the Camisard chief. But his
supposed discovery of the dead body proved an entire mistake; and not
many days elapsed before Cavalier made his appearance before the gates of
Alais, and sent in a challenge to the governor to come out and fight him.
And it is to be observed that by this time a fiercely combative spirit, of
fighting for fighting's sake, began to show itself among the Camisards.

Thus, Castanet appeared one day before the gates of Meyreuis, where the
regiment of Cordes was stationed, and challenged the colonel to come out
and fight him in the open; but the challenge was declined. On another
occasion, Cavalier in like manner challenged the commander of Vic to bring
out thirty of his soldiers and fight thirty Camisards. The challenge was
accepted, and the battle took place; they fought until ten men only remained
alive on either side, but the Camisards were masters of the field.

Montrevel only redoubled his efforts to exterminate the Camisards. He
had no other policy. In the summer of 1703 the Pope (Clement XI.) came to
his assistance, issuing a bull against the rebels as being of "the execrable
race of the ancient Albigenses," and promising "absolute and general
remission of sins" to all such as should join the holy militia of Louis XIV. in
"exterminating the cursed heretics and miscreants, enemies alike of God
and of Cæsar."

A special force was embodied with this object—the Florentines, or
"White Camisards"—distinguished by the white cross which they wore in
front of their hats. They were for the most part composed of desperadoes
and miscreants, and went about pillaging and burning, with so little
discrimination between friend and foe, that the Catholics themselves
implored the marshal to suppress them. These Florentines were the
perpetrators of such barbarities that Roland determined to raise a body of
cavalry to hunt them down; and with that object, Catinat, the old dragoon,
went down to the Camargues—a sort of island-prairies lying between the
mouths of the Rhône—where the Arabs had left a hardy breed of horses;
and there he purchased some two hundred steeds wherewith to mount the
Camisard horse, to the command of which Catinat was himself appointed.

It is unnecessary to particularise the variety of combats, of marchings and
countermarchings, which occurred during the progress of the insurrection.
Between the contending parties, the country was reduced to a desert. Tillage
ceased, for there was no certainty of the cultivator reaping the crop; more
likely it would be carried off or burnt by the conflicting armies. Beggars
and vagabonds wandered about robbing and plundering without regard to
party or religion; and social security was entirely at an end.

Meanwhile, Montrevel still called for more troops. Of the twenty
battalions already entrusted to him, more than one-third had perished; and
still the insurrection was not suppressed. He hoped, however, that the work
was now accomplished; and, looking to the wasted condition of the country,
that the famine and cold of the winter of 1703-4 would complete the
destruction of such of the rebels as still survived.

During the winter, however, the Camisard chiefs had not only been able
to keep their forces together, but to lay up a considerable store of provisions
and ammunition, principally by captures from the enemy; and in the
following spring they were in a position to take the field in even greater
force than ever. They, indeed, opened the campaign by gaining two
important victories over the Royalists; but though they were their greatest,
they were also nearly their last.

The battle of Martinargues was the Cannæ of the Camisards. It was
fought near the village of that name, not far from Ners, early in the spring
of 1704. The campaign had been opened by the Florentines, who, now that
they had made a desert of the Upper Cevennes, were burning and ravaging
the Protestant villages of the plain. Cavalier had put himself on their track,
and pursued and punished them so severely, that in their distress they called
upon Montrevel to help them, informing him of the whereabouts of the
Camisards.

A strong royalist force of horse and foot was immediately sent in pursuit,
under the command of Brigadier Lajonquière. He first marched upon the
Protestant village of Lascours, where Cavalier had passed the previous
night. The brigadier severely punished the inhabitants for sheltering the
Camisards, putting to death four persons, two of them girls, whom he
suspected to be Cavalier's prophetesses. On the people refusing to indicate
the direction in which the Camisards had gone, he gave the village up to
plunder, and the soldiers passed several hours ransacking the place, in the
course of which they broke open and pillaged the wine-cellars.

Meanwhile, Cavalier and his men had proceeded in a northerly direction,
along the right bank of the little river Droude, one of the affluents of the
Gardon. A messenger from Lascours overtook him, telling him of the
outrages committed on the inhabitants of the village; and shortly after, the

inhabitants of Lascours themselves came up—men, women, and children,
who had been driven from their pillaged homes by the royalist soldiery.
Cavalier was enraged at the recital of their woes; and though his force was
not one-sixth the strength of the enemy, he determined to meet their
advance and give them battle.

Placing the poor people of Lascours in safety, the Camisard leader took
up his position on a rising ground at the head of a little valley close to the
village of Martinargues. Cavalier himself occupied the centre, his front
being covered by a brook running in the hollow of a ravine. Ravanel and
Catinat, with a small body of men, were posted along the two sides of the
valley, screened by brushwood. The approaching Royalists, seeing before
them only the feeble force of Cavalier, looked upon his capture as certain.

"See!" cried Lajonquière, "at last we have hold of the Barbets we have
been so long looking for!" With his dragoons in the centre, flanked by the
grenadiers and foot, the Royalists advanced with confidence to the charge.
At the first volley, the Camisards prostrated themselves, and the bullets
went over their heads. Thinking they had fallen before his fusillade, the
commander ordered his men to cross the ravine and fall upon the remnant
with the bayonet. Instantly, however, Cavalier's men started to their feet,
and smote the assailants with a deadly volley, bringing down men and
horses. At the same moment, the two wings, until then concealed, fired
down upon the Royalists and completed their confusion. The Camisards,
then raising their battle-psalm, rushed forward and charged the enemy. The
grenadiers resisted stoutly, but after a few minutes the entire body—
dragoons, grenadiers, marines, and Irish—fled down the valley towards the
Gardon, and the greater number of those who were not killed were
drowned, Lajonquière himself escaping with difficulty.

In this battle perished a colonel, a major, thirty-three captains and
lieutenants, and four hundred and fifty men, while Cavalier's loss was only
about twenty killed and wounded. A great booty was picked up on the field,
of gold, silver, jewels, ornamented swords, magnificent uniforms, scarfs,
and clothing, besides horses, as well as the plunder brought from Lascours.

The opening of the Lascours wine-cellars proved the ruin of the
Royalists, for many of the men were so drunk that they were unable either

to fight or fly. After returning thanks to God on the battle-field, Cavalier
conducted the rejoicing people of Lascours back to their village, and
proceeded to his head-quarters at Bouquet with his booty and his trophies.

Another encounter shortly followed at the Bridge of Salindres, about
midway between Auduze and St. Jean du Gard, in which Roland inflicted
an equally decisive defeat on a force commanded by Brigadier Lalande.
Informed of the approach of the Royalists, Roland posted his little army in
the narrow, precipitous, and rocky valley, along the bottom of which runs
the river Gardon. Dividing his men into three bodies, he posted one on the
bridge, another in ambuscade at the entrance to the defile, and a third on the
summit of the precipice overhanging the road.

The Royalists had scarcely advanced to the attack of the bridge, when the
concealed Camisards rushed out and assailed their rear, while those
stationed above hurled down rocks and stones, which threw them into
complete disorder. They at once broke and fled, rushing down to the river,
into which they threw themselves; and but for Roland's neglect in guarding
the steep footpath leading to the ford at the mill, the whole body would
have been destroyed. As it was, they suffered heavy loss, the general
himself escaping with difficulty, leaving his white-plumed hat behind him
in the hands of the Camisards.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VIII.

END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION.

The insurrection in the Cevennes had continued for more than two years,
when at length it began to excite serious uneasiness at Versailles. It was felt
to be a source of weakness as well as danger to France, then at war with
Portugal, England, and Savoy. What increased the alarm of the French
Government was the fact that the insurgents were anxiously looking abroad
for help, and endeavouring to excite the Protestant governments of the
North to strike a blow in their behalf.

England and Holland had been especially appealed to. Large numbers of
Huguenot soldiers were then serving in the English army; and it was
suggested that if they could effect a landing on the coast of Languedoc, and
co-operate with the Camisards, it would at the same time help the cause of
religious liberty, and operate as a powerful diversion in favour of the
confederate armies, then engaged with the armies of France in the Low
Countries and on the Rhine.

In order to ascertain the feasibility of the proposed landing, and the
condition of the Camisard insurgents, the ministry of Queen Anne sent the
Marquis de Miremont, a Huguenot refugee in England, on a mission to the
Cevennes; and he succeeded in reaching the insurgent camp at St. Felix,
where he met Roland and the other leaders, and arranged with them for the
descent of a body of Huguenot soldiers on the coast.

In the month of September, 1703, the English fleet was descried in the
Gulf of Lyons, off Aiguesmortes, making signals, which, however, were not
answered. Marshal Montrevel had been warned of the intended invasion;
and, summoning troops from all quarters, he so effectually guarded the
coast, that a landing was found impracticable. Though Cavalier was near at
hand, he was unable at any point to communicate with the English ships;
and after lying off for a few days, they spread their sails, and the
disheartened Camisards saw their intended liberators disappear in the
distance.

The ministers of Louis XIV. were greatly alarmed by this event. The
invasion had been frustrated for the time, but the English fleet might return,
and eventually succeed in effecting a landing. The danger, therefore, had to
be provided against, and at once. It became clear, even to Louis XIV.
himself, that the system of terror and coercion which had heretofore been
exclusively employed against the insurgents, had proved a total failure. It
was accordingly determined to employ some other means, if possible, of
bringing this dangerous insurrection to an end. In pursuance of this object,
Montrevel, to his intense mortification, was recalled, and the celebrated
Marshal Villars, the victor of Hochstadt and Friedlingen, was appointed in
his stead, with full powers to undertake and carry out the pacification of
Languedoc.

Villars reached Nismes towards the end of August, 1704; but before his
arrival, Montrevel at last succeeded in settling accounts with Cavalier, and
wiped out many old scores by inflicting upon him the severest defeat the
Camisard arms had yet received. It was his first victory over Cavalier, and
his last.

Cavalier's recent successes had made him careless. Having so often
overcome the royal troops against great odds, he began to think himself
invincible, and to despise his enemy. His success at Martinargues had the
effect of greatly increasing his troops; and he made a descent upon the low
country in the spring of 1704, at the head of about a thousand foot and two
hundred horse.

Appearing before Bouciran, which he entered without resistance, he
demolished the fortifications, and proceeded southwards to St. Géniès,
which he attacked and took, carrying away horses, mules, and arms. Next
day he marched still southward to Caveirac, only about three miles east of
Nismes.

Montrevel designedly published his intention of taking leave of his
government on a certain day, and proceeding to Montpellier with only a
very slender force—pretending to send the remainder to Beaucaire, in the
opposite direction, for the purpose of escorting Villars, his successor, into
the city. His object in doing this was to deceive the Camisard leader, and to
draw him into a trap.

The intelligence became known to Cavalier, who now watched the
Montpellier road, for the purpose of inflicting a parting blow upon his
often-baffled enemy. Instead, however, of Montrevel setting out for
Montpellier with a small force, he mustered almost the entire troops
belonging to the garrison of Nismes—over six thousand horse and foot—
and determined to overwhelm Cavalier, who lay in his way. Montrevel
divided his force into several bodies, and so disposed them as completely to
surround the comparatively small Camisard force, near Langlade. The first
encounter was with the royalist regiment of Firmarcon, which Cavalier
completely routed; but while pursuing them too keenly, the Camisards were
assailed in flank by a strong body of foot posted in vineyards along the
road, and driven back upon the main body. The Camisards now discovered

that a still stronger battalion was stationed in their rear; and, indeed,
wherever they turned, they saw the Royalists posted in force. There was no
alternative but cutting their way through the enemy; and Cavalier, putting
himself at the head of his men, led the way, sword in hand.

A terrible struggle ensued, and the Camisards at last reached the bridge at
Rosni; but there, too, the Royalists were found blocking the road, and
crowding the heights on either side. Cavalier, to avoid recognition, threw
off his uniform, and assumed the guise of a simple Camisard. Again he
sought to force his way through the masses of the enemy. His advance was
a series of hand-to-hand fights, extending over some six miles, and the
struggle lasted for nearly the entire day. More than a thousand dead strewed
the roads, of whom one half were Camisards. The Royalists took five
drums, sixty-two horses, and four mules laden with provisions, but not one
prisoner.

When Villars reached Nismes and heard of this battle, he went to see the
field, and expressed his admiration at the skill and valour of the Camisard
chief. "Here is a man," said he, "of no education, without any experience in
the art of war, who has conducted himself under the most difficult and
delicate circumstances as if he had been a great general. Truly, to fight such
a battle were worthy of Cæsar!"

Indeed, the conduct of Cavalier in this struggle so impressed Marshal
Villars, that he determined, if possible, to gain him over, together with his
brave followers, to the ranks of the royal army. Villars was no bigot, but a
humane and honourable man, and a thorough soldier. He deplored the
continuance of this atrocious war, and proceeded to take immediate steps to
bring it, if possible, to a satisfactory conclusion.

In the meantime, however, the defeat of the Camisards had been followed
by other reverses. During the absence of Cavalier in the South, the royalist
general Lalande, at the head of five thousand troops, fell upon the joint
forces of Roland and Joany at Brenoux, and completely defeated them. The
same general lay in wait for the return of Cavalier with his broken forces, to
his retreat near Euzet; and on his coming up, the Royalists, in overpowering
numbers, fell upon the dispirited Camisards, and inflicted upon them
another heavy loss.

But a greater calamity, if possible, was the discovery and capture of
Cavalier's magazines in the caverns near Euzet. The royalist soldiers,
having observed an old woman frequently leaving the village for the
adjoining wood with a full basket and returning with an empty one,
suspected her of succouring the rebels, arrested her, and took her before the
general. When questioned at first she would confess nothing; on which she
was ordered forthwith to be hanged. When taken to the gibbet in the
market-place, however, the old woman's resolution gave way, and she
entreated to be taken back to the general, when she would confess
everything. She then acknowledged that she had the care of an hospital in
the adjoining wood, and that her daily errands had been thither. She was
promised pardon if she led the soldiers at once to the place; and she did so,
a battalion following at her heels.

Advancing into the wood, the old woman led the soldiers to the mouth of
a cavern, into which she pointed, and the men entered. The first sight that
met their eyes was a number of sick and wounded Camisards lying upon
couches along ledges cut in the rock. They were immediately put to death.
Entering further into the cavern, the soldiers were surprised to find in an
inner vault an immense magazine of grain, flour, chestnuts, beans, barrels of
wine and brandy; farther in, stores of drugs, ointment, dressings, and
hospital furnishings; and finally, an arsenal containing a large store of
sabres, muskets, pistols, and gunpowder, together with the materials for
making it; all of which the Royalists seized and carried off.

Lalande, before leaving Euzet, inflicted upon it a terrible punishment. He
gave it up to pillage, then burnt it to the ground, and put the inhabitants to
the sword—all but the old woman, who was left alone amidst the corpses
and ashes of the ruined village. Lalande returned in triumph to Alais, some
of his soldiers displaying on the points of their bayonets the ears of the slain
Camisards.

Other reverses followed in quick succession. Salomon was attacked near
Pont-de-Montvert, the birthplace of the insurrection, and lost some eight
hundred of his men. His magazines at Magistavols were also discovered
and ransacked, containing, amongst other stores, twenty oxen and a hundred
sheep.

Thus, in four combats, the Camisards lost nearly half their forces,
together with a large part of their arms, ammunition, and provisions. The
country occupied by them had been ravaged and reduced to a state of
desert, and there seemed but little prospect of their again being able to make
head against their enemies.

The loss of life during the last year of the insurrection had been frightful.
Some twenty thousand men had perished—eight thousand soldiers, four
thousand of the Roman Catholic population, and from seven to eight
thousand Protestants.

Villars had no sooner entered upon the functions of his office than he set
himself to remedy this dreadful state of things. He was encouraged in his
wise intentions by the Baron D'Aigalliers, a Protestant nobleman of high
standing and great influence, who had emigrated into England at the
Revocation, but had since returned. This nobleman entertained the ardent
desire of reconciling the King with his Protestant subjects; and he was
encouraged by the French Court to endeavour to bring the rebels of the
Cevennes to terms.

One of the first things Villars did, was to proceed on a journey through
the devastated districts; and he could not fail to be horrified at the sight of
the villages in ruins, the wasted vineyards, the untilled fields, and the
deserted homesteads which met his eyes on every side. Wherever he went,
he gave it out that he was ready to pardon all persons—rebels as well as
their chiefs—who should lay down their arms and submit to the royal
clemency; but that, if they continued obstinate and refused to submit, he
would proceed against them to the last extremity. He even offered to put
arms in the hands of such of the Protestant population as would co-operate
with him in suppressing the insurrection.

In the meantime, the defeated Camisards under Roland were reorganizing
their forces, and preparing again to take the field. They were unwilling to
submit themselves to the professed clemency of Villars, without some
sufficient guarantee that their religious rights—in defence of which they
had taken up arms—would be respected. Roland was already establishing
new magazines in place of those which had been destroyed; he was again

recruiting his brigades from the Protestant communes, and many of those
who had recovered from their wounds again rallied under his standard.

At this juncture, D'Aigalliers suggested to Villars that a negotiation
should be opened directly with the Camisard chiefs to induce them to lay
down their arms. Roland refused to listen to any overtures; but Cavalier was
more accessible, and expressed himself willing to negotiate for peace
provided his religion was respected and recognised.

And Cavalier was right. He saw clearly that longer resistance was futile,
that it could only end in increased devastation and destruction; and he was
wise in endeavouring to secure the best possible terms under the
circumstances for his suffering co-religionists. Roland, who refused all such
overtures, was the more uncompromising and tenacious of purpose; but
Cavalier, notwithstanding his extreme youth, was by far the more practical
and politic of the two.

There is no doubt also that Cavalier had begun to weary of the struggle.
He became depressed and sad, and even after a victory he would kneel
down amidst the dead and wounded, and pray to God that He would turn
the heart of the King to mercy, and help to re-establish the ancient temples
throughout the land.

An interview with Cavalier was eventually arranged by Lalande. The
brigadier invited him to a conference, guaranteeing him safe conduct, and
intimating that if he refused the meeting, he would be regarded as the
enemy of peace, and held responsible before God and man for all future
bloodshed. Cavalier replied to Lalande's invitation, accepting the interview,
indicating the place and the time of meeting.

Catinat, the Camisard general of horse, was the bearer of Cavalier's letter,
and he rode on to Alais to deliver it, arrayed in magnificent costume.
Lalande was at table when Catinat was shown in to him. Observing the
strange uniform and fierce look of the intruder, the brigadier asked who he
was. "Catinat!" was the reply. "What," cried Lalande, "are you the Catinat
who killed so many people in Beaucaire?" "Yes, it is I," said Catinat, "and I
only endeavoured to do my duty." "You are hardy, indeed, to dare to show
yourself before me." "I have come," said the Camisard, "in good faith,

persuaded that you are an honest man, and on the assurance of my brother
Cavalier that you would do me no harm. I come to deliver you his letter."
And so saying, he handed it to the brigadier. Hastily perusing the letter,
Lalande said, "Go back to Cavalier, and tell him that in two hours I shall be
at the Bridge of Avène with only ten officers and thirty dragoons."

The interview took place at the time appointed, on the bridge over the
Avène, a few miles south of Alais. Cavalier arrived, attended by three
hundred foot and sixty Camisard dragoons. When the two chiefs recognised
each other, they halted their escorts, dismounted, and, followed by some
officers, proceeded on foot to meet each other.

Lalande had brought with him Cavalier's younger brother, who had been
for some time a prisoner, and presented him, saying, "The King gives him
to you in token of his merciful intentions." The brothers, who had not met
since their mother's death, embraced and wept. Cavalier thanked the
general; and then, leaving their officers, the two went on one side, and
conferred together alone.

"The King," said Lalande, "wishes, in the exercise of his clemency, to
terminate this war amongst his subjects; what are your terms and your
demands?" "They consist of three things," replied Cavalier: "liberty of
worship; the deliverance of our brethren who are in prison and at the
galleys; and, if the first condition be refused, then free permission to leave
France." "How many persons would wish to leave the kingdom?" asked
Lalande. "Ten thousand of various ages and both sexes." "Ten thousand! It
is impossible! Leave might possibly be granted for two, but certainly not for
ten." "Then," said Cavalier, "if the King will not allow us to leave the
kingdom, he will at least re-establish our ancient edicts and privileges?"

Lalande promised to report the result of the conference to the marshal,
though he expressed a doubt whether he could agree to the terms proposed.
The brigadier took leave of Cavalier by expressing the desire to be of
service to him at any time; but he made a gross and indelicate mistake in
offering his purse to the Camisard chief. "No, no!" said Cavalier, rejecting it
with a look of contempt, "I wish for none of your gold, but only for
religious liberty, or, if that be refused, for a safe conduct out of the
kingdom."

Lalande then asked to be taken up to the Camisard troop, who had been
watching the proceedings of their leader with great interest. Coming up to
them in the ranks, he said, "Here is a purse of a hundred louis with which to
drink the King's health." Their reply was like their leader's, "We want no
money, but liberty of conscience." "It is not in my power to grant you that,"
said the general, "but you will do well to submit to the King's will." "We are
ready," said they, "to obey his orders, provided he grants our just demands;
but if not, we are prepared to die arms in hand." And thus ended this
memorable interview, which lasted for about two hours; Lalande and his
followers returning to Alais, while Cavalier went with his troop in the
direction of Vezenobres.

Cavalier's enemies say that in the course of his interview with Lalande he
was offered honours, rewards, and promotion, if he would enter the King's
service; and it is added that Cavalier was tempted by these offers, and
thereby proved false to his cause and followers. But it is more probable that
Cavalier was sincere in his desire to come to fair terms with the King,
observing the impossibility, under the circumstances, of prolonging the
struggle against the royal armies with any reasonable prospect of success. If
Cavalier were really bribed by any such promises of promotion, at all
events such promises were never fulfilled; nor did the French monarch
reward him in any way for his endeavours to bring the Camisard
insurrection to an end.

It was characteristic of Roland to hold aloof from these negotiations, and
refuse to come to any terms whatever with "Baal." As if to separate himself
entirely from Cavalier, he withdrew into the Upper Cevennes to resume the
war. At the very time that Cavalier was holding the conference with the
royalist general at the Bridge of the Avène, Roland and Joany, with a body
of horse and foot, waylaid the Count de Tournou at the plateau of Font-
morte—the place where Seguier, the first Camisard leader, had been
defeated and captured—and suddenly fell upon the Royalists, putting them
to flight.

A rich booty fell into the hands of the Camisards, part of which consisted
of the quarter's rental of the confiscated estate of Salgas, in the possession
of the King's collector, Viala, whom the royalist troops were escorting to St.

Jean de Gard. The collector, who had made himself notorious for his
cruelty, was put to death after frightful torment, and his son and nephew
were also shot. So far, therefore, as Roland and his associates were
concerned, there appeared to be no intention of surrender or compromise;
and Villars was under the necessity of prosecuting the war against them to
the last extremity.

In the meantime, Cavalier was hailed throughout the low country as the
pacificator of Languedoc. The people on both sides had become heartily
sick of the war, and were glad to be rid of it on any terms that promised
peace and security for the future. At the invitation of Marshal Villars,
Cavalier proceeded towards Nismes, and his march from town to town was
one continuous ovation. He was eagerly welcomed by the population; and
his men were hospitably entertained by the garrisons of the places through
which they passed. Every liberty was allowed him; and not a day passed
without a religious meeting being held, accompanied with public preaching,
praying, and psalm-singing. At length Cavalier and his little army
approached the neighbourhood of Nismes, where his arrival was anticipated
with extraordinary interest.

The beautiful old city had witnessed many strange sights; but probably
the entry of the young Camisard chief was one of the most remarkable of
all. This herd-boy and baker's apprentice of the Cevennes, after holding at
bay the armies of France for nearly three years, had come to negotiate a
treaty of peace with its most famous general. Leaving the greater part of his
cavalry and the whole of his infantry at St. Césaire, a few miles from
Nismes, Cavalier rode towards the town attended by eighteen horsemen
commanded by Catinat. On approaching the southern gate, he found an
immense multitude waiting his arrival. "He could not have been more
royally welcomed," said the priest of St. Germain, "had he been a king."

Cavalier rode at the head of his troop gaily attired; for fine dress was one
of the weaknesses of the Camisard chiefs. He wore a tight-fitting doeskin
coat ornamented with gold lace, scarlet breeches, a muslin cravat, and a
large beaver with a white plume; his long fair hair hanging over his
shoulders. Catinat rode by his side on a high-mettled charger, attracting all
eyes by his fine figure, his martial air, and his magnificent costume.

Cavalier's faithful friend, Daniel Billard, rode on his left; and behind
followed his little brother in military uniform, between the Baron
d'Aigalliers and Lacombe, the agents for peace.

The cavalcade advanced through the dense crowd, which could with
difficulty be kept back, past the Roman Amphitheatre, and along the Rue St.
Antoine, to the Garden of the Récollets, a Franciscan convent, nearly
opposite the elegant Roman temple known as the Maison Carrée.[45]
Alighting from his horse at the gate, and stationing his guard there under
the charge of Catinat, Cavalier entered the garden, and was conducted to
Marshal Villars, with whom was Baville, intendant of the province; Baron
Sandricourt, governor of Nismes; General Lalande, and other dignitaries.
Cavalier looked such a mere boy, that Villars at first could scarcely believe
that it was the celebrated Camisard chief who stood before him. The
marshal, however, advanced several steps, and addressed some
complimentary words to Cavalier, to which he respectfully replied.

The conference then began and proceeded, though not without frequent
interruptions from Baville, who had so long regarded Cavalier as a
despicable rebel, that he could scarcely brook the idea of the King's marshal
treating with him on anything like equal terms. But the marshal checked the
intendant by reminding him that he had no authority to interfere in a matter
which the King had solely entrusted to himself. Then turning to Cavalier, he
asked him to state his conditions for a treaty of peace.

Cavalier has set forth in his memoirs the details of the conditions
proposed by him, and which he alleges were afterwards duly agreed to and
signed by Villars and Baville, on the 17th of May, 1704, on the part of the
King. The first condition was liberty of conscience, with the privilege of
holding religious assemblies in country places. This was agreed to, subject
to the Protestant temples not being rebuilt. The second—that all Protestants
in prison or at the galleys should be set at liberty within six weeks from the
date of the treaty—was also agreed to. The third—that all who had left the
kingdom on account of their religion should have liberty to return, and be
restored to their estates and privileges—was agreed to, subject to their
taking the oath of allegiance. The fourth—as to the re-establishment of the
parliament of Languedoc on its ancient footing—was promised

consideration. The fifth and sixth—that the province should be free from
capitation tax for ten years, and that the Protestants should hold
Montpellier, Cette, Perpignan, and Aiguesmortes, as cautionary towns—
were refused. The seventh—that those inhabitants of the Cevennes whose
houses had been burnt during the civil war should pay no imposts for seven
years—was granted. And the eighth—that Cavalier should raise a regiment
of dragoons to serve the King in Portugal—was also granted.

These conditions are said to have been agreed to on the distinct
understanding that the insurrection should forthwith cease, and that all
persons in arms against the King should lay them down and submit
themselves to his majesty's clemency.

The terms having been generally agreed to, Cavalier respectfully took his
leave of the marshal, and returned to his comrades at the gate. But Catinat
and the Camisard guard had disappeared. The conference had lasted two
hours, during which Cavalier's general of horse had become tired of
waiting, and gone with his companions to refresh himself at the sign of the
Golden Cup. On his way thither, he witched the world of Nismes with his
noble horsemanship, making his charger bound and prance and curvet,
greatly to the delight of the immense crowd that followed him.

On the return of the Camisard guard to the Récollets, Cavalier mounted
his horse, and, escorted by them, proceeded to the Hôtel de la Poste, where
he rested. In the evening, he came out on the Esplanade, and walked freely
amidst the crowd, amongst whom were many ladies, eager to see the
Camisard hero, and happy if they could but hear him speak, or touch his
dress. He then went to visit the mother of Daniel, his favourite prophet, a
native of Nismes, whose father and brother were both prisoners because of
their religion. Returning to the hotel, Cavalier mustered his guard, and set
out for Calvisson, followed by hundreds of people, singing together as they
passed through the town gate the 133rd Psalm—"Behold, how good and
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"

Cavalier remained with his companions at Calvisson for eight days,
during which he enjoyed the most perfect freedom of action. He held public
religious services daily, at first amidst the ruins of the demolished
Protestant temple, and afterwards, when the space was insufficient, in the

open plain outside the town walls. People came from all quarters to attend
them—from the Vaunage, from Sommières, from Lunel, from Nismes, and
even from Montpellier. As many as forty thousand persons are said to have
resorted to the services during Cavalier's sojourn at Calvisson. The plains
resounded with preaching and psalmody from morning until evening,
sometimes until late at night, by torchlight.

These meetings were a great cause of offence to the more bigoted of the
Roman Catholics, who saw in them the triumph of their enemies. They
muttered audibly against the policy of Villars, who was tolerating if not
encouraging heretics—worthy, in their estimation, only of perdition.
Fléchier, Bishop of Nismes, was full of lamentations on the subject, and did
not scruple to proclaim that war, with all its horrors, was even more
tolerable than such a peace as this.

Unhappily, the peace proved only of short duration, and Cavalier's
anticipations of unity and brotherly love were not destined to be fulfilled.
Whether Roland was jealous of the popularity achieved by Cavalier, or
suspected treachery on the part of the Royalists, or whether he still believed
in the ability of his followers to conquer religious liberty and compel the re-
establishment of the ancient edicts by the sword, does not clearly appear. At
all events, he refused to be committed in any way by what Cavalier had
done; and when the treaty entered into with Villars was submitted to Roland
for approval, he refused to sign it. A quarrel had almost occurred between
the chiefs, and hot words passed between them. But Cavalier controlled
himself, and still hoped to persuade Roland to adopt a practicable course,
and bring the unhappy war to a conclusion.

It was at length agreed between them that a further effort should be made
to induce Villars to grant more liberal terms, particularly with respect to the
rebuilding of the Protestant temples; and Cavalier consented that Salomon
should accompany him to an interview with the marshal, and endeavour to
obtain such a modification of the treaty as should meet Roland's views.
Accordingly, another meeting shortly after took place in the Garden of the
Récollets at Nismes, Cavalier leaving it to Salomon to be the spokesman on
the occasion.

But Salomon proved as uncompromising as his chief. He stated his
ultimatum bluntly and firmly—re-establishment of the Edict of Nantes, and
complete liberty of conscience. On no other terms, he said, would the
Camisards lay down their arms. Villars was courtly and polite as usual, but
he was as firm as Salomon. He would adhere to the terms that had been
agreed to, but could not comply with the conditions proposed. The
discussion lasted for two hours, and at length became stormy and
threatening on the part of Salomon, on which the marshal turned on his heel
and left the apartment.

Cavalier's followers had not yet been informed of the conditions of the
treaty into which he had entered with Villars, but they had been led to
believe that the Edict was to be re-established and liberty of worship
restored. Their suspicions had already been roused by the hints thrown out
by Ravanel, who was as obdurate as Roland in his refusal to lay down his
arms until the Edict had been re-established.

While Cavalier was still at Nismes, on his second mission to Villars,
accompanied by Salomon, Ravanel, who had been left in charge of the
troop at Calvisson, assembled the men, and told them he feared they were
being betrayed—that they were to be refused this free exercise of their
religion in temples of their own, but were to be required to embark as
King's soldiers on shipboard, perhaps to perish at sea. "Brethren," said he,
"let us cling by our own native land, and live and die for the Eternal." The
men enthusiastically applauded the stern resolve of Ravanel, and awaited
with increasing impatience the return of the negotiating chief.

On Cavalier's return to his men, he found, to his dismay, that instead of
being welcomed back with the usual cordiality, they were drawn up in arms
under Ravanel, and received him in silence, with angry and scowling looks.
He upbraided Ravanel for such a reception, on which the storm
immediately burst. "What is the treaty, then," cried Ravanel, "that thou hast
made with this marshal?"

Cavalier, embarrassed, evaded the inquiry; but Ravanel, encouraged by
his men, proceeded to press for the information. "Well," said Cavalier, "it is
arranged that we shall go to serve in Portugal." There was at once a violent

outburst from the ranks. "Traitor! coward! then thou hast sold us! But we
shall have no peace—no peace without our temples."

At sound of the loud commotion and shouting, Vincel, the King's
commissioner, who remained at Calvisson pending the negotiations, came
running up, and the men in their rage would have torn him to pieces, but
Cavalier threw himself in their way, exclaiming, "Back, men! Do him no
harm, kill me instead." His voice, his gesture, arrested the Camisards, and
Vincel turned and fled for his life.

Ravanel then ordered the générale to be beaten. The men drew up in their
ranks, and putting himself at their head, Ravanel marched them out of
Calvisson by the northern gate. Cavalier, humiliated and downcast,
followed the troop—their leader no more. He could not part with them thus
—the men he had so often led to victory, and who had followed him so
devotedly—but hung upon their rear, hoping they would yet relent and
return to him as their chief.

Catinat, his general of horse, observing Cavalier following the men,
turned upon him. "Whither wouldst thou go, traitor?" cried Catinat. What!
Catinat, of all others, to prove unfaithful? Yet it was so! Catinat even,
presented his pistol at his former chief, but he did not fire.

Cavalier would not yet turn back. He hung upon the skirts of the column,
entreating, supplicating, adjuring the men, by all their former love for him,
to turn, and follow him. But they sternly marched on, scarcely even
deigning to answer him. Ravanel endeavoured to drive him back by
reproaches, which at length so irritated Cavalier, that he drew his sword,
and they were about to rush at each other, when one of the prophets ran
between them and prevented bloodshed.

Cavalier did not desist from following them for several miles, until at
length, on reaching St. Estève, the men were appealed to as to whom they
would follow, and they declared themselves for Ravanel. Cavalier made a
last appeal to their allegiance, and called out, "Let those who love me,
follow me!" About forty of his old adherents detached themselves from the
ranks, and followed Cavalier in the direction of Nismes. But the principal
body remained with Ravanel, who, waving his sabre in the air, and

shouting, "Vive l'Épée de l'Éternel!" turned his men's faces northward and
marched on to rejoin Roland in the Upper Cevennes.

Cavalier was completely prostrated by the desertion of his followers. He
did not know where next to turn. He could not rejoin the Camisard camp
nor enter the villages of the Cevennes, and he was ashamed to approach
Villars, lest he should be charged with deceiving him. But he sent a letter to
the marshal, informing him of the failure of his negotiations, the continued
revolt of the Camisards, and their rejection of him as their chief. Villars,
however, was gentle and generous; he was persuaded that Cavalier had
acted loyally and in good faith throughout, and he sent a message by the
Baron d'Aigalliers, urgently inviting him to return to Nismes and arrange as
to the future. Cavalier accordingly set out forthwith, accompanied by his
brother and the prophet Daniel, and escorted by the ten horsemen and thirty
foot who still remained faithful to his person.

It is not necessary further to pursue the history of Cavalier. Suffice it to
say that, at the request of Marshal Villars, he proceeded to Paris, where he
had an unsatisfactory interview with Louis XIV.; that fearing an intention
on the part of the Roman Catholic party to make him a prisoner, he fled
across the frontier into Switzerland; that he eventually reached England,
and entered the English army, with the rank of Colonel; that he raised a
regiment of refugee Frenchmen, consisting principally of his Camisard
followers, at the head of whom he fought most valiantly at the battle of
Almanza; that he was afterwards appointed governor of Jersey, and died a
major-general in the British service in the year 1740, greatly respected by
all who knew him.

Although Cavalier failed in carrying the treaty into effect, so far as he
was concerned, his secession at this juncture proved a deathblow to the
insurrection. The remaining Camisard leaders endeavoured in vain to incite
that enthusiasm amongst their followers which had so often before led them
to victory. The men felt that they were fighting without hope, and as it were
with halters round their necks. Many of them began to think that Cavalier
had been justified in seeking to secure the best terms practicable; and they
dropped off, by tens and fifties, to join their former leader, whose head-

quarters for some time continued to be at Vallabergue, an island in the
Rhône a little above Beaucaire.

The insurgents were also in a great measure disarmed by Marshal Villars,
who continued to pursue a policy of clemency, and at the same time of
severity. He offered a free pardon to all who surrendered themselves, but
threatened death to all who continued to resist the royal troops. In sign of
his clemency, he ordered the gibbets which had for some years stood en
permanence in all the villages of the Cevennes, to be removed; and he went
from town to town, urging all well-disposed people, of both religions, to co-
operate with him in putting an end to the dreadful civil war that had so long
desolated the province.

Moved by the marshal's eloquent appeals, the principal towns along the
Gardon and the Vidourle appointed deputies to proceed in a body to the
camp of Roland, and induce him if possible to accept the proffered amnesty.
They waited upon him accordingly at his camp of St. Felix and told him
their errand. But his answer was to order them at once to leave the place on
pain of death.

Villars himself sent messengers to Roland—amongst others the Baron
d'Aigalliers—offering to guarantee that no one should be molested on
account of his religion, provided he and his men would lay down their
arms; but Roland remained inflexible—nothing short of complete religious
liberty would induce him to surrender.

Roland and Joany were still at the head of about a thousand men in the
Upper Cevennes. Pont-de-Montvert was at the time occupied by a body of
Miguelets, whom they determined if possible to destroy. Dividing their
army into three bodies, they proceeded to assail simultaneously the three
quarters of which the village is composed. But the commander of the
Miguelets, informed of Roland's intention, was prepared to receive him.
One of the Camisard wings was attacked at the same time in front and rear,
thrown into confusion and defeated; and the other wings were driven back
with heavy loss.

This was Roland's last battle. About a month later—in August, 1704—
while a body of Camisards occupied the Château of Castelnau, not far from

Ners, the place was suddenly surrounded at night by a body of royalist
dragoons. The alarm was raised, and Roland, half-dressed, threw himself on
horseback and fled. He was pursued, overtaken, and brought to a stand in a
wood, where, setting his back to a tree he defended himself bravely for a
time against overpowering numbers, but was at last shot through the heart
by a dragoon, and the Camisard chief lay dead upon the ground.

The insurrection did not long survive the death of Roland. The other
chiefs wandered about from place to place with their followers, but they had
lost heart and hope, and avoided further encounters with the royal forces.
One after another of them surrendered. Castanet and Catinat both laid down
their arms, and were allowed to leave France for Switzerland, accompanied
by twenty-two of their men. Joany also surrendered with forty-six of his
followers.

One by one the other chiefs laid down their arms—all excepting
Abraham and Ravanel, who preferred liberty and misery at home to peace
and exile abroad. They continued for some time to wander about in the
Upper Cevennes, hiding in the woods by day and sleeping in caves by night
—hunted, deserted, and miserable. And thus at last was Languedoc
pacified; and at the beginning of January, 1705, Marshal Villars returned to
Versailles to receive the congratulations and honours of the King.

Several futile attempts were afterwards made by the banished leaders to
rekindle the insurrection from its embers, Catinat and Castanet, wearied of
their inaction at Geneva, stole back across the frontier and rejoined Ravanel
in the Cevennes; but their rashness cost them their lives. They were all
captured and condemned to death. Castanet and Salomon were broken alive
on the wheel on the Peyrou at Montpellier, and Catinat, Ravanel, with
several others, were burnt alive on the Place de la Beaucaire at Nismes.

The last to perish were Abraham and Joany. The one was shot while
holding the royal troops at bay, firing upon them from the roof of a cottage
at Mas-de-Couteau; the other was captured in the mountains near the source
of the Tarn. He was on his way to prison, tied behind a trooper, like Rob
Roy in Scott's novel, when, suddenly freeing himself from his bonds while
crossing the bridge of Pont-de-Montvert, he slid from the horse, and leapt
over the parapet into the Tarn. The soldiers at once opened fire upon the

fugitive, and he fell, pierced with many balls, and was carried away in the
torrent. And thus Pont-de-Montvert, which had seen the beginning, also saw
the end of the insurrection.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IX.

GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH.

After the death of the last of the Camisard leaders, there was no further
effort at revolt. The Huguenots seemed to be entirely put down, and
Protestantism completely destroyed. There was no longer any resistance nor
protest. If there were any Huguenots who had not become Catholics, they
remained mute. Force had at last succeeded in stifling them.

A profound quiet reigned for a time throughout France. The country had
become a circle, closely watched by armed men—by dragoons, infantry,
archers, and coastguards—beyond which the Huguenots could not escape
without running the risk of the prison, the galley, or the gibbet.

The intendants throughout the kingdom flattered Louis XIV., and Louis
XIV. flattered himself, that the Huguenots had either been converted,
extirpated, or expelled the kingdom. The King had medals struck,
announcing the "extinction of heresy." A proclamation to this effect was also
published by the King, dated the 8th of March, 1715, declaring the entire
conversion of the French Huguenots, and sentencing those who, after that
date, relapsed from Catholicism to Protestantism, to all the penalties of
heresy.

What, then, had become of the Huguenots? They were for the moment
prostrate, but their life had not gone out of them. Many were no doubt
"converted." They had not strength to resist the pains and penalties
threatened by the State if they refused. They accordingly attended Mass,
and assisted in ceremonies which at heart they detested. Though they

blushed at their apostasy, they were too much broken down and weary of
oppression and suffering to attempt to be free.

But though many Huguenots pretended to be "converted," the greater
number silently refrained. They held their peace and bided their time.
Meanwhile, however, they were subject to all the annoyances of
persecution. Persecution had seized them from the day of their birth, and
never relaxed its hold until the day of their death. Every new-born child
must be taken to the priest to be baptized. When the children had grown
into boys and girls, they must go to school and be educated, also by the
priest. If their parents refused to send them, the children were forcibly
seized, taken away, and brought up in the Jesuit schools and nunneries. And
lastly, when grown up into young men and women, they must be married by
the priest, or their offspring be declared illegitimate.

The Huguenots refused to conform to all this. Nevertheless, it was by no
means easy to continue to refuse obeying the priest. The priest was well
served with spies, though the principal spy in every parish was himself.
There were also numerous other professional spies—besides idlers,
mischief-makers, and "good-natured friends." In time of peace, also,
soldiers were usually employed in performing the disgraceful duty of acting
as spies upon the Huguenots.

The Huguenot was ordered to attend Mass under the penalty of fine and
imprisonment. Supposing he refused, because he did not believe that the
priest had the miraculous power of converting bread and wine into
something the very opposite. The priest insisted that he did possess this
power, and that he was supported by the State in demanding that the
Huguenot must come and worship his transubstantiation of bread into flesh
and wine into blood. "I do not believe it," said the Huguenot. "But I order
you to come, for Louis XIV. has proclaimed you to be a converted Catholic,
and if you refuse you will be at once subject to all the penalties of heresy."
It was certainly very difficult to argue with a priest who had the hangman at
his back, or with the King who had his hundred thousand dragoons. And so,
perhaps, the threatened Huguenot went to Mass, and pretended to believe
all that the priest had said about his miraculous powers.

But many resolutely continued to refuse, willing to incur the last and
heaviest penalties. Then it came to be seen that Protestantism, although,
declared defunct by the King's edict, had not in fact expired, but was merely
reposing for a time in order to make a fresh start forward. The Huguenots
who still remained in France, whether as "new converts" or as "obstinate
heretics," at length began to emerge from their obscurity. They met together
in caves and solitary places—in deep and rocky gorges—in valleys among
the mountains—where they prayed together, sang together their songs of
David, and took counsel one with another.

At length, from private meetings for prayer, religious assemblies began to
be held in the Desert, and preachers made their appearance. The spies
spread about the country informed the intendants. The meetings were often
surprised by the military. Sometimes the soldiers would come upon them
suddenly, and fire into the crowd of men, women, and children. On some
occasions a hundred persons or more would be killed upon the spot. Of
those taken prisoners, the preachers were hanged or broken on the wheel,
the women were sent to prison, and the children, to nunneries, while the
men were sent to be galley-slaves for life.[46]

The persecutions to which Huguenot women and children were exposed
caused a sudden enlargement of all the prisons and nunneries in France.
Many of the old castles were fitted up as gaols, and even their dungeons
were used for the incorrigible heretics. One of the worst of these was the
Tour de Constance in the town of Aiguesmortes, which is to this day
remembered with horror as the principal dungeon of the Huguenot women.

The town of Aiguesmortes is situated in the department of Gard, close to
the Mediterranean, whose waters wash into the salt marshes and lagunes by
which it is surrounded. It was erected in the thirteenth century for Philip the
Bold, and is still interesting as an example of the ancient feudal fortress.
The fosse has since been filled up, on account of the malaria produced by
the stagnant water which it contained.

The place is approached by a long causeway raised above the marsh, and
the entrance to the tower is spanned by an ancient gatehouse. In advance of
the tower, to the north, in an angle of the wall, is a single, large round tower,
which served as a citadel. It is sixty-six feet in diameter and ninety feet

high, surmounted by a lighthouse turret of thirty-four feet. It consists of two
large vaulted apartments, the staircase from the one to the other being built
within the wall itself, which is about eighteen feet thick. The upper chamber
is dimly lighted by narrow chinks through the walls. The lowest of the
apartments is the dungeon, which is almost without light and air. In the
centre of the floor is a hole connected with a reservoir of water below.

This Tour de Constance continued to be the principal prison for
Huguenot women in France for a period of about a hundred years. It was
always horribly unhealthy; and to be condemned to this dungeon was
considered almost as certain though a slower death than to be condemned to
the gallows. Sixteen Huguenot women confined there in 1686 died within
five months. Most of them were the wives of merchants of Nismes, or of
men of property in the district. When the prisoners died off, the dungeon
was at once filled up again with more victims, and it was rarely, if ever,
empty, down to a period within only a few years before the outbreak of the
French Revolution.

The punishment of the men found attending religious meetings, and taken
prisoners by the soldiers, was to be sentenced to the galleys, mostly for life.
They were usually collected in large numbers, and sent to the seaports
attached together by chains. They were sent openly, sometimes through the
entire length of the kingdom, by way of a show. The object was to teach the
horrible delinquency of professing Protestantism; for it could not be to
show the greater beautifulness and mercifulness of Catholicism.

The punishment of the Chain varied in degree. Sometimes it was more
cruel than at other times. This depended upon the drivers of the prisoners.
Marteilhe describes the punishment during his conveyance from Havre to
Marseilles in the winter of 1712.[47] The Chain to which he belonged did
not reach Marseilles until the 17th January, 1713. The season was bitterly
cold; but that made no difference in the treatment of Huguenot prisoners.

The Chain consisted of a file of prisoners, chained one to another in
various ways. On this occasion, each pair was fastened by the neck with a
thick chain three feet long, in the middle of which was a round ring. After
being thus chained, the pairs were placed in file, couple behind couple,
when another long thick chain was passed through the rings, thus running

along the centre of the gang, and the whole were thus doubly-chained
together. There were no less than four hundred prisoners in the chain
described by Marteilhe. The number had, however, greatly fallen off
through deaths by barbarous treatment before it reached Marseilles.

It must, however, be added, that the whole gang did not consist of
Huguenots, but only a part of it—the Huguenots being distinguished by
their red jackets. The rest consisted of murderers, thieves, deserters, and
criminals of various sorts.

The difficulty which the prisoners had in marching along the roads was
very great; the weight of chain which each member had to carry being no
less than one hundred and fifty pounds. The lodging they had at night was
of the worst description. While at Paris, the galley-slaves were quartered in
the Château de la Tournelle, which was under the spiritual direction of the
Jesuits. The gaol consisted of a large cellar or dungeon, fitted with huge
beams of oak fixed close to the floor. Thick iron collars were attached by
iron chains to the beams. The collar being placed round the prisoner's neck,
it was closed and riveted upon an anvil with heavy blows of a hammer.

Twenty men in pairs were thus chained to each beam. The dungeon was
so large that five hundred men could thus be fastened up. They could not
sleep lying at full length, nor could they sleep sitting or standing up
straight; the beam to which they were chained being too high in the one
case and too low in the other. The torture which they endured, therefore, is
scarcely to be described. The prisoners were kept there until a sufficient
number could be collected to set out in a great chain for Marseilles.

When they arrived at the first stage out of Paris, at Charenton, after a
heavy day's fatigue, their lodging was no better than before. A stable was
found in which they were chained up in such a way that they could with
difficulty sit down, and then only on a dung-heap. After they had lain there
for a few hours, the prisoners' chains were taken off, and they were turned
out into the spacious courtyard of the inn, where they were ordered to strip
off their clothes, put them down at their feet, and march over to the other
side of the courtyard.

The object of this proceeding was to search the pockets of the prisoners,
examine their clothes, and find whether they contained any knives, files, or
other tools which might be used for cutting the chains. All money and other
valuables or necessaries that the clothes contained were at the same time
taken away.

The night was cold and frosty, with a keen north wind blowing; and after
the prisoners had been exposed to it for about half an hour, their bodies
became so benumbed that they could scarcely move across the yard to
where their clothes were lying. Next morning it was found that eighteen of
the unfortunates were happily released by death.

It is not necessary to describe the tortures endured by the galley-slaves to
the end of their journey. One little circumstance may, however, be
mentioned. While marching towards the coast, the exhausted Huguenots,
weary and worn out by the heaviness of their chains, were accustomed to
stretch out their little wooden cups for a drop of water to the inhabitants of
the villages through which they passed. The women, whom they mostly
addressed, answered their entreaties with the bitterest spite. "Away, away!"
they cried; "you are going where you will have water enough!"

When the gang or chain reached the port at which the prisoners were to
be confined, they were drafted on board the different galleys. These were
for the most part stationed at Toulon, but there were also other galleys in
which Huguenots were imprisoned—at Marseilles, Dunkirk, Brest, St.
Malo, and Bordeaux. Let us briefly describe the galley of those days.

The royal galley was about a hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet
broad, and was capable of containing about five hundred men. It had fifty
benches for rowers, twenty-five on each side. Between these two rows of
benches was the raised middle gallery, commonly called the waist of the
ship, four feet high and about three or four feet broad. The oars were fifty
feet long, of which thirty-seven feet were outside the ship and thirteen
within. Six men worked at each oar, all chained to the same bench. They
had to row in unison, otherwise they would be heavily struck by the return
rowers both before and behind them. They were under the constant
command of the comite or galley-slave-driver, who struck all about him
with his long whip in urging them to work. To enable his strokes to tell, the

men sat naked while they rowed.[48] Their dress was always insufficient,
summer and winter—the lower part of their bodies being covered with a
short red jacket and a sort of apron, for their manacles prevented them
wearing any other dress.

The chain which bound each rower to his bench was fastened to his leg,
and was of such a length as to enable his feet to come and go whilst rowing.
At night, the galley-slave slept where he sat—on the bench on which he had
been rowing all day. There was no room for him to lie down. He never
quitted his bench except for the hospital or the grave; yet some of the
Huguenot rowers contrived to live upon their benches for thirty or forty
years!

During all these years they toiled in their chains in a hell of foul and
disgusting utterance, for they were mixed up with thieves and the worst of
criminals. They ate the bread and drank the waters of bitterness. They
seemed to be forsaken by the world. They had no one to love them, for most
had left their families behind them at home, or perhaps in convents or
prisons. They lived under the constant threats of their keepers, who lashed
them to make them row harder, who lashed them to make them sit up, or
lashed them to make them lie down. The Chevalier Langeron, captain of La
Palme, of which Marteilhe was at first a rower, used to call the comite to
him and say, "Go and refresh the backs of these Huguenots with a salad of
strokes of the whip." For the captain, it seems, "held the most Jesuitical
sentiments," and hated his Huguenot prisoners far worse than his thieves or
his murderers.[49]

And yet, at any moment, a word spoken would have made these
Huguenots free. The Catholic priests frequently visited the galleys and
entreated them to become converted. If "converted," and the Huguenots
would only declare that they believed in the miraculous powers of the
clergy, their chains would fall away from their limbs at once; and they
would have been restored to the world, to their families, and to liberty! And
who would not have declared themselves "converted," rather than endure
these horrible punishments? Yet by far the greater number of the Huguenots
did not. They could not be hypocrites. They would not lie to God. Rather

than do this, they had the heroism—some will call it the obstinacy—to
remain galley-slaves for life!

Many of the galley-slaves did not survive their torture long. Men of all
ages and conditions, accustomed to indoor life, could not bear the exposure
to the sun, rain, and snow, which the punishment of the galley-slave
involved. The old men and the young soon succumbed and died. Middle-
aged men survived the longest. But there was always a change going on.
When the numbers of a galley became thinned by death, there were other
Huguenots ready to be sent on board—perhaps waiting in some inland
prison until another "Great Chain" could be made up for the seaports, to go
on board the galley-ships, to be manacled, tortured, and killed off as before.

Such was the treatment of the galley-slaves in time of peace. But the
galleys were also war-ships. They carried large numbers of armed men on
board. Sometimes they scoured the Mediterranean, and protected French
merchant-ships against the Sallee rovers. At other times they were engaged
in the English channel, attacking Dutch and English ships, sometimes
picking up a prize, at other times in actual sea-fight.

When the service required, they were compelled to row incessantly night
and day, without rest, save in the last extremity; and they were treated as if,
on the first opportunity, in sight of the enemy, they would revolt and betray
the ship; hence they were constantly watched by the soldiers on board, and
if any commotion appeared amongst them, they were shot down without
ceremony, and their bodies thrown into the sea. Loaded cannons were also
placed at the end of the benches of rowers, so as to shoot them down in case
of necessity.

Whenever an enemy's ship came up, the galley-slaves were covered over
with a linen screen, so as to prevent them giving signals to the enemy.
When an action occurred, they were particularly exposed to danger, for the
rowers and their oars were the first to be shot at—just as the boiler or screw
of a war-steamer would be shot at now—in order to disable the ship. The
galley-slaves thus suffered much more from the enemy's shot than the other
armed men of the ship. The rowers benches were often filled with dead,
before the soldiers and mariners on board had been touched.

Marteilhe, while a galley-slave on board La Palme, was engaged in an
adventure which had nearly cost him his life. Four French galleys, after
cruising along the English coast from Dover to the Downs, got sight of a
fleet of thirty-five merchant vessels on their way from the Texel to the
Thames, under the protection of one small English frigate. The commanders
of the galleys, taking counsel together, determined to attack the frigate
(which they thought themselves easily able to master), and so capture the
entire English fleet.

The captain of the frigate, when he saw the galleys approach him,
ordered the merchantmen to crowd sail and make for the Thames, the
mouth of which they had nearly reached. He then sailed down upon the
galleys, determined to sacrifice his ship if necessary for the safety of his
charge. The galleys fired into him, but he returned never a shot. The captain
of the galley in which Marteilhe was, said, "Oh, he is coming to surrender!"
The frigate was so near that the French musqueteers were already firing full
upon her. All of a sudden the frigate tacked and veered round as if about to
fly from the galleys. The Frenchmen called out that the English were
cowards in thus trying to avoid the battle. If they did not surrender at once,
they would sink the frigate!

The English captain took no notice. The frigate then turned her stern
towards the galley, as if to give the Frenchmen an opportunity of boarding
her. The French commander ordered the galley at once to run at the enemy's
stern, and the crew to board the frigate. The rush was made; the galley-
slaves, urged by blows of the whip, rowing with great force. The galley was
suddenly nearing the stern of the frigate, when by a clever stroke of the
helm the ship moved to one side, and the galley, missing it, rushed past. All
the oars on that side were suddenly broken off, and the galley was placed
immediately under the broadside of the enemy.

Then began the English part of the game. The French galley was seized
with grappling irons and hooked on to the English broadside. The men on
board the galley were as exposed as if they had been upon a raft or a bridge.
The frigate's guns, which were charged with grapeshot, were discharged full
upon them, and a frightful carnage ensued. The English also threw hand
grenades, which went down amongst the rowers and killed many. They next

boarded the galley, and cut to pieces all the armed men they could lay hold
of, only sparing the convicts, who could make no attempt at defence.

The English captain then threw off the galley, which he had broadsided
and disarmed, in order to look after the merchantmen, which some of the
other galleys had gone to intercept on their way to the mouth of the
Thames. Some of the ships had already been captured; but the commanders
of the galleys, seeing their fellow-commodores flying signals of distress, let
go their prey, and concentrated their attack upon the frigate. This they
surrounded, and after a very hard struggle the frigate was captured, but not
until the English captain had ascertained that all the fleet of which he had
been in charge had entered the Thames and were safe.

In the above encounter with the English frigate Marteilhe had nearly lost
his life. The bench on which he was seated, with five other slaves, was
opposite one of the loaded guns of the frigate. He saw that it must be
discharged directly upon them. His fellows tried to lie down flat, while
Marteilhe himself stood up. He saw the gunner with his lighted match
approach the touchhole; then he lifted up his heart to God; the next moment
he was lying stunned and prostrate in the centre of the galley, as far as the
chain would allow him to reach. He was lying across the body of the
lieutenant, who was killed. A long time passed, during which the fight was
still going on, and then Marteilhe came to himself, towards dark. Most of
his fellow-slaves were killed. He himself was bleeding from a large open
wound on his shoulder, another on his knee, and a third in his stomach. Of
the eighteen men around him he was the only one that escaped, with his
three wounds.

The dead were all thrown into the sea. The men were about to throw
Marteilhe after them, but while attempting to release him from his chain,
they touched the wound upon his knee, and he groaned heavily. They let
him remain where he lay. Shortly after, he was taken down to the bottom of
the hold with the other men, where he long lay amongst the wounded and
dying. At length he recovered from his wounds, and was again returned to
his bench, to re-enter the horrible life of a galley-slave.

There was another mean and unmanly cruelty, connected with this galley-
slave service, which was practised only upon the Huguenots. If an assassin

or other criminal received a wound in the service of the state while engaged
in battle, he was at once restored to his liberty; but if a Huguenot was
wounded, he was never released. He was returned to his bench and chained
as before; the wounds he had received being only so many additional
tortures to be borne by him in the course of his punishment.

Marteilhe, as we have already stated, was disembarked when he had
sufficiently recovered, and marched through the entire length of France,
enchained with other malefactors. On his arrival at Marseilles, he was
placed on board the galley Grand Réale, where he remained until peace was
declared between England and France by the Treaty of Utrecht.[50]

Queen Anne of England, at the instigation of the Marquis de Rochegade,
then made an effort to obtain the liberation of Protestants serving at the
galleys; and at length, out of seven hundred and forty-two Huguenots who
were then enslaved, a hundred and thirty-six were liberated, of whom
Marteilhe was one. He was thus enabled to get rid of his inhuman
countrymen, and to spend the remainder of his life in Holland and England,
where Protestants were free.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER X.

ANTOINE COURT.

Almost at the very time that Louis XIV. was lying on his death-bed at
Versailles, a young man conceived the idea of re-establishing Protestantism
in France! Louis XIV. had tried to enter heaven by superstition and cruelty.
On his death-bed he began to doubt whether he "had not carried his
authority too far."[51] But the Jesuits tried to make death easy for him,
covering his body with relics of the true cross.

Very different was the position of the young man who tried to undo all
that Louis XIV., under the influence of his mistress De Maintenon, and his
Jesuit confessor, Père la Chase,[52] had been trying all his life to

accomplish. He was an intelligent youth, the son of Huguenot parents in
Viverais, of comparatively poor and humble condition. He was, however,
full of energy, activity, and a zealous disposition for work. Observing the
tendency which Protestantism had, while bereft of its pastors, to run into
gloomy forms of fanaticism, Antoine Court conceived the idea of reviving
the pastorate, and restoring the proscribed Protestant Church of France. It
was a bold idea, but the result proved that Antoine Court was justified in
entertaining it.

Louis XIV. died in August, 1715. During that very month, Court
summoned together a small number of Huguenots to consider his
suggestions. The meeting was held at daybreak, in an empty quarry near
Nismes, which has already been mentioned in the course of this history. But
it may here be necessary to inform the reader of the early life of this
enthusiastic young man.

Antoine Court was born at Villeneuve de Berg, in Viverais, in the year
1696. Religious persecution was then at its height; assemblies were
vigorously put down; and all pastors taken prisoners were hanged on the
Peyrou at Montpellier. Court was only four years old when his father died,
and his mother resolved, if the boy lived, to train him up so that he might
consecrate himself to the service of God. He was still very young while the
Camisard war was in progress, but he heard a great deal about it, and
vividly remembered all that he heard.

Antoine Court, like many Protestant children, was compelled to attend a
Jesuit school in his neighbourhood. Though but a boy he abhorred the Mass.
With Protestants the Mass was then the symbol of persecution; it was
identified with the Revocation of the Edict—the dragonnades, the galleys,
the prisons, the nunneries, the monkeries, and the Jesuits. The Mass was not
a matter of knowledge, but of fear, of terror, and of hereditary hatred.

At school, the other boys were most bitter against Court, because he was
the son of a Huguenot. Every sort of mischief was practised upon him, for
little boys are generally among the greatest of persecutors. Court was
stoned, worried, railed at, laughed at, spit at. When leaving school, the boys
called after him "He, he! the eldest son of Calvin!" They sometimes
pursued him with clamour and volleys of stones to the door of his house,

collecting in their riotous procession all the other Catholic boys of the
place. Sometimes they forced him into church whilst the Mass was being
celebrated. In fact, the boy's hatred of the Mass and of Catholicism grew
daily more and more vehement.

All these persecutions, together with reading some of the books which
came under his notice at home, confirmed his aversion to the Jesuitical
school to which he had been sent. At the same time he became desirous of
attending the secret assemblies, which he knew were being held in the
neighbourhood. One day, when his mother set out to attend one of them, the
boy set out to follow her. She discovered him, and demanded whither he
was going. "I follow you, mother," said he, "and I wish you to permit me to
go where you go. I know that you go to pray to God, and will you refuse me
the favour of going to do so with you?"

She shed tears at his words, told him of the danger of attending the
assembly, and strongly exhorted him to secrecy; but she allowed him to
accompany her. He was at that time too little and weak to walk the whole
way to the meeting; but other worshippers coming up, they took the boy on
their shoulders and carried him along with them.

At the age of seventeen, Court began to read the Bible at the assemblies.
One day, in a moment of sudden excitement, common enough at secret
meetings, he undertook to address the assembly. What he said was received
with much approval, and he was encouraged to go on preaching. He soon
became famous among the mountaineers, and was regarded as a young man
capable of accomplishing great things.

As he grew older, he at length determined to devote his life to preaching
and ministering to the forsaken and afflicted Protestants. It was a noble,
self-denying work, the only earthly reward for which was labour, difficulty,
and danger. His mother was in great trouble, for Antoine was her only
remaining son. She did not, however, press him to change his resolution.
Court quoted to her the text, "Whoever loves father and mother more than
me, is not worthy of me." After this, she only saw in her son a victim
consecrated, like another Abraham, to the Divine service.

After arriving at his decision, Court proceeded to visit the Huguenots in
Low Languedoc, passing by Uzes to Nismes, and preaching wherever he
could draw assemblies of the people together. His success during this rapid
excursion induced him to visit Dauphiny. There he met Brunel, another
preacher, with knapsack on his back, running from place to place in order to
avoid spies, priests, and soldiers. The two were equally full of ardour, and
they went together preaching in many places, and duly encouraging each
other.

From Dauphiny, Court directed his steps to Marseilles, where the royal
galleys stationed there contained about three hundred Huguenot galley-
slaves. He penetrated these horrible floating prisons, without being
detected, and even contrived to organize amongst them a regular system of
secret worship. Then he returned to Nismes, and from thence went through
the Cevennes and the Viverais, preaching to people who had never met for
Protestant worship since the termination of the wars of the Camisards. To
elude the spies, who began to make hot search for him, because of the
enthusiasm which he excited, Court contrived to be always on the move,
and to appear daily in some fresh locality.

The constant fatigue which he underwent undermined his health, and he
was compelled to remain for a time inactive at the mineral waters of Euzet.
This retirement proved useful. He began to think over what might be done
to revivify the Protestant religion in France. Remember that he was at that
time only nineteen years of age! It might be thought presumptuous in a
youth, comparatively uninstructed, even to dream of such a subject. The
instruments of earthly power—King, Pope, bishops, priests, soldiers, and
spies—were all arrayed against him. He had nothing to oppose to them but
truth, uprightness, conscience, and indefatigable zeal for labour.

When Court had last met the few Protestant preachers who survived in
Languedoc, they were very undecided about taking up his scheme. They
had met at Nismes to take the sacrament in the house of a friend. There
were Bombonnoux (an old Camisard), Crotte, Corteiz, Brunel, and Court.
Without coming to any decision, they separated, some going to Switzerland,
and others to the South and West of France. It now rested with Court,

during his sickness, to study and endeavour to arrange the method of
reorganization of the Church.

The Huguenots who remained in France were then divided into three
classes—the "new converts," who professed Catholicism while hating it; the
lovers of the ancient Protestant faith, who still clung to it; and, lastly, the
more ignorant, who still clung to prophesying and inspiration. These last
had done the Protestant Church much injury, for the intelligent classes
generally regarded them as but mere fanatics.

Court found it would be requisite to keep the latter within the leading-
strings of spiritual instruction, and to encourage the "new converts" to
return to the church of their fathers by the re-establishment of some
efficient pastoral service. He therefore urged that religious assemblies must
be continued, and that discipline must be established by the appointment of
elders, presbyteries, and synods, and also by the training up of a body of
young pastors to preach amongst the people, and discipline them according
to the rules of the Protestant Church. Nearly thirty years had passed since it
had been disorganized by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, so that
synods, presbyteries, and the training of preachers had become almost
forgotten.

The first synod was convened by Court, and held in the abandoned
quarry near Nismes, above referred to, in the very same month in which
Louis XIV. breathed his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or three
laymen and a few preachers[53] were present, the whole meeting numbering
only nine persons. The place in which the meeting was held had often
before been used as a secret place of worship by the Huguenots. Religious
meetings held there had often been dispersed by the dragoons, and there
was scarcely a stone in it that had not been splashed by Huguenot blood.
And now, after Protestantism had been "finally suppressed," Antoine Court
assembled his first synod to re-establish the proscribed religion!

The first meeting took place on the 21st of August, 1715, at daybreak.
After prayer, Court, as moderator, explained his method of reorganization,
which was approved. The first elders were appointed from amongst those
present. A series of rules and regulations was resolved upon and ordered to

be spread over the entire province. The preachers were then charged to go
forth, to stir up the people and endeavour to bring back the "new converts."

They lost no time in carrying out their mission. The first districts in
which they were appointed to work were those of Mende, Alais, Viviers,
Uzes, Nismes, and Montpellier, in Languedoc—districts which, fifteen
years before, had been the scenes of the Camisard war. There, in unknown
valleys, on hillsides, on the mountains, in the midst of hostile towns and
villages, the missionaries sought out the huts, the farms, and the dwellings
of the scattered, concealed, and half-frightened Huguenots. Amidst the open
threats of the magistrates and others in office, and the fear of the still more
hateful priests and spies, they went from house to house, and prayed,
preached, advised, and endeavoured to awaken the zeal of their old allies of
the "Religion."

The preachers were for the most part poor, and some of them were
labouring men. They were mostly natives of Languedoc. Jean Vesson, a
cooper by trade, had in his youth been "inspired," and prophesied in his
ecstasy. Mazelet, now an elderly man, had formerly been celebrated among
the Camisards, and preached with great success before the soldiers of
Roland. At forty he was not able to read or write; but having been forced to
fly into Switzerland, he picked up some education at Geneva, and had
studied divinity under a fellow-exile.

Bombonnoux had been a brigadier in the troop of Cavalier. After his
chief's defection he resolved to continue the war to the end, by preaching, if
not by fighting. He had been taken prisoner and imprisoned at Montpellier,
in 1705. Two of his Camisard friends were first put upon the rack, and then,
while still living, thrown upon a pile and burnt to death before his eyes. But
the horrible character of the punishment did not terrify him. He contrived to
escape from prison at Montpellier, and then went about convoking
assemblies and preaching to the people as before.

Besides these, there were Huc, Corteiz, Durand, Arnaud, Brunel, and
Rouviere or Crotte, who all went about from place to place, convoking
assemblies and preaching. There were also some local preachers, as they
might be called—old men who could not move far from home—who
worked at their looms or trades, sometimes tilling the ground by day, and

preaching at night. Amongst these were Monteil, Guillot, and Bonnard, all
more than sixty years of age.

Court, because of his youth and energy, seems to have been among the
most active of the preachers. One day, near St. Hypolite, a chief centre of
the Huguenot population, he convoked an assembly on a mountain side, the
largest that had taken place for many years. The priests of the parish gave
information to the authorities; and the governor of Alais offered a reward of
fifty pistoles to anyone who would apprehend and deliver up to him the
young preacher. Troops were sent into the district; upon which Court
descended from the mountains towards the towns of Low Languedoc, and
shortly after he arrived at Nismes.

At Nismes, Court first met Jacques Roger, who afterwards proved of
great assistance to him in his work. Roger had long been an exile in
Wurtemburg. He was originally a native of Boissieres, in Languedoc, and
when a young man was compelled to quit France with his parents, who
were Huguenots. His heart, however, continued to draw him towards his
native country, although it had treated himself and his family so cruelly.

As Roger grew older, he determined to return to France, with the object
of helping his friends of the "Religion." A plan had occurred to him, like
that which Antoine Court was now endeavouring to carry into effect. The
joy with which Roger encountered Court at Nismes, and learnt his plans,
may therefore be conceived. The result was, that Roger undertook to
"awaken" the Protestants of Dauphiny, and to endeavour to accomplish
there what Court was already gradually effecting in Languedoc. Roger held
his first synod in Dauphiny in August, 1716, at which seven preachers and
several elders or anciens assisted.

In the meantime Antoine Court again set out to visit the churches which
had been reconstructed along the banks of the Gardon. He had been
suffering from intermittent fever, and started on his journey before he was
sufficiently recovered. Having no horse, he walked on foot, mostly by
night, along the least known by-paths, stopping here and there upon his
way. At length he became so enfeebled and ill as to be unable to walk
further. He then induced two men to carry him. By crossing their hands over

each other, they took him up between them, and carried him along on this
improvised chair.

Court found a temporary lodging with a friend. But no sooner had he laid
himself down to sleep, than the alarm was raised that he must get up and
fly. A spy had been observed watching the house. Court rose, put on his
clothes, and though suffering great pain, started afresh. The night was dark
and rainy. By turns shivering with cold and in an access of fever, he
wandered alone for hours across the country, towards the house of another
friend, where he at last found shelter. Such were the common experiences
of these wandering, devoted, proscribed, and heroic ministers of the Gospel.

Their labours were not carried on without encountering other and greater
dangers. Now that the Protestants were becoming organized, it was not so
necessary to incite them to public worship. They even required to be
restrained, so that they might not too suddenly awaken the suspicion or
excite the opposition of the authorities. Thus, at the beginning of 1717, the
preacher Vesson held an open assembly near Anduze. It was surprised by
the troops; and seventy-two persons made prisoners, of whom the men were
sent to the galleys for life, and the women imprisoned in the Tour de
Constance. Vesson was on this occasion reprimanded by the synod, for
having exposed his brethren to unnecessary danger.

While there was the danger of loss of liberty to the people, there was the
danger of loss of life to the pastors who were bold enough to minister to
their religious necessities. Etienne Arnaud having preached to an assembly
near Alais, was taken prisoner by the soldiers. They took him to
Montpellier, where he was judged, condemned, and sent back to Alais to be
hanged. This brave young man gave up his life with great courage and
resignation. His death caused much sorrow amongst the Protestants, but it
had no effect in dissuading the preachers and pastors from the work they
had taken in hand. There were many to take the place of Arnaud. Young
Bètrine offered himself to the synod, and was accepted.

Scripture readers were also appointed, to read the Bible at meetings
which preachers were not able to attend. There was, however, a great want
of Bibles amongst the Protestants. One of the first things done by the young
King Louis XV.—the "Well-beloved" of the Jesuits—on his ascending the

throne, was to issue a proclamation ordering the seizure of Bibles,
Testaments, Psalm-books, and other religious works used by the
Protestants. And though so many books had already been seized and burnt
in the reign of Louis XIV., immense piles were again collected and given to
the flames by the executioners.

"Our need of books is very great," wrote Court to a friend abroad; and the
same statement was repeated in many of his letters. His principal need was
of Bibles and Testaments; for every Huguenot knew the greater part of the
Psalms by heart. When a Testament was obtained, it was lent about, and for
the most part learnt off. The labour was divided in this way. One person,
sometimes a boy or girl, of good memory, would undertake to learn one or
more chapters in the Gospels, another a certain number in the Epistles, until
at last a large portion of the book was committed to memory, and could be
recited at the meetings of the assemblies. And thus also it happened, that the
conversation of the people, as well as the sermons of their preachers,
gradually assumed a strongly biblical form.

Strong appeals were made to foreign Protestants to supply the people
with books. The refugees who had settled in Switzerland, Holland, and
England sent the Huguenots remaining in France considerable help in this
way. They sent many Testaments and Psalm-books, together with
catechisms for the young, and many devotional works written by French
divines residing in Holland and England—by Drelincourt, Saurin, Claude
and others. These were sent safely across the frontier in bales, put into the
hands of colporteurs, and circulated amongst the Protestants all over the
South of France. The printing press of Geneva was also put in requisition;
and Court had many of his sermons printed there and distributed amongst
the people.

Until this time, Court had merely acted as a preacher; and it was now
determined to ordain and consecrate him as a pastor. The ceremony, though,
comparatively unceremonious, was very touching. A large number of
Protestants in the Vaunage assembled on the night of the 21st November,
1718, and, after prayer, Court rose and spoke for some time of the
responsible duties of the ministry, and of the necessity and advantages of
preaching. He thanked God for having raised up ministers to serve the

Church when so many of her enemies were seeking for her ruin. He finally
asked the whole assembly to pray for grace to enable him to fulfil with
renewed zeal the duties to which, he was about to be called, together with
all the virtues needed for success. At these touching words the assembled
hearers shed tears. Then Corteiz, the old pastor, drew near to Court, now
upon his knees, and placing a Bible upon his head, in the name of Jesus
Christ, and with the authority of the synod, gave him power to exercise all
the functions of the ministry. Cries of joy were heard on all sides. Then,
after further prayer, the assembly broke up in the darkness of the night.

The plague which broke out in 1720 helped the progress of the new
Church. The Protestants thought the plague had been sent as a punishment
for their backsliding. Piety increased, and assemblies in the Desert were
more largely attended than before. The intendants ceased to interfere with
them, and the soldiers were kept strictly within their cantonments. More
preachers were licensed, and more elders were elected. Many new churches
were set up throughout Languedoc; and the department of the Lozère, in the
Cevennes, became again almost entirely Protestant. Roger and Villeveyre
were almost equally successful in Dauphiny; and Saintonge, Normandy, and
Poitou were also beginning to maintain a connection with the Protestant
churches of Languedoc.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XI.

REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT.

The organization of the Church in the Desert is one of the most curious
things in history. Secret meetings of the Huguenots had long been held in
France. They were began several years before the Act of Revocation was
proclaimed, when the dragonnades were on foot, and while the Protestant
temples were being demolished by the Government. The Huguenots then
arranged to meet and hold their worship in retired places.

As the meetings were at first held, for the most part, in Languedoc, and
as much of that province, especially in the district of the Cevennes, is really
waste and desert land, the meetings were at first called "Assemblies in the
Desert," and for nearly a hundred years they retained that name.

When Court began to reorganize the Protestant Church in France, shortly
after the Camisard war, meetings in the Desert had become almost
unknown. There were occasional prayer-meetings, at which chapters of the
Bible were read or recited by those who remembered them, and psalms
were sung; but there were few or no meetings at which pastors presided.
Court, however, resolved not only to revive the meetings of the Church in
the Desert, but to reconstitute the congregations, and restore the system of
governing them according to the methods of the Huguenot Church.

The first thing done in reconstituting a congregation, was to appoint
certain well-known religious men, as anciens or elders. These were very
important officers. They formed the church in the first instance; for where
there were no elders, there was no church. They were members of the
consistoire or presbytery. They looked after the flock, visited them in their
families, made collections, named the pastors, and maintained peace, order,
and discipline amongst the people. Though first nominated by the pastors,

they were elected by the congregation; and the reason for their election was
their known ability, zeal, and piety.

The elder was always present at the assemblies, though the minister was
absent. He prevented the members from succumbing to temptation and
falling away; he censured scandal; he kept up the flame of religious zeal,
and encouraged the failing and helpless; he distributed amongst the poorest
the collections made and intrusted to him by the Church.

We have said that part of the duty of the elders was to censure scandal
amongst the members. If their conduct was not considered becoming the
Christian life, they were not visited by the pastors and were not allowed to
attend the assemblies, until they had declared their determination to lead a
better life. What a punishment for infraction of discipline! to be debarred
attending an assembly, for being present at which, the pastor, if detected,
might be hanged, and the penitent member sent to the galleys for life![54]

The elders summoned the assemblies. They gave the word to a few
friends, and these spread the notice about amongst the rest. The news soon
became known, and in the course of a day or two, the members of the
congregation, though living perhaps in distant villages, would be duly
informed of the time and place of the intended meeting. It was usually held
at night,—in some secret place—in a cave, a hollow in the woods, a ravine,
or an abandoned farmstead.

Men, women, and even children were taken thither, after one, two, or
sometimes three leagues' walking. The meetings were always full of danger,
for spies were lurking about. Catholic priests were constant informers; and
soldiers were never far distant. But besides the difficulties of spies and
soldiers, the meetings were often dispersed by the rain in summer, or by the
snow in winter.

After the Camisard war, and before the appearance of Court, these
meetings rarely numbered more than a hundred persons. But Court and his
fellow-pastors often held meetings at which more than two thousand people
were present. On one occasion, not less than four thousand persons attended
an assembly in Lower Languedoc.

When the meetings were held by day, they were carefully guarded and
watched by sentinels on the look-out, especially in those places near which
garrisons were stationed. The fleetest of the young men were chosen for this
purpose. They watched the garrison exits, and when the soldiers made a
sortie, the sentinels communicated by signal from hill to hill, thus giving
warning to the meeting to disperse. But the assemblies were mostly held at
night; and even then the sentinels were carefully posted about, but not at so
great a distance.

The chief of the whole organization was the pastor. First, there were the
members entitled to church, privileges; next the anciens; and lastly the
pastors. As in Presbyterianism, so in Huguenot Calvinism, its form of
government was republican. The organization was based upon the people
who elected their elders; then upon the elders who selected and
recommended the pastors; and lastly upon the whole congregation of
members, elders, and pastors (represented in synods), who maintained the
entire organization of the Church.

There were three grades of service in the rank of pastor—first students,
next preachers, and lastly pastors. Wonderful that there should have been
students of a profession, to follow which was almost equal to a sentence of
death! But there were plenty of young enthusiasts ready to brave martyrdom
in the service of the proscribed Church. Sometimes it was even necessary to
restrain them in their applications.

Court once wrote to Pierre Durand, at a time when the latter was
restoring order and organization in Viverais: "Sound and examine well the
persons offering themselves for your approval, before permitting them to
enter on this glorious employment. Secure good, virtuous men, full of zeal
for the cause of truth. It is piety only that inspires nobility and greatness of
soul. Piety sustains us under the most extreme dangers, and triumphs over
the severest obstacles. The good conscience always marches forward with
its head erect."

When the character of the young applicants was approved, their studies
then proceeded, like everything else connected with the proscribed religion,
in secret. The students followed the professor and pastor in his wanderings
over the country, passing long nights in marching, sometimes hiding in

caves by day, or sleeping under the stars by night, passing from meeting to
meeting, always with death looming before them.

"I have often pitched my professor's chair," said Court, "in a torrent
underneath a rock. The sky was our roof, and the leafy branches thrown out
from the crevices in the rock overhead, were our canopy. There I and my
students would remain for about eight days; it was our hall, our lecture-
room, and our study. To make the most of our time, and to practise the
students properly, I gave them a text of Scripture to discuss before me—say
the first eleven verses of the fifth chapter of Luke. I would afterwards
propose to them some point of doctrine, some passage of Scripture, some
moral precept, or sometimes I gave them some difficult passages to
reconcile. After the whole had stated their views upon the question under
discussion, I asked the youngest if he had anything to state against the
arguments advanced; then the others were asked in turn; and after they had
finished, I stated the views which I considered most just and correct. When
the more advanced students were required to preach, they mounted a
particular place, where a pole had been set across some rocks in the ravine,
and which for the time served for a pulpit. And when they had delivered
themselves, the others were requested by turns to express themselves freely
upon the subject of the sermon which they had heard."

When the proposant or probationer was considered sufficiently able to
preach, he was sent on a mission to visit the churches. Sometimes he
preached the approved sermons of other pastors; sometimes he preached his
own sermons, after they had been examined by persons appointed by the
synod. After a time, if approved by the moderator and a committee of the
synod, the proposant was licensed to preach. His work then resembled that
of a pastor; but he could not yet administer the sacrament. It was only when
he had passed the synod, and been appointed by the laying on of hands, that
he could exercise the higher pastoral functions.

Then, with respect to the maintenance of the pastors and preachers, Court
recounts, not without pride, that for the ten years between 1713 and 1723
(excepting the years which he spent at Geneva), he served the Huguenot
churches without receiving a farthing. His family and friends saw to the
supply of his private wants. With respect to the others, they were supported

by collections made at the assemblies; and, as the people were nearly all
poor, the amount collected was very small. On one occasion, three
assemblies produced a halfpenny and six half-farthings.

But a regular system of collecting moneys was framed by the synods
(consisting of a meeting of pastors and elders), and out of the common fund
so raised, emoluments were assigned, first to those preachers who were
married, and afterwards to those who were single. In either case the pay was
very small, scarcely sufficient to keep the wolf from the door.

The students for the ministry were at first educated by Court and trained
to preach, while he was on his dangerous journeys from one assembly in the
Desert to another. Nor was the supply of preachers sufficient to visit the
congregations already organized. Court had long determined, so soon as the
opportunity offered, of starting a school for the special education of
preachers and pastors, so that the work he was engaged in might be more
efficiently carried on. He at first corresponded with influential French
refugees in England and Holland with reference to the subject. He wrote to
Basnage and Saurin, but they received his propositions coolly. He wrote to
William Wake, then Archbishop of Canterbury, who promised his
assistance. At last Court resolved to proceed into Switzerland, to stir up the
French refugees disposed to help him in his labours.

Arrived at Geneva, Court sought out M. Pictet, to whom he explained the
state of affairs in France. It had been rumoured amongst the foreign
Protestants that fanaticism and "inspiration" were now in the ascendant
among the Protestants of France. Court showed that this was entirely a
mistake, and that all which the proscribed Huguenots in France wanted, was
a supply of properly educated pastors. The friends of true religion, and the
enemies of fanaticism, ought therefore to come to their help and supply
them with that of which they stood most in need. If they would find
teachers, Court would undertake to supply them with congregations. And
Huguenot congregations were rapidly increasing, not only in Languedoc
and Dauphiny, but in Normandy, Picardy, Poitou, Saintonge, Bearn, and the
other provinces.

At length the subject became matured. It was not found desirable to
establish the proposed school at Geneva, that city being closely watched by

France, and frequently under the censure of its government for giving
shelter to refugee Frenchmen. It was eventually determined that the college
for the education of preachers should begin at Lausanne. It was accordingly
commenced in the year 1726, and established under the superintendence of
M. Duplan.

A committee of refugees called the "Society of Help for the Afflicted
Faithful," was formed at Lausanne to collect subscriptions for the
maintenance of the preachers, the pastors, and the seminary. These were in
the first place received from Huguenots settled in Switzerland, afterwards
increased by subscriptions obtained from refugees settled in Holland,
Germany, and England. The King of England subscribed five hundred
guineas yearly. Duplan was an indefatigable agent. In fourteen years he
collected fourteen thousand pounds. By these efforts the number of students
was gradually increased. They came from all parts of France, but chiefly
from Languedoc. Between 1726 (the year in which it was started) and 1753,
ninety students had passed through the seminary.

When the students had passed the range of study appointed by the
professors, they returned from Switzerland to France to enter upon the work
of their lives. They had passed the school for martyrdom, and were ready to
preach to the assemblies—they had paved their way to the scaffold!

The preachers always went abroad with their lives in their hands. They
travelled mostly by night, shunning the open highways, and selecting
abandoned routes, often sheep-paths across the hills, to reach the scene of
their next meeting. The trace of their steps is still marked upon the soil of
the Cevennes, the people of the country still speaking of the solitary routes
taken by their instructors when passing from parish to parish, to preach to
their fathers.

They were dressed, for disguise, in various ways; sometimes as peasants,
as workmen, or as shepherds. On one occasion, Court and Duplan travelled
the country disguised as officers! The police heard of it, and ordered their
immediate arrest, pointing out the town and the very house where they were
to be taken. But the preachers escaped, and assumed a new dress.

When living near Nismes, Court was one day seated under a tree
composing a sermon, when a party of soldiers, hearing that he was in the
neighbourhood, came within sight. Court climbed up into the tree, where he
remained concealed among the branches, and thus contrived to escape their
search.

On another occasion, he was staying with a friend, in whose house he had
slept during the previous night. A detachment of troops suddenly
surrounded the house, and the officer knocked loudly at the door. Court
made his friend go at once to bed pretending to be ill, while he himself
cowered down in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. His wife
slowly answered the door, which the soldiers were threatening to blow
open. They entered, rummaged the house, opened all the chests and closets,
sounded the walls, examined the sick man's room, and found nothing!

Court himself, as well as the other pastors, worked very hard. On one
occasion, Court made a round of visits in Lower Languedoc and in the
Cevennes, at first alone, and afterwards accompanied by a young preacher.
In the space of two months and a few days he visited thirty-one churches,
holding assemblies, preaching, and administering the sacrament, during
which he travelled over three hundred miles. The weather did not matter to
the pastors—rain nor snow, wind nor storm, never hindered them. They
took the road and braved all. Even sickness often failed to stay them.
Sickness might weaken but did not overthrow them.

The spies and police so abounded throughout the country, and were so
active, that they knew all the houses in which the preachers might take
refuge. A list of these was prepared and placed in the hands of the intendant
of the province.[55] If preachers were found in them, both the shelterers and
the sheltered knew what they had to expect. The whole property and goods
of the former were confiscated and they were sent to the galleys for life;
and the latter were first tortured by the rack, and then hanged. The houses in
which preachers were found were almost invariably burnt down.

Notwithstanding the great secrecy with which the whole organization
proceeded, preachers were frequently apprehended, assemblies were often
surprised, and many persons were imprisoned and sent to the galleys for
life. Each village had its chief spy—the priest; and beneath the priest there

were a number of other spies—spies for money, spies for cruelty, spies for
revenge.

Was an assembly of Huguenots about to be held? A spy, perhaps a traitor,
would make it known. The priest's order was sufficient for the captain of the
nearest troop of soldiers to proceed to disperse it. They marched and
surrounded the assembly. A sound of volley-firing was heard. The soldiers
shot down, hanged, or made prisoners of the unlawful worshippers.
Punishments were sudden, and inquiry was never made into them, however
brutal. There was the fire for Bibles, Testaments, and psalm-books; galleys
for men; prisons and convents for women; and gibbets for preachers.

In 1720 a large number of prisoners were captured in the famous old
quarry near Nismes, long the seat of secret Protestant worship. But the
troops surrounded the meeting suddenly, and the whole were taken. The
women were sent for life to the Tour de Constance, and the men, chained in
gangs, were sent all through France to La Rochelle, to be imprisoned in the
galleys there. The ambassador of England made intercession for the
prisoners, and their sentence was commuted into one of perpetual
banishment from France. They were accordingly transported to New
Orleans on the Mississippi, to populate the rising French colony in that
quarter of North America.

Thus crimes abounded, and cruelty when practised upon Huguenots was
never investigated. The seizure and violation of women was common.
Fathers knew the probable consequence when their daughters were seized.
The daughter of a Huguenot was seized at Uzes, in 1733, when the father
immediately died of grief. Two sisters were seized at the same place to be
"converted," and their immediate relations were thrown into gaol in the
meantime. This was a common proceeding. The Tour de Constance was
always filling, and kept full.

The dying were tortured. If they refused the viaticum they were treated as
"damned persons." When Jean de Molènes of Cahors died, making a
profession of Protestantism, his body was denounced as damned, and it was
abandoned without sepulture. A woman who addressed some words of
consolation to Joseph Martin when dying was condemned to pay a fine of
six thousand livres, and be imprisoned in the castle of Beauregard; and as

for Martin, his memory was declared to be damned for ever. Many such
outrages to the living and dead were constantly occurring.[56] Gaolers were
accustomed to earn money by exhibiting the corpses of Huguenot women at
fairs, inviting those who paid for admission, to walk up and "see the corpse
of a damned person."[57]

Notwithstanding all these cruelties, Protestantism was making
considerable progress, both in Languedoc and Dauphiny. In reorganizing
the Church, the whole country had been divided into districts, and preachers
and pastors endeavoured to visit the whole of their members with as much
regularity as possible. Thus Languedoc was divided into seven districts, and
to each of those a proposant or probationary preacher was appointed. The
presbyteries and synods met regularly and secretly in a cave, or the hollow
bed of a river, or among the mountains. They cheered each other up, though
their progress was usually over the bodies of their dead friends.

For any pastor or preacher to be apprehended, was, of course, certain
death. Thus, out of thirteen Huguenots who were found worshipping in a
private apartment at Montpellier, in 1723, Vesson, the pastor, and Bonicel
and Antoine Comte, his assistants, were at once condemned and hanged on
the Peyrou, the other ten persons being imprisoned or sent to the galleys for
life.

Shortly after, Huc, the aged pastor, was taken prisoner in the Cevennes,
brought to Montpellier, and hanged in the same place. A reward of a
thousand livres was offered by Bernage, the intendant, for the heads of the
remaining preachers, the fatal list comprising the names of Court, Cortez,
Durand, Rouviere, Bombonnoux, and others. The names of these "others"
were not mentioned, not being yet thought worthy of the gibbet.

And yet it was at this time that the Bishop of Alais made an appeal to the
government against the toleration shown to the Huguenots! In 1723, he sent
a long memorial to Paris, alleging that Catholicism was suffering a serious
injury; that not only had the "new converts" withdrawn themselves from the
Catholic Church, but that the old Catholics themselves were resorting to the
Huguenot assemblies; that sometimes their meetings numbered from three
to four thousand persons; that their psalms were sometimes overheard in the
surrounding villages; that the churches were becoming deserted, the curés

in some parishes not being able to find a single Catholic to serve at Mass;
that the Protestants had ceased to send their children to school, and were
baptized and married without the intervention of the Church.

In consequence of these representations, the then Regent, the Duke of
Bourbon, sent down an urgent order to the authorities to carry out the law—
to prevent meetings, under penalty of death to preachers, and imprisonment
at the galleys to all who attended them, ordering that the people should be
forced to go to church and the children to school, and reviving generally the
severe laws against Protestantism issued by Louis XIV. The result was that
many of the assemblies were shortly after attacked and dispersed, many
persons were made prisoners and sent to the galleys, and many more
preachers were apprehended, racked, and hanged.

Repeated attempts were made to apprehend Antoine Court, as being the
soul of the renewed Protestant organization. A heavy reward was offered for
his head. The spies and police hunted after him in all directions. Houses
where he was supposed to be concealed were surrounded by soldiers at
night, and every hole and corner in them ransacked. Three houses were
searched in one night. Court sometimes escaped with great difficulty. On
one occasion he remained concealed for more than twenty hours under a
heap of manure. His friends endeavoured to persuade him to leave the
country until the activity of the search for him had passed.

Since the year 1722, Court had undertaken new responsibilities. He had
become married, and was now the father of three children. He had married a
young Huguenot woman of Uzes. He first met her in her father's house,
while he was in hiding from the spies. While he was engaged in his pastoral
work his wife and family continued to live at Uzes. Court was never seen in
her company, but could only visit his family secretly. The woman was
known to be of estimable character, but it gave rise to suspicions that she
had three children without a known father. The spies were endeavouring to
unravel the secret, tempted by the heavy reward offered for Court's head.

One day the new commandant of the town, passing before the door of the
house where Court's wife lived, stopped, and, pointing to the house, put
some questions to the neighbours. Court was informed of this, and
immediately supposed that his house had become known, that his wife and

family had been discovered and would be apprehended. He at once made
arrangements for having them removed to Geneva. They reached that city in
safety, in the month of April, 1729.

Shortly after, Court, still wandering and preaching about Languedoc,
became seriously ill. He feared for his wife, he feared for his family, and
conceived the design of joining them in Switzerland. A few months later,
exhausted by his labours and continued illness, he left Languedoc and
journeyed by slow stages to Geneva. He was still a young man, only thirty-
three; but he had worked excessively hard during the last dozen years. Since
the age of fourteen, in fact, he had evangelized Languedoc.

Shortly before Court left France for Switzerland, the preacher, Alexandre
Roussel, was, in the year 1728, added to the number of martyrs. He was
only twenty-six years of age. The occasion on which he was made prisoner
was while attending an assembly near Vigan. The whole of the people had
departed, and Roussel was the last to leave the meeting. He was taken to
Montpellier, and imprisoned in the citadel, which had before held so many
Huguenot pastors. He was asked to abjure, and offered a handsome bribe if
he would become a Catholic. He refused to deny his faith, and was
sentenced to die. When Antoine Court went to offer consolation to his
mother, she replied, "If my son had given way I should have been greatly
distressed; but as he died with constancy, I thank God for strengthening him
to perform this last work in his service."

Court did not leave his brethren in France without the expostulations of
his friends. They alleged that his affection for his wife and family had
cooled his zeal for God's service. Duplan and Cortez expostulated with him;
and the churches of Languedoc, which he himself had established, called
upon him to return to his duties amongst them.

But Court did not attend to their request. His determination was for the
present unshaken. He had a long arrears of work to do in quiet. He had
money to raise for the support of the suffering Church of France, and for the
proper maintenance of the college for students, preachers, and pastors. He
had to help the refugees, who still continued to leave France for
Switzerland, and to write letters and rouse the Protestant kingdoms of the
north, as Brousson had done before him some thirty years ago.

The city of Berne was very generous in its treatment of Court and the
Huguenots generally. The Bernish Government allotted Court a pension of
five hundred livres a-year—for he was without the means of supporting his
family—all his own and his wife's property having been seized and
sequestrated in France. Court preached with great success in the principal
towns of Switzerland, more particularly at Berne, and afterwards at
Lausanne, where he spent the rest of his days.

Though he worked there more peacefully, he laboured as continuously as
ever in the service of the Huguenot churches. He composed addresses to
them; he educated preachers and pastors for them; and one of his principal
works, while at Lausanne, was to compose a history of the Huguenots in
France subsequent to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

What he had done for the reorganization of the Huguenot Church in
France may be thus briefly stated. Court had begun his work in 1715, at
which time there was no settled congregation in the South of France. The
Huguenots were only ministered to by occasional wandering pastors. In
1729, the year in which Court finally left France, there were in Lower
Languedoc 29 organized, though secretly governed, churches; in Upper
Languedoc, 11; in the Cevennes, 18; in the Lozère 12; and in Viverais, 42
churches. There were now over 200,000 recognised Protestants in
Languedoc alone. The ancient discipline had been restored; 120 churches
had been organized; a seminary for the education of preachers and pastors
had been established; and Protestantism was extending in Dauphiny, Bearn,
Saintonge,[58] and other quarters.

Such were, in a great measure, the results of the labours of Antoine Court
and his assistants during the previous fifteen years.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XII.

THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT, 1730-62—PAUL RABAUT.

The persecutions of the Huguenots increased at one time and relaxed at
another. When France was at war, and the soldiers were fighting in Flanders
or on the Rhine, the bishops became furious, and complained bitterly to the
government of the toleration shown to the Protestants. The reason was that
there were no regiments at liberty to pursue the Huguenots and disperse
their meetings in the Desert. When the soldiers returned from the wars,
persecution began again.

It usually began with the seizing and burning of books. The book-burning
days were considered amongst the great days of fête.

One day in June, 1730, the Intendant of Languedoc visited Nismes,
escorted by four battalions of troops. On arriving, the principal Catholics
were selected, and placed as commissaries to watch the houses of the
suspected Huguenots. At night, while the inhabitants slept, the troops turned
out, and the commissaries pointed out the Huguenot houses to be searched.
The inmates were knocked up, the soldiers entered, the houses were
rummaged, and all the books that could be found were taken to the Hôtel de
Ville.

A few days after a great auto-da-fé was held. The entire Catholic
population turned out. There were the four battalions of troops, the
gendarmes, the Catholic priests, and the chief dignitaries; and in their
presence all the Huguenot books were destroyed. They were thrown into a
pile on the usual place of execution, and the hangman set fire to this great
mass of Bibles, psalm-books, catechisms, and sermons.[59] The officers
laughed, the priests sneered, the multitude cheered. These bonfires were of
frequent occurrence in all the towns of Languedoc.

But if the priests hated the printed word, still more did they hate the
spoken word. They did not like the Bible, but they hated the preachers.
Fines, auto-da-fés, condemnation to the galleys, seizures of women and
girls, and profanation of the dead, were tolerable punishments, but there
was nothing like hanging a preacher. "Nothing," said Saint-Florentin to the
commandant of La Devese, "can produce more impression than hanging a
preacher; and it is very desirable that you should immediately take steps to
arrest one of them."

The commandant obeyed orders, and apprehended Pierre Durand. He was
on his way to baptize the child of one of his congregation, who lived on a
farm in Viverais. An apparent peasant, who seemed to be waiting his
approach, offered to conduct him to the farm. Durand followed him. The
peasant proved to be a soldier in disguise. He led Durand directly into the
midst of his troop. There he was bound and carried off to Montpellier.

Durand was executed at the old place—the Peyrou—the soldiers beating
their drums to stifle his voice while he prayed. His corpse was laid beside
that of Alexandre Roussel, under the rampart of the fortress of Montpellier.
Durand was the last of the preachers in France who had attended the synod
of 1715. They had all been executed, excepting only Antoine Court, who
was safe in Switzerland.

The priests were not so successful with Claris, the preacher, who
contrived to escape their clutches. Claris had just reached France on his
return from the seminary at Lausanne. He had taken shelter for the night
with a Protestant friend at Foissac, near Uzes. Scarcely had he fallen asleep,
when the soldiers, informed by the spies, entered his chamber, bound him,
and marched him off on foot by night, to Alais. He was thrown into gaol,
and was afterwards judged and condemned to death. His friends in Alais,
however, secretly contrived to get an iron chisel passed to him in prison. He
raised the stone of a chamber which communicated with his dungeon,
descended to the ground, and silently leapt the wall. He was saved.

Pastors and preachers continued to be tracked and hunted with renewed
ardour in Saintonge, Poitou, Gascony, and Dauphiny. "The Chase," as it was
called, was better organized than it had been for twenty years previously.
The Catholic clergy, however, continued to complain. The chase, they said,
was not productive enough! The hangings of pastors were too few. The
curates of the Cevennes thus addressed the intendants: "You do not perform
your duty: you are neither active enough nor pitiless enough;"[60] and they
requested the government to adopt more vigorous measures.

The intendants, who were thus accused, insisted that they had done their
duty. They had hanged all the Huguenot preachers that the priests and their
spies had discovered and brought to them. They had also offered increased
rewards for the preachers' heads. If Protestantism counted so large a number

of adherents, they were surely not to blame for that! Had the priests
themselves done their duty? Thus the intendants and the curés reproached
each other by turns.

And yet the pastors and preachers had not been spared. They had been
hanged without mercy. They knew they were in the peril of constant death.
"I have slept fifteen days in a meadow," wrote Cortez, the pastor, "and I
write this under a tree." Morel, the preacher, when attending an assembly,
was fired at by the soldiers and died of his wounds. Pierre Dortial was also
taken prisoner when holding an assembly. The host with whom he lived was
condemned to the galleys for life; the arrondissement in which the assembly
had been held was compelled to pay a fine of three thousand livres; and
Dortial himself was sentenced to be hanged. When the aged preacher was
informed of his sentence he exclaimed: "What an honour for me, oh my
God! to have been chosen from so many others to suffer death because of
my constancy to the truth." He was executed at Nismes, and died with
courage.

In 1742 France was at war, and the Huguenots enjoyed a certain amount
of liberty. The edicts against them were by no means revoked; their
execution was merely suspended. The provinces were stripped of troops,
and the clergy could no longer call upon them to scatter the meetings in the
Desert. Hence the assemblies increased. The people began to think that the
commandants of the provinces had received orders to shut their eyes, and
see nothing of the proceedings of the Huguenots.

At a meeting held in a valley between Calvisson and Langlade, in
Languedoc, no fewer than ten thousand persons openly met for worship. No
troops appeared. There was no alarm nor surprise. Everything passed in
perfect quiet. In many other places, public worship was celebrated, the
sacrament was administered, children were baptized, and marriages were
celebrated in the open day.[61]

The Catholics again urgently complained to the government of the
increasing number of Huguenot meetings. The Bishop of Poitiers
complained that in certain parishes of his diocese there was not now a
single Catholic. Low Poitou contained thirty Protestant churches, divided
into twelve arrondissements, and each arrondissement contained about

seven thousand members. The Procureur-Général of Normandy said, "All
this country is full of Huguenots." But the government had at present no
troops to spare, and the Catholic bishops and clergy must necessarily wait
until the war with the English and the Austrians had come to an end.

Antoine Court paid a short visit to Languedoc in 1744, to reconcile a
difference which had arisen in the Church through the irregular conduct of
Pastor Boyer. Court was received with great enthusiasm, and when Boyer
was re-established in his position as pastor, after making his submission to
the synod, a convocation of Huguenots was held near Sauzet, at which
thousands of people were present. Court remained for about a month in
France, preaching almost daily to immense audiences. At Nismes, he
preached at the famous place for Huguenot meetings—in the old quarry,
about three miles from the town. There were about twenty thousand persons
present, ranged, as in an amphitheatre, along the sides of the quarry. It was
a most impressive sight. Peasants and gentlemen mixed together. Even the
"beau monde" of Nismes was present. Everybody thought that there was
now an end of the persecution.[62]

In the meantime the clergy continued to show signs of increasing
irritation. They complained, denounced, and threatened. Various calumnies
were invented respecting the Huguenots. The priests of Dauphiny gave out
that Roger, the pastor, had read an edict purporting to be signed by Louis
XV. granting complete toleration to the Huguenots! The report was entirely
without foundation, and Roger indignantly denied that he had read any such
edict. But the report reached the ears of the King, then before Ypres with his
army; on which he issued a proclamation announcing that the rumour
publicly circulated that it was his intention to tolerate the Huguenots was
absolutely false.

No sooner had the war terminated, and the army returned to France, than
the persecutions recommenced as hotly as ever. The citizens of Nismes, for
having recently encouraged the Huguenots and attended Court's great
meeting, were heavily fined. All the existing laws for the repression and
destruction of Protestantism were enforced. Suspected persons were
apprehended and imprisoned without trial. A new "hunt" was set on foot for
preachers. There were now plenty of soldiers at liberty to suppress the

meetings in the Desert, and they were ordered into the infested quarters. In
a word, persecution was let loose all over France. Nor was it without the
usual results. It was very hot in Dauphiny. There a detachment of horse
police, accompanied by regular troops and a hangman, ran through the
province early in 1745, spreading terror everywhere. One of their exploits
was to seize a sick old Huguenot, drag him from his bed, and force him
towards prison. He died upon the road.

In February, it was ascertained that the Huguenots met for worship in a
certain cavern. The owner of the estate on which the cavern was situated,
though unaware of the meetings, was fined a thousand crowns, and
imprisoned for a year in the Castle of Cret.

Next month, Louis Ranc, a pastor, was seized at Livron while baptizing
an infant, taken to Die, and hanged. He had scarcely breathed his last, when
the hangman cut the cord, hewed off the head, and made a young Protestant
draw the corpse along the streets of Die.

In the month of April, 1745, Jacques Roger, the old friend and coadjutor
of Court—the apostle of Dauphiny as Court had been of Languedoc—was
taken prisoner and conducted to Grenoble. Roger was then eighty years old,
worn out with privation and hard work. He was condemned to death. He
professed his joy at being still able to seal with his blood the truths he had
so often proclaimed. On his way to the scaffold, he sang aloud the fifty-first
Psalm. He was executed in the Place du Breuil. After he had hung for
twenty-four hours, his body was taken down, dragged along the streets of
Grenoble, and thrown into the Isère.

At Grenoble also, in the same year, seven persons were condemned to the
galleys. A young woman was publicly whipped at the same place for
attending a Huguenot meeting. Seven students and pastors who could not be
found, were hanged in effigy. Four houses were demolished for having
served as asylums for preachers. Fines were levied on all sides, and
punishments of various kinds were awarded to many hundred persons. Thus
persecution ran riot in Dauphiny in the years 1745 and 1746.

In Languedoc it was the same. The prisons and the galleys were always
kept full. Dragoons were quartered in the Huguenot villages, and by this

means the inhabitants were soon ruined. The soldiers pillaged the houses,
destroyed the furniture, tore up the linen, drank all the wine, and, when they
were in good humour, followed the cattle, swine, and fowl, and killed them
off sword in hand. Montauban, an old Huguenot town, was thus ruined in
the course of a very few months.

One day, in a Languedoc village, a soldier seized a young girl with a foul
intention. She cried aloud, and the villagers came to her rescue. The
dragoons turned out in a body, and fired upon the people. An old man was
shot dead, a number of the villagers were taken prisoners, and, with their
hands tied to the horses' tails, were conducted for punishment to
Montauban.

All the towns and villages in Upper Languedoc were treated with the
same cruelty. Nismes was fined over and over again. Viverais was treated
with the usual severity. M. Désubas, the pastor, was taken prisoner there,
and conducted to Vernoux. As the soldiers led him through the country to
prison, the villagers came out in crowds to see him pass. Many followed the
pastor, thinking they might be able to induce the magistrates of Vernoux to
liberate him. The villagers were no sooner cooped up in a mass in the chief
street of the town, than they were suddenly fired upon by the soldiers.
Thirty persons were killed on the spot, more than two hundred were
wounded, and many afterwards died of their wounds.

Désubas, the pastor, was conducted to Nismes, and from Nismes to
Montpellier. While on his way to death at Montpellier, some of his peasant
friends, who lived along the road, determined to rescue him. But when Paul
Rabaut heard of the proposed attempt, he ran to the place where the people
had assembled and held them back. He was opposed to all resistance to the
governing power, and thought it possible, by patience and righteousness, to
live down all this horrible persecution.

Désubas was judged, and, as usual, condemned to death. Though it was
winter time, he was led to his punishment almost naked; his legs uncovered,
and only in thin linen vest over his body. Arrived at the gallows, his books
and papers were burnt before his eyes, and he was then delivered over to the
executioner. A Jesuit presented a crucifix for him to kiss, but he turned his
head to one side, raised his eyes upwards, and was then hanged.

The same persecution prevailed over the greater part of France. In
Saintonge, Elie Vivien, the preacher, was taken prisoner, and hanged at La
Rochelle. His body remained for twenty-four hours on the gallows. It was
then placed upon a forked gibbet, where it hung until the bones were picked
clean by the crows and bleached by the wind and the sun.[63]

The same series of persecutions went on from one year to another. It was
a miserable monotony of cruelty. There was hanging for the pastors; the
galleys for men attending meetings in the Desert; the prisons and convents
for women and children. Wherever it was found that persons had been
married by the Huguenot pastors, they were haled before the magistrate,
fined and imprisoned, and told that they had been merely living in
concubinage, and that their children were illegitimate.

Sometimes it was thought that the persecutors would relent. France was
again engaged in a disastrous war with England and Austria; and it was
feared that England would endeavour to stir up a rebellion amongst the
Huguenots. But the pastors met in a general synod, and passed resolutions
assuring the government of their loyalty to the King,[64] and of their
devotion to the laws of France!

Their "loyalty" proved of no use. The towns of Languedoc were as
heavily fined as before, for attending meetings in the Desert.[65] Children
were, as usual, taken away from their parents and placed in Jesuit convents.
Le Nain apprehended Jean Desjours, and had him hanged at Montpellier, on
the ground that he had accompanied the peasants who, as above recited,
went into Vernoux after the martyr Désubas.

The Catholics would not even allow Protestant corpses to be buried in
peace. At Levaur a well-known Huguenot died. Two of his friends went to
dig a grave for him by night; they were observed by spies and informed
against. By dint of money and entreaties, however, the friends succeeded in
getting the dead man buried. The populace, stirred up by the White
Penitents (monks), opened the grave, took out the corpse, sawed the head
from the body, and prepared to commit further outrages, when the police
interfered, and buried the body again, in consideration of the large sum that
had been paid to the authorities for its interment.

The populace were always wild for an exhibition of cruelty. In Provence,
a Protestant named Montague died, and was secretly interred. The Catholics
having discovered the place where he was buried determined to disinter
him. The grave was opened, and the corpse taken out. A cord was attached
to the neck, and the body was hauled through the village to the music of a
tambourine and flageolet. At every step it was kicked or mauled by the
crowd who accompanied it. Under the kicks the corpse burst. The furious
brutes then took out the entrails and attached them to poles, going through
the village crying, "Who wants preachings? Who wants preachings?"[66]

To such a pitch of brutality had the kings of France and their instigators,
the Jesuits—who, since the Revocation of the Edict, had nearly the whole
education of the country in their hands—reduced the people; from whom
they were themselves, however, to suffer almost an equal amount of
indignity.

In the midst of these hangings and cruelties, the bishops again
complained bitterly of the tolerance granted to the Huguenots. M. de
Montclus, Bishop of Alais, urged "that the true cause of all the evils that
afflict the country was the relaxation of the laws against heresy by the
magistrates, that they gave themselves no trouble to persecute the
Protestants, and that their further emigration from the kingdom was no
more to be feared than formerly." It was, they alleged, a great danger to the
country that there should be in it two millions of men allowed to live
without church and outside the law.[67]

The afflicted Church at this time had many misfortunes to contend with.
In 1748, the noble, self-denying, indefatigable Claris died—one of the few
Protestant pastors who died in his bed. In 1750, the eloquent young
preacher, François Benezet,[68] was taken and hanged at Montpellier.
Meetings in the Desert were more vigorously attacked and dispersed, and
when surrounded by the soldiers, most persons were shot; the others were
taken prisoners.

The Huguenot pastors repeatedly addressed Louis XV. and his ministers,
appealing to them for protection as loyal subjects. In 1750 they addressed
the King in a new memorial, respectfully representing that their meetings
for public worship, sacraments, baptisms, and marriages, were matters of

conscience. They added: "Your troops pursue us in the deserts as if we were
wild beasts; our property is confiscated; our children are torn from us; we
are condemned to the galleys; and although our ministers continually exhort
us to discharge our duty as good citizens and faithful subjects, a price is set
upon their heads, and when they are taken, they are cruelly executed." But
Louis XV. and his ministers gave no greater heed to this petition than they
had done to those which had preceded it.

After occasional relays the Catholic persecutions again broke out. In
1752 there was a considerable emigration in consequence of a new
intendant having been appointed to Languedoc. The Catholics called upon
him to put in force the powers of the law. New brooms sweep clean. The
Intendant proceeded to carry out the law with such ferocity as to excite
great terror throughout the province. Meetings were surrounded; prisoners
taken and sent to the galleys; and all the gaols and convents were filled with
women and children.

The emigration began again. Many hundred persons went to Holland; and
a still larger number went to settle with their compatriots as silk and poplin
weavers in Dublin. The Intendant of Languedoc tried to stop their flight.
The roads were again watched as before. All the outlets from the kingdom
were closed by the royalist troops. Many of the intending emigrants were
made prisoners. They were spoiled of everything, robbed of their money,
and thrown into gaol. Nevertheless, another large troop started, passed
through Switzerland, and reached Ireland at the end of the year.

At the same time, emigration was going on from Normandy and Poitou,
where persecution was compelling the people to fly from their own shores
and take refuge in England. This religious emigration of 1752 was,
however, almost the last which took place from France. Though the
persecutions were drawing to an end, they had not yet come to a close.

In 1754, the young pastor Tessier (called Lafage), had just returned from
Lausanne, where he had been pursuing his studies for three years. He had
been tracked by a spy to a certain house, where he had spent the night. Next
morning the house was surrounded by soldiers. Tessier tried to escape by
getting out of a top window and running along the roofs of the adjoining
houses. A soldier saw him escaping and shot at him. He was severely

wounded in the arm. He was captured, taken before the Intendant of
Languedoc, condemned, and hanged in the course of the same day.

Religious meetings also continued to be surrounded, and were treated in
the usual brutal manner. For instance, an assembly was held in Lower
Languedoc on the 8th of August, 1756, for the purpose of ordaining to the
ministry three young men who had arrived from Lausanne, where they had
been educated. A number of pastors were present, and as many as from ten
to twelve thousand men, women, and children were there from the
surrounding country. The congregation was singing a psalm, when a
detachment of soldiers approached. The people saw them; the singing
ceased; the pastors urging patience and submission. The soldiers fired;
every shot told; and the crowd fled in all directions. The meeting was thus
dispersed, leaving the murderers—in other words, the gallant soldiers—
masters of the field; a long track of blood remaining to mark the site on
which the prayer-meeting had been held.

It is not necessary to recount further cruelties and tortures. Assemblies
surrounded and people shot; preachers seized and hanged; men sent to the
galleys; women sent to the Tour de Constance; children carried off to the
convents—such was the horrible ministry of torture in France. When Court
heard of the re-inflictions of some old form of torture—"Alas," said he,
"there is nothing new under the sun. In all times, the storm of persecution
has cleansed the threshing-floor of the Lord."

And yet, notwithstanding all the bitterness of the persecution, the number
of Protestants increased. It is difficult to determine their numbers. Their
apologists said they amounted to three millions;[69] their detractors that they
did not amount to four hundred thousand. The number of itinerant pastors,
however, steadily grew. In 1756 there were 48 pastors at work, with 22
probationary preachers and students. In 1763 there were 62 pastors, 35
preachers, and 15 students.

Then followed the death of Antoine Court himself in Switzerland—after
watching over the education and training of preachers at the Lausanne
Seminary. Feeling his powers beginning to fail, he had left Lausanne, and
resided at Timonex. There, assisted by his son Court de Gébelin, Professor

of Logic at the College, he conducted an immense correspondence with
French Protestants at home and abroad.

Court's wife died in 1755, to his irreparable loss. His "Rachel," during his
many years of peril, had been his constant friend and consoler. Unable, after
her death, to live at Timonex, so full of cruel recollections, Court returned
to Lausanne. He did not long survive his wife's death. While engaged in
writing the history of the Reformed Church of France, he was taken ill. His
history of the Camisards was sent to press, and he lived to revise the first
proof-sheets. But he did not survive to see the book published. He died on
the 15th June, 1760, in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

From the time of Court's death—indeed from the time that Court left
France to settle at Lausanne—Paul Rabaut continued to be looked upon as
the leader and director of the proscribed Huguenot Church. Rabaut
originally belonged to Bedarieux in Languedoc. He was a great friend of
Pradel's. Rabaut served the Church at Nismes, and Pradel at Uzes. Both
spent two years at Lausanne in 1744-5. Court entertained the highest
affection for Rabaut, and regarded him as his successor. And indeed he
nobly continued the work which Court had begun.

Besides being zealous, studious, and pious, Rabaut was firm, active,
shrewd, and gentle. He stood strongly upon moral force. Once, when the
Huguenots had become more than usually provoked by the persecutions
practised on them, they determined to appear armed at the assemblies.
Rabaut peremptorily forbade it. If they persevered, he would forsake their
meetings. He prevailed, and they came armed only with their Bibles.

The directness of Rabaut's character, the nobility of his sentiments, the
austerity of his life, and his heroic courage, evidently destined him as the
head of the work which Court had begun. Antoine Court! Paul Rabaut! The
one restored Protestantism in France, the other rooted and established it.

Rabaut's enthusiasm may be gathered from the following extract of a
letter which he wrote to a friend at Geneva: "When I fix my attention upon
the divine fire with which, I will not say Jesus Christ and the Apostles, but
the Reformed and their immediate successors, burned for the salvation of
souls, it seems to me that, in comparison with them, we are ice. Their

immense works astound me, and at the same time cover me with confusion.
What would I not give to resemble them in everything laudable!"

Rabaut had the same privations, perils, and difficulties to undergo as the
rest of the pastors in the Desert. He had to assume all sorts of names and
disguises while he travelled through the country, in order to preach at the
appointed places. He went by the names of M. Paul, M. Denis, M.
Pastourel, and M. Theophile; and he travelled under the disguises of a
common labourer, a trader, a journeyman, and a baker.

He was condemned to death, as a pastor who preached in defiance of the
law; but his disguises were so well prepared, and the people for whom he
ministered were so faithful to him, that the priests and other spies never
succeeded in apprehending him. Singularly enough, he was in all other
respects in favour of the recognition of legal authority, and strongly urged
his brethren never to adopt any means whatever of forcibly resisting the
King's orders.

Many of the military commanders were becoming disgusted with the
despicable and cowardly business which the priests called upon them to do.
Thus, on one occasion, a number of Protestants had assembled at the house
of Paul Rabaut at Nismes, and, while they were on their knees, the door was
suddenly burst open, when a man, muffled up, presented himself, and
throwing open his cloak, discovered the military commandant of the town.
"My friends," he said, "you have Paul Rabaut with you; in a quarter of an
hour I shall be here with my soldiers, accompanied by Father ——, who has
just laid the information against you." When the soldiers arrived, headed by
the commandant and the father, of course no Paul Rabaut was to be found.

"For more than thirty years," says one of Paul Rabaut's biographers,
"caverns and huts, whence he was unearthed like a wild animal, were his
only habitation. For a long time he dwelt in a safe hiding-place that one of
his faithful guides had provided for him, under a pile of stones and thorn-
bushes. It was discovered at length by a shepherd, and such was the
wretchedness of his condition, that, when he was forced to abandon the
place, he still regretted this retreat, which was more fit for savage beasts
than men."

Yet this hut of piled stones was for some time the centre of Protestant
affairs in France. All the faithful instinctively turned to Rabaut when
assailed by fresh difficulties and persecutions, and acted on his advice. He
obtained the respect even of the Catholics themselves, because it was
known that he was a friend of peace, and opposed to all risings and
rebellions amongst his people.

Once he had the courage to present a petition to the Marquis de Paulmy,
Minister of War, when changing horses at a post-house between Nismes and
Montpellier. Rabaut introduced himself by name, and the Marquis knew
that it was the proscribed pastor who stood before him. He might have
arrested and hanged Rabaut on the spot; but, impressed by the noble bearing
of the pastor, he accepted the petition, and promised to lay it before the
king.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XIII.

END OF THE PERSECUTIONS—THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

In the year 1762, the execution of an unknown Protestant at Toulouse
made an extraordinary noise in Europe. Protestant pastors had so often been
executed, that the punishment had ceased to be a novelty. Sometimes they
were simply hanged; at other times they were racked, and then hanged; and
lastly, they were racked, had their larger bones broken, and were then
hanged. Yet none of the various tortures practised on the Protestant pastors
had up to that time excited any particular sensation in France itself, and still
less in Europe.

Cruelty against French Huguenots was so common a thing in those days,
that few persons who were of any other religion, or of no religion at all,
cured anything about it. The Protestants were altogether outside the law.
When a Protestant meeting was discovered and surrounded, and men,
women, and children were at once shot down, no one could call the
murderers in question, because the meetings were illegal. The persons taken

prisoners at the meetings were brought before the magistrates and sentenced
to punishments even worse than death. They might be sent to the galleys, to
spend the remainder of their lives amongst thieves, murderers, and
assassins. Women and children found at such meetings might also be
sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tour de Constance. There were even
cases of boys of twelve years old having been sent to the galleys for life,
because of having accompanied their parents to "the Preaching."[70]

The same cruelties were at that time practised upon the common people
generally, whether they were Huguenots or not. The poor creatures, whose
only pleasure consisted in sometimes hunting a Protestant, were so badly
off in some districts of France that they even fed upon grass. The most
distressed districts in France were those in which the bishops and clergy
were the principal owners of land. They were the last to abandon slavery,
which continued upon their estates until after the Revolution.

All these abominations had grown up in France, because the people had
begun to lose the sense of individual liberty. Louis XIV. had in his time
prohibited the people from being of any religion different from his own.
"His Majesty," said his Prime Minister Louvois, "will not suffer any person
to remain in his kingdom who shall not be of his religion." And Louis XV.
continued the delusion. The whole of the tyrannical edicts and ordinances of
Louis XIV. continued to be maintained.

It was not that Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were kings of any virtue or
religion. Both were men of exceedingly immoral habits. We have elsewhere
described Louis XIV., but Louis XV., the Well-beloved, was perhaps the
greatest profligate of the two. Madame de Pompadour, when she ceased to
be his mistress, became his procuress. This infamous woman had the
command of the state purse, and she contrived to build for the sovereign a
harem, called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, in the park of Versailles, which cost the
country at least a hundred millions of francs.[71] The number of young girls
taken from Paris to this place excited great public discontent; and though
morals generally were not very high at that time, the debauchery and
intemperance of the King (for he was almost constantly drunk)[72]
contributed to alienate the nation, and to foster those feelings of hatred
which broke forth without restraint in the ensuing reign.

In the midst of all this public disregard for virtue, a spirit of ribaldry and
disregard for the sanctions of religion had long been making its appearance
in the literature of the time. The highest speculations which can occupy the
attention of man were touched with a recklessness and power, a brilliancy
of touch and a bitterness of satire, which forced the sceptical productions of
the day upon the notice of all who studied, read, or delighted in literature;—
for those were the days of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the great men
of "The Encyclopædia."

While the King indulged in his vicious pleasures, and went reeking from
his debaucheries to obtain absolution from his confessors, the persecution
of the Protestants went on as before. Nor was it until public opinion (such
as it was) was brought to bear upon the hideous incongruity that religious
persecutions were at once brought summarily to an end.

The last executions of Huguenots in France because of their
Protestantism occurred in 1762. Francis Rochette, a young pastor, twenty-
six years old, was laid up by sickness at Montauban. He recovered
sufficiently to proceed to the waters of St. Antonin for the recovery of his
health, when he was seized, together with his two guides or bearers, by the
burgess guard of the town of Caussade. The three brothers Grenier
endeavoured to intercede for them; but the mayor of Caussade, proud of his
capture, sent the whole of the prisoners to gaol.

They were tried by the judges of Toulouse on the 18th of February.
Rochette was condemned to be hung in his shirt, his head and feet
uncovered, with a paper pinned on his shirt before and behind, with the
words written thereon—"Ministre de la religion prétendue réformée." The
three brothers Grenier, who interfered on behalf of Rochette, were ordered
to have their heads taken off for resisting the secular power; and the two
guides, who were bearing the sick Rochette to St. Antonin for the benefit of
the waters, were sent to the galleys for life.

Barbarous punishments such as these were so common when Protestants
were the offenders, that the decision, of the judges did not excite any
particular sensation. It was only when Jean Calas was shortly after executed
at Toulouse that an extraordinary sensation was produced—and that not
because Calas was a Protestant, but because his punishment came under the

notice of Voltaire, who exposed the inhuman cruelty to France, Europe, and
the world at large.

The reason why Protestant executions terminated with the death of Calas
was as follows:—The family of Jean Calas resided at Toulouse, then one of
the most bigoted cities in France. Toulouse swarmed with priests and
monks, more Spanish than French in their leanings. They were great in
relics, processions, and confraternities. While "mealy-mouthed" Catholics
in other quarters were becoming somewhat ashamed of the murders
perpetrated during the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and were even
disposed to deny them, the more outspoken Catholics of Toulouse were
even proud of the feat, and publicly celebrated the great southern Massacre
of St. Bartholomew which took place in 1572. The procession then held was
one of the finest church commemorations in the south; it was followed by
bishops, clergy, and the people of the neighbourhood, in immense numbers.

Calas was an old man of sixty-four, and reduced to great weakness by a
paralytic complaint. He and his family were all Protestants excepting one
son, who had become a Catholic. Another of the sons, however, a man of
ill-regulated life, dissolute, and involved in pecuniary difficulties,
committed suicide by hanging himself in an outhouse.

On this, the brotherhood of White Penitents stirred up a great fury against
the Protestant family in the minds of the populace. The monks alleged that
Jean Calas had murdered his son because he wished to become a Catholic.
They gave out that it was a practice of the Protestants to keep an
executioner to murder their children who wished to abjure the reformed
faith, and that one of the objects of the meetings which they held in the
Desert, was to elect this executioner. The White Penitents celebrated mass
for the suicide's soul; they exhibited his figure with a palm branch in his
hand, and treated him as a martyr.

The public mind became inflamed. A fanatical judge, called David, took
up the case, and ordered Calas and his whole family to be sent to prison.
Calas was tried by the court of Toulouse. They tortured the whole family to
compel them to confess the murder;[73] but they did not confess. The court
wished to burn the mother, but they ended by condemning the paralytic
father to be broken alive on the wheel.[74] The parliament of Toulouse

confirmed the atrocious sentence, and the old man perished in torments,
declaring to the last his entire innocence. The rest of the family were
discharged, although if there had been any truth in the charge for which
Jean Calas was racked to death, they must necessarily have been his
accomplices, and equally liable to punishment.

The ruined family left Toulouse and made for Geneva, then the head-
quarters of Protestants from the South of France. And here it was that the
murder of Jean Calas and the misfortunes of the Calas family came under
the notice of Voltaire, then living at Ferney, near Geneva.

In the midst of the persecutions of the Protestants a great many changes
had been going on in France. Although the clergy had for more than a
century the sole control of the religious education of the people, the people
had not become religious. They had become very ignorant and very
fanatical. The upper classes were anything but religious; they were given up
for the most part to frivolity and libertinage. The examples of their kings
had been freely followed. Though ready to do honour to the court religion,
the higher classes did not believe in it. The press was very free for the
publication of licentious and immoral books, but not for Protestant Bibles.
A great work was, however, in course of publication, under the editorship of
D'Alembert and Diderot, to which Voltaire, Rousseau, and others
contributed, entitled "The Encyclopædia." It was a description of the entire
circle of human knowledge; but the dominant idea which pervaded it was
the utter subversion of religion.

The abuses of the Church, its tyranny and cruelty, the ignorance and
helplessness in which it kept the people, the frivolity and unbelief of the
clergy themselves, had already condemned it in the minds of the nation. The
writers in "The Encyclopædia" merely gave expression to their views, and
the publication of its successive numbers was received with rapture. In the
midst of the free publication of obscene books, there had also appeared,
before the execution of Calas, the Marquis de Mirabeau's "Ami des
Hommes," Rousseau's "Émile," the "Contrat Social," with other works,
denying religion of all kinds, and pointing to the general downfall, which
was now fast approaching.

When the Calas family took refuge in Geneva, Voltaire soon heard of
their story. It was communicated to him by M. de Végobre, a French
refugee. After he had related it, Voltaire said, "This is a horrible story. What
has become of the family?" "They arrived in Geneva only three days ago."
"In Geneva!" said Voltaire; "then let me see them at once." Madame Calas
soon arrived, told him the whole facts of the case, and convinced Voltaire of
the entire innocence of the family.

Voltaire was no friend of the Huguenots. He believed the Huguenot spirit
to be a republican spirit. In his "Siècle de Louis XIV.," when treating of the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he affirmed that the Reformed were the
enemies of the State; and though he depicted feelingly the cruelties they had
suffered, he also stated clearly that he thought they had deserved them.
Voltaire probably owed his hatred of the Protestants to the Jesuits, by whom
he was educated. He was brought up at the Jesuit College of Louis le
Grand, the chief persecutor of the Huguenots. Voltaire also owed much of
the looseness of his principles to his godfather, the Abbé Chateauneuf,
grand-prior of Vendôme, the Abbé de Chalieu, and others, who educated
him in an utter contempt for the doctrines they were appointed and paid to
teach. It was when but a mere youth that Father Lejay, one of Voltaire's
instructors, predicted that he would yet be the Coryphæus of Deism in
France.

Nor was Voltaire better pleased with the Swiss Calvinists. He
encountered some of the most pedantic of them while residing at Lausanne
and Geneva.[75] At the latter place, he covered with sarcasm the "twenty-
four periwigs"—the Protestant council of the city. They would not allow
him to set up a theatre in Geneva, so he determined to set up one himself at
La Chatelaine, about a mile off, but beyond the Genevese frontier. His
object, he professed, was "to corrupt the pedantic city." The theatre is still
standing, though it is now used only as a hayloft. The box is preserved from
which Voltaire cheered the performance of his own and other plays.

But though Voltaire hated Protestantism like every other religion, he also
hated injustice. It was because of this that he took up the case of the Calas
family, so soon as he had become satisfied of their innocence. But what a
difficulty he had to encounter in endeavouring to upset the decision of the

judges, and the condemnation of Calas by the parliament of Toulouse.
Moreover, he had to reverse their decision against a dead man, and that man
a detested Huguenot.

Nevertheless Voltaire took up the case. He wrote letters to his friends in
all parts of France. He wrote to the sovereigns of Europe. He published
letters in the newspapers. He addressed the Duke de Choiseul, the King's
Secretary of State. He appealed to philosophers, to men of letters, to ladies
of the court, and even to priests and bishops, denouncing the sentence
pronounced against Calas,—the most iniquitous, he said, that any court
professing to act in the name of justice had ever pronounced. Ferney was
visited by many foreigners, from Germany, America, England, and Russia;
as well as by numerous persons of influence in France. To all these he
spoke vehemently of Calas and his sentence. He gave himself no rest until
he had inflamed the minds of all men against the horrible injustice.

At length, the case of Calas became known all over France, and in fact all
over Europe. The press of Paris rang with it. In the boudoirs and salons,
Calas was the subject of conversation. In the streets, men meeting each
other would ask, "Have you heard of Calas?" The dead man had already
become a hero and a martyr!

An important point was next reached. It was decided that the case of
Calas should be remitted to a special court of judges appointed to consider
the whole matter. Voltaire himself proceeded to get up the case. He prepared
and revised the memorials, he revised all the pleadings of the advocates,
transforming them into brief, conclusive arguments, sparkling with wit,
reason, and eloquence. The revision of the process commenced. The people
held their breaths while it proceeded.

At length, in the spring of 1766—four years after Calas had been broken
to death on the wheel—four years after Voltaire had undertaken to have the
unjust decision of the Toulouse magistrates and parliament reversed, the
court of judges, after going completely over the evidence, pronounced the
judgment to have been entirely unfounded!

The decree was accordingly reversed. Jean Calas was declared to have
been innocent. The man was, however, dead. But in order to compensate his

family, the ministry granted 36,000 francs to Calas's widow, on the express
recommendation of the court which reversed the abominable sentence.[76]

The French people never forgot Voltaire's efforts in this cause.
Notwithstanding all his offences against morals and religion, Voltaire on
this occasion acted on his best impulses. Many years after, in 1778, he
visited Paris, where he was received with immense enthusiasm. He was
followed in the streets wherever he went. One day when passing along the
Pont Royal, some person asked, "Who is that man the crowd is following?"
"Ne savez vous pas," answered a common woman, "que c'est le sauveur de
Calas!" Voltaire was more touched with this simple tribute to his fame than
with all the adoration of the Parisians.

It was soon found, however, that there were many persons still suffering
in France from the cruelty of priests and judges; and one of these occurred
shortly after the death of Calas. One of the ordinary practices of the
Catholics was to seize the children of Protestants and carry them off to
some nunnery to be educated at the expense of their parents. The priests of
Toulouse had obtained a lettre de cachet to take away the daughter of a
Protestant named Sirven, to compel her to change her religion. She was
accordingly seized and carried off to a nunnery. She manifested such
reluctance to embrace Catholicism, and she was treated with such cruelty,
that she fled from the convent in the night, and fell into a well, where she
was found drowned.

The prejudices of the Catholic bigots being very much excited about this
time by the case of Calas, blamed the family of Sirven (in the same manner
as they had done that of Calas) with murdering their daughter. Foreseeing
that they would be apprehended if they remained, the whole family left the
city, and set out for Geneva. After they left, Sirven was in fact sentenced to
death par contumace. It was about the middle of winter when they set out,
and Sirven's wife died of cold on the way, amidst the snows of the Jura.

On his arrival at Geneva, Sirven stated his case to Voltaire, who took it
up as he had done that of Calas. He exerted himself as before. Advocates of
the highest rank offered to conduct Sirven's case; for public opinion had
already made considerable progress. Sirven was advised to return to
Toulouse, and offer himself as a prisoner. He did so. The case was tried with

the same results as before; the advocates, acting under Voltaire's
instructions and with his help, succeeded in obtaining the judges'
unanimous decision that Sirven was innocent of the crime for which he had
already been sentenced to death.

After this, there were no further executions of Protestants in France. But
what became of the Huguenots at the galleys, who still continued to endure
a punishment from day to day, even worse than death itself?[77] Although,
they were often cut off by fever, starvation, and exposure, many of them
contrived to live on to a considerable age. After the trials of Calas and
Sirven, the punishment of the galleys was evidently drawing to an end.
Only two persons were sent to the galleys during the year in which Pastor
Rochette was hanged. But a circumstance came to light respecting one of
the galley-slaves who had been liberated in that very year (1762), which
had the effect of eventually putting an end to the cruelty.

The punishment was not, however, abolished by Christian feeling, or by
greater humanity on the part of the Catholics; nor was it abolished through
the ministers of justice, and still less by the order of the King. It was put an
end to by the Stage! As Voltaire, the Deist, terminated the hanging of
Protestants, so did Fenouillot, the player, put an end to their serving as
galley-slaves. The termination of this latter punishment has a curious
history attached to it.

It happened that a Huguenot meeting for worship was held in the
neighbourhood of Nismes, on the first day of January, 1756. The place of
meeting was called the Lecque,[78] situated immediately north of the Tour
Magne, from which the greater part of the city has been built. It was a
favourable place for holding meetings; but it was not so favourable for
those who wished to escape. The assembly had scarcely been constituted by
prayer, when the alarm was given that the soldiers were upon them! The
people fled on all sides. The youngest and most agile made their escape by
climbing the surrounding rocks.

Amongst these, Jean Fabre, a young silk merchant of Nismes, was
already beyond reach of danger, when he heard that his father had been
made a prisoner. The old man, who was seventy-eight, could not climb as
the others had done, and the soldiers had taken him and were leading him

away. The son, who knew that his father would be sentenced to the galleys
for life, immediately determined, if possible, to rescue him from this
horrible fate. He returned to the group of soldiers who had his father in
charge, and asked them to take him prisoner in his place. On their refusal,
he seized his father and drew him from their grasp, insisting upon them
taking himself instead. The sergeant in command at first refused to adopt
this strange substitution; but, conquered at last by the tears and prayers of
the son, he liberated the aged man and accepted Jean Fabre as his prisoner.

Jean Fabre was first imprisoned at Nismes, where he was prevented
seeing any of his friends, including a certain young lady to whom he was
about shortly to be married. He was then transferred to Montpellier to be
judged; where, of course, he was condemned, as he expected, to be sent to
the galleys for life. With this dreadful prospect before him, of separation
from all that he loved—from his father, for whom he was about to suffer so
much; from his betrothed, who gave up all hope of ever seeing him again—
and having no prospect of being relieved from his horrible destiny, his
spirits failed, and he became seriously ill. But his youth and Christian
resignation came to his aid, and he finally recovered.

The Protestants of Nismes, and indeed of all Languedoc, were greatly
moved by the fate of Jean Fabre. The heroism of his devotion to his parent
soon became known, and the name of the volunteer convict was in every
mouth. The Duc de Mirepoix, then governor of the province, endeavoured
to turn the popular feeling to some account. He offered pardon to Fabre and
Turgis (who had been taken prisoner with him) provided Paul Rabaut, the
chief pastor of the Desert, a hard-working and indefatigable man, would
leave France and reside abroad. But neither Fabre, nor Rabaut, nor the
Huguenots generally, had any confidence in the mercy of the Catholics, and
the proposal was coldly declined.

Fabre was next sent to Toulon under a strong escort of cavalry. He was
there registered in the class of convicts; his hair was cut close; he was
clothed in the ignominious dress of the galley-slave, and placed in a galley
among murderers and criminals, where he was chained to one of the worst.
The dinner consisted of a porridge of cooked beans and black bread. At first
he could not touch it, and preferred to suffer hunger. A friend of Fabre, who

was informed of his starvation, sent him some food more savoury and
digestible; but his stomach was in such a state that he could not eat even
that. At length he became accustomed to the situation, though the place was
a sort of hell, in which he was surrounded by criminals in rags, dirt, and
vermin, and, worst of all, distinguished for their abominable vileness of
speech. He was shortly after seized with a serious illness, when he was sent
to the hospital, where he found many Huguenot convicts imprisoned, like
himself, because of their religion.[79]

Repeated applications were made to Saint-Florentin, the Secretary of
State, by Fabre's relatives, friends, and fellow Protestants for his liberation,
but without result. After he had been imprisoned for some years, a
circumstance happened which more than anything else exasperated his
sufferings. The young lady to whom he was engaged had an offer of
marriage made to her by a desirable person, which her friends were anxious
that she should accept. Her father had been struck by paralysis, and was
poor and unable to maintain himself as well as his daughter. He urged that
she should give up Fabre, now hopelessly imprisoned for life, and accept
her new lover.

Fabre himself was consulted on the subject; his conscience was appealed
to, and how did he decide? It was only after the bitterest struggle, that he
determined on liberating his betrothed. He saw no prospect of his release,
and why should he sacrifice her? Let her no longer be bound up with his
fearful fate, but be happy with another if she could.

The young lady yielded, though not without great misgivings. The day
for her marriage with her new lover was fixed; but, at the last moment, she
relented. Her faithfulness and love for the heroic galley-slave had never
been shaken, and she resolved to remain constant to him, to remain
unmarried if need be, or to wait for his liberation until death!

It is probable that her noble decision determined Fabre and Fabre's
friends to make a renewed effort for his liberation. At last, after having been
more than six years a galley-slave, he bethought him of a method of
obtaining at least a temporary liberty. He proposed—without appealing to
Saint-Florentin, who was the bitter enemy of the Protestants—to get his
case made known to the Duc de Choiseul, Minister of Marine. This

nobleman was a just man, and it had been in a great measure through his
influence that the judgment of Calas had been reconsidered and reversed.

Fabre, while on the rowers' bench, had often met with a M. Johannot, a
French Protestant, settled at Frankfort-on-Maine, to whom he stated his
case. It may be mentioned that Huguenot refugees, on their visits to France,
often visited the Protestant prisoners at the galleys, relieved their wants, and
made intercession for them with the outside world. It may also be
incidentally mentioned that this M. Johannot was the ancestor of two well-
known painters and designers, Alfred and Tony, who have been the
illustrators of some of our finest artistic works.

Johannot made the case of Fabre known to some French officers whom
he met at Frankfort, interested them greatly in his noble character and self-
sacrifice, and the result was that before long Fabre obtained, directly from
the Duc de Choiseul, leave of absence from the position of galley-slave.
The annoyance of Saint-Florentin, Minister of State, was so well-known,
that Fabre, on his liberation, was induced to conceal himself. Nor could he
yet marry his promised wife, as he had not been discharged, but was only
on leave of absence; and Saint-Florentin obstinately refused to reverse the
sentence that had been pronounced against him.

In the meantime, Fabre's name was becoming celebrated. He had no idea,
while privately settled at Ganges as a silk stocking maker, that great people
in France were interesting themselves about his fate. The Duchesse de
Grammont, sister of the Duc de Choiseul, had heard about him from her
brother; and the Prince de Beauvau, governor of Languedoc, the Duchesse
de Villeroy, and many other distinguished personages, were celebrating his
heroism.

Inquiry was made of the sergeant who had originally apprehended Fabre,
upon his offering himself in exchange for his father (long since dead), and
the sergeant confirmed the truth of the noble and generous act. At the same
time, M. Alison, first consul at Nismes, confirmed the statement by three
witnesses, in presence of the secretary of the Prince de Beauvau. The result
was, that Jean Fabre was completely exonerated from the charge on account
of which he had been sent to the galleys. He was now a free man, and at last
married the young lady who had loved him so long and so devotedly.

One day, to his extreme surprise, Fabre received from the Duc de
Choiseul a packet containing a drama, in which he found his own history
related in verse, by Fenouillot de Falbaire. It was entitled "The Honest
Criminal." Fabre had never been a criminal, except in worshipping God
according to his conscience, though that had for nearly a hundred years
been pronounced a crime by the law of France.

The piece, which was of no great merit as a tragedy, was at first played
before the Duchesse de Villeroy and her friends, with great applause, Mdlle.
Clairon playing the principal female part. Saint-Florentin prohibited the
playing of the piece in public, protesting to the last against the work and the
author. Voltaire played it at Ferney, and Queen Marie Antoinette had it
played in her presence at Versailles. It was not until 1789 that the piece was
played in the theatres of Paris, when it had a considerable success.

We do not find that any Protestants were sent to be galley-slaves after
1762, the year that Calas was executed. A reaction against this barbarous
method of treating men for differences of opinion seems to have set in; or,
perhaps, it was because most men were ceasing to believe in the miraculous
powers of the priests, for which the Protestants had so long been hanged
and made galley-slaves.

After the liberation of Fabre in 1762, other galley-slaves were liberated
from time to time. Thus, in the same year, Jean Albiges and Jean Barran
were liberated after eight years of convict life. They had been condemned
for assisting at Protestant assemblies. Next year, Maurice was liberated; he
had been condemned for life for the same reason.

While Voltaire had been engaged in the case of Calas he asked the Duc
de Choiseul for the liberation of a galley-slave. The man for whom he
interceded, had been a convict twenty years for attending a Protestant
meeting. Of course, Voltaire cared nothing for his religion, believing
Catholicism and Protestantism to be only two forms of the same
superstition. The name of this galley-slave was Claude Chaumont. Like
nearly all the other convicts he was a working man—a little dark-faced
shoemaker. Some Protestant friends he had at Geneva interceded with
Voltaire for his liberation.

On Chaumont's release in 1764, he waited upon his deliverer to thank
him. "What!" said Voltaire, on first seeing him, "my poor little bit of a man,
have they put you in the galleys? What could they have done with you? The
idea of sending a little creature to the galley-chain, for no other crime than
that of praying to God in bad French!"[80] Voltaire ended by handing the
impoverished fellow a sum of money to set him up in the world again, when
he left the house the happiest of men.

We may briefly mention a few of the last of the galley-slaves. Daniel Bic
and Jean Cabdié, liberated in 1764, for attending religious meetings. Both
were condemned for life, and had been at the galley-chain for ten years.

Jean Pierre Espinas, an attorney, of St. Felix de Châteauneuf, in Viverais,
who had been condemned for life for having given shelter to a pastor, was
released in 1765, at the age of sixty-seven, after being chained at the galleys
for twenty-five years.

Jean Raymond, of Fangères, the father of six children, who had been a
galley-slave for thirteen years, was liberated in 1767. Alexandre Chambon,
a labourer, more than eighty years old, condemned for life in 1741, for
attending a religious meeting, was released in 1769, on the entreaty of
Voltaire, after being a galley-slave for twenty-eight years. His friends had
forgotten him, and on his release he was utterly destitute and miserable.[81]

In 1772, three galley-slaves were liberated from their chains. André
Guisard, a labourer, aged eighty-two, Jean Roque, and Louis Tregon, of the
same class, all condemned for life for attending religious meetings. They
had all been confined at the chain for twenty years.

The two last galley-slaves were liberated in 1775, during the first year of
the reign of Louis XVI., and close upon the outbreak of the French
Revolution. They had been quite forgotten, until Court de Gébelin, son of
Antoine Court, discovered them. When he applied for their release to M. de
Boyne, Minister of Marine, he answered that there were no more Protestant
convicts at the galleys; at least, he believed so. Shortly after, Turgot
succeeded Boyne, and application was made to him. He answered that there
was no need to recommend such objects to him for liberation, as they were
liberated already.

On the two old men being told they were released, they burst into tears;
but were almost afraid of returning to the world which no longer knew
them. One of them was Antoine Rialle, a tailor of Aoste, in Dauphiny, who
had been condemned by the parliament of Grenoble to the galleys for life
"for contravening the edicts of the King concerning religion." He was
seventy-eight years old, and had been a galley-slave for thirty years.

The other, Paul Achard, had been a shoemaker of Châtillon, also in
Dauphiny. He was condemned to be a galley-slave for life by the parliament
of Grenoble, for having given shelter to a pastor. Achard had also been
confined at the galleys for thirty years.

It is not known when the last Huguenot women were liberated from the
Tour de Constance, at Aiguesmortes. It would probably be about the time
when the last Huguenots were liberated from the galleys. An affecting
picture has been left by an officer who visited the prison at the release of
the last prisoners. "I accompanied," he says, "the Prince de Beauvau (the
intendant of Languedoc under Louis XVI.) in a survey which he made of
the coast. Arriving at Aiguesmortes, at the gate of the Tour de Constance,
we found at the entrance the principal keeper, who conducted us by dark
steps through a great gate, which opened with an ominous noise, and over
which was inscribed a motto from Dante—'Lasciate ogni speranza voi
che'ntrate.'

"Words fail me to describe the horror with which we regarded a scene to
which we were so unaccustomed—a frightful and affecting picture, in
which the interest was heightened by disgust. We beheld a large circular
apartment, deprived of air and of light, in which fourteen females still
languished in misery. It was with difficulty that the Prince smothered his
emotion; and doubtless it was the first time that these unfortunate creatures
had there witnessed compassion depicted upon a human countenance; I still
seem to behold the affecting apparition. They fell at our feet, bathed in
tears, and speechless, until, emboldened by our expressions of sympathy,
they recounted to us their sufferings. Alas! all their crime consisted in
having been attached to the same religion as Henry IV. The youngest of
these martyrs was more than fifty years old. She was but eight when first

imprisoned for having accompanied her mother to hear a religious service,
and her punishment had continued until now!"[82]

After the liberation of the last of the galley-slaves there were no further
apprehensions nor punishments of Protestants. The priests had lost their
power; and the secular authority no longer obeyed their behests. The nation
had ceased to believe in them; in some places they were laughed at; in
others they were detested. They owed this partly to their cruelty and
intolerance, partly to their luxury and self-indulgence amidst the poverty of
the people, and partly to the sarcasms of the philosophers, who had become
more powerful in France than themselves. "It is not enough," said Voltaire,
"that we prove intolerance to be horrible; we must also prove to the French
that it is ridiculous."

In looking back at the sufferings of the Huguenots remaining in France
since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; at the purity, self-denial,
honesty, and industry of their lives; at the devotion with which they adhered
to religious duty and the worship of God; we cannot fail to regard them—
labourers and peasants though they were—as amongst the truest, greatest,
and worthiest heroes of their age. When society in France was falling to
pieces; when its men and women were ceasing to believe in themselves and
in each other; when the religion of the State had become a mass of abuse,
consistent only in its cruelty; when the debauchery of its kings[83] had
descended through the aristocracy to the people, until the whole mass was
becoming thoroughly corrupt; these poor Huguenots seem to have been the
only constant and true men, the only men holding to a great idea, for which
they were willing to die—for they were always ready for martyrdom by the
rack, the gibbet, or the galleys, rather than forsake the worship of God
freely and according to conscience.

But their persecution was now in a great measure at an end. It is true the
Protestants were not recognised, but they nevertheless held their worship
openly, and were not interfered with. When Louis XVI. succeeded to the
throne in 1774, on the administration of the oath for the extermination of
heretics denounced by the Church, the Archbishop of Toulouse said to him:
"It is reserved for you to strike the final blow against Calvinism in your
dominions. Command the dispersion of the schismatic assemblies of the

Protestants, exclude the sectarians, without distinction, from all offices of
the public administration, and you will insure among your subjects the unity
of the true Christian religion."

No attention was paid to this and similar appeals for the restoration of
intolerance. On the contrary, an Edict of Toleration was issued by Louis
XVI. in 1787, which, though granting a legal existence to the Protestants,
nevertheless set forth that "The Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion
alone shall continue to enjoy the right of public worship in our realm."

Opinion, however, moved very fast in those days. The Declaration of
Rights of 1789 overthrew the barriers which debarred the admission of
Protestants to public offices. On the question of tolerance, Rabaut Saint-
Etienne, son of Paul Rabaut, who sat in the National Assembly for Nismes,
insisted on the freedom of the Protestants to worship God after their
accustomed forms. He said he represented a constituency of 360,000, of
whom 120,000 were Protestants. The penal laws against the worship of the
Reformed, he said, had never been formally abolished. He claimed the
rights of Frenchmen for two millions of useful citizens. It was not toleration
he asked for, it was liberty.

"Toleration!" he exclaimed; "sufferance! pardon! clemency! ideas
supremely unjust towards the Protestants, so long as it is true that difference
of religion, that difference of opinion, is not a crime! Toleration! I demand
that toleration should be proscribed in its turn, and deemed an iniquitous
word, dealing with us as citizens worthy of pity, as criminals to whom
pardon is to be granted!"[84]

The motion before the House was adopted with a modification, and all
Frenchmen, without distinction of religious opinions, were declared
admissible to all offices and employments. Four months later, on the 15th
March, 1790, Rabaut Saint-Etienne himself, son of the long proscribed
pastor of the Desert, was nominated President of the Constituent Assembly,
succeeding to the chair of the Abbé Montesquieu.

He did not, however, occupy the position long. In the struggles of the
Convention he took part with the Girondists, and refused to vote for the
death of Louis XVI. He maintained an obstinate struggle against the

violence of the Mountain. His arrest was decreed; he was dragged before
the revolutionary tribunal, and condemned to be executed within twenty-
four hours.

The horrors of the French Revolution hide the doings of Protestantism
and Catholicism alike for several years, until Buonaparte came into power.
He recognised Catholicism as the established religion, and paid for the
maintenance of the bishops and priests. He also protected Protestantism, the
members of which were entitled to all the benefits secured to the other
Christian communions, "with the exception of pecuniary subvention."

The comparative liberty which the Protestants of France had enjoyed
under the Republic and the Empire seemed to be in some peril at the
restoration of the Bourbons. The more bigoted Roman Catholics of the
South hailed their return as the precursors of renewed persecution: and they
raised the cry of "Un Dieu, un Roi, une Foi."

The Protestant mayor of Nismes was publicly insulted, and compelled to
resign his office. The mob assembled in the streets and sang ferocious
songs, threatening to "make black puddings of the blood of the Calvinists'
children."[85] Another St. Bartholomew was even threatened; the Protestants
began to conceal themselves, and many fled for refuge to the Upper
Cevennes. Houses were sacked, their inmates outraged, and in many cases
murdered.

The same scenes occurred in most of the towns and villages of the
department of Gard; and the authorities seemed to be powerless to prevent
them. The Protestants at length began to take up arms for their defence; the
peasantry of the Cevennes brought from their secret places the rusty arms
which their fathers had wielded more than a century before; and another
Camisard war seemed imminent.

In the meantime, the subject of the renewed Protestant persecutions in the
South of France was, in May, 1816, brought under the notice of the British
House of Commons by Sir Samuel Romilly—himself the descendant of a
Languedoc Huguenot—in a powerful speech; and although the motion was
opposed by the Government, there can be little doubt that the discussion
produced its due effect; for the Bourbon Government, itself becoming

alarmed, shortly after adopted vigorous measures, and the persecution was
brought to an end.

Since that time the Protestants of France have remained comparatively
unmolested. Evidences have not been wanting to show that the persecuting
spirit of the priest-party has not become extinct. While the author was in
France in 1870, to visit the scenes of the wars of the Camisards, he
observed from the papers that a French deputy had recently brought a case
before the Assembly, in which a Catholic curé of Ville-d'Avray refused
burial in the public cemetery to the corpse of a young English lady, because
she was a Protestant, and remitted it to the place allotted for criminals and
suicides. The body accordingly lay for eighteen days in the cabin of the
gravedigger, until it could be transported to the cemetery of Sèvres, where it
was finally interred.

But the people of France, as well as the government, have become too
indifferent about religion generally, to persecute any one on its account. The
nation is probably even now suffering for its indifference, and the spectacle
is a sad one. It is only the old, old story. The sins of the fathers are being
visited on the children. Louis XIV. and the French nation of his time sowed
the wind, and their descendants at the Revolution reaped the whirlwind.
And who knows how much of the sufferings of France during the last few
years may have been due to the ferocious intolerance, the abandonment to
vicious pleasures, the thirst for dominion, and the hunger for "glory," which
above all others characterized the reign of that monarch who is in history
miscalled "the Great?"

It will have been noted that the chief scenes of the revival of
Protestantism described in the preceding pages occurred in Languedoc and
the South of France, where the chief strength of the Huguenots always lay.
The Camisard civil war which happened there, was not without its
influence. The resolute spirit which it had evoked survived. The people
were purified by suffering, and though they did not conquer civil liberty,
they continued to live strong, hardy, virtuous lives. When Protestantism was
at length able to lift up its head after so long a period of persecution, it was
found that, during its long submergence, it had lost neither in numbers, in
moral or intellectual vigour, nor in industrial power.