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THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE 
 
THE HUGUENOTS IN 
 FRANCE 
 
 after tfie 3fabocatton of tfje ©Ut'ct of tNTantos/ 
 
 WITH] MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED HUGUENOT 
 REFUGEES 
 
 AND 
 
 A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS 
 
 By SAMUEL SMILES 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HUGUENOTS! THEIR SETTLEMENTS, CHURCHES, AND INDUSTRIES 
 IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND," " SELF-HELP," "CHARACTER," ETC. 
 
 "Plus a me frapper on s'amuse, 
 Tant plus de marteaux on y use.' 7 
 
 Theodore de Beze 
 
 " They maintained their faith in the noble way of persecution, and served 
 God in the fire, whereas we honour him in the sunshine." 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 Broadway, Ludgate Hill 
 
 NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET 
 1881 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 IN preparing this edition for the press, I have ven- 
 tured 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 Hol- 
 land, 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 o£ 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 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 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 eccle- 
 siastical questions which still disturb France, he re- 
 called the fact that not less than eighty of the Cre rman 
 ■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 Pechels, 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 Port- 
 land. 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. 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 QIX years since, I published a book entitled The 
 ^ Huguenots: their Settlements, Churches, and In- 
 dustries, 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 risumi of the his- 
 tory of the Eeformation in France down to the dis- 
 persion 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 Languedoo 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and the south-eastern provinces of France crossed the 
 frontier into Switzerland, and settled there, or after- 
 wards 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 en- 
 deavoured 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 ac- 
 count of those who settled in the United States of 
 America. 
 
 But besides the Huguenots who contrived to escape 
 from France during the dragonnades which preceded 
 and the persecutions which followed the Revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes, there was still a very large 
 number oi 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 supple- 
 ment to my former book, that the present work is 
 written. 
 
 It is impossible to fix precisely the number of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 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. Bartholomew 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 tbe 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 gentle- 
 men, 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. Cbarles Coquerel says that whatever 
 
x INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 Revoca- 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes, there is the same difference 
 
INTRODUCTION. jrf 
 
 of opinion. A deputation of Huguenot pastors and 
 elders, who waited upon the Due 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 Prance ; 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 tho 
 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 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 Con- 
 greganistes t are now what the Jesuits were before. The 
 Sa ns-Ouljotes of 1793 were the pupils of the priest s ; so 
 were the Communists of 1871.* 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' Re- 
 public 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 
 * 31. Simiot's speech before the National Assembly, 16th March, 1873 
 
INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 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 Catholi- 
 cism. Louis XIV. found it easier to make martyrs 
 than apostates ; and discovered that hanging, banish- 
 ment, 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 Benoit : Histoire de VFdit de Nantes. 
 
 Charles CoauEEEL : Histoire des Eglises du Desert. 
 
 Napoleon Feybat : Histoire des Pasteurs de Desert. 
 
 Antoine Couet : Histoire des Troubles de Cevennes. 
 
 Edmund' Hughes : Histoire de la Sestauration du Protestantisme en 
 
 France au xviii. Steele. 
 A. Bonnemere : Histoire des Camisardes. 
 Adolphe Michel : Louvois et Lea Protestantes. 
 Athanase CoauEEEL Fils : Des Forcats pour La Foi, §c, $c , 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It remains to be added that part of this work — viz., 
 the " "Wars of the Camisards," and the " Journey in 
 the Country of the Yaudois " — originally appeared in 
 Good Words. 
 
 S. S. 
 
 London, October, 1373. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE AFTER THE REVOCATION 
 OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. REVOCATION OP 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 . . SO 
 V. OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC . . ... 75 
 
 99 
 . 130 
 
 . 166 
 . 190 
 
 VI. INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS 
 Vn. EXPLOITS OF CAVALIF.R 
 VIII. END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION 
 IX. GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH . 
 
 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 PECHELS . . 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 — BRIANCON . . . 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. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Country op the Cevenhes . ... -98 
 
 " The Country of Felix Neff " (Dauphiny) , 382 
 
 The Valley of Lusekne . . ■ ■ 472 
 
TEE HTTGUENOTS m FRANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BEVOCATION 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 advo- 
 cacy of the King's then Catholic mistress, Madame de 
 Maintenon, and of his Jesuit Confessor, Pere 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 thy salvation." 
 
 B 
 
* THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Chal- 
 cedon: ' You have affirmed the faith, you have extermi- 
 nated the heretics ; it is a work worthy of your reign, 
 whose proper character it is. Thanks to you, heresy is 
 no more. Gcd 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.' "* 
 
 Madame de Maintenon also received the praises 
 of the Church. "All good people," said the Abbe 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 mar- 
 riage 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 Pere la Chaise and 
 two more witnesses. But Louis XIV. never publicly 
 recognised De Maintenon as his wife — never rescued 
 * Bossuet, " Oraison FunAbse dn Chancellier Letellier." 
 
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. \ 
 
 her from the ignominious position in which she origin- 
 ally 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 Due de Noailles, " The soldiers are kill • 
 ing numbers of the fanatics — they hope soon to- fre* 
 Languedoc of them." 
 
 That picquante letter-writer, Madame de Sevign£, 
 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 Grabelle, a friend wrote to her, "How dull you 
 must be ! " " No," replied Madame de Sevigne, " 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,* will 
 soon give them the coup de grdce." 
 
 * Bourdaloue had just teen sent from the Jesuit Church of St 
 Louis at Paris, to Montpelier, to aid the dragoons in converting the 
 Protestants, and bringing them back to the Church. 
 
4- THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 In a future letter to Count Bussy, Madame de Sevign£ 
 informed him of "a dreadfully fatiguing journey which 
 her son-in-law M. de Grignan had made in the moun- 
 tains of Dauphiny, to pursue and punish the miser- 
 able 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 Sevigne. 
 
 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 Revoca- 
 tion. In a discourse uttered before it, the Abbe Talle- 
 mand 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 Re- 
 formation." 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, tho 
 Revocation of. the Edict of Nantes, and Fontenelle had 
 the fortune, good or bad, of winning the prize. 
 
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 5 
 
 The philosophic La Bruy&re contributed a maxim 
 in praise of the Revocation. Quinault wrote a poem 
 on the subject ; and Madame Deshoulieres felt inspired 
 to sing " The Destruction of Heresy." The Abb^ de 
 Ranee 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 Pro- 
 testant 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 every- 
 thing in the houses they occupied as if it were their own, 
 and an assignment of billets was little less than the con- 
 signment of the premises to the military, to use for their 
 own purposes, during the time they occupied them.* 
 
 The Revocation was also approved by those wha 
 
 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 
 
 • Sir John Reresby's Travels and Memoirs. 
 
6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 bar- 
 gains. Even before the Revocation, when the Hugue- 
 nots 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 Hugue- 
 nots will drive them to sell more. You may easily 
 acquire extensive possessions in Poitou." 
 
 The Revocation was especially gratifying to the 
 Erench Catholic Church. The Pope, of course, ap- 
 proved of it. Te Deums were sung at Rome in thanks- 
 giving 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 or- 
 dinances issued in favour of the heretics of your 
 kingdom."* 
 
 The Jesuits were especially elated by the Revoca- 
 tion. It had been brought about by the intrigues of 
 their party, acting on the King's mind through Madame 
 de Maintenon and Pere 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 Pro- 
 testant temples that had not been pulled down were 
 • Pope Innocent XL's Letter of November 13th, 1685. 
 
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 7 
 
 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.* 
 
 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 oppo- 
 sition to the doctrines and moral teaching of the Jesuits 
 — who were suffering from a persecution which then 
 drove some of the members of Port Boyal into exile, 
 and eventually destroyed them. But even the Jan- 
 senists approved the persecution of the Protestants. 
 The great Arnault, their most illustrious interpreter, 
 though in exile in the Low Countries, declared tha'! 
 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 Boman 
 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 ap- 
 proved the religion of the King, had no opposition 
 * " Louvois et lea Protestants," par Adolphe Michel, p. 286. 
 
8 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testantism or Jansenism. It is authentically related 
 that Louis XIV. on one occasion objected to the appoint- 
 ment of a representative on a foreign mission on account 
 of the person being supposed to be a Jarisenist; but 
 on its being discovered that the nominee was only an 
 Atheist, the objection was at once withdrawn.* 
 
 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, Flechier, 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 ivas despised. 
 The Deists and Atheists, . sprung from the Church's 
 bosom, were in the ascendant ; and Voltaire, Rousseau, 
 Diderot, and Jiirabesai, were regarded as greater men 
 than either Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Flechier, 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 Ca- 
 tholics who deplored the force practised on the 
 
 • Quarterly Review. 
 
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, 9 
 
 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 mira- 
 culous power of conversion they did not believe. 
 
 Fenelon 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 pub- 
 lished in 1825. The Due de Saint-Simon, also a Jan- 
 senist, 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, ex- 
 cepting the Huguenots. The King was flattered by the 
 perpetual conversions reported to be going on through- 
 out 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." * 
 
 * " Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon," translated by Bayle St 
 John, vol. iii. p. 260. 
 
io THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Louis XIV. lived for thirty years after tie 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-con- 
 ceited tyrant, who sought to save his own soul by inflict- 
 ing 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 oven 
 
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, r i 
 
 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 false- 
 hood 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." * 
 
 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 — Hol- 
 land, 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. 
 
 * Funsra] Oration on Louis SI"V. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 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 pro- 
 scribed ; their property was liable to be confiscated at 
 any moment ; and they were subjected to mean, detest- 
 able, 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 promul- 
 gated 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." 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 13 
 
 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 com- 
 manded 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 
 
H THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 fifteen days, they were found lingering in France, the 
 pastors were then liable to the penalty of death. 
 
 Protestants could neither he born, nor live, nor die, 
 without state and priestly interference. Protestant 
 sages-femmes were not permitted to exercise their func- 
 tions ; Protestant doctors were prohibited from practis- 
 ing ; Protestant surgeons and apothecaries were sup- 
 pressed; 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 Govern- 
 ment 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 apprentice- 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 15 
 
 ships were suppressed. Protestant washerwomen were 
 excluded from their washing-places on the river. In 
 fact, there was scarcely a degradation that could he 
 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.* 
 
 For several years before the Revocation, while the 
 persecutions of the Huguenots had been increasing, many 
 had realised their means, and fled abroad into Switzer- 
 land, 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 per- 
 petual 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 
 
 * Such, was, in fact, the end of a roan so distinguished as M. Paul 
 Chenevix, Councillor of the Court of Metz, who died in 168ft, the year 
 after the Revocation. Although of the age of eighty, and so illustrious 
 for his learning, his dead body was dragged along the streets on a 
 hurdle and thrown upon a dunghill. See " Huguenot Refugees and 
 their Descendants," under the name Chenevix. The present Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin is descended from his brother Philip Chenevix, who 
 settled in England shortly after the .Revocation. 
 
1 6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 for- 
 swearing 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, mer- 
 chants, and employers of labour, of whom a large 
 number closed their workshops and factories, sold off 
 their goods, converted everything into cash, at what- 
 ever sacrifice, and fled across the frontier into Switzer- 
 land — 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 im- 
 poverishing the country. It was indeed a terrible 
 thing for Frenchmen to tear themselves away from 
 their country — Frenchmen, who have always clung so 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 17 
 
 close to their soil that they have rarely heen 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 reli- 
 gion." On the 19th of October, 1685, the day after he 
 had signed the Act of Revocation, La Reynee, lieu- 
 tenant 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, an- 
 other 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 these measures was to make hypo- 
 crites 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.* All the roads leading to the frontier 
 
 * It is believed that 400,000 emigrants left France through reli- 
 gious persecution during the twenty years previous to the Revocation, 
 and that 600,000 escaped during the twenty years after that event. 
 M. Charles Coquerel estimates the number of Protestants in France 
 at that time to have been two millions of men (" Eglises du Desert," i. 
 497) The number of Protestant pastors was about one thousand — 
 
 C 
 
jfi THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 or tlie sea-coast streamed with fugitives. They went in 
 various forms and guises — sometimes in bodies of 
 armed men, at other times in solitary parties, travel- 
 ling 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 dis- 
 patched -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 pro- 
 hibited 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 
 
 of whom six hundred went into exile, one hundred were executed or 
 sent to the galleys, and the rest are supposed to have accepted 
 pensions as " new converts." 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 10. 
 
 hurriedly off to sea in little boats, moist 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 4 
 foreign port, the hold should be fumigated with deadly 
 gas, so that any hidden Huguenot who could not other- 
 wise be detected, might thus be suffocated ! * 
 
 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 Sevign£; " 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." t 
 
 The conversions effected by the dragoons were much 
 more sudden than those effected by the priests. Some- 
 times 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 regi- 
 
 * "We refer to " The Huguenots : their Settlements, Churches, and 
 Industries in England and Ireland," where a great many incidents 
 are given relative to the escape of refugees by land and sea, which 
 need not here be repeated. 
 
 t Letter to the President de Moulceau, November 24th, 1685. 
 
io THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 mont of Ashfeld converted the whole province of 
 Poitou in a month. 
 
 De Noailles was very successful in his conversions. 
 He converted JSTismes 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 Revo- 
 cation, 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 con- 
 sisted 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.* Many of their 
 attempts at conversion were accompanied by details 
 too hideous to be recorded. 
 
 • Thumbscrews were used in the reign of James II. Louis and 
 James borrowed from each other the means of converting heretics ; 
 but whether the origin of the thumbscrew be !French or Scotch is not 
 known. 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 21 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testant judge or advocate, Louvois at once endeavoured 
 to bribe him over. For instance, there was a heretical 
 syndic of Strasburg, 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 
 public powers and authorities employed against one's 
 
22 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 capa- 
 city, 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 re- 
 mained suspected. Even the dragoons who converted 
 them, called them dastards and deniers of their faith. 
 They tried, if they could, to avoid confession, but con- 
 fess 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 ser- 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 23 
 
 vice, 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 
 Grodhead. 
 
 The Due de Saint-Simon, in his memoirs, after 
 referring to the unmanly cruelties practised by Louis 
 XIV. on the Huguenots, "without the slightest pre- 
 text or necessity," characterizes this forced partici- 
 pation in the Eucharist as sacrilegious and blasphemous 
 folly, notwithstanding that nearly all the bishops lent 
 themselves to the practice. " From simulated abjura- 
 tion," 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 recon- 
 ciled, when more at leisure did not fail, by their flight 
 or their behaviour, to contradict their pretended con- 
 version."* 
 
 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 congre- 
 
 • "Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon," Bayle St. John's Trans- 
 lation, iii. 259. 
 
1 4 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 gation 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.* At one of the sittings 
 of the Threadneedle Street Huguenot Church in 
 London, held in May, 1687 — two years after the Re- 
 vocation — 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 advo- 
 cates 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, Hol- 
 land, 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 punish- 
 ment of death was also pronounced against all persona 
 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. 
 
 * See "The Huguenots; tjieir Settlements, &c, in England and 
 Ireland," chap. xvi. 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 25 
 
 At length they selected more sheltered places in re- 
 mote 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 Msmes, 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 neighbour- 
 hood of Nismes, where his addresses were interrupted 
 by assaults of the dragoons. The dangers to his 
 co-religiona'ries were too great in the neighbourhood 
 of this populous town ; and he next went to Castres 
 and the Vaunage ; after which he accepted an in- 
 vitation to proceed into the less populous districts of 
 the Cevennes. 
 
 He felt the presentiment of death upon him in ac- 
 cepting 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 : 
 
 I" 
 
 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, 
 
z6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 eucouraging 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. 
 
 Key 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, avow- 
 ing that he had preached wherever he had found faith- 
 ful 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 in- 
 fluence 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, pro- 
 vided I gain Christ." He remained firm. He was 
 ordered to be put to the torture. He was still un- 
 shaken. 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 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 27 
 
 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 con- 
 fession 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 Mont- 
 pellier — the public place on which Protestant 
 Christians in the South of France were then princi- 
 pally executed. 
 There has been some discussion lately as to tha 
 
z8 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 per- 
 secutions 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 Boulainvillers) were destroyed by prema- 
 ture death, one-tenth of whom perished by fire, strangu- 
 lation, 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. Benoit* 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 
 
 « " Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes," par EHe BSnott. 
 
EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 29 
 
 St. Bartholomew! "Will foreigners believe it, that 
 France observed a code of laws framed in the same 
 infernal spirit, which maintained a perpetual St. Bar- 
 tholomew'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."* 
 
 M. De Felice, 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." t 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. 
 
 * " Histoire dea Eglises du Desert," par Charles Coquerel, i. 498. _ 
 t De Felice's " History of the Protestants of Franco," book iii. 
 sect. 17* 
 
OHAPTEE III. 
 
 CLAUDE BKOUSSON, 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 31 
 
 Castres, Castelnaudry, and Toulouse. He was fre- 
 quently employed in defending Protestant pastors, 
 and in contesting the measures for suppressing their 
 congregations and levelling their churches under exist- 
 ing edicts, some time before the Revocation of the Edict 
 of If antes had been finally resolved upon. 
 
 Thus, in 1682, he was engaged in disputing the pro- 
 cess 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.* The pretext for suppressing this church 
 was, that a servant girl from the country, being a 
 Catholic, had attended worship and received the sacra- 
 ment from the hands of M. Peyrol, one of the 
 ministers. 
 
 Brousson defended the case, observing, at the con- 
 clusion of his speech, that the number of Protestants 
 was very great at If ismes ; 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 
 
 * John Locke passed through Nismes about this time. "The 
 Protestants at Nismes," he said, "have now but one temple, the 
 other being pulled down by the King's order about four years since. 
 The Protestants had built themselves an hospital for the sick, but 
 that is taken, from them ; a chamber in it is left for the sick, but 
 never used, because the priests trouble them when there. Notwith- 
 standing these discouragements [this was in 1676, before the Kevo- 
 cation], I do not find many go over ; one of them told me, when I 
 asked them the question, that the Papists did nothing but by force or 
 by money." — King's Life of Lockt, i. 100. 
 
32 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 immov- 
 able 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 honor- 
 able against the latter. 
 
 The demolition of temples was the usual consequence 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 33 
 
 of convictions like these. The Due de Koailles, lieu- 
 tenant-general of the province, entered the city on 
 the 16th of Octoher, 1682, accompanied by a strong 
 military force ; and at a sitting of the Assembly of the 
 States which shortly followed, the question of demolish- 
 ing 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 deputa- 
 tion 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 to conduct 
 these gentlemen to the citadel ? "* 
 
 The great temple of Montpellier was destroyed im- 
 mediately 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 pro- 
 ceedings had been instituted, was now requested to 
 admit the authenticity of the documents. She was still 
 
 * "When released from prison, Guultier escaped to Berlin and 
 became minister of a large Protestant congregation there. Isaae 
 Duhourdieu escaped to England, and -was appointed one of the 
 ministers of the Savoy Church in London. 
 
 I) 
 
34- THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 re- 
 committed to prison. On hearing of this incident, 
 Brousson remarked, " This is what is called instituting 
 a process against persons after they have been con- 
 demned " — a sort of " Jedwood justice." 
 
 The repetition of these cases of persecution — the de- 
 molition of their churches, and the suppression of their 
 worship — led the Protestants of the Cevennes, Viverais, 
 and Dauphiny to combine for the purpose of endeavour- 
 ing 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 Mon- 
 tauban 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 recom- 
 mended 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 modi- 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 3S 
 
 tation of the Scriptures ; encouragements to them to hold 
 together as congregations for the purpose of united 
 worship ; " submitting themselves unto the common in- 
 structions and to the yoke of Christ, in all places where- 
 soever 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 peti- 
 tions, 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 inter- 
 dicted, and whose temples had been demolished, were 
 accordingly invited to assemble in private, in the neigh- 
 bouring fields or woods — 'not in public places, nor 
 around the ruins of their ancient temples — for the pur- 
 pose of worshipping God, exciting each other to piety 
 by prayer and singing, receiving instruction, and cele- 
 brating 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 — " Bender unto Csesar the things which 
 are Caesar's, and unto Grod the things which are God's." 
 The meeting was conducted with the utmost solemnity ; 
 and a Catholic priest who was present, on giving in- 
 
^6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 4ormation 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, Sauve, St. Germain, Vigan, 
 and Ganges were as full of them as St. Hypolite — may 
 be inferred from the items charged upon the inhabit- 
 ants of St. Hypolite alone * : — 
 
 To the regiment of Montpezat, for a billet for 
 
 sixty-five days 50,000 livres. 
 
 To the three companies of Red Dragoons, 
 
 for ninety-five days .... 30,000 „ 
 To three companies of Villeneuve's Dragoons, 
 
 for thirty days 6,000 „ 
 
 To three companies of the Blue Dragoons of 
 
 Languedoc,forthreemonthsandninedays 37,000 „ 
 To a company of Cravates (troopers) for 
 
 fourteen days 1,400 „ 
 
 To the transport of three hundred and nine 
 
 companies of cavalry and infantry . . 10,000 „ 
 To provisions for the troops .... 60,000 „ 
 To damage sustained by the destruction done 
 
 by the soldiers, of furniture, and losses ■ 
 
 by the seizure of property, &o. . . 50,000 „ 
 
 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 
 
 • Claude Brousson, *' Apologie du Projet des Reformed" 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 37 
 
 Bishop of Valence (Daniel de Cosmao) 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,* son of an advocate, and 
 
 * The grandfather of this Chamier drew up for Henry IV. the 
 celebrated Edict of Nantes. The greater number of the Chamiers 
 left France. Several were ministers in London and Maryland, U.S. 
 Captain Chamier is descended from the family. 
 
38 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 con- 
 demned 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 Mar- 
 shal Saint-Ruth commander of the district-'-a man 
 who was a stranger to mercy, who breathed only car- 
 nage, 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 in- 
 structions 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 ex- 
 ample 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* — 
 
 * Saint-Ruth was afterwards, in 1691, sent to Ireland to take the 
 command of the army fighting for James II. against "William III. 
 There, Saint-Ruth had soldiers, many of them Huguenots banished 
 from France, to contend with ; and he was accordingly somewhat 
 less successful than in Viverais, where his opponents were mostly 
 peasants and workmen, armed (where armed at all) with stones picked 
 from the roads. Saint-Ruth and his garrison were driven from 
 Athlone, where a Huguenot soldier was the first to mount the breach. 
 The army of "William III., though eight thousand fewer in number, 
 followed Saint-Ruth and his Irish army to the field of Aughrim. 
 His host was there drawn up in an almost impregnable position — 
 along the heights of Kilcommeden, with the Castle of Aughrim on 
 his left wing, a deep bog on his right, and another bog of about two 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 39 
 
 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 chil- 
 dren, 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, contri- 
 buted much more to their conversion than anything 
 that I did." 
 
 The same course was followed throughout the 
 Covennes. It would be a simple record of cruelty 
 to describe in detail the military proceedings there : 
 the dispersion of meetings; the hanging of persons 
 
 miles extending along the front, and apparently completely pro- 
 tecting the Irish encampment. Nevertheless, the English, and 
 Huguenot army under Ginckle, bravely attacked it, forced the pass 
 to the camp, and routed the army of Saint-Ruth, who himself was 
 killed by a cannon-ball. The principal share of this victory was 
 attributed to the gallant conduct of the three regiments of Huguenot 
 horse, under the command of the Marquess de Ruvigny (himself a 
 banished Huguenot nobleman) who, in consequence of his services, 
 was raised to the Irish peerage, under the title of Earl of Galway. 
 
40 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 in- 
 stance 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 Yiverais, 
 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 in- 
 expressible joy." After life was finally extinct, his heart 
 was taken to Chalencon 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 41 
 
 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 nofto 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 considera- 
 tion 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 hi paternal clemency, and by every law of 
 equity, to grant them freedom of religious worship. 
 
42 THE HUGUENOTS, 
 
 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 gentle- 
 men of Lower Languedoc to the Duke de JSToailles, 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 JSToailles 
 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 Oevennes), telling 
 them that if there had been petites maisons* 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 apprehen- 
 sion, 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, 
 ulso escaped into Switzerland, Peyrol settling at 
 
 * The prisons of Languedoc were already crowded with Protestants, 
 and hundreds had been sent to the galleys at Marseilles. 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 43 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceeding 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 suc- 
 ceeding 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 hi one day for confinement in the 
 galleys at Marseilles. 
 
 The number of Huguenots resorting to Switzerland 
 
4+ THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 being so great,* 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,t and 
 
 * "Within about three weeks no fewer than seventeen thousand 
 five hundred French emigrants passed into Lausanne. Two hundred 
 Protestant ministers fled to Switzerland, the greater number of whom 
 settled in Lausanne, until they could journey elsewhere. 
 
 t Ancillon was an eminently learned man. His library was one 
 of the choicest that had ever been collected, and on his expulsion 
 from Metz it was pillaged by the Jesuits. Metz, now part of 
 German Lorraine, was probably not so ferociously dragooned as 
 other places. Yet the inhabitants were under the apprehension 
 that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was about to be repeated upon 
 them on Christmas Day, 1685, the soldiers of the garrison having 
 been kept under arms all night. The Protestant churches were all 
 pulled down, the ministers were expelled, and many of their people 
 followed them into Germany. There were numerous Protestant 
 soldiers in the Metz garrison, and the order of the King was that, 
 like the rest of his subjects, they should become converted. Many 
 of the officers resigned and entered the service of William of Orange, 
 and many of the soldiers deserted. The bribe offered for the con- 
 version of privates was as follows : Common soldiers and dragoons. 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 45 
 
 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 Protes- 
 tant 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 inter- 
 cession 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. JNearly two hundred 
 and fifty Huguenot ministers had taken refuge in 
 
 two pistoles per head; troopers, three pistoles per head. The 
 Protestants of Alsace were differently treated. They constituted a 
 majority of the population ; Alsace and Strasburg having only 
 recently been seized by Louis XIV. It was therefore necessary to 
 be cautious in that quarter ; for violence would speedily have raised 
 a revolution in the province which would have driven them over to 
 Germany, whose language they spoke. Louvois could therefore only 
 proceed by bribing ; and he was successful in buying over some of the 
 most popular and influential men. 
 
46 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Holland ; there were many merchants and manufac- 
 turers 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 Lau- 
 sanne, 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. 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON- 47 
 
 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. Behoit, then residing in Ger- 
 many, replied in a " History and Apology for the Re- 
 treat 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 Con- 
 stance, and the noise of the chains borne by the galley 
 slaves at Toulon and Marseilles. He reproached him- 
 self 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 
 
43 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 nu- 
 merous attempts made to gather the Protestant people 
 together, and to administer consolation to them by 
 public prayers and preaching. The persons who con- 
 ducted 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 Ceven- 
 nes. 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 Eey, who 
 preached for about nine months, and was then executed. 
 In the same year were executed Meyrueis, by trade a 
 woolcarder, and Eocher, who had been a reader in one 
 of the Protestant churches. Emanuel Dalgues, a re- 
 spectable 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 49 
 
 and otter frequenters of the assemblies, to the Oarribee 
 Islands. 
 
 At length Brousson collected about him a number 
 of Huguenots willing to return 'with him into Trance, 
 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. 
 
CHAPTER 17. 
 
 CLAUDE liROUSSON, PASTOR AND MARTYR. 
 
 DBOUSSON left Lausanne on the 22nd of July, ac- 
 ■*-' companied 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 Oevennes. 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 51 
 
 paid spies, they shortly succeeded in apprehending. 
 Boisson and Doinbres, 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 con- 
 firmed, and that God would be pleased to pour upon 
 him his Holy Spirit, and strengthen him so that he 
 
52 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Sacra- 
 ment 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 bis 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 assem- 
 blies. 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 Mont- 
 pellier. His bowels were so injured and his body so 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. S S 
 
 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 Cevenues for 
 several years. He was broken on the wheel at Mont- 
 pellier, 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. Bonnemere, a native of the 
 same city, was also tortured and executed in like man- 
 ner on the Peyrou. 
 
 All these persons were taken, executed, destroyed, or 
 imprisoned, during the first year that Brousson com- 
 menced his perilous ministry in the Cevennes. 
 
 About the same time three women, who had gone 
 about instructing the families of the destitute Pro- 
 testants, reading the Scriptures and praying with them, 
 were apprehended by Baville, the King's intendant, 
 and punished. Isabeau Redothiere, 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 Redothiere. "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. 
 
54 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 imprison- 
 ment for life in the castle of Sommieres, 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 con- 
 demned 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 exceed- 
 ingly 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 Hugue- 
 not 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 55 
 
 watched. After tlie meeting was oyer the assemblage 
 dispersed in different directions, and Brousson immedi- 
 ately 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 
 Gar don, about half way between Nismes and Anduze, 
 a Protestant nobleman — a nouveau conmrtis, 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 informa- 
 tion. 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 ob- 
 ject, besides hanging the persons found attending, was 
 to seize the preachers, more especially Brousson and 
 Vivens, believing that the country would be more effec- 
 
56 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 tually " 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 Pro- 
 vidence ; and he also instructed all who resorted to his 
 meetings to come to them unarmed. 
 
 In this respect Brousson differed from Yivens, 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, Yalderon, 
 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 Yivens 
 with three other persons, concealed in a cave in the 
 neighbourhood of Alais. 
 
 Yivens 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 sho^t, 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 sur- 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 57 
 
 render. 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 Inten- 
 dant 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 abso- 
 lutely 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 Brous- 
 son 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 Brous- 
 son'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 appre- 
 hended, 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 
 
58 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 accor- 
 dingly succeeded in passing through the gates, and went 
 to resume his former work. His first assembly was 
 held in a commodious place on the Grardon, between 
 Valence, Brignon, and St. Maurice, about ten miles dis- 
 tant from Nismes. Although he had requested that 
 only the Protestants in the immediate neighbourhood 
 should attend the meeting, so as not to excite the appre- 
 hensions of the authorities, yet a multitude of persons 
 came from Uzes and Nismes, augmented by accessions 
 from upwards of thirty villages. The service was com- 
 menced 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 tbe 
 soldiers fired, and killed and wounded several. About 
 forty others were 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 59 
 
 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 teen 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 Sommieres, about 
 eight miles west of Msmes. 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 Bu 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 
 
60 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 iron bar some hours before the coup de grace, or death- 
 61ow, was inflicted. Oolognac 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 perish- 
 ing 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 hold- 
 ing meetings for prayer, and reading to the people the 
 sermons prepared for them by Brousson. 
 
 Por the purpose of writing out his sermons, Brous- 
 son 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 Am- 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 61 
 
 sterdam, 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 Grod. 
 
 At length, the fury of Brousson's enemies so in- 
 creased, 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 Brous- 
 son 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 
 
62 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 first went into Holland. He had scarely 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 martydom 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 en- 
 deavoured 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 Huguenob friends in 
 England. He also wished to ascertain from personal 
 inquiry the advisability of forwarding an increased 
 number of French emigrants — then resident in Swit- 
 zerland — 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 Moutauban, four ministers from 
 Montpellier for whom he had pleaded in the courts 
 at Toulouse — the two Dubourdieus and the two Ber- 
 thaus — fathers and sons. There were also La Coux 
 from Castres, De Joux from Lyons, Roussillon from 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 63 
 
 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 solicita- 
 tion, of preacher to the Walloon church at the Hague. 
 Though his office was easy — for he had several col- 
 leagues 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 con- 
 sidered* 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' connec- 
 tion 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. 
 
64 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 At that time, while the Protestants were flying from 
 Prance, as they continued to do for many years, there 
 were numerous persons who acted as guides for those 
 not only flying from, hut entering the country. Those 
 who guided Protestant pastors on their concealed visits 
 to France, were men of great zeal and courage- 
 known to he 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 hyways 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 he assumed, and were prepared with a stock of 
 phrases and answers adapted for every class of inquiries. 
 
 The guide employed hy Brousson was one James 
 Bruman — an old Huguenot merchant, hanished at the 
 Revocation, and now employed in escorting Huguenot 
 preachers back to France, and escorting flying Hugue- 
 not men, women, and children from it. The pastor 
 and his guide started about the end of August, 1695. 
 They proceeded by way of Liege ; 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 Pro- 
 testant industry. One of the four principal Huguenot 
 academies of France was situated in that town. It was 
 
 * Many of these extraordinary escapes are given in the author's 
 " Huguenots : their Settlements, Churches, and Industries, in Eng- 
 land and Ireland." 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 65 
 
 suppressed in 1681, shortly before the Revocation, and 
 its professors, Bayle, Abbadie, Basnage, Brazy, and 
 Jurieu, expelled the country. The academy build- 
 ings 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.* 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 fami- 
 lies, 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 autho- 
 rities, 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 
 
 * There were from eighty to ninety establishments for the manu- 
 facture of broadcloth in Sedan, giving employment to more than 
 two thousand persons. These, together with the iron and steel 
 manufactures, were entirely ruined at the,- Revocation, when the 
 whole of the Protestant mechanics went into exile, and settled for tho 
 most part in Holland and England. 
 
 F 
 
66 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 pastor. They next rummaged the house, in order to 
 find the preacher's hooks. 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, ransack- 
 ing 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 under- 
 standing 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 experi- 
 ences 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 67 
 
 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-ifollowing December, he said: 
 
68 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 " I cannot at present enter into the details of the work 
 the Lord has given me grace to lahour in ; hut 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."* 
 
 "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 Yiverais, 
 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 par- 
 ticularly 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 for- 
 warded 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 
 
 * The following was the portraiture of Brousson, issued to the 
 spies and police : " Brousson is of middle stature, and rather spare, 
 aged forty to forty-two, nose large, complexion dark, hair black, 
 hands well formed." 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 69 
 
 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 
 
7 o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 examination. He Was iet down close to the sur- 
 face 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 Beam, 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. 
 Penon, the intendant of the province, to demand the 
 reward set upon Brousson 5 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. Ha 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 71 
 
 had but to step on shore to regain his liberty; but 
 he had promised to the Intendant of Beam, 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 im- 
 prisoned in the citadel of Montpellier, on the 30th 
 October, 1698. 
 
 Baville, who knew much of the character of Brous- 
 son — 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 com- 
 mand 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 after- 
 wards 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 
 
72 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 command- 
 ing extensive views of the surrounding country. In 
 clear weather, Mont Ventoux, one of the Alpine sum- 
 mits, may be seen across the broad valley of the Rhone 
 on the east, and the peak of Mont Canizou in the 
 Pyrenees on the west. Northward stretches the moun- 
 tain 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 tbe 
 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 
 
CLAUDE BROUSSON. 73 
 
 galleys sucIl 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 Greve — 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 Eome ; and here, accord- 
 ingly, 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, includ- 
 ing 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 
 
74 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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.* 
 
 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 San- 
 terre ! 
 
 * The only favour which Brousson's judges showed him at death 
 was as regarded the manner of carrying his sentence into execution. 
 He was condemned to be broken alive on the wheel, and then 
 strangled ; whereas by special favour the sentence was commuted 
 into strangulation firBt and the breaking of his bones afterwards. 
 So that while Brousson's impassive body remained with his per- 
 secutors to be broken, hia pura unconqueved spirit mounted in 
 triumph towards heaves. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 
 
 A LTHOUGrH the arbitrary measures of the King were 
 -^*- felt all over France, they nowhere excited more 
 dismay and consternation than in the province of Lan- 
 guedoc. This province had always heen 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 pro- 
 vidence, they rejected Pome, 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 
 
76 THE HUGUENOTS. ' 
 
 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 Hugue- 
 nots 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, accord- 
 ing 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 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 77 
 
 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 in- 
 structions 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 he 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 con- 
 verted, 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 attach- 
 ment 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 educa- 
 tion, of the Protestants of Languedoc, it is reasonable 
 
78 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 punish- 
 ment 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 Pegorier. 
 
 It is also interesting to find how many of the distin- 
 guished Huguenots who settled in England came from 
 Languedoc. The Romillys and Layards came from Mont- 
 pellier ; the Saurins from Nismes ; the Graussens from 
 Lunel ; and the Bosanquets from Caila ; * besides the 
 Auriols, Arnauds, Pechels, De Beauvoirs, Durands, 
 Portals, Boileaus, D'Albiacs, D'Oliers, Pious, and Yig- 
 noles, 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. Pro- 
 testantism was now entirely without leaders. The 
 
 * There are still Gaussens at St. Mamert, in the department of 
 Gard ; and some of the Bosanquet family must have remained on their 
 estates or returned to Protestantism, as we find a Bosanquet of Caila 
 broken alive at Nismes, because of his religion, on the 7th September, 
 1702, after -which his corpse was publicly exposed on the Montpellier 
 high road. 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 79 
 
 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 popula- 
 tion; 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 
 Prance. It fills the department of Lozere, 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, how- 
 ever, broken abruptly by the deep valley of the Phone, 
 running nearly due north and south. 
 
 The whole of this mountain district maybe regarded 
 as a triangular plateau rising gradually from the north- 
 west, and tilted up at its south-eastern angle, It is 
 
80 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 composed for the most part of granite, oyerlapped 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, exhibit- 
 ing a series of flat-topped hills bounded by perpen- 
 dicular cliffs some six or eight hundred feet high. 
 
 " These plateaux," says Mr. Scrope, in his interest- 
 ing 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 con- 
 siderable width. Winding, narrow, and all but im- 
 passable clift-like glens predominate, giving to the 
 Cevennes that peculiarly intricate character which en- 
 abled its Protestant inhabitants, in the beginning of 
 the last century, to offer so stubborn and gallant a re- 
 sistance 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 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 8r 
 
 turf-clad slopes or earth-covered ledges to repay tlie 
 tillage of the farmer. Even the mountains of lower 
 elevation are for the most part stony deserts. Chest- 
 nut-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 prin- 
 cipal 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 charac- 
 ter 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 Lozere. 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 Florae — 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, point- 
 ing to the sterile rocks, exclaimed to us, " Messieurs, 
 behold the very poorest district in France ! It con- 
 tains nothing but juniper-bushes ! As for its agricul- 
 ture, it produces nothing ; manufactures, nothing ; 
 commerce, nothing ! JRien, rien, rien ! " 
 
 The observation, of this French entrepreneur reminds 
 
82 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 us of an anecdote that Telford, the Scotch engineer, used 
 to relate of a countryman with reference to his appre- 
 ciation of Scotch mountain beauty. An English artist, 
 enraptured by the scenery of Ben MacDhui, was ex- 
 patiating 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. 
 Gut-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 
 eerge, 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. 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 83 
 
 The people are ot a contented nature, and bear theii 
 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 un- 
 manageable by force, they are remarkably accessible to 
 kindess and moral suasion. 
 
 Such, in a few words, are the more prominent charac- 
 teristics 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 dis- 
 may fell upon the people ; but they made no signs of 
 resistance to the royal authority. For a time they re- 
 mained 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 look- 
 ing 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 
 
84 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Csesar the 
 things that were Caesar'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 them- 
 selves together ; " and they proceeded, in all the Pro- 
 testant districts in the South of France — in Yiverais, 
 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 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. S.s 
 
 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 dis- 
 appointed. 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 pro- 
 vided 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 
 woolcarders — by instituting a common fund for the 
 purpose of helping their distressed brethren in sur- 
 rounding 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 en- 
 
86 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 rolled men to post themselves as sentinels on the sur- 
 rounding 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 informa- 
 tion by trusty emissaries, intimating the direction of 
 their march. 
 
 .The Intendant, Baville, wrote to Louvois, minister 
 of Louis XIV. during the persecutions, express- 
 ing his surprise and alarm at the apparent evidences 
 of organization amongst the peasantry. " I have just 
 learned," said he in one letter,* " that last Sunday there 
 was an assembly of nearly four hundred men, many of 
 them armed, at the foot of the mountain of Lozere. I 
 had thought," he added, " that the great lesson taught 
 them at Vigan and Anduze would have restored tran- 
 quillity 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 exasperat- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 tend," 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 P 
 
 The Duke de Noailles advised that it would be neces- 
 • October 20, 1686. 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 87 
 
 sary 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 inacces- 
 sible 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 re- 
 cently met at the foot of the Lozere. 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."* 
 
 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 
 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. Hypolyte, 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. 
 • Noailles to Baville, 29th October, 1686. 
 
88 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 defiles 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 fascina- 
 tion. 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 perse- 
 cuted quarters of Dauphiny, Viverais, and the Cevennes. 
 The people had lost their pastors ; they had not the 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 89 
 
 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 Convul- 
 sionaires, 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, be- 
 gan 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 sym- 
 pathy, 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 extatically, 
 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, 
 
jo THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 who could neither read nor write. Her usual speech 
 was the patois of her country, but when she became in- 
 spired 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 so 
 divinely as she. They denounced " Woe, woe " upon 
 their persecutors. They reviled Babylon as the oppres- 
 sor of the House of Israel. They preached the most 
 violent declamations against Eome, 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 Ceven- 
 nes. "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 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 91 
 
 by the devil ; they quaked and prophesied publicly in 
 the streets."* 
 
 Plottard says there were eight thousand persons in 
 one province who had inspiration. All were not, how- 
 ever, 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 pre- 
 valence 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." t 
 
 Mere force was of no avail against people who sup- 
 posed themselves to be under supernatural influences. 
 The meetings in the Desert, accordingly, were attended 
 
 • "Vie du Marechal de Villars," i. 125. 
 
 t Brueys, " Histoire du Fanaticisms de Notre Temps." 
 
92 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 ■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 Ceven- 
 nes. At Cheilaret, in the Vivarais, there had been an 
 encounter between the troops and the peasantry ; but 
 the people were speedily dispersed, leaving three hun- 
 dred 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 Florae. 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 through- 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 93 
 
 out the Cevennes. The militia ran night and day after 
 the meetings in the Desert. All persons found attend* 
 ing 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 Budd- 
 hists, 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 Lozere 
 on the north, and of Bouges 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 ver- 
 dureless. The village is best reached from Florae, 
 from which it is about twenty miles distant. The 
 valley runs east and west, and is traversed by a toler- 
 ably 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 
 
94 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 occa- 
 sional chateau 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 accord- 
 ingly stationed there and at Florae for the purpose of 
 preventing the meetings and overawing the popula- 
 tion. 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, re- 
 lentless, and cruel. He had no bowels of compas- 
 sion. He was deaf to all appeals for mercy. With 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 95 
 
 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, deter- 
 mined 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 
 
96 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 neighbour- 
 ing mountain of Bouges ; 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 stand- 
 ing 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. Twentj' 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 
 inarching along. Thinking it was a nocturnal as- 
 sembly, he cried to his soldiers, " Run and see what 
 this means." But the doors of the house were already 
 
OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 97 
 
 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 couid 
 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 ! 
 
 n 
 
Map of the Country of the Cevennes. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 
 
 fPHE poor peasants, wool-carders, and neatherds of 
 -*- the Cevennes, formed only a small and insignifi- 
 cant 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 Pro- 
 vinces, 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 cul- 
 minated 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 
 
ioo THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 occa- 
 sioned 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;* 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 
 
 * Whether it he that Calvinism is electie as regards races and 
 individuals, or that it has (as is most probably the case) a powerful 
 formative influence upon individual character, certain it is that the 
 Calvinists of all countries have presented the strongest possible re- 
 semblance to each other — the Calvinists of Geneva and Holland, the 
 Huguenots of France, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the Puritans 
 of Old and New England, seeming, as it were, to be but members of 
 the same family. It is curious to speculate on the influence which 
 the religion of Calvin — himself a Frenchman — might have exercised 
 on the history of France, as well as on the individual character of 
 Frenchmen, had the balance of forces carried the nation hodily over 
 to Protestantism (as was very nearly the case) towards the end of the 
 sixteenth century. Heinrich Heine has expressed the opinion that 
 the western races contain a large proportion of men for. whom the 
 moral principle of Judaism has a strong elective affinity ; and in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Old Testament certainly 
 seems to have exercised a much more powerful influence on the minds 
 of religious reformers than the New. "The Jews," says Heine, 
 " were the Germans of the East, and nowadays the Protestants in 
 German countries (England, Scotland, America, Germany, Holland) 
 ave nothing more nor less than ancient Oriental Jews." 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISA11DS. 101 
 
 own form of worship. In Languedoc, the moun- 
 taineers 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 monarchs sent out soldiers as their 
 missionaries — Louis XIV. employing the dragoons of 
 Louvois and Baville, and Charles II. those of Clayer- 
 house 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. Hugue- 
 not 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 con- 
 demned 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 preach- 
 ing, 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 insur- 
 rection 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,"* and in the other the cruelty of Arch- 
 
 * The instrument is thus described by Cavalier, in his "Uemoirs 
 of the Wars of the Cevennes," London, 1726 : " This inhuman man 
 
loz THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 bishop 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 revolu- 
 tions, 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 vio- 
 lence 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 cam- 
 paigns. 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 Hugue- 
 
 had invented a rack (more cruel, if it be possible, than that usually- 
 made use of) to torment these poor unfortunate gentlemen and ladies ; 
 which was a beam he caused to be split in two, with vices at each 
 end. Every morning he would send for these poor people, in order 
 to examine them, and if they refused to confess what he desired, he 
 caused their legs to be put in the slit of the beam, and there squeezed 
 fbem till the bones cracked," &c, &e. (p. 35). 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. t03 
 
 nots 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 chateau 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 Frugeres, 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 
 
10 4 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 had resolved upon a general massacre of the priests, 
 and he now threw himself upon Frugeres for the pur- 
 pose of carrying out the enterprise begun by him at 
 Pont-de-Montvert. The cure" 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 Frugeres 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 moun- 
 tain, crossed the track of his pursuers, and directed 
 himself upon St. Andre de Lanceze. The whole 
 country was by this time in a state of alarm ; and the 
 cure" of the place, being on the outlook, mounted the 
 clock-tower and rang the tocsin. But his parishioners 
 having joined the insurgents, the cure" 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 em- 
 blems of Romanism on which they could lay their 
 hands. 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 105 
 
 Seguier and his band next hurried across the moun- 
 tains towards the south, having learnt that the cur^s 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 cur^s, however, having heard that 
 Seguier was in the neighbourhood, fled panic-stricken, 
 some to the chateau of Portes, others to St. Andre, 
 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 chateau of Ladeveze, 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 chateau is situ- 
 ated, and made for the north in the direction of Cas- 
 sagnas, arriving at the elevated plateau of Font-Morte 
 a little before daybreak. 
 
 In the meantime, Baville, the intendant of the pro- 
 vince, 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 
 
to6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 in hot has'te from Alais; the militia were assembled 
 from all quarters and marched upon the disturbed dis- 
 trict. The force was placed under the orders of 
 Captain Poul, an old soldier of fortune, who had distin- 
 guished 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 Byswick, 
 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 Florae 
 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 Florae. As 
 they proceeded along the road, Poul said to Seguier, 
 " "Well, wretch ! now I have got you, how do you ex- 
 pect to be treated after the crimes you have com- 
 mitted ? " " 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?" "Be- 
 cause the Spirit of God is in me." "Your abode?" 
 " In the Desert, and shortly in heaven." " Ask pardon 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS, 107 
 
 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 be burnt alive at Pont-de-Montvert. 
 Nouvel, another of the prisoners, was broken alive at 
 Ladeveze, and Bonnet, a third, was hanged at St. 
 Andre. 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 Ghayla, the earliest leader in the insurrec- 
 tion 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 " (in- 
 fants de Dieu) ; but their enemies variously nicknamed 
 them " The Barbets," " The Vagabonds," " The As- 
 semblers," " 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 road- 
 runner. But whatever the origin of the word may be, 
 
108 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 sus- 
 pected persons in the Upper Cevennes, and sent them 
 before the judges at Florae. 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 them- 
 selves 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 detach- 
 ments 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, EspeVandieu, 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 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARBS. 109 
 
 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 Lozere 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 Grod," 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 dwell- 
 ing at Massoubeyran, still known there as the house of 
 " Laporte-Eoland." It contains a secret retreat, open- 
 ing from a corner of the floor, called the " Cachette de 
 
no THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 reli- 
 giously 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 as 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, 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. in 
 
 and when he sought out the despairing insurgents ill 
 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 draw- 
 ing together, others joined them. Amongst these were 
 Gastonet, 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, hold- 
 ing 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 tho 
 deliverance of Israel is at stake. .Follow us to the 
 mountains. No country is better suited for war — we 
 
u* THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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. AH 
 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 con- 
 soles 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 ! "* 
 
 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 sol- 
 diers, 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 
 
 * Brueys, "Histoire de Fanatiume;" Peyrat, "Histoiie den 
 Pasteurs du Desert," 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 1 13 
 
 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 Florae. 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 Cabrieres. 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 
 
n+ THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 companions retired from the temple, and after setting 
 fire to the Roman Catholic church, and the houses of 
 the consul, the captain, and the cur£, 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. Frezal, St. Andeol, Deze, 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 irnme- 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. nj 
 
 diate 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 im- 
 mediate 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 
 £t l'on vena dans un moment 
 
 Abandonner la place ; 
 Le camp des ennemies epara, 
 Epouvante de toutes parts, 
 
 Fuira devant sa face. 
 
 On verra tout ce camp s'enfuir, 
 Comme l'on voit s'evanouir 
 
 Une epaisse fumee ; 
 Comme la cire fond au feu, 
 Ainsi dea mechants de-rant Dieu, 
 
 La force est consumee. 
 
 L'Eternel est notre recours : 
 Nous obtenons par son secoura, 
 
 Plus d'une deliverance. 
 C'est Lui qui fut notre support, 
 Et qui tient lea clefs de la mort, 
 
 Lui seul en sa puissance. 
 
 A noua deiendre toujoura prompt, 
 II frappe le superbe front 
 
 De la troupe ennemie ; 
 On verra tomber sous sea coups 
 Ceux qui provoquent son courroux 
 
 Par leur mechante 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 
 
u6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 at once, shouting to his men, " Charge, kill, kill the 
 Barbets ! "* 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 
 fusilade, 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-Mont- 
 vert, 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 
 
 • The " Barbets " (or " Water-dogs "Was the nickname by which 
 the Vaudois were called, against whom Poul had formerly been em- 
 ployed in the Italian valleys. 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 117 
 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 tb.£ 
 measures taken for their extermination. 
 
 Laporte was at last tracked by his indefatigable 
 enemy, Captain Poul, who burned to wipe out the dis- 
 grace 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 
 
n8 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 -\tictory were sent to Mont- 
 pellier 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 offLaporte's head, had decapitated the insur- 
 rection. 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 suc- 
 cessor. 
 
 A few words as to the associates of Roland, whose 
 family and origin have already been described. Andre' 
 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 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 119 
 
 greatest controversialist, and in his capacity of preacher 
 he distinguished himself from his companions by wear- 
 ing 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 Bouges. 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 Oamisards were prophets. Elie Marion, 
 in his " Theatre Sacre»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 
 
izo THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 was rescued on the way by Salomon and Ms 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 Genouilliac, 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 
 Esperandieu 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 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. izi 
 
 insurgent leader, who, after baffling and repeatedly 
 defeating the armies of Louis XIV., ended his remark- 
 able 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 deter- 
 mined 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 
 
122 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 flight — his father at Carcassone, and his mother in tho 
 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 reaohing 
 Bibaute, 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 — be himself having no intention of con- 
 forming — he went up for refuge into the mountains of 
 the Cevennes. 
 
 The young Cavalier was present at the midnight 
 meeting on the Bouges, 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 six- 
 teen, 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 re- 
 cruits 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 Vaun- 
 age more than fulfilled their promise to Roland, and 
 sent him five hundred men. Cavalier also brought 
 with him from Bibaute 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 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 123 
 
 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 Mazel 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 moun- 
 tain district of the Lozere, 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, Msmes, as well as the 
 populous valley of the Yaunage, 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 glready given remarkable indications of the pro- 
 phetic gift. Hence, when it became the duty of the 
 band to which he belonged to select a chief, they 
 passed over the old soldiers, Esperandieu, Raslet, 
 Catinat, and Ravenel, and pitched upon the young 
 baker lad of Bibaute, not because he could fight, but 
 because he could preach ; and the old soldiers cheer- 
 fullv submitted themselves to his leadership. , 
 
124 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 dis- 
 tricts 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 sur- 
 reptitiously 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 Magis- 
 tavols, of Salomon ; and so on with the others. Each 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 125 
 
 chief had his respective canton, his granary, his maga- 
 zine, and his arsenal. To each retreat was attached a 
 special body of tradesmen — millers, bakers, shoe- 
 makers, tailors, armourers, and other mechanics ; and 
 each had its special guards and sentinels. 
 
 We havo already referred to the peculiar geological 
 features of the Cevennes, and to the limestone strata wh ich 
 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 occur- 
 rence ; 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 exclu- 
 sively 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, cul- 
 tivators, and manufacturers of the town and neigh- 
 
iz6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 bourhood. 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 
 Due 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 precipi- 
 tous 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 Peyre- 
 male 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 Ijhe 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 Grarddn, 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 I" 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 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE C AMI SARDS. 127 
 
 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 Massou- 
 beyran, 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 Pro- 
 testante 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 import- 
 ance 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 
 
128 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 hang- 
 ing 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 Itoland as his principal magazine. But perhaps 
 the most interesting of these eaves 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. 
 
INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 129 
 
 The place is quite dry, and sufficiently spacious to 
 accommodate a large number of persons; and there 
 can be do 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 oiir 
 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. 
 
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 Tannage, " 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 : Nozieres, Bou- 
 coiran, Ners, Vezenobres, and Alais itself, now a con- 
 siderable 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 131 
 
 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 Lajonquiere. We went to see the scene 
 of the battle, some three miles to the south-east, pass- 
 ing 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 salu- 
 tations — 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 there- 
 from a jug of light sparkling wine, of which we partook. 
 In answer to an inquiry whether there were any Pro- 
 
i32 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 testants 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 Oamisards. 
 
 "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 moun- 
 tain 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. Mes- 
 sengers brought him intelligence at the same time of 
 risings in the mountains of the Lozere 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, 
 *nd burnt. Cavalier says he never meddled with any 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 133 
 
 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 cur6 
 of Saint-Germain said of Castanet in the Aigoal that h» 
 was " like a raging torrent." Roland and Joany ran 
 from village to village ransacking dwellings, chateaux^ 
 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 thes 
 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 tbe 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 
 
i34 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Vaquieres, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Cavalier's head-quarters at Euzet. Their re- 
 treat having been discovered, a strong force of soldiers 
 and militia was directed upon them, under the com- 
 mand 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 neighbour- 
 hood for their guide, not knowing that he was a con- 
 federate 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 ex- 
 pended part of it in buying hats, shoes, and stockings 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALiER. 135 
 
 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." * 
 
 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 en- 
 trenchment 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 
 
 • "Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes," p. 74. 
 
136 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 move- 
 ments, 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 pass- 
 ing 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 137 
 
 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 ram- 
 parts, 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 pro- 
 ceeded a mile on their return journey when a tremendous 
 explosion took place, shaking the ground like an earth- 
 quake, and turning back, they saw the battlements of 
 the detested Chateau Servas hurled into the air. 
 
 Shortly after, Roland repeated at Sauve, 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 
 
138 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 
 Sauve. 
 
 These terrible measures caused a new stampede of 
 the clergy all over the Cevennes. The nobles and 
 gentry also left their chateaux, the merchants their 
 shops and warehouses, and took refuge in the fortified 
 towns. Even the bishops of Mende, Uz£s, 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 of 
 Eyswick had set at liberty a large force of soldiers, who 
 
EXPLOITS OF CA VALIER. 139 
 
 had now no other occupation than to "convert" the 
 Protestants and force them to attend Mass. About fire 
 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 pur- 
 pose 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, fight- 
 ing 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 insur- 
 gents, 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 in- 
 surgents, "by reason," said Cavalier, "we could go 
 
i 4 o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 farther 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 Languedoe 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 be- 
 trayed by the men in power. At their urgent solicita- 
 tion, 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 E-ouergue ; a battalion of marines from the ships- 
 of-war lying at Marseilles and Toulon; a body of 
 Miguelets from E-oussillon, 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 con- 
 fessed 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 prin- 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 141 
 
 cipal number of the Irish followers of James II. de- 
 clared 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.* 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 un- 
 armed, and their only crime was their religion. The 
 regiments of Viscount Clare and Viscount Dillon, 
 principally distinguished themselves against the Vau- 
 dois. The war was one of extermination, in which many 
 of the Barbets were killed. Mr. O'Connor states that be- 
 tween 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 calami- 
 ties have obliterated the impression made by the waste 
 and desolation of this military incursion." t 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. 
 
 * O'Callaghan's " History of the Irish Brigades in the service 
 of France," p. 29. 
 + Ibid., p. 180. 
 
142 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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. March- 
 ing 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 where- 
 abouts 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 tbe 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 
 
EXPLOITS GF CAVALIER. 143 
 
 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 he 
 supplied with powder and ammunition, of which they 
 had run short. So, disguising himself as a merchant, 
 and mounted on a horse with capacious saddlehags, 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 Eavanel 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 
 
144 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 hurled from a sling by a young Yauvert 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 fail 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 barri- 
 caded ; the generale 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 Protest- 
 ants, calling upon them to save their lives. But the 
 night passed, and with it their alarm,- for the Cami- 
 sards did not make their appearance. Next morning 
 a message arrived from Count Broglie, shut up in 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. j 4 5 
 
 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 saddle-bags 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 rendezvous. 
 
 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, notwithstand- 
 ing 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 
 
 L 
 
M6 the huguenots. 
 
 give them but few opportunities of exhibiting their 
 force, and then only when at a comparative disad- 
 vantage. 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 pri- 
 vilege, 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 falli- 
 bility 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 vigorous 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 con- 
 form to the Church of Rome, should forthwith be put 
 to the sword 1 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. H j 
 
 Brigadier Julien, an apostate Protestant, who had 
 served under William of Orange in Ireland, and after- 
 wards under the Duke of Savoy in Piedmont, disap- 
 pointed 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 Languedoe. 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 insur- 
 gents, and, if necessary, reduce the country to a desert. 
 " It is not enough," said he, " merely to kill those bear- 
 ing 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 
 Languedoe." 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 TTzes ; 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. 
 
148 the huguenots. 
 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 Gardon 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. Andre; and making a 
 bonfire of the contents of the church ; Joany disarming 
 Grenouillac ; and Lafleur terrifying the villages of the 
 Lozere 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. ■ i 49 
 
 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 moun- 
 tains, 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 siek. 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."* 
 
 The campaign of 1703, the third year of the insur- 
 rection, 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 con- 
 cealed — 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 
 
 * Cavalier's " Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes," pp. 
 111—114. 
 
ISO THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 the local militia, constituted an effective force of not 
 less than sixty thousand men I 
 
 Such was the irresistihle army, commanded hy a 
 marshal of France, three lieutenant-generals, three 
 major-generals, and three brigadier-generals, now 
 stationed in Languedoc, to crush the peasant insur- 
 rection. 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 diverson, 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 nume- 
 rous 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 Camisards 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 151 
 
 hundred dead and wounded. Cavalier himself escaped 
 with difficulty, and, after having been given up for lost, 
 reached the rendezvous at Bouquet in a state of com- 
 plete 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 chateaux and churches, cap- 
 tures 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 ammuni- 
 tion, 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 pro- 
 visions 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 in- 
 habitants 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 
 
152 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 to be sacked and destroyed by one or other of the con- 
 tending 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 Cami- 
 sards had many friends. Although Eoland, to divert 
 the attention of Montrevel from Ganges, sent a detach- 
 ment of his men into the neighbourhood of Msmes 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 Oamisards, 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 diffi- 
 culty, 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 same 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. i S3 
 
 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 north- 
 wards by the valley of the Rhone, 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 Sommieres ; 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- Cannes. 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 
 
iS+ THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 
 Eoussillon. 
 
 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 
 Boyalists — Alais, Anduze, Florae, St. Hypolite, and 
 Msmes — 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. 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 155 
 
 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 cap- 
 tive to Montpellier, where the women and children were 
 imprisoned, and the men sent to the galleys. 
 
 When Cavalier heard of the determination of Mont- 
 revel 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 exter- 
 mination, 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 in- 
 creasing 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 
 
156 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 was haunted by spies, some of whom even succeeded 
 in obtaining admission to bis ranks. More than once 
 the spies were detected — it was pretended through pro- 
 phetic influence — and immediately shot. But on one 
 occasion Cavalier and his whole force narrowly 
 escaped destruction through the betrayal of a pre- 
 tended 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 pur- 
 pose, 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 Grardon at Beaurivage. On Sunday, the 29th 
 of April, they halted in the wood of Malaboissiere, a 
 little north of Mialet, for a day's preaching and wor- 
 ship ; 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 Gtrignon — 
 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. 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 157 
 
 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 pre- 
 caution to set a strict guard upon all the gates, to pre- 
 vent 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 out- 
 houses. 
 
 The night was dark, and favoured the Royalists' ap- 
 proach. 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 over- 
 whelming 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, pro- 
 bably forming part of the fosse of the ancient chateau. 
 Having there rallied his followers, he recrossed the 
 
158 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 pur- 
 sued by the enemy. 
 
 The three hundred Camisards who continued shut 
 up in the tower refused to surrender. They trans- 
 formed the ruin into a fortress, barricading every en- 
 trance, 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 159 
 
 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 
 Cavaliers 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 Bibaute 
 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 Gruignon, 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. Gruignon pro- 
 fessed 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 crush- 
 ing the insurrection, and that he had cut off its head 
 with that of the Camisard chief. But his supposed dis- 
 covery 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 
 
160 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 XL) 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 Grod and of Csesar." 
 
 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 perpe- 
 trators 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 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 161 
 
 Camargues — a sort of island-prairies lying between the 
 mouths of the Rhone — 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 com- 
 bats, 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 conflict- 
 ing 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 con- 
 dition 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 ammuni- 
 tion, principally by captures from the enemy ; and in 
 the following spring they were in a position to take tha 
 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. 
 
 M 
 
1 6z . THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 The battle of Martinargues was the Cannte 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 nelp 
 them, informing him of the whereabouts of the 
 Camisards. 
 
 A strong royalist force of horse and foot was imme- 
 diately sent in pursuit, under the command of Brigadier 
 Lajonquiere. 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 vil- 
 lage ; 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 hot one-sixth 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 163 
 
 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 Lajonquiere, " 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 com- 
 mander ordered his men to cross the ravine and fall 
 upon the remnant with the bayonet. Instantly, how- 
 ever, 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 com- 
 pleted 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, Lajonquiere himself escaping with 
 difficulty. 
 
164 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceeded 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 Eoyalists, 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 
 <fiO bridge, when the concealed Camisard's 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, rush- 
 ing down to the river, into which they threw them- 
 selves ; and but for Roland's neglect in guarding the 
 
EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 165 
 
 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 Caiaisards. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 END OF THE CAMISAKD INSURRECTION. 
 
 fpHE 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 Mire- 
 mont, a Huguenot refugee in England, on a mission to 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 167 
 
 the Cevennes ; and he succeeded in reaching the insur- 
 gent 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 even- 
 tually 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 suc- 
 ceeded in settling accounts with Cavalier, and wiped 
 
1 68 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 out many old scores by inflicting upon him tie 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 pro- 
 ceeded southwards to St. Genies, 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 inflict- 
 ing a parting blow upon his often-baffled enemy. In- 
 stead, however, of Montrevel setting out for Monpellier 
 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 169 
 
 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 dis- 
 covered 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 Cava- 
 lier, 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 recogni- 
 tion, 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 con- 
 ducted 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 Caesar ! " 
 
»7o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Indeed, the conduct of Cavalier in this struggle so 
 impressed Marshal Villars, that he determined, if pos- 
 sible, to gain him over, together with his brave fol- 
 lowers, 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 Cami- 
 sards 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 
 
END OF THE CAM/SARD INSURRECTION. 171 
 
 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 month 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 dis- 
 covered 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, 
 
172 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 insurrec- 
 tion had been frighful. 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 inten- 
 tions 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 recon- 
 ciling 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 173 
 
 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 
 oe respected. Roland was already estahlishing new 
 magazines in place of those which had been destroyed ; 
 he was again recruiting his brigades from the Protest- 
 ant communes, and many of those who had recovered 
 from their wounds again rallied under his standard. 
 
 At this juncture, D'Aigalliers suggested to Yillars 
 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 Grod 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 
 
i 7 + THE HUGUENOTS 
 
 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 Avene with only ten 
 officers and thirty dragoons." 
 
 The interview took place at the time appointed, on 
 the bridge over the Avene, 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, dis- 
 mounted, 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 175 
 
 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 sub- 
 jects ; what are your terms and your demands ?" "They 
 consist of three things," replied Cavalier : " liberty ot 
 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 confer- 
 ence 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, reject- 
 ing 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 
 
itf THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 inter- 
 view 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 fol- 
 lowers. 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 Eoland 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 
 Sevennes to resume the war. At the very time that 
 Cavalier was holding the conference with the royalist 
 general at the Bridge of the Avene, 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 177 
 
 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 Saigas, in the possession of the 
 King's collector, Viala, whom the royalist troops were 
 escorting to St. Jean de Grard. 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 Yillars, 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 .enter- 
 tained 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 ap- 
 proached the neighbourhood of Msmes, 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 
 
178 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 holding at bay the armies of France for nearly three 
 ■years, had come to negotiate a treaty of peace with its 
 jiost famous general. Leaving the greater part of his 
 cavalry and the whole of his infantry at St. Cesaire, 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 Recollets, a Franciscan convent, 
 nearly opposite the elegant Boman temple known as 
 the Maison Car^e.* Alighting from his horse at the 
 gate, and stationing his guard there under the charge 
 of Catinat, Cavalier entered the garden, and was con- 
 ducted to Marshal Villars, with whom was Baville, in- 
 tendant of the province ; Baron Sandricourt, governor 
 
 * The Nismes Thsatre now occupies part of the Jaidin dee 
 Recollets. 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 179 
 
 of Nismes ; General Lalande, and other dignitaries. 
 Cavalier looked such a mere boy, that Yillars 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 respect- 
 fully 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 bim 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 him- 
 self. 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 Yillars 
 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 tbird — 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 
 
180 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Aigue- 
 mortes, 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 Recollets, 
 Cavalier mounted his horse, and, escorted by them, 
 proceeded to the Hotel 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 181 
 
 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 Sommieres, 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 re- 
 sounded with preaching and psalmody from morning 
 until evening, sometimes until late at night, by torch- 
 light. 
 
 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. Flechier, 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 
 
i8z THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 was jealous of the popularity achieved by Cavalier, 01 
 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-establish- 
 ment of the ancient edicts by the sword, does not 
 clearly appear. At all events, he refused to be com- 
 mitted 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 con- 
 trolled 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 rebuild- 
 ing 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 Recollets 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 183 
 
 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 worshiprestored. 
 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 the 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 ap- 
 plauded 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 
 
i8+ THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 ginirale 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 down- 
 cast, 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 en- 
 deavoured to drive him back by reproaches, which at 
 length so irritated Cavalier, that he drew his sword, 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 185 
 
 and they were about to rush at each, other, when one 
 of the prophets ran between them and prevented blood- 
 shed. . 
 
 Cavalier did not desist from following them for 
 several miles, until at length, on reaching St. Esteve, 
 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 detatched themselves 
 from the ranks, and followed Cavalier in the direction 
 of Msmes. But the principal body remained with 
 Ravanel, who, waving his sabre in the air, and 
 shouting, "Vive l'Epee de l'Eternel!" 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 de- 
 ceiving him. But he sent a letter to the marshal, 
 informing him of the failure of his negotiations, the 
 continued revolt of the Cami sards, 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 Msmes and arrange as to the 
 future. Cavalier accordingly set out forthwith, accom- 
 panied 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 
 
1 86 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowers, 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 res- 
 pected 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 ih 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 Rhone a little above 
 Beaucaire. 
 
 The insurgents were also in a great measure dis- 
 armed 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 them- 
 selves, but threatened death to all who continued to resist 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 187 
 
 the royal troops. In sign of his clemency, he ordered 
 the gibbets which had for some years stood en per- 
 manence 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 wai 
 that had so long desolated the province. 
 
 Moved by the marshal's eloquent appeals, the 
 principal towns along the Grardon and the Vidourle 
 appointed deputies to proceed in a body to the camp of 
 Roland, and induce him if possible to accept the prof- 
 ferred 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-Mont- 
 vert was at the time occupied by a body of Miguelets, 
 whom they determined if possible to destroy. Divid- 
 ing 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 at- 
 tacked at the same time in front and rear, thrown into 
 confusion and defeated ; and the other wings were 
 driven back with heavy loss. 
 
i88 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 This was Roland's last battle. About a month, 
 later — in August, 1704 — while a body of Cdmisards 
 occupied the Chateau of Castelnau, not far from N era, 
 the place was suddenly surounded 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, accom- 
 panied 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 sleep- 
 ing 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 
 
END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 189 
 
 at Geneva, stole back across the frontiner 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 moun- 
 tains 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. 
 
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 Hugue- 
 nots seemed to he entirely put down, and Protestantism 
 completely destroyed. There was no longer any resist- 
 ance nor protest. If there were any Huguenots who 
 had not hecome 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 Hugue- 
 nots 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 XIY. 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 pro- 
 clamation to this effect was also published by the King, 
 dated the 8th of March, 1715, declaring the entire con- 
 version of the French Huguenots, and sentencing those 
 who, after that date, relapsed from Catholicsm to 
 Protestantism, to all the penalties of heresy. 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 191 
 
 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 accord- 
 ingly 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. Mean- 
 while, 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 re- 
 fused 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 
 
1 92 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 sup- 
 ported 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 XIY. has proclaimed you to be a converted 
 Catholic, and if yon 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 re- 
 mained 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, re- 
 ligious assemblies began to be held in the Desert, and 
 preachers made their appearance. The spies spread 
 about the country informed the intendants. The 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 193 
 
 meetings were often surprised by the military. Some- 
 times 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.* 
 
 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 Aiguemortes, which is to this day re- 
 membered with horror as the principal dungeon of 
 the Huguenot women. 
 
 The town of Aiguemortes is situated in the depart- 
 ment 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 pro- 
 duced by the stagnant water which it contained. 
 
 • In the Viverais and elsewhere they sang the song of the per- 
 secuted Church : — 
 
 " Nos lilies dans les monasteres, 
 Nos prisonniers dans les caohots, 
 Nos martyrs dont le sang se repand a grands Hots, 
 Nos confesseurs sur les galeres, 
 Nos malades persecutes, 
 Nos mourants exposes a plus d'une furie, 
 Nos morts traines a la voierie, 
 Te disent (6 Dieu !) nos calamites." 
 O 
 
i 9 4 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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, sur- 
 mounted 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 un- 
 healthy; 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 re- 
 ligious 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 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 195 
 
 of the kingdom, by way of a show. The object was to 
 teach the horrible delinquency of professing Protestant- 
 ism ; for it could not be to show the greater beautiful- 
 ness 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.* 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. 
 
 • "Autobiography of a French Protestant condemned to the 
 Galleys because of his Religion." Rotterdam, 1757. (Since reprinted 
 by the Religious Tract Society.) 
 
196 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Chateau 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 suffi- 
 cient 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 on 7 , 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. 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 197 
 
 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 con ■ 
 tained 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 ex- 
 posed 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 inhabit- 
 ants 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. Malb, 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 
 
1 98 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 con- 
 stant 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.* Their dress was always 
 insuflicient, 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 
 
 * Le comite ou chef de chiourme, aide de deux sous-comites, 
 allait et venait sans cease sur le coursier, frappant lea forcats a coup 
 de nerfa de bceuf, comme un coi her sea chevaux. Pour rendre lei 
 coups plus sensible et pour economiser les vStements, lea galeriem 
 etaient nus quand ils ramaient. — Athanase CoauEREL pils. Ia 
 Formats pour la Foi, 64. 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 199 
 
 mixed up with thieves and the worst o£ .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 ChevaHer 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. * 
 
 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 
 Grod. 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, 
 • " The Autobiography of a French Protestant, "68. 
 
200 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 sea- 
 ports, 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 onboard. Some- 
 times 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 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 20 1 
 
 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 
 
zoj THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 cap- 
 tared; 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. 
 
GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 203 
 
 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 jprostrate in 
 the centre of the galley, as far as the chain would allow 
 him to reach. He was lying across the body of the lieu- 
 tenant, 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, con- 
 nected with this galley-slave service, which was prac- 
 tised 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 
 
204 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 to Ms liberty ; but if a Huguenot was wounded, he waa 
 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 Reale, where he 
 remained until peace was declared between England 
 and France by the Treaty of Utrecht* 
 
 Queen Anne of England, at the instigation of the 
 Marquis de Roehegade, 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 country- 
 men, and to spend the remainder of his life in Holland 
 and England, where Protestants were free. 
 
 * "Autobiography of a French Protestant," 112 — 21. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 ANTOINE COTJBT 
 
 A LMOST at the very time that Louis XIV. was 
 ■^*- lying on his death-bed at Versailles, a young 
 man conceived the idea of re-establishing Protest- 
 antism 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."* 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 influ- 
 ence of his mistress De Maintenon, and his Jesuit con- 
 fessor, Pere la Chase, f had been trying all his life to 
 accomplish. He was an intelligent youth, the son of 
 
 * Saint-Simon and Dangeau. 
 
 t Amongst the many satires and epigrams with which Louis XIV. 
 was pursued to the grave, the following epitaph may he given : — 
 
 " Ci gist le mari de Therese 
 De la Montespan le Mignon, 
 L'esclave de la Maintenon, 
 Le valet du pere La Chaise." 
 
 At the death of Louis XIV., Voltaire, an Hem of the Jesuits, waa 
 appropriately coming into notice. At the age of ahout twenty he 
 was thrown into the Bastille for having written a satire on Louis 
 XIV., of which the following is an extract : — 
 
206 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 re- 
 viving the pastorate, and restoring the proscribed 
 Protestant Church of France. It was a bold idea, 
 but the result prpved 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 conse- 
 crate himself to the service of God. He was still very 
 
 " J'ai vu sous l'habit d'une femme 
 
 TJn demon nous donner la loi ; 
 Elle sacrifia eon Dieu, sa foi, son &me, 
 Pour seduire l'esprit d'un trop crSdule roi. 
 
 • *•••• 
 
 J'ai vu l'hypocrite honoris : 
 J'ai vu, o'est dire tout, le jSsuite adore: 
 
 J'ai vu ces maux sous le regne funeste 
 D'un prince que jadis la colere celeste 
 Accorda, par vengeance, a nos desirs ardens : 
 
 J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ana." 
 
 Voltaire denied having written this satire. 
 
ANTOINE COURT. 207 
 
 young while the Camisard war was in progress, hut he 
 heard a great deal ahout it, and vividly remembered 
 all that he heard. 
 
 Antoine Court, like many Protestant children, was 
 compelled to attend a Jesuit school in his neighbour- 
 hood. Though but a boy he abhorred the Mass. With 
 Protestants the Mass was then the symbol of persecu- 
 tion ; it was identified with the Revocation of the Edict 
 — the dragonnades, the galleys, the prisons, the nun- 
 neries, 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, con- 
 firmed 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, 
 
208 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 com- 
 ing 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 
 TJzes to Nismes, and preaching wherever he could 
 draw assemblies of the people together. His success 
 
ANTOINE COURT. 209 
 
 during this rapid excursion induced him to visit Dau- 
 phiny. There he met Brunei, another preacher, with 
 knapsack on his hack, 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 under- 
 mined his health, and he was compelled to remain for 
 a time inactive at the mineral waters of Euzet. This re- 
 tirement 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 pre- 
 sumptuous 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 
 
210 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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, 
 Brunei, 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 discip- 
 line 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 Msmes, above referred to, 
 in the very same month in which Louis XIV. breathed 
 
ANTOINE COURT. zn 
 
 his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or 
 three laymen and a few preachers * 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 rides 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. 
 Therej in unknown valleys, on hillsides, on the moun- 
 tains, 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 
 
 * Edmund Hughes says the preachers were probably Eouviere (or 
 Crotte), Jean Hue, Jean Vesson, Etienne Arnaud, and Durand. 
 
2i2 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Yesson, 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 edu- 
 cation 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 MontpeUier, 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 punish- 
 ment did not terrify him. He contrived to escape 
 from prison at MontpeUier, and then went about con- 
 voking assemblies and preaching to the people as 
 before. 
 
 Besides these, there were Hue, Corteiz, Durand, 
 Arnaud, Brunei, 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. 
 
ANTOINE COURT. 213 
 
 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 re- 
 ward 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 Langue- 
 doc, and shortly after he arrived at Nismes. 
 
 At Nismes, Court first met Jacques Roger, who after- 
 wards 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, how- 
 ever, 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 en- 
 deavour 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 
 
214 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 the churches which had been reconstructed along 
 the hanks 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 encoun- 
 tering 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, Yesson was on this occasion re- 
 
ANTOINE COURT. 215 
 
 primanded 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 re- 
 ligious 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 Betrine 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 
 
2i6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 chap- 
 ters 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 de- 
 votional 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 circu- 
 lated 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 
 
ANTOINE COURT. 217 
 
 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 1 , and more elders were 
 elected. Many new churches were set up through- 
 out Languedoc; and the department of the Lozere, 
 in the Cevennes, became again almost entirely Pro- 
 testant. Roger and Villeveyre were almost equally 
 successful in Dauphiny; and Saintonge, Normandy, 
 and Poitou were also beginning to maintain a connec- 
 tion with the Protestant churches of Languedoc. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 
 
 '"PHE 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 
 Prance. They were began several years before the 
 Act of Revocation was proclaimed, when the dragon- 
 nades 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 " Assem- 
 blies 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 re- 
 membered them, and psalms were sung ; but there were 
 few or no meetings at which pastors presded. Court, 
 however, resolved not only to revive the meetings of 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 219 
 
 the Church in the Desert, but to reconstitute the con- 
 gregations, and restore the system of governing them 
 according to the methods of the Huguenot Church. 
 
 The first thing done in reconstituting a congrega- 
 tion, 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 de- 
 barred 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 !* 
 
 The elders summoned the assemblies. They gave 
 
 • 0. Coquerel, "Eglise du Desert," i. 105. 
 
220 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 con- 
 stant 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 appear- 
 ance 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. 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 221 
 
 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 organiza- 
 tion was based upon the people who elected their 
 elders ; then upon the elders who selected and recom- 
 mended the pastors ; and lastly upon the whole con- 
 gregation 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 offer- 
 ing 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 
 
222 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 wanderings over the country, passing long nights in 
 marching, sometimes hiding in caves by day, or sleep- 
 ing 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 them- 
 selves, 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 ex- 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 223 
 
 amined 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 sup- 
 ported 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, emolu- 
 ments 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 
 
22 4 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 be more efficiently carried on. He at first corresponded 
 with influential French refugees in England ana 
 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 Dau- 
 phiny, but in Normandy, Picardy, Poitou, Saintonge, 
 Beam, and the other provinces. 
 
 At length the subject became matured. It was not 
 found desirable to establish ihe 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 even- 
 tually 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 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 225 
 
 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 Swit- 
 zerland 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 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 pre- 
 tending 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, rum- 
 maged 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. 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 227 
 
 The spies and police so abounded throughout the 
 country, and were so active s 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.* 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 fre- 
 quently 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. 
 
 * It has since been published in the "Bulletin de la Sociltts da 
 Frotestantisme Franeaise." 
 
Z28 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 accord- 
 ingly 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 
 TJzes, 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 pro- 
 ceeding. 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 Molenes of Cahors died, making a pro- 
 fession 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 out- 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 229 
 
 rages to the living and dead were constantly occurring.* 
 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." f 
 
 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 ap- 
 pointed. 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, Hue, 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 com- 
 
 » Edmund Hughes, "Histoire de la Reatauration du Protestant- 
 isme en France," ii. 94. 
 t Benoit, " Edit de Nantes," v. 987. 
 
«3o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 prising the names of Court, Cortez, Durand, Rouviere, 
 Bombonnoux, and others. The names of these " others ' 
 were not mentioned, not being yet thought worthy ol 
 the gibbet. 
 
 And yet it was at this time that the Bishop of Alais 
 made an appeal to the government against the tolera- 
 tion shown to the Huguenots ! In 1723, he sent a long 
 memorial to Paris, alleging that Catholicism was suffer- 
 ing a serious injury ; that not only had the " new con- 
 verts " withdrawn themselves from the Catholic Church, 
 but that the old Catholics themselves were resort- 
 ing to the Huguenot assemblies ; that sometimes their 
 meetings numbered from three to four thousand per- 
 sons ; that their psalms were sometimes overheard in 
 the surrounding villages; that the churches were 
 becoming deserted, the cures 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 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 23 1 
 
 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 con- 
 cealed were surrounded by soldiers at night, and every 
 hole and corner in them ransacked. Three houses were 
 searched in one night. Court sometimes escaped witb 
 great difficulty. On one occasion he remained con- 
 cealed 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 TJzes. 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 TJzes. 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 arrange- 
 ments for having them removed to Geneva. They 
 reached that city in safety, in the month of April, 1729. 
 
2 3 z THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 lasfe dozen years. Since the age of fourteen, in 
 feet, he had evangelized Languedoc. 
 
 Shortly before Court left France for Switzerland, the 
 preacher, Alexandre Eoussel, 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 Yigan. 
 The whole of the people had departed, and Eoussel was 
 the last to leave the meeting. He was taken to Mont- 
 pellier, 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 strengthen- 
 ing 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 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 233 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testant 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 sup- 
 porting his family — all his own and his wife's pro- 
 perty 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 
 
234- THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Upper Languedoc, 11 ; in the Cevennes, 18 ; in the 
 Lozere 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, Beam, 
 Saintonge,* 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. 
 
 * In 1726, a deputation from Guyenne, Koyergue, and Poitou, 
 appeared before the Languedoc synod, requesting preachers and 
 pastors to be sent to them. The synod agreed to send Maroger as 
 preacher. Betrine (the first of the Lausanne students) and Grail 
 were afterwards sent to join him. Protestantism was also re- 
 awakening in Saintonge and Picardy, and pastors from Languedoc 
 journeyed there to administer the sacrament. Preachers were 
 afterwards sent to join them, to awaken the people, and reorganize 
 the congregations. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CHURCH IN THE DESEET, 1730-62— 
 PAUL KABAUT. 
 
 npHE 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 dis- 
 perse 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 fete. 
 
 One day in June, 1730, the Intendant of Languedoc 
 visited Msmes, escorted by four battalions of troops. 
 On arriving, the principal Catholics were selected, and 
 placed as commissaries to watch the houses of the sus- 
 pected 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 Hotel de Ville. 
 
*36 THE HUGUENOTS, 
 
 A few days after a great auto-da-fi 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.* 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. Pines, auto- 
 da-fis, 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 impres- 
 sion 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 — 
 
 * E. Hughes, " Histoire de la Restauralioa du Protestantisms en 
 France," ii. 9fl. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. z 37 
 
 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 semi- 
 nary at Lausanne. He had taken shelter for the night 
 with a Protestant friend at Foissac, near TJzes. 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 con- 
 trived 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, con- 
 tinued 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;"* and 
 they requested the government to adopt more vigorous 
 measures. 
 • E. Hughes, ii. 99. Coquerel, " L'Eglise dans le Desert," i. 258. 
 
238 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 discoTered 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 cur£s 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 con- 
 demned 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 him- 
 self 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 en- 
 joyed 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 assem- 
 blies increased. The people began to think that the 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 239 
 
 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, chil- 
 dren were baptized, and marriages were celebrated in 
 the open day. * 
 
 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 mem- 
 bers. The Procureur-General of Normandy said, "All 
 this country is full of Huguenots." But the govern- 
 ment 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 
 
 * Although marriages by the pastors had long been declared 
 illegal, they nevertheless married and baptized in the Desert. After 
 1730, the number of Protestant marriages greatly multiplied, though 
 it was known that the issue of such marriages were declared by the 
 laws of France to be illegal. Many of the Protestants of Dauphiny 
 went across the frontier into Switzerland, principally to Geneva, and 
 were there married. 
 
z 4 o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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.* 
 
 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 pur- 
 porting 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 recom- 
 menced as hotly as ever. The citizens of Nismes, 
 
 * Of the preachers about this time (1740-4) the test known were 
 Morel, Foriel, Mauvillon, Vouland, Corteiz, Peyrot, Koux, G-auch, 
 Coste, Dugniere, Blachon, Gabriac, Dejoura, Babaut, Gibert, Mig- 
 nault Desubas, Dubesset, Pradel, Morin, Defferre, Loire, Pradon, — 
 with many more. Defferre restored Protestantism in Berne. Loire 
 (a native of St. Omer, and formerly a Catholic), Viala, Preneuf, and 
 Pradon, were the apostles of Normandy, Rouergue, Guyenne, and 
 Poitoo. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 24! 
 
 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 im- 
 prisoned 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 
 
 B 
 
24» THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Isere. 
 
 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 alond, 
 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. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 243 
 
 All the towns and villages in Upper Languedoc were 
 treated with the same cruelty. Nismes was fined over 
 and over again. Yiverais was treated with the usual 
 severity. M. Desubas, 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. 
 
 Desubas, 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 Eabaut 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. 
 
 Desubas was judged, and, as usual, condemned to 
 death. Though it was winter time, he was led to his 
 punishment almost naked; bis legs uncovered, and 
 only a 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 
 
244 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 of France. In Saintonge, Elie Vivien, the preacher, 
 was taken prisoner, and hanged at La Bochelle. 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.* 
 
 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, f 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. J Children were, as usual, taken 
 
 • B. Hughes, "Hi8toire de la Eeatauration,'" &o.,'ii. 202. 
 
 t On the 1st of November, 1746, the ministers of LaDguedoe met 
 in haste, and wrote to the Intendant, Le Nain : " Monseignenr, 
 nous n'avons aucune connaissance de ces gens qu'on appelle emis- 
 saires, et qu'on dit dtre envoyes des pays Strangers pour solliciter les 
 Protestants a la revolte. Nous avons exhorte, et nous nous proposons 
 d'exhorter encore dans toutes les occasions, nos troupeaux a la soumis- 
 . sion au souverain et a la patience dans les afflictions, et de nous 
 ecarter jamais de la pratique de oe precepte : Craignez Dieu et 
 iionorez le roi." 
 
 X Pres de Saint-Ambroix (Oevennes) se tint un jour une assembled 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 245 
 
 away from their parents and placed in Jesuit con- 
 vents. 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 Desubas. 
 
 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 Peni- 
 tents (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 Proveiice, 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 ?"* 
 
 To such a pitch of brutality had the kings of France 
 
 Survint un detachement. Lea femmea et lea lilies furent depouillees, 
 inaultees, violees, et quelques hommes furent blesses. — E. Hughes, 
 ffistoire de la Mestauration, §c, ii. 212. 
 * Antoine Court, " Memoire Historique," 140. 
 
246 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 
 hishops 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 them- 
 selves 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.* 
 
 The afflicted Church at this time had many misfortunes 
 to contend with. In 1748, the noble, self-denying, inde- 
 fatigable Claris died — one of the few Protestant pastors 
 who died in his bed. In 1750, the eloquent young 
 preacher, Francois Benezet,t was taken and hanged at 
 Montpellier. Meetings in the Desert were more 
 vigorously attacked and dispersed, and when sur- 
 rounded by the soldiers, most persons were shot ; the 
 others were taken prisoners. 
 
 The Huguenot pastors repeatedly addressed Louis XY. 
 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, 
 
 * See " Memorial of General Assembly of Clergy to the King," in 
 Collection des proees-verbaux, 345. 
 
 t The King granted 480 livres of reward to the spy who detected 
 Benezet and procured his apprehension by the soldiers. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 247 
 
 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 sur- 
 rounded ; 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 per- 
 sons 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 emi- 
 grants 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 
 
248 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Normandy and Poitou, where persecution was com- 
 pelling 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 ap- 
 proached. 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 
 fieid ; a long track of blood remaining to mark the site 
 on which the prayer-meeting had been held. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 249 
 
 It is not necessary to recount farther 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 thresh- 
 ing-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 ; * their de- 
 tractors 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. Feel- 
 ing his powers begining to fail, he had left Lausanne, 
 and resided at Timonex. There, assisted by his son 
 Court de Gobelin, 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 
 
 * Ripert de Monclar, procureur-general, writing in 1755, says : 
 " According to the jurisprudence of this kingdom, there are no French 
 Protestants, and yet, according to the truth of facts, there are three 
 millions. These imaginary beings fill the towns, provinces, and rural 
 districts, and the capital alone contains sixty thousand of them." 
 
2 S o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 her death, to live at Timonex, so full of cruel recollec- 
 tions, 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 hook pub- 
 lished. 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 he 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 TJzes. 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 pre- 
 vailed, 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. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 251 
 
 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 imme- 
 diate 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 diffi- 
 culties to undergo as the rest of the pastors in tbe 
 Desert. He had to assume all sorts of names and dis- 
 guises 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, muffied up, presented himself, and throwing 
 
25* THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 he 
 
 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 habita- 
 tion. 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 dis- 
 covered 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 faith- 
 ful instinctively turned to Rabaut when assailed by 
 fresh difliculties and persecutions, and acted on his 
 advice. He obtained the respect even of the Catho- 
 lics themselves, because it was known that he was a 
 friend of peace, and opposed to all risings and rebel- 
 lions 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 bear- 
 ing of the pastor, he accepted the petition, and 
 promised to lay it before the king. 
 
CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 END OP THE PERSECUTIONS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 IN the year 1762, the execution of an unknown Pro- 
 testant at Toulouse made an extraordinary noise 
 in Europe. Protestant pastors had so often been exe- 
 cuted, 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, cared any- 
 thing 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 
 
254 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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."* 
 
 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 con- 
 sisted 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 prin- 
 cipal 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 pro- 
 hibited 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. con- 
 tinued to be maintained. 
 
 It was not that Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were 
 kings of any virtue or religion. Both were men of ex- 
 ceedingly immoral habits. We have elsewhere described 
 Louis XIV., but Louis XV, the Well-beloved, was per- 
 haps the greatest profligate of the two. Madame de 
 Pompadour, when she ceased to be his mistress, became 
 * Athanaae Coquerel, " Lea Forcats pour la Foi," 91. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS- 255 
 
 his procuress. This infamous woman had the command 
 of the state purse, and she contrived to huild 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.* The number of young girls 
 taken from Paris to this place excited great public dis- 
 content ; and though morals generally were not very 
 high at that time, the debauchery and intemperance of 
 the King (for he was almost constantly drunk) f con- 
 tributed 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 re- 
 ligion 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 pro- 
 ductions of the day upon the notice of all who studied, 
 read, or delighted in literature ; — for those were the 
 
 • " Madame de Pompadour decouvrit que Louib XV. pourrait lui- 
 meme s'amuser a faire l'education de ces jeunes malheureuses. 
 De petites filles de neuf a douze ana, lorsqu' elles avaient attire les 
 regards de la police par leur beaute, etaient en levees a leurs meres par 
 plusieurs artifices, conduiteB 4 Versailles, et retenues dans les parties 
 les plus elevees et les plus inaccessibles des petits appartements du 
 
 roi Le nombre des malheureuses qui passerent successive- 
 
 ment a Farc-aux-Cerfs est immense ; a leur sortie elles etaient mariees 
 a des hommes vils ou credules auxquels elles apportaient une bonne 
 dot. Quelques unes conservaient un traitement fort considerable." 
 " Les depenses du Farc-aux-Cerfs, dit Lacratelle, se payaient ayec des 
 acquits du comptant. II est difficile de les e valuer; mais il ne peut 
 y avoir aucune oxageration a affirmer qu' elles coftterent plus de 100 
 millions a l'Etat. Dans quelques libelles on les porte jusqu'a un 
 milliard." — Sismondi, Mistoire de JFrangaise, Brussels, 1844, xx. 153-4. 
 The account given by Sismondi of the debauches of this persecutor of 
 the Huguenots is very full. It is not given in the " Old Court Life 
 of France," recently written by a lady. 
 
 f Sismondi, xx. 157. 
 
»S6 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 days of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the great 
 men of " The Encyclopaedia." 
 
 While the King indulged in his vicious pleasures, 
 and went reeking from his dehaucheries to ohtain ab- 
 solution 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. Pochette 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 prd- 
 tendue riformee." 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. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 257 
 
 It was only when Jean Calas was shortly after executed 
 at Toulouse that an extraordinary sensation was pro- 
 duced — and that not because Calas was a Protestant, but 
 because his punishment came under the notice of Vol- 
 taire, 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, proces- 
 sions, and confraternities. While " mealy-mouthed " 
 Catholics in other quarters were becoming some- 
 what ashamed of the murders perpetrated during 
 the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and were even dis- 
 posed 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 1562. 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 
 
 S 
 
25 8 THE HUG UENOTS. 
 
 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 ;* 
 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, t The parlia- 
 ment 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, 
 
 * Sismondi, xx. 328. 
 
 t To lie broken alive on the wheel was one of the most horrible of 
 tortures, a bequest from ages of violence and barbarism. It was 
 preserved in France mainly for the punishment of Protestants. The 
 prisoner was extended onaSt.Andrew'scross, with eight notches cuton it 
 — one below each arm between the elbow and wrist, another between 
 each elbow and the shoulders, one under each thigh, and one under 
 each leg. The executioner, armed with a_ heavy triangular bar of 
 iron, gave a heavy blow on each of these eight places, and broke the 
 bone. Another blow was given in the pit of the stomach. The 
 mangled victim was lifted from the cross and stretched on a small 
 wheel placed vertically at one of the ends of the cross, his back on the 
 upper part of the wheel, his head and feet hanging down. There the 
 tortured creature hung until he died. _ Some fingered five or six 
 hours, others much longer. This horrible method of torture was 
 only abolished at the French Eevolution in 1790. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 259 
 
 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 
 eole 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 ex- 
 amples 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'Alem- 
 bert and Diderot, to which Voltaire, Rousseau, and 
 others contributed, entitled " The Encyclopaedia." It 
 was a description of the entire circle of human know- 
 ledge ; 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 them- 
 selves, had already condemned it in the minds of the 
 nation. The writers in " The Encyclopaedia " merely 
 gave expression to their views, and the publication of 
 its successive numbers was received with rapture. In 
 
z6o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 the midst of tlie free publication of obscene books, 
 there had also appeared, before the ' execution of 
 Calas, the Marquis de Mirabeau's " Ami de Hommes," 
 Eousseau's " Emile," the " Contrat Sociale," 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 communi- 
 cated to him by M. de Vegobre, 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 \«as no friend of the Huguenots. He be- 
 lieved the Huguenot spirit to be a republican spirit. 
 In his " Siecle 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 prin- 
 ciples to his godfather, the Abb4 Chateauneuf, grand- 
 prior of Vendome, the Abb£ 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 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 261 
 
 instructors, predicted that he would yet be the Cory- 
 phaeus of Deism in France. 
 
 Nor was Voltaire better pleased with the Swiss Calvin- 
 ists. He encountered some of the most pedantic of them 
 while residing at Lausanne and Geneva.* At the latter 
 place, he covered with sarcasm the "twenty-four peri- 
 wigs" — 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 endeavour- 
 ing to upset the decision of the judges, and the con- 
 demnation 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 philo- 
 
 * While Voltaire lived at Lausanne, one of the baillies (the chief 
 magistrates of the city) said to him : " Monsieur de Voltaire, they say 
 that you have written against the good God : it is very wrong, but 1 
 
 hope He will pardon you But, Monsieur de Voltaire, take 
 
 very good care not to write against their excellencies of Berne, our 
 sovereign lords, for be assured that they will never forgive you." 
 
26* THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 sophers, 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 
 Trance. 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 Yoltaire 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 ! 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 263 
 
 The decree was accordingly reversed. Jean Galas was 
 declared to have been innocent. The man was, how- 
 ever, 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 re- 
 versed the abominable sentence.* 
 
 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 Prance 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. 
 
 * It may be added that, after the reversal of the sentence, David, 
 the judge who had first condemned Calas, went insane, and died in a 
 madhouse. 
 
264 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testants in France. But what became of the Huguenots 
 at the galleys, who still continued to endure a punish- 
 ment from day to day, even worse than death itself? * 
 
 * The Huguenots sometimes owed their release from the galleys to 
 money payments made by. Protestants (but this was done secretly), 
 the price of a galley-slave being about a thousand crowns ; sometimes 
 they owed it to the influence of Protestant princes ; but never to 
 the voluntary mercy of the Catholics. In 1742, while France was at 
 war with England, and Prussia was quietly looking on, Antoine 
 Court made an appeal to Frederick the Great, and at his interven- 
 tion with Louis XV. thirty galley-slaves were liberated. The 
 Margrave of Bayreuth, Culmbach and his wife, the sister of the 
 Great Frederick, afterwards visited the galleys at Toulon, and suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining the liberation of several galley-slaves. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 265 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testants, 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,* 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 
 
 • This secret meeting-place of the Huguenots is 'well known from 
 the engraved picture of Buze. 
 
366 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 of Nismes, was already beyond react, of danger, when ho 
 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 sub- 
 stitution; 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 cer- 
 tain 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 tbe fate of Jean 
 Fabre. The heroism of bis devotion to bis parent soon ■ 
 became known, and the name of the volunteer convict 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 267 
 
 was in every mouth. The Due de Mirepoix, then gover- 
 nor 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 confi- 
 dence 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 din Tier 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.* 
 
 Repeated applications were made to Saint-Florentin, 
 the Secretary of State, by Fabre's relatives, friends, 
 
 * Letter of Jean Tatre, in Athanase Cocquerel's " Forcats pour la 
 Poi," 201-3. 
 
268 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 main- 
 tain 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 con- 
 science 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 Due de Choiseul, Minister of Marine. 
 This nobleman was a just man, and it had been in a 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. z6 9 
 
 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 inter- 
 cession 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 Due 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 re- 
 verse the sentence that had been pronounced against him. 
 
 In the meantime, Fabre's name was becoming cele- 
 brated. 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 Due 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, 
 Yere celebrating his heroism. 
 
270 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 Due 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 pro- 
 nounced 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 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 271 
 
 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 Barranwere liberated 
 after eight years of convict life. They had been con- 
 demned 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 Due 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 ! " * 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 tho 
 * "Voltaire et les Genevois," par J. Gaberel, 74-5. 
 
272 THE HUGUENOTS 
 
 galley-slaves. Daniel Bic and Jean Cabdie, 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 
 Chateauneuf, 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 Fangeres, the father of six chil- 
 dren, 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.* 
 
 In 1772, three galley-slaves were liberated from their 
 chains. Andre" Gruisard, 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 Gebelin, 
 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 Pro- 
 testant convicts at the galleys ; at least, he believed so. 
 
 * " Lettres inedites des Voltaire," putliees par Athanase Coquerel 
 fils, 247. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 273 
 
 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 return- 
 ing to the world which no longer knew them. One of 
 them was Antoine Bialle, a tailor of Aoste, in Dau- 
 phiny, 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 
 Chatillon, 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 Aiguesmorts. 
 It would probably be about the time when the last 
 Huguenots were liberated from the galleys. An affect- 
 ing 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 Beauveau (the 
 intendant of Languedoc under Louis XVI.) in a sur- 
 vey which he made of the coast. Arriving at Aigues- 
 morts, 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 — 
 
 T 
 
«74 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 a frightful and affecting picture, in which the interest 
 was heightened hy disgust. We heheld 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 emo- 
 tion ; 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 1 " * 
 
 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 de- 
 tested. 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 
 • Froissard, " Nismes et ses Environs," ii. 217. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 275 
 
 of Nantes ; at the purity, self-denial, honesty, and in- 
 dustry 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 de- 
 bauchery of its kings* 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 martyr- 
 dom 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 
 
 * Such was the dissoluteness of the manners of the court, that no 
 less than 500,000,000 francs of the public debt, or £20,000,000 sterling, 
 had been incurred for expenses too ignominious to bear the light, or 
 even to be named in the public accounts. It appears from an 
 authentic document, quoted in Soulavie's history, that in the sixteen 
 months immediately preceding the death of Louis XV., Madame du 
 Barry (originally a courtezan,) had drawn from the royal treasury 
 no less than 2,450,000 francs, or equal to about £200,000 of 
 our present money. ["Histoire de la Decadence de la Monarchic 
 Francaise," par Soulavie l'Ainfi, iii. 330.] "La corruption," says 
 Lacretelle, " entrait dans les plus paisibles menages, dans les families 
 les plus obscures. Elle [Madame du Barri] Stait savamment et long- 
 temps combinee par ceux qui servaientles debauches de Louis. Des 
 emissaires etaient employees a seduire des filles qui n'etaient point 
 encore nubiles, a combattre dans de jeunes femmes des principes de 
 pudeur et de fid^litfi. Amant de grade, il livrait a la prostitution 
 publique celles de ses sujettes qu'il avait preuiaturement corrompues. 
 II souffrait que les enfans de ses infames plaisirs partageassent la 
 destinee obscure et dangereuse de ceux qu'un pere n'avoue point." 
 Lacbetklle, Histoire de France pendant It xviii Siicle, iii. 171-173. 
 
276 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 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 dis- 
 persion 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. 9 ' 1 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testants, 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 Eights 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 consti- 
 tuency 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" 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 277 
 
 " Toleration ! " lie exclaimed ; " sufferance ! pardon ! 
 clemency ! ideas supremely unjust towards the Protest- 
 ants, 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 ! "* 
 
 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 him- 
 self, son of the long proscribed pastor of the Desert, 
 was nominated President of the Constituent As- 
 sembly, succeeding to the chair of the Abbe Montes- 
 quieu. 
 
 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 XYI. 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 wero 
 entitled to all the benefits secured to the other Chris- 
 
 * " History of the Protestants of France," by G. de Felice, book 
 v. sect.!. 
 
2-jS THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 tian 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 in- 
 sulted, 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 Oalvinists' children."* Another St. Bartholomew 
 was even threatened ; the Protestants began to con- 
 ceal 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 Protest- 
 ant 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 de- 
 scendant of a Languedoc Huguenot — in a powerful 
 
 • See the Eev. Mark Willis's " History of the Persecutions endured 
 by the Protestants of the South of France, 1814, 1815, 1816." 
 Longmans, 1821. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 279 
 
 speech ; and although the motion was opposed by the 
 Government, there can be little doubt that the discus- 
 sion produced its due effect ; for the Bourbon Govern- 
 ment, itself becoming alarmed, shortly after adopted 
 vigorous measures, and the persecution was brought to 
 an end. 
 
 Since that time the Protestants of France have re- 
 mained 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 cure" 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 Sevres, 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 pro- 
 bably 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 abandon- 
 ment to vicious pleasures, the thirst for dominion, and 
 the hunger for "glory," which above all others charac- 
 
z8o THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 terized 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 suffer- 
 ing, 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. 
 
 To this day the Protestants of Languedoc cherish the 
 memory of their wanderings and worshippings in the 
 Desert ; and they still occasionally hold their meetings 
 in the old frequented places. Not far from Msmes are 
 several of these ancient meeting-places of the persecuted, 
 to which we have above referred. One of them is about 
 two miles from the city, in the bed of a mountain 
 torrent. The worshippers arranged themselves along 
 the slopes of the narrow valley, the pastor preaching to 
 to them from the grassy level in the hollow, while 
 sentinels posted on the adjoining heights gave warning 
 of the approach of the enemy. Another favourite place 
 of meeting was the hollow of an ancient quarry called 
 the Echo, from which the Romans had excavated much 
 of the stone used in the building of the city. The con- 
 gregation seated themselves around the craggy sides, 
 the preacher's pulpit being placed in the narrow pass 
 leading into the quarry. Notwithstanding all tho 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 281 
 
 vigilance of the sentinels, many persons of both sexes 
 and various ages were often dragged from the Echo to 
 imprisonment or death. Even after the persecutions 
 had ceased, these meeting-places continued to be fre- 
 quented by the Protestants of Nismes, and they were 
 sometimes attended by five or six thousand persons, 
 and on sacrament days by even double that number. 
 
 Although the Protestants of Languedoc for the most 
 part belong to the National Reformed Church, the in- 
 dependent character of the people has led them to 
 embrace Protestantism in other forms. Thus, the Evan- 
 gelical Church is especially strong in the South, whilst 
 the Evangelical Methodists number more congregations 
 and worshippers in Languedoc than in all the rest of 
 France. There are also in the Cevennes several con- 
 gregations of Moravian Brethren. But perhaps one of 
 the most curious and interesting issues of the Camisard 
 war is the branch of the Society of Friends still exist- 
 ing in Languedoc — the only representatives of that 
 body in France, or indeed on the European continent. 
 
 When the Protestant peasants of the Cevennes took 
 up arms and determined to resist force by force, there 
 were several influential men amongst them who kept 
 back and refused to join them. They held that the 
 Gospel they professed did not warrant them in taking 
 up arms and fighting, even against the enemies who 
 plundered and persecuted them. And when they saw 
 the excesses into which the Camisards were led by the 
 war of retaliation on which they had entered, they were 
 the more confirmed in their view that the attitude 
 which the rebels had assumed, was inconsistent with 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 After the war had ceased, these people continued to 
 associate together, maintaining a faithful testimony 
 
282 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 against war, refusing to take oaths, and recognising 
 silent worship, without dependence on human acquire- 
 ments. They were not aware of the existence of a 
 similar body in England and America until the period 
 of the French Revolution, when some intercourse began 
 to take place between them. 
 
 In 1807, Stephen Grellet, an American Friend, of 
 French origin, visited Languedoc, and held many re- 
 ligious meetings in the towns and villages of the Lower 
 Cevennes, which were not only attended by the Friends 
 of Congenies, St. Hypolite, Ganges, St. Gilles, Fontanel, 
 Vauvert, Quissac, and other places in the neighbour- 
 hood of Nismes, but by the inhabitants at large, Roman 
 Catholics as well as Protestants. At that time, as now, 
 Congenies was regarded as the centre of the district 
 principally inhabited by the Friends, and there they 
 possess a large and commodious meeting-house, built 
 for the purpose of worship. 
 
 At the time of Stephen Grellet's visit, he especially 
 mentioned Louis Majolier as "a father and a pillar" 
 amongst the little flock.* And it may not be unworthy 
 to note that the daughter of the same Louis Majolier 
 is at the present time one of the most acceptable female 
 preachers of the Society of Friends in England. 
 
 It may also be mentioned, in passing, that there still 
 exist amongst the Vosges mountains the remnants of 
 an ancient sect — the Anabaptists of Munster — who 
 hold views in many respects similar to those of the 
 Friends. Amongst other things, they testify against 
 war as unchristian, and refuse under any circumstances 
 to carry arms. Rather than do so, they have at 
 different times suffered imprisonment, persecution, and 
 even death. The republic of 1793 respected their 
 • "Life of Stephen Grellet," third edition. London, 1870. 
 
END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 283 
 
 scruples, and did not require the Anabaptists to fight 
 in the ranks, but employed them as pioneers and 
 drivers, while Napoleon made them look after the 
 wounded on the field of battle, and attend to the 
 waggon train and ambulances.* And we understand 
 that they continue to be similarly employed down to 
 the present time. » 
 
 It forms no part of our subject to discuss the present 
 state of the French Protestant Church. It has lost no 
 part of its activity during the recent political changes. 
 Although its. clergy had for some time been supported 
 by the State, they had not met in public synod until 
 June, 1872, after an interval of more than two hundred 
 years. During that period many things had become 
 changed. Rationalism had invaded Evangelicalism. 
 Without a synod, or a settled faith, the Protestant 
 churches were only so many separate congregations, 
 often representing merely individual interests. In fact, 
 the old Huguenot Church required reorganization; 
 and great results are expected from the proceedings 
 adopted at the recently held synod of the French Pro- 
 testant Church.f 
 
 With respect to the French Catholic Church, its 
 relative position to the Protestants remains the same as 
 before. But it has no longer the power to persecute. 
 The Gallican Church has been replaced by the Ultra- 
 montane Church, but its impulses are no kindlier, 
 though it has become " Infallible." 
 
 The principal movement of the Catholic priests of 
 late years has been to get up appearances of the Virgin. 
 
 * Michel, "Les Anabaptistes des Vosges." Paris, 1862. 
 t The best account, of the proceedings at this synod is given in 
 Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1873. 
 
284 THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 The Virgin appears, usually, to a child or two, and 
 pilgrimages are immediately got up to the scene of 
 her visit. By getting up religious movements of this 
 kind, the priests and their followers believe that 
 France will yet be helped towards the Revanche, which 
 she is said to long for. 
 
 • But pilgrimages will not make men ; and if France 
 wishes to be free, she will have to adopt some other 
 methods, Bismarck will never be put down by pil- 
 grimages. It was a sad saying of Father Hyacinthe at 
 Geneva, that "France is bound to two influences — 
 Superstition and Irreligion." 
 
MEMOIES OF DISTINGUISHED 
 HUGUENOT KEFUGEES. 
 
 I. 
 
 STOEY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 WHEN Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, he 
 issued a number of decrees or edicts for the pur- 
 pose of stamping out Protestantism in France. Each 
 decree had the effect of an Act of Parliament. Louis 
 combined in himself the entire powers of the State. The 
 King's word was law. "L'itat c'est Moi " was his maxim. 
 
 The Decrees which Louis issued were tyrannical, 
 brutal, and cowardly. Some were even ludicrous in 
 their inhumanity. Thus Protestant grooms were for- 
 bidden to give riding-lessons ; Protestant barbers were 
 forbidden to cut hair ; Protestant washerwomen were 
 forbidden to wash clothes ; Protestant servants were 
 forbidden to serve either Roman Catholic or Protestant 
 mistresses. They must all be "converted." A pro- 
 fession of the Roman Catholic faith was required from 
 simple artisans — from shoemakers, tailors, masons, 
 carpenters, and such-like — before they were permitted 
 to labour at their respective callings. 
 
 The cruelty went further. Protestants were for- 
 bidden to be employed as librarians and printers. They 
 could not even be employed as labourers upon the 
 King's highway. They could not serve in any public 
 office whatever. They were excluded from the collec- 
 
286 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 tion of the taxes, and from all government depart- 
 ments. Protestant apothecaries must shut up their 
 shops. Protestant advocates were forbidden to plead 
 before the courts. Protestant doctors were forbidden 
 to practise medicine and surgery. The sages-femmes 
 must necessarily be of the Roman Catholic religion. 
 
 The cruelty was extended to the family. Protestant 
 parents were forbidden to instruct their children in 
 their own faith. They were enjoined, under a heavy 
 penalty, to have their children baptized by the Roman 
 Catholic priest, and brought up in the Roman Catholic 
 religion. When the law was disobeyed, the priests 
 were empowered to seize and carry off the children, 
 and educate them, at the expense of the parents, in 
 . monasteries and nunneries. 
 
 Then, as regards the profession of the Protestant 
 religion : — It was decreed by the King, that all the 
 Protestant temples in France should be demolished, or 
 converted to other uses. Protestant pastors were 
 ordered to quit the country within fifteen days after 
 the date of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. If 
 found in the country after that period, they were con- 
 demned to death. A reward of five thousand five 
 hundred livres was offered for the apprehension of any 
 Protestant pastor. When apprehended he was hung. 
 Protestant worship was altogether prohibited. If any 
 Protestants were found singing psalms, or engaged in 
 prayer, in their own houses, they were liable to have 
 their entire property confiscated, and to be sent to the 
 galleys for life. 
 
 These monstrous decrees were carried into effect — 
 at a time when France reigned supreme in the domain 
 of intellect, poetry, and the arts — in the days of Racine, 
 Corneille, Moliere — of Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fen£- 
 lon. Louis XIV. had the soldier, the hangman, and 
 
FLIGHT FROM FRANCE 287 
 
 the priest at his command ; hut they all failed him. 
 They could imprison, they could torture, they could 
 kill, they could make the Protestants galley-slaves; 
 they could burn their Bibles, and deprive them of 
 everything that they valued; but the impregnable 
 rights of conscience defied them. 
 
 The only thing left for the Protestants was to fly 
 from France in all directions. They took refuge in 
 Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England. The 
 flight from France had begun before the Revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, but after that act the flight 
 rapidly increased. Not less than a million of persons 
 are supposed to have escaped from France in conse- 
 quence of the Revocation. 
 
 Steps were, however, taken by the King to stop the 
 emigration. He issued a decree ordering that the pro- 
 perty and goods of all those Protestants who had 
 already escaped should be confiscated to the Crown, 
 unless they returned within three months from the 
 date of the Revocation. Then, with respect to the 
 Protestants who remained in France, he decreed that all 
 Frenchmen found attempting to escape were to be sent 
 to the galleys for life ; and that all Frenchwomen found 
 attempting to escape were to be imprisoned for life. 
 The spies who denounced the fugitive Protestants were 
 rewarded by the apportionment of half their goods. 
 
 This decree was not, however, considered sufficiently 
 severe, and it was shortly after followed by another, 
 proclaiming that any captured fugitives, as well as 
 any person found acting as their guide, should be con- 
 demned to death. Another royal decree was issued 
 respecting those fugitives who attempted to escape by 
 sea. It was to the effect, that before any ship was 
 allowed to set sail for a foreign port, the hold should 
 be fumigated with a deadly gas, so that any hidden 
 
288 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 Huguenot who could not otherwise be detected, might 
 be suffocated to death. 
 
 These measures, however, did not seem to have the 
 effect of "converting" the French Protestants. The 
 Dragonnades were next resorted to. Louis XIV. was 
 pleased to call the dragoons his Booted Missionaries, 
 ses missionnaires hottis. The dragonnades are said to 
 have been the invention of Michel de Marillac, whose 
 name will doubtless descend to infamous notoriety, like 
 those of Catherine de Medicis, the Guises, and the 
 authors of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 Yet there was not much genius displayed in the 
 invention of the Dragonnades. It merely consisted in 
 this : whenever it was found that a town abounded 
 with Huguenots, the dragoons, hussars, and troops of 
 various kinds were poured into it, and quartered on the 
 inhabitants. Twenty, thirty, or forty were quartered 
 together, according to the size of the house. They 
 occupied every room ; they beat their drums and blew 
 their trumpets ; they smoked, drank, and swore, with- 
 out any regard to the infirm, the sick, or the dying, 
 until the inmates were " converted." 
 
 The whole army of France was let loose upon the 
 Huguenots. They had been beaten out of Holland by 
 the Dutch Calvinists ; and they could now fearlessly 
 take their revenge out of their unarmed Huguenot 
 fellow-countrymen. Whenever they quartered them- 
 selves in a dwelling, it was, for the time being, their 
 own. They rummaged the cellars, drank the wines, 
 ordered the best of everything, pillaged the house, and 
 treated everybody who belonged to it as a slave. The 
 Huguenots were not only compelled to provide for the 
 entertainment of their guests, but to pay them their 
 wages. The superior officers were paid fifteen francs a 
 day, the lieutenants nine francs, and the common 
 
RAPID " CONVERSIONS." 289 
 
 soldiers three francs. If the money was not paid, the 
 household furniture, the horses and cows, and all the 
 other articles that could be seized, were publicly sold. 
 
 No wonder that so many Huguenots were " con- 
 verted" by the dragoons. Forty thousand persons 
 were converted in' Poitou. The regiment of Asfeld 
 was the instrument of their conversion. A company 
 and a half of dragoons occupied the house of a single 
 lady at Poitiers until she was converted to the Roman 
 Catholic faith. What bravery ! 
 
 The Huguenots of Languedoc were amongst the 
 most obstinate of all. They refused to be converted by 
 the priests; and then Louis XIV. determined to 
 dragonnade them. About sixty thousand troops were 
 concentrated on the province. Noailles, the governor, 
 shortly after wrote to the King that he had converted 
 the city of Nismes in twenty- four hours. Twenty thou- 
 sand converts had been made in Montauban ; and he 
 promised that by the end of the month there would be 
 no more Huguenots left in Languedoc. 
 
 Many persons were doubtless converted by force, or 
 by the fear of being dragonnaded ; but there were also 
 many more who were ready to run all risks rather than 
 abjure their faith. Of those who abjured, the greater 
 number took the first opportunity of flying from 
 France, by land or by sea, and taking refuge in Swit- 
 zerland, Germany, Holland, or England. Many 
 instances might be given of the heroic fortitude with 
 which the Huguenots bore the brutality of their 
 enemies ; but, for the present, it may be sufficient to 
 mention the case of the De P£chels of Montauban. 
 
 The citizens of Montauban had been terribly treated 
 before and after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 
 The town had been one of the principal Huguenot 
 places of refuge in France. Hence its population was 
 
29 o STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 principally Protestant. Its university had been shut 
 up. Its churches had been levelled to the ground. Its 
 professors and pastors had been banished from France. 
 And now it was to be dragonnaded. 
 
 The town was filled with troops, who were quartered 
 on the Protestants. One of the burgesses called upon 
 the Intendant, threw himself at his feet, and prayed to 
 be delivered from the dragoons. " On one condition 
 only ! " replied Dubois, " that you become a Catholic." 
 "I cannot," said the townsman, "because, if the 
 Sultan quartered twenty janissaries on me, I might, 
 for the same reason, be forced to become a Turk." 
 
 Although many of the townsmen pretended to be 
 converted, the Protestant chiefs held firm to their con- 
 victions, and resisted all persuasions, promises, and 
 threats, to induce them to abjure their religion. 
 Amongst them were Samuel de P^chels de la Bois- 
 sonade and the Marquise de Sabonnieres, his wife, vrho, 
 in the midst of many trials and sorrows, preferred to 
 do their duty to every other consideration. 
 
 The family of De Pechels had long been settled at 
 Montauban. Being regarded as among the heads of 
 the Protestant party in Montauban, they were marked 
 out by the King's ministers for the most vigorous treat- 
 ment. When the troops entered the town on the 20th 
 of August, 1685, they treated the inhabitants as if the 
 town had been taken by assault. The officers and 
 soldiers vied with each other in committing acts of 
 violence. They were sanctioned by the magistrate, 
 who authorised their excesses, in conformity with the 
 King's will. Tumult and disorder prevailed every- 
 where. Houses were broken into. Persons of the 
 reformed religion, without regard to age, sex, or con- 
 dition, were treated with indignity. They were sworn 
 at, threatened, and beaten. Their families were turned 
 
DRAGONNADE HORRORS. 291 
 
 out of doors. Every room in the house was entered 
 and ransacked of its plate, silk, linen, and clothes. 
 When the furniture was too heavy to be carried away, 
 it was demolished. The mirrors were slashed with 
 swords, or shot at with pistols. In short, so far as 
 regarded their household possessions, the greater 
 number of the Protestants were completely ruined. 
 
 Samuel de Pechels de la Boissonade had no fewer 
 than thirty-eight dragoons and fusiliers quartered 
 upon him. It was intended at first to quarter these 
 troopers on Roupeiroux, the King's adjutant ; but hav- 
 ing promptly changed his religion to avoid the horrors 
 of the dragonnade, they were removed to the house of 
 De Pechels, and he was ordered by Chevalier Due, 
 their commander, to pay down the money which he 
 had failed to get from Roupeiroux, during the days 
 that the troopers should have occupied his house. De 
 Pechels has himself told the story of his sufferings, and 
 we proceed to quote his own words : — 
 
 "Soon after," he says, "my house was filled with 
 officers, troopers, and their horses, who took posses^- 
 sion of every room with such unfeeling harshness that 
 I could not reserve a single one for the use of my 
 family ; nor could I make these unfeeling wretches 
 listen to my declaration that I was ready to give up 
 all that I possessed without resistance. Doors were 
 broken open, boxes and cupboards forced. They liked 
 better to carry off what belonged to me in this violent 
 manner than to take the keys which my wife and 
 I, standing on either side, continued to offer. The 
 granaries served for the reception of their horses 
 among the grain and meal, which the wretches, with 
 the greatest barbarity, made them trample underfoot. 
 The very bread destined for my little children, like the 
 rest, was contemptuously trodden down by the horses. 
 
z 9 2 STORF OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 " Nothing could stop the brutality of these madmen. 
 I was thrust out into the street with my wife, now 
 very near her confinement, and four very young chil- 
 dren, taking nothing with me but a little cradle and a 
 small supply of linen, for the babe whose 'birth was 
 almost momentarily expected. The street being full 
 of people, diverted at seeing us thus exposed, we were 
 delayed some moments near the door, during which we 
 were pitilessly drenched by the troopers, who amused 
 themselves at the windows with emptying upon our 
 heads pitchers of water, to add to their enjoyment of 
 our sad condition. 
 
 " From this moment I gave up both house and 
 goods to be plundered, without having in view any 
 place of refuge but the street, ill suited, it must be 
 owned, for such a purpose, and especially so to a 
 woman expecting her confinement hourly, and to little 
 children of too tender an age to make their own way 
 — some of them, indeed, being unable to walk or 
 speak — and having no hope but in the mercy of God 
 and His gracious protection." 
 
 De Pechels proceeded to the house of Marshal 
 Boufflers, commander of the district, thinking it pro- 
 bable that a man of honour, such as he was supposed 
 to be, would discourage such barbarities, and place the 
 dragoons under some sort of military control. But 
 no ! The Marshal could not be found. He carefully 
 kept out of the way of all Protestant complainants. 
 De Pechels, however, met Chevalier Due, who com- 
 manded the soldiers that had turned him out of his 
 house. In answer to the expostulations of De Pechels, 
 the Chevalier gave him to understand that the same 
 treatment would be continued unless he " changed his 
 religion." " Then," answered De Pechels, " by God's 
 help I never will." 
 
MISSIONARY FUSILIERS. 293 
 
 At length, when De Pechels' house had been 
 thoroughly stripped, and the dragoons had decamped 
 elsewhere, he received an order to return, in order to 
 entertain another detachment of soldiers. The criminal 
 judge, who had possession of the keys, entered the 
 house, and found it in extreme disorder. " I was 
 obliged to remain in it," says De Pechels, " amidst dirt 
 and vermin, in obedience to the Intendant's orders, 
 reiterated in the strictest manner by the criminal 
 judge, that I should await the arrival of a fresh party 
 of lodgers, who accordingly came on the day following." 
 
 The new party consisted of six soldiers of the regi- 
 ment of fusiliers, who called themselves simply " mis- 
 sionaries," as distinct from the " booted missionaries " 
 who had just left. They were savage at not finding 
 anything to plunder, their predecessors having removed 
 everything in the shape of booty. The fusiliers were 
 shortly followed by six soldiers of Dampier's regiment, 
 who were still more ferocious. They gave De Pechels 
 and his wife no peace day or night ; they kept the house 
 in a constant uproar ; swore and sang obscene songs, 
 and carried their insolence to the utmost pitch. At 
 length De Pechels was forced to quit the house, on 
 account of his wife, who was near the time of her con- 
 finement. These are his own words : — 
 
 " For a long time we were wandering through the 
 streets, no one daring to offer us an asylum, as the 
 ordinance of the Intendant imposed a fine of four or 
 five hundred livres* upon any one who should receive 
 Protestants into their houses. My mother's house had 
 long been filled with soldiers, as well as that of my 
 sister De Darassus ; and not knowing where to go, I 
 suffered great agony of mind for fear my poor wife 
 
 * The French livre was worth three francs, or ahout two shillings and 
 sixpence English money. 
 
294 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 should give birth to her infant in the street. In this 
 lamentable plight, the good providence of G-od led us 
 to the house of Mdlle. de Ghiarrison, my wife's sister, 
 from whence, most fortunately, a large number of 
 soldiers, with their officers, were issuing. They had 
 occupied it for some time, and had allowed the family no 
 rest. Now they were changing their quarters, to con- 
 tinue their lawless mission in some country town. The 
 stillness of the house after their departure induced us to 
 enter it at once, and hardly had my wife accepted the bed 
 Mdlle. de Guarrison offered her, than she was happily 
 delivered of a daughter, blessed be God, who never leaves 
 Himself without a witness to those who fear His name. 
 " That same evening - a great number of soldiers 
 arrived, and took up their quarters in M. de Guarrison's 
 house, and two days after, this burden was augmented by- 
 the addition of a colonel, a captain, and two lieutenants, 
 with a large company of soldiers and several servants, all 
 of whom conducted themselves with a degree of violence 
 scarcely to be described. They had no regard for the 
 owners of the house, but robbed them with impunity. 
 They had no pity for my poor wife, weak and ill as she 
 was ; nor for the helpless children, who suffered much 
 under these miserable conditions. 
 
 " Officers, soldiers, and servants pillaged the house 
 with odious rivalry, took possession of all the rooms, 
 drove out the owners, and obliged the poor sick woman 
 (by their continual threats and abominable conduct) to 
 get up and try to retire to some other place. She crept 
 into the courtyard, where, with her infant, she was 
 detained in the cold for a long time by the soldiers, who 
 would not allow her to quit the premises. At'length, 
 however, my poor wife got into the street, still, however, 
 guarded by soldiers, who would not allow her to go out 
 of their sight, or to speak with any one. She com- 
 
MADAME BE PECHELS. 295 
 
 plained to the Intendant of their cruel ways, but instead 
 of procuring her any relief, he aggravated her affliction, 
 ordering the soldiers to keep strict watch over her, never 
 to leave her, and to inform him with what persons she 
 found a refuge, that he might make them pay the penalty . ' ' 
 
 De Pechels' wife was thus under the necessity of 
 sleeping, with her" babe and her children, in the street. 
 After all was quiet, they sought for a door-step, and 
 lay down for the night under the stars. 
 
 Madame de Pechels at length found temporary 
 shelter. Mademoiselle de Delada, a friend of the 
 Intendant, touched by the poor woman's sad condition, 
 implored the magistrate's permission to give her refuge ; 
 and being a well-known Itoman Catholic, she was at 
 length permitted to take Madame de Pechels and her 
 babe into her house, but on condition that four soldiers 
 should still keep her in view. She remained there for 
 a short time, until she was ahle to leave her bed, when 
 she was privily removed to a country house belonging 
 to Mademoiselle de Delada, not far from the town of 
 Montauban. 
 
 To return to Samuel de Pechels. His house was 
 still overflowing with soldiers. They proceeded to 
 wreck what was left of his household effects ; they 
 carried off and sold his papers and his library, which 
 was considerable. Some of the soldiers of Dampier's 
 regiment carried off in a sack a pair of brass chimney 
 dogs, the shovel and tongs, a grate, and some iron spits, 
 the wretched remains of his household furniture. They 
 proceeded to lay waste his farms and carry off his 
 cattle, selling the latter by public auction in the square. 
 They next pulled down his house, and sold the 
 materials. After this, ten soldiers were quartered in 
 a neighbouring tavern, at De Pechels' expense. Not 
 being able to pay the expenses, the Intendant sent some 
 
?g6 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 archers to him. to say that he would be carried off to 
 prison unless he changed his religion. To that pro- 
 posal he answered, as before, that " by the help of God 
 he would never make that change, and that he was 
 quite prepared to go to any place to which his merciful 
 Saviour might lead him." 
 
 He was accordingly taken into custody, and placed, 
 for a time, in the Royal Chateau. On the same day, 
 his sister De Darassus was committed to prison. Still 
 holding steadfast by his faith, De Pechels was, after a 
 month's imprisonment at Montauban, removed to the 
 prison of Cahors, where he was put into the lowest 
 dungeon. " By the grace of my Saviour," said he, 
 " I strengthened myself more in my determination to 
 die rather than renounce the truth." 
 
 After lying for more than three months in the 
 dampest mould of the lowest dungeon in the prison of 
 Cahors, and being still found immovable in his faith, 
 De. Pechels was ordered to be taken to the citadel of 
 Montpellier, to wait there until he could be transported 
 to America. His wife, the Marquise de Sabonnieres, 
 having heard of his condemnation (though he was never 
 tried), determined to see him before he left France for 
 ever. The road from Cahors to Montpellier did not 
 pass through Montauban, but a few miles to the east of 
 it. Having spent the night in prayer to God, that He 
 might endow her with firmness to sustain the trials of 
 a scene, which was as heroic in her as it was touching 
 to those who witnessed it, she went forth in the morn- 
 ing to wait along the roadside for the arrival of the 
 illustrious body of prisoners, who were on their way, 
 some to the galleys, some to banishment, some to 
 imprisonment, and some to death. 
 
 At length the glorious band arrived. They were 
 chained two and two. They were for the most part 
 
MEETING WITH HIS WIFE. 297 
 
 ladies and gentlemen, who had refused to abjure their 
 religion. Among them were M. Desparves, a gentle- 
 man from the neighbourhood of Laitoure, old and 
 blind, led by his wife ; M. de la Resseguerie, of Montau- 
 ban, and many more. Madame de Pechels implored 
 leave of the guard who conducted the prisoners to 
 have an interview with her husband. It was granted; 
 She had been supplied with the fortitude for which she 
 had so ardently and piously prayed to Grod during the 
 whole of the past night. It seemed as if some super- 
 natural power had prompted the discourse with her 
 husband, which softened the hearts of those who, up to 
 that time, had appeared inaccessible to the sentiments 
 of humanity. The superintendent allowed the noble 
 couple to pray together; after which they were 
 separated without the least weakness betraying itself 
 on the part of Madame de Pechels, who remained un- 
 moved, whilst all the bystanders were melted into 
 tears. The procession of guards and prisoners then 
 went on its way. 
 
 The trials of Madame de Pechels were not yet ended. 
 Though she had parted with her husband, who was now 
 on his way to banishment, she had still the children 
 with her ; and, cruellest torture of all ! these were now 
 to be torn from her. One evening a devoted friend came 
 to inform her that a body of men were to arrive next 
 morning and take her children, even the baby from her 
 breast, and immure them in a convent. She was also in- 
 formed that she herself was to be seized and imprisoned. 
 
 The intelligence fell like a thunderbolt upon the 
 tender mother. What was she to do? Was she to 
 abjure her religion ? She prayed for help from God. 
 Part of the night was thus spent before she could make 
 up her mind to part from her innocent children, who 
 were to be brought up in a religion at variance with 
 
298 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 her own. In any case, a separation was necessary. 
 Could she not fly, like so many other Protestant women, 
 and live in hopes of better days to come ? It was 
 better to fly from France than encounter the horrors 
 of a French prison. Before she parted with her chil- 
 dren she embraced them while they slept ; she withdrew 
 a few steps to tear herself from them, and again she 
 came back to bid them a last farewell ! 
 
 At length, urged by the person who was about to 
 give her a refuge in his house, she consented to follow 
 him. The man was a weaver by trade, and all day 
 long he carried on his work in the only room which he 
 possessed. Madame de Pechels passed the day in a 
 recess, concealed by the bed of her entertainers, and in 
 the evening she came out, and the good people supplied 
 her with what was necessary. She passed six months 
 in this retreat, without any one knowing what had 
 become of her. It was thought that she had taken 
 refuge in some foreign country. 
 
 Numbers of ladies had already been able to make 
 their escape. The frontier was strictly guarded by 
 troops, police, and armed peasantry. The high-roads 
 as well as the byways were patrolled day and night, 
 and all the bridges were strongly guarded. But the 
 fugitives avoided the frequented routes. They travelled 
 at night, and hid themselves during the day. There 
 were Protestant guides who knew every pathway lead- 
 ing out of France, through forests, wastes, or mountain 
 paths, where no patrols were on the watch ; and they 
 thus succeeded in leading thousands of refugee Protest- 
 ants across the frontier. And thus it was that Madame de 
 Pechels was at length enabled, with the help of a guide, 
 to reach Geneva, one of the great refuges of the 
 Huguenots. 
 
 On arrival there she felt the loss of her children 
 
MADAME DE PECHELS FLIES. 299 
 
 more than ever. She offered to the guide who had 
 conducted her all the money that she possessed to 
 hring her one or other of her children. The eldest 
 girl, then nine or ten years old, was communicated 
 with, but having already tasted the pleasure of being 
 her own mistress, she refused the proposal to fly into 
 Switzerland to join her mother. Her son Jacob was 
 next communicated with. He was seven years old. 
 He was greatly moved at the name of his mother, and 
 he earnestly entreated to be taken to where she was. 
 The guide at once proceeded to fulfil his engagement. 
 The boy fled with him from France, passing for his 
 son. The way was long — some five hundred miles. 
 The journey occupied them about three weeks. They 
 rested during the day, and travelled at night. They 
 avoided every danger, and at length the faithful guide 
 was able to place the loving son in the arms of his 
 noble and affectionate mother. 
 
 Samuel de Pechels was condemned to banishment 
 without the shadow of a trial. He could not be dra- 
 gooned into denying his faith, and he was therefore 
 imprisoned, preparatory to his expulsion from France. 
 " I was told," he said, " by the Sieur Raoul, Roqueton 
 (or chief archer) to the Intendant of Montauban, that 
 if I would not change my religion, he had orders from 
 the King and the Intendant to convey me to the citadel 
 of Montpellier, from thence to be immediately shipped 
 for America. My reply was, that I was ready to go 
 forthwith whithersoever it was God's pleasure to lead 
 me, and that assuredly, by God's help, I would make 
 no change in my religion." 
 
 After five months' imprisonment at Cahors, he 
 was taken out and marched, as already related, to 
 the citadel of Montpellier. The citadel adjoins the 
 Peyrou, a lofty platform of rock, which commands 
 
300 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding country. 
 It is now laid out as a pleasure-ground, though it was 
 then the principal hanging-place of the Languedoc 
 Protestants. Brousson, and many other faithful pastors 
 of the " Church in the Desert," laid down their lives 
 there. Half-a-dozen decaying corpses might some- 
 times be seen swinging from the gibbets on which the 
 ministers had been hung. 
 
 A more bitter fate was, however, reserved for De 
 Pechels. After about a month's imprisonment in the 
 citadel, he was removed to Aiguemortes, under the 
 charge of several mounted archers and foot soldiers. 
 He was accompanied by fourteen Protestant ladies and 
 gentlemen, on their way to perpetual imprisonment, 
 to the galleys, or to banishment. Aiguemortes was 
 the principal fortified dungeon in the south of France, 
 used for the imprisonment of Huguenots who refused 
 to be converted. It is situated close to the Medi- 
 terranean, and is surrounded by lagunes and salt 
 marshes. It is a most unhealthy place ; and imprison- 
 ment at Aiguemortes was considered a slower but not 
 a less certain death than hanging. Sixteen Huguenot 
 women were confined there in 1686, and the whole of 
 them died within five months. When the prisoners 
 died off, the place was at once filled again. The castle 
 of Aiguemortes was thus used as a prison for nearly 
 a hundred years. 
 
 De Pechels gives the following account of his jour- 
 ney from Montpellier to Aiguemortes : — " Mounted on 
 asses, harnessed in the meanest manner, without stir- 
 rups, and with wretched ropes for halters, we entered 
 Aiguemortes, and were there locked up in the Tower 
 of Constance, with thirty other male prisoners and 
 twenty women and girls, who had also been brought 
 hither, tied two and two. The men were placed in an 
 
IMPRISONED AT MARSEILLES. 301 
 
 upper apartment of the tower, and the women and 
 girls below, so that we could hear each other pray to 
 God and sing His praises with a loud voice." 
 
 De Pechels did not long remain a prisoner at Aigue- 
 mortes. He was shortly after put on board a king's 
 ship bound for Marseilles. He was very ill during the 
 voyage, suffering from sea-sickness and continual faint- 
 ing fits. On reaching Marseilles he was confined in 
 the hospital prison used for common felons and galley- 
 slaves. It was called the Chamber of Darkness, be- 
 cause of its want of light. The single apartment con- 
 tained two hundred and thirty prisoners. Some of 
 them were chained together, two and two ; others, 
 three and three. The miserable palliasses on which 
 they slept had been much worn by the galley-slaves, 
 who had used them during their illnesses. The 
 women were separated from the men by a linen cloth 
 attached to the ceiling, which was drawn across every 
 evening, and formed the only partition between them. 
 
 As may easily be supposed, the condition of the 
 prisoners was frightful. The swearing of the common 
 felons was mixed with the prayers of the Huguenots. 
 The guards walked about all night to keep watch and 
 ward over them. They fell upon any who assembled 
 and knelt together, separating them and swearing at 
 them, and mercilessly ill-treating them, men and 
 women alike. "But all their strictness and rage," 
 says De Pechels, " could not prevent one from seeing 
 always, in different parts of the dungeon, little groups 
 upon their knees, imploring the mercy of God and 
 singing His praises, whilst others kept near the guards 
 so as to hinder them from interfering with the little 
 bands of worshippers." 
 
 At length the time arrived for the embarkation of 
 the Huguenots for America. On the 18th of Septem- 
 
302 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 ber, 1687, De Peehels, with, fifty-eight men and twenty- 
 one women, was put on board a, flute called the Mary — 
 the French flute consisting of a heavy narrow-sterned 
 vessel, called in England a " pink." De Peehels was 
 carefully separated from all with whom he had formed 
 habits of intimacy, and whose presence near him would 
 doubtless have helped him to bear the bitterness of his 
 fate. On the same day, ninety prisoners of both sexes 
 were embarked in another ship, named the Concord, 
 bound for the same destination. The two vessels set 
 sail in the first place for Toulon, in order to obtain an 
 escort of two ships-of-war. 
 
 The voyage was very disastrous. Three hours after 
 the squadron had left Toulon, the Mary was nearly 
 dashed against a rock, owing to the roughness of the 
 weather. Three days after, a frightful storm arose, 
 and dashed the prisoners against each other. All were 
 sick ; indeed, De Peehels' malady lasted during the 
 entire voyage. The squadron first cast anchor amongst 
 the Formentera Islands, ofE the coast of Spain, where 
 they took in water. On the next day they anchored 
 in the Straits of Gibraltar for the same purpose. They 
 next sailed for Cadiz, but a strong west wind having 
 set in, the ship was forced back to the road of Gibraltar. 
 After waiting there for three days they again started, 
 under the shelter of a Dutch fleet of eighteen sail, 
 " which," says De Peehels, " providentially saved us 
 from falling into the' hands of the Algerine corsairs, 
 some of whom had appeared in sight, and from whose 
 hands God, in His great mercy, delivered us." As if 
 the Algerine corsairs would have treated the Hugue- 
 nots worse than their own king was now treating them. 
 The Algerine corsairs would have sold them into 
 slavery ; whilst the French king was transporting them 
 to America for the same purpose. 
 
SAILS FOR AMERICA. 303 
 
 At length the squadron reached Cadiz roads. Many- 
 ships were there — English as well as Dutch. When 
 the foreigners heard of the state and misfortunes of the 
 Huguenots on board the French ships, they came to 
 visit them in their anchoring ground, and were profuse 
 in their charity to the prisoners for conscience' sake 
 confined in the two French vessels. " God, who never 
 leaves Himself without witness, brought us consolation- 
 and relief from this town, where superstition and 
 bigotry reign in their fullest force." As it was in De 
 Pechels' day, so it is now. 
 
 At length the French squadron set sail for America. 
 The voyage was tedious and miserable. There were 
 about a hundred and thirty prisoners on board. Seventy 
 of them were sick felons, chained with heavy irons. 
 Being useless for the French galleys, they were now 
 being transported to America, to be sold as slaves. 
 The imprisoned Huguenots — men and women — were 
 fifty-nine in number. They were crammed into a part 
 of the ship that could scarcely hold them. They could 
 not stand upright; nor could they He down. They 
 had to lie upon each other. The den was moreover 
 very dark, the only light that entered it being through 
 the narrow hatchway ; and even this was often 
 closed. The wonder is that they were not suffocated 
 outright. 
 
 The burning heat of the sun shining on the deck 
 above them, the never-ceasing fire of the kitchen, 
 which was situated alongside their place of confine- 
 ment, created such a stifling heat, that the prisoners 
 had to take off their shirts to relieve their agony. The 
 horrid stench arising from so many persons being 
 crowded together, and the entire want of the means of 
 cleanliness, caused the inmates to become covered with 
 vermin. They were also tormented by the intolerable 
 
304 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 thirst which no means were taken to allay. Their 
 feeding was horrible ; for they must be kept alive in 
 some way, in order that the intentions of their gracious 
 sovereign might be carried into effect. One day they 
 had stinking salt beef ; the next, cod fish half boiled ; 
 then peas as hard as when they were put into the pot ; 
 and at other times, dried cod fish, or rank cheese. 
 These things, together with the violent motion of the 
 sea, occasioned severe sickness, from which many of 
 the sufferers were relieved by death. This deplorable 
 voyage extended over five months. Here is De P^chels' 
 account of the sufferings of the prisoners, written in 
 his own words : — 
 
 "The intense and suffocating heat, the horrible 
 odour, the maddening swarm of vermin that devoured 
 us, the incessant thirst and wretched fare, sufficed not 
 to satisfy our overseers. They sometimes struck us 
 rudely, and very often threw down sea- water upon us, 
 when they saw us engaged in prayer and praise to God. 
 The common talk of these enemies of the truth was how 
 they would hang, when they came to America, every 
 man who would not go to mass, and how they would 
 deliver the women to the natives. But far from being 
 frightened at these threats, or even moved by all the 
 barbarities of which we were the victims, many of us 
 felt a secret joy that we were chosen to suffer for the 
 holy name of Jesus, who strengthened us with a willing- 
 ness to die for His sake. For myself, these menaces 
 had been so often repeated during my imprisonments, 
 that they had become familiar ; insomuch that, far from 
 being shaken by them any more than by the sufferings 
 to which it had. pleased my Saviour to call me, I con- 
 sidered them as transient things, not worthy to be 
 weighed against the glory to come, and such as would 
 procure me a weight of glory supremely excellent. 
 
REACHES THE WEST INDIES, 305 
 
 ' Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' " 
 
 On the 2nd of January, 1688, the island of San 
 Domingo came in sight. It was for the most part in- 
 habited by savages. The French had a settlement on 
 the west coast of the island, and the Spaniards occupied 
 the eastern part. Dense forests separated the two 
 settlements. The Mary coasted along the island, and 
 afterwards made sail for Guadaloupe, another colony 
 belonging to the French. The ship seemed as yet to 
 have had no proper destination, for, four days later, the 
 Mary weighed her anchor, and sailed to St. Christopher, 
 another island partly belonging to the French. "It 
 was well situated," says De Pechels, " as may readily 
 be believed, when I add that it possessed a colony of 
 Jesuits — an order which never selects a bad situation. 
 The Jesuits here are very rich and in high repute, 
 Two of the fraternity, having come on board, were re- 
 ceived by the crew with every demonstration of respect ; 
 and on their retirement, three guns were fired as a 
 mark of honour to the distinguished visitors." 
 
 The Huguenots were still under hatches, — weary, 
 longing, wretched, and miserable. They were most 
 anxious to be put on shore — anywhere, even among 
 savages. But the Mary had not yet arrived at her 
 destination. She again set sail, and passed St. Kitts, 
 St. Eustace, St. Croix, Porto Rico, and at length again 
 reached San Domingo. The ship dropped anchor before 
 Port au Prince, the residence of the governor. The 
 galley-slaves were disembarked and sold. Some of the 
 Huguenots were also sold for slaves, though De Pechels 
 was not among them. The rest were transferred to the 
 Maria, a king's ship, commanded by M. de Beauguay, 
 who treated the prisoners with much humanity. The 
 ship then set sail for L^ogane, another part of the 
 
306 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 colony, where the remaining Huguenots were disem- 
 barked. They were quartered on the inhabitants at the 
 pleasure of the governor. 
 
 De Pechels says that he passed his time at this place 
 in tranquillity, waiting till it might please God to 
 afford him an opportunity of escapitfg from his troubles. 
 He visited the inhabitants, especially those of his own 
 religious persuasion — a circumstance which gave much 
 umbrage to the Dominican monks. They ordered some 
 of the bigots among their parishioners to lodge a com- 
 plaint against him with the governor, to the effect that 
 he was hindering his fellow -prisoners from becoming 
 Roman Catholics, and preventing those who had be- 
 come so from going to mass. He accordingly received 
 a verbal command from M. Dumas, the King's lieu- 
 tenant, to repair immediately to Avache (probably La 
 Vache), an island about a hundred leagues distant from 
 Leogane. He was accordingly despatched by ship to 
 Avache, which he reached on the 8th of June. He 
 was put in charge of Captain Laurans, a renowned free- 
 booter, and was specially lodged under his roof. The 
 captain was -ordered never to lose sight of his prisoner. 
 
 De Pechels suffered much at this place in consequence 
 of the intense heat, and the insects, mosquitoes, and 
 horrible flies by which he was surrounded. "And 
 yet," he says, " God in His great mercy willed that in 
 this very place I should find the means of escaping 
 from my exile, and making my way to the English 
 island of Jamaica. On the 13th of August a little 
 shallop of that generous nation, in its course from the 
 island of St. Thomas to Jamaica, stopped at Avache to 
 water and take provisions. Two months already had I 
 watched for such an opportunity, and now that God 
 had presented me with this, I thought it should not be 
 neglected. So fully was I persuaded of this, that 
 
EMBARKS FOR LONDON. 307 
 
 without reflecting upon the smallness of the shallop, I 
 put myself on board with victuals for four days, although 
 assured that the passage would only occupy three. 
 But instead of performing the passage in three days, as 
 we had thought, it was ten days before we m*ade the 
 island, during the whole of which time I was con- 
 stantly unwell from bad weather and consequent sea- 
 sickness. During the last three days I suffered also 
 from hunger, my provisions being spent, with the 
 exception of some little wretched food, salt and smoky, 
 which the sailors eat to keep themselves from starving. 
 God, in His great compassion, preserved me from all 
 dangers, and brought me happily to Jamaica, where, 
 however, I thought to leave my bones." 
 
 The voyage was followed by a serious illness. De 
 Pechels was obliged to take to his bed, where he lay 
 for fifteen days prostrated by fever, accompanied by 
 incessant pains in his head. After the fever had left 
 him, he could neither walk nor stand. By slow degrees 
 his strength returned. He was at length able to walk ; 
 and he then began to make arrangements for setting 
 out for England. On the 1st of October-he embarked 
 onboard an English vessel bound for London. During 
 his voyage north he suffered from cold, as much as he 
 had before suffered from heat. At length the coast of 
 England was sighted. Two days after, the ship 
 reached the Downs ; and on the 22nd of December it 
 was borne up the Thames by the tide, to within about 
 seven miles from London Bridge. There the ship 
 stopped to discharge part of her cargo ; and De Pechels, 
 having taken his place on board a small sloop for the 
 great city, arrived there at ten o'clock the same night. 
 
 On arrival in London, De Pechels proceeded to make 
 inquiry amongst his Huguenot friends — who had by 
 that time reached England in great numbers — for his 
 
308 STORF OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 wife, his children, his mother, and his sisters. Alas ! 
 what disappointment ! He found no wife, no child, 
 nor any relation ready to welcome him. His wife, 
 however, was living at Geneva, with their only son ; 
 for the youngest had died at Montauban during De 
 Pechels' exile. His daughters were still at Montauban 
 — the eldest in a convent. His mother and youngest 
 sister were both in prison — the one at Moissac, the 
 other at Auvillard. A message was, however, sent to 
 Madame de Pechels, that her husband was now in 
 England, and longing to meet her. 
 
 It was long before the message reached Madame de 
 Pechels; and still longer before she could join her 
 husband in London. While at Geneva, she had main- 
 tained herself and her son by the work of her hands. 
 On receiving the message she immediately set out, but 
 her voyage could not fail to be one of hardship to a 
 person in her reduced circumstances. We are not in- 
 formed how she and her son contrived to travel the 
 long distance of eight hundred miles (by way of the 
 Rhine and Holland) from Geneva to London ; but at 
 length she reached the English capital, when she had 
 the mortification to find that her husband was not there, 
 but had left London for Ireland only four days before. 
 During the absence of her husband, Madame de Pechels, 
 whose courage never abandoned her, chose rather to 
 stoop to the most toilsome labours than to have recourse 
 to the charity of the government, of which many, less 
 self-helping, or perhaps more necessitous, did not scruple 
 to take advantage. 
 
 We must now revert to the circumstances under 
 which De Pechels left London for Ireland. At the 
 time when he arrived in England, the country was in 
 the throes of a Revolution. Only a month before, Wil- 
 liam of Orange had landed at Torbay, with a large body 
 
THE HUGUENOTS IN ENGLAND. 309 
 
 of troops, a considerable proportion of which consisted of 
 Huguenot officers and soldiers. There were three strong 
 regiments of Huguenot infantry, and a complete squad- 
 ron of Huguenot cavalry. Marshal Schomberg, next in 
 command to William of Orange, was a banished Hugue- 
 not ; and many of his principal officers were French. 
 
 James II. had so distinctly shown his disposition to 
 carry back the nation to the Roman Catholic religion, 
 that the Prince of Orange, on his landing at Torbay, 
 was hailed as the deliverer of England. His troops 
 advanced direct upon London. He was daily joined 
 by fresh adherents ; by the gentry, officers, and soldiers. 
 There was scarcely a show of resistance ; and when he 
 entered London, James was getting on board a smack 
 in the Thames, and slinking ignominiously out of his 
 kingdom. Towards the end of June, 1689, William 
 and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of Great 
 Britain ; and they were solemnly crowned at West- 
 minster about three months after. 
 
 But James II. had not yet been got rid of. In the 
 spring of 1689 he landed at Kinsale, in Ireland, with 
 substantial help obtained from the French king. 
 Before many weeks had elapsed, forty thousand Irish 
 stood in arms to support his cause. It was clear that 
 William III. must fight for his throne, and that Ireland 
 was to be the battle-field. He accordingly called his 
 forces together again — for the greater part had been 
 disbanded — when he prepared to take the field in per- 
 son. Four Huguenot regiments were at once raised, 
 three infantry regiments, and one cavalry regiment. 
 The cavalry regiment was raised by Marshal Schomberg, 
 its colonel. It was composed of French gentlemen, 
 privates as well as officers. De Pechels was offered 
 a commission in the regiment, which he cheerfully 
 accepted. He assumed the name of his barony, La 
 
3 i o STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 Boissonade, as was common in those days ; and he 
 acted as lieutenant in the company of La Fontain. 
 
 The regiment, when completed, was at once de- 
 spatched to the north of Ireland to join the little army 
 of abeut ten thousand Protestants, who had already 
 laid siege to and taken the fortified town of Carrick- 
 fergus. Schomberg's regiment embarked from Chester, 
 on Monday, the 25th of August, 1689 ; and on the 
 following Saturday the squadron arrived in Belfast 
 Lough. The troopers were landed a little to the west 
 of Carrickfergus, and marched along the road towards 
 Belfast, which is still known as " Troopers' Lane." 
 Next day the Duke moved on in pursuit of the enemy. 
 The regiment passed through Belfast, which was then 
 a very small place. It consisted of a few streets of 
 thatched cottages, grouped around what is now known 
 as the High Street of Belfast. Schomberg's regiment 
 joined the infantry and the Enniskilleners, who were 
 encamped in a wood on the west of the town. 
 
 Next morning the little army started in pursuit of 
 the enemy, who, though in much greater numbers, fled 
 before them, laying waste the country. At night 
 Schomberg's troops encamped at Lisburn; on the 
 following day at Dromore ; on the third at Brickclay 
 (this must be Loughbrickland) ; and then on to Newry. 
 All the villages they passed were either burnt or burn- 
 ing. At length they heard that James's Irish army 
 was at Newry, and that the Duke of Berwick (James's 
 natural son) was in possession of the town with a strong 
 body of horse. But before Schomberg could reach the 
 place the Duke of Berwick had evacuated it, leaving 
 the town in flames. The Duke had fled with such 
 haste that he had left some of his baggage behind him, 
 and thrown his cannon into the river. Schombers' 
 ordered his cavalry to advance rapidly upon Dundalk, 
 
IN CAMP A T DUNDALK. 3 1 1 
 
 in order to prevent the town from sharing the same 
 fate as Newry. This forced march took the enemy by 
 surprise. They suddenly abandoned Dundalk, without 
 burning it, and never paused until they had reached 
 the entrenched camp of King James. 
 
 The weather had now become cold, dreary, and rainy. 
 Provisions were scarcely to be had. The people of 
 Dundalk were themselves starving. Strong bodies of 
 cavalry foraged the country, but were able to find next 
 to nothing in the shape of food for themselves, or corn 
 for their horses. The ships from England, laden with 
 provisions which ought to have arrived at Belfast, were 
 forced back by contrary winds. Thus the army was 
 becoming rapidly famished. Disease soon made its 
 appearance, and carried off the men by hundreds. 
 Schomberg's camp, outside Dundalk, was situated by 
 the side of a marsh — a most unwholesome position ; 
 but the marsh protected him from the enemy, who were 
 not far off. The rain and snow continued ; the men 
 and the horses were perpetually drenched ; and scour- 
 ing winds blew across the camp. Ague, dysentery, 
 and fever everywhere prevailed. Dalrymple has 
 recorded that of fifteen thousand men who belonged to 
 Schomberg's army, not less than eight thousand 
 perished. Under these circumstances, the greatly 
 reduced force broke up from their cantonments and 
 went into winter quarters. Schomberg's cavalry regi- 
 ment was stationed at Lurgan, then a small village, 
 which happily had not been burnt. De Pechels was 
 one of those who had been sick in camp, and was dis- 
 abled from pursuing the campaign further. After 
 remaining for some weeks at Lurgan, he obtained leave 
 from the Duke of Schomberg to return to London. 
 And there, after the lapse of four years, he found and 
 embraced his beloved and noble wife. 
 
312 STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 De Pechels continued invalided, and was unable to 
 rejoin the army of King William. "After some stay- 
 in London," he says, in the memoir from which the 
 above extracts are made, " it was the King's pleasure to 
 exempt from further service certain officers specified by 
 name, and to assign them a pension. Through a kind 
 Providence I was included in the number. When I 
 had lived in London on the pension which it had 
 pleased the king to allow those officers who were no 
 longer in a position to serve him, until the 1st of 
 August, 1692, 1 then left that city, in company with 
 my wife and son, to remove into Ireland, whither my 
 pension was transferred." 
 
 De Pechels accordingly arrived in Dublin, where he 
 spent the rest of his days in peace and quiet. He 
 lived to experience the truth of the promise " that every 
 one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, 
 or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for 
 my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall 
 inherit everlasting life." De Pechels died in 1732, at 
 a ripe old age, in his eighty-seventh year, and was 
 interred in the Huguenot cemetery in the neighbour-: 
 hood of Dublin. 
 
 And what of the children left by De Pechels at 
 Montauban ? The two daughters who were torn from 
 their mother's care, and immured in a convent, were 
 brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. The little 
 boy, who was also taken from her, died shortly after. 
 The daughters accordingly secured the possession of 
 the family estates. The eldest married M. de Cahuzac, 
 and the youngest, who was taken as a babe from her 
 mother's breast, married M. de St. Sardos; and the 
 descendants of the latter still possess La Boissonade, 
 which exists as an old chateau near Montauban. 
 
 It was left for Jacob de Pechels, the only son of 
 
HIS DESCENDANTS. 313 
 
 Samuel de Pechels and his wife, the Marquise de 
 Sabonnieres, to build up the family fortunes in England. 
 Following the military instincts of the French, he 
 entered the English army at an early age. His name 
 was entered " Pechell " in his War Office commission. 
 Probably this change of name originated in the dis- 
 position of the naturalised Huguenots to adopt names of 
 an English sound rather than to retain their French 
 names. Numerous instances of this have already been 
 given.* Jacob Pechell was a gallant officer. He rose 
 in the army, step by step. He fought through the 
 wars in the Low Countries, under Marlborough and 
 Ligonier, the latter being a Huguenot like himself. 
 He rose through the various grades of ensign, lieu- 
 tenant, captain, and major, until he attained the rank of 
 colonel of the 16th regiment. Colonel Pechell married 
 an Irish heiress, Jane Elizabeth Boyd, descended from 
 the Earls of Kilmarnock. By her he had three sons 
 and a daughter. Samuel, the eldest, studied law, and 
 became a Master in Chancery. George and Paul, 
 obedient to their military instincts, entered the army, 
 and became distinguished officers. George was killed 
 at Carthagena, and it was left for Paul to maintain the 
 fortunes of the family. 
 
 In those days the exiled Huguenots and their de- 
 scendants lived very much together. They married into 
 each other's families. The richer helped the poorer. 
 There were distinguished French social circles, where, 
 though their country was forbidden them, they 
 delighted to speak in their own language. Like many 
 others, the rechells intermarried with Huguenot 
 families. Thus Samuel Pechell married the daughter of 
 Francois Gaultier, Esq., and his sister Mary married 
 Brigadier- General Cailland, of Aston Eowant. 
 
 * In " The Huguenots in England and Ireland," 319, 323, last edition. 
 
3 H STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS. 
 
 Among the distinguished French nobles in London 
 was the Marquis de Montandre, descended from the 
 De la Rochefoucaulds, one of the greatest families in 
 France. De Montandre was a field-marshal in the 
 English army, having rendered important services in 
 the Spanish war. His wife was daughter of Baron de 
 Spanheim, Ambassador Extraordinary for the King of 
 Prussia, and descended from another Protestant refugee. 
 The field-marshal left his fortune to his wife, and when 
 she died, she left Samuel Pechell, Master in Chancery, 
 her sole executor and residuary legatee. The sum 
 of money to which he became entitled on her de- 
 cease amounted to upwards of £40,000. But Mr. 
 Pechell, from a highly sensitive conscience — such as 
 is rarely equalled — did not feel himself perfectly 
 justified in acquiring so large a fortune' until he 
 knew that there were no relations of the testatrix in 
 existence, whose claim to inherit the property might 
 be greater than his own. He therefore collected all 
 her effects, and put them into Chancery, in order that 
 those who could make good their claims by kindred to 
 the Marchioness might do so before the Chancellor. 
 Accordingly, one family from Berlin and another 
 from Geneva appeared, and claimed, and obtained the 
 inheritance. These relations, in acknowledgment of 
 the kindness and honesty of Mr. Pechell, resolved on 
 presenting him with a set of Sevres china, which was 
 at that time beyond all price in value. It could only be 
 had as a great favour from the manufactory at Sevres, and 
 was only purchased by, or presented to, crowned heads.* 
 Paul Pechell, who had entered the army, became a 
 distinguished officer, and rose to the rank of general. 
 In 1797 he was created a baronet, and married Mary, 
 
 * This china is now at Castle Goring, and, with the whole of the 
 family documents, is in the possession of the Dowager Lady Burrell. 
 
CAPTAIN PECHELL. 315 
 
 the only daughter and heiress of Thomas Brooke, Esq., 
 of Pagglesham, Essex. His eldest son, Sir Thomas, 
 was a major-general in the army, and was for some 
 time M.P. for Downton. The second son, Augustus, 
 was appointed Receiver-General of the Post Office in 
 1785, and of the Customs in 1790. Many of his de- 
 scendants still survive, and the baronetcy reverted to 
 his second son. He was succeeded by his two sons, 
 one of whom became rear-admiral, and the other vice- 
 admiral. The latter, Sir George Richard Brooke Pechell, 
 entered the Royal Navy in 1803, and served with dis- 
 tinction in several engagements. After the peace, he 
 represented the important borough of Brighton in Par- 
 liament for twenty-four years. He married the daughter 
 and coheir of Cecil, Lord Zouche, and added Castle 
 Goring to part of the ancient possessions of the Bis- 
 shopp family, which she inherited at her father's death . 
 William Cecil Pechell, the only son of Sir George, 
 again following the military instincts of his race, 
 entered the army, and became captain of the 77th regi- 
 ment, with which he served during the Crimean war. 
 He fell leading on his men to repel an attack made by 
 the Russians on the advanced trenches before Sebastopol, 
 on the 3rd of September, 1855. He was beloved and 
 deeply lamented by all who knew him ; and sorrow at 
 his loss was expressed by the Queen, by the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, by the whole of the light division, 
 and by the mayor and principal inhabitants of Brighton. 
 A statue of Captain Pechell, by Noble, was erected by 
 public subscription, and now stands in the Pavilion at 
 Brighton. 
 
II. 
 
 CAPTAIN KAPItf, 
 
 AUTHOR Or THE "HISTORY OF ENGLAND.' 
 
 WHEN Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, lie 
 expelled from France nearly all his subjects who 
 would not conform to the Roman Catholic religion. 
 He drove out the manufacturers, who were for the 
 most part Protestants, and thus destroyed the manu- 
 facturing supremacy of France. He expelled Pro- 
 testants of every class — advocates, judges, doctors, 
 artists, scientists, teachers, and professors. And, last 
 of all, he expelled the Protestant soldiers and sailors. 
 
 According to Vauban, 12,000 tried soldiers, 9,000 
 sailors, and 600 officers left France, and entered into 
 foreign service. Some went to England, some to Hol- 
 land, and some to Prussia. Those who took refuge in 
 Holland entered the service of William, Prince of 
 Orange. Most of them accompanied him to Torbay in 
 1688. They fought against the armies of Louis XIV. 
 at the Boyne, at Athlone, and at Aughrim, and finally 
 drove the French out of Ireland. 
 
 The sailors also did good service under the flags of 
 England and Holland. They distinguished themselves 
 at the sea-fight off La Hogue, where the English and 
 
THE RAPIN FAMILY. 317 
 
 Dutch fleets annihilated the expedition prepared by 
 Louis XIV. for a descent upon England. 
 
 The expatriated French soldiers occasionally re- 
 visited the country of their birth, not as friends, but as 
 enemies. They encountered the armies of Louis XIV. 
 in all the battles of the Low Countries. They fought 
 at Ramilies, Blenheim, and Malplacquet. A Hugue- 
 not engineer directed the operations at the siege of 
 Namur, which ended in the capture of the fortress. 
 Another Huguenot engineer conducted the operations 
 at Lisle, which was also taken by the allied forces. 
 While there, a flying party, consisting chiefly of 
 French Huguenots, penetrated as far as the neighbour- 
 hood of Paris, when they nearly succeeded in carrying 
 off the Dauphin. 
 
 The Huguenot officers who took refuge in. Prussia 
 entered the. service of Frederick William, Elector of 
 Brandenburg. Some were raised to the highest offices 
 in his army. Marshal Schomberg was one of the num- 
 ber. But when he found that "William of Orange was 
 assembling a large force in Holland for the purpose of 
 making a descent upon England, he requested leave to 
 join him; and his friend Prince Frederick William, 
 though with great regret, at length granted him 
 permission to leave the Prussian service. 
 
 The subject of the following narrative was a French 
 refugee, who entered the service of William of Orange. 
 To find the beginning of his ancestry, we must reach 
 far back into history. The Eapins were supposed to 
 have been driven from the Campagna of Rome during 
 the persecutions of Nero. They took refuge in one of 
 the wildest and most picturesque valleys of the Alps. 
 In 1250 we find the Eapins established near Saint- 
 Jean de la Maurienne, in Savoy, close upon the French 
 
3 1 8 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 frontier. Saint-Jean de la Maurienne was so called 
 because of the supposed relic of the bones of St. John 
 the Baptist, which had been deposited there by a 
 female pilgrim, Sainte Thecle, who was, it is supposed, 
 a Rapin by birth. The fief of Chaudane en Valloires 
 was the patrimony of the Rapins, which they long 
 continued to hold. In 1692 the descendants of the 
 family endeavoured to prove, from the numerous titles 
 which they possessed, that they had been nobles for 
 eight or nine hundred years. 
 
 The home of the Rapins was situated in the country 
 of the Vaudois. In 1375 the Vaudois descended from 
 their mountains and preached the gospel in the valleys 
 of Savoy. The Pope appealed to the King of France, 
 who sent an army into the district. The Vaudois were 
 crushed. Those who remained fled back to the 
 mountains. Nevertheless the Reformed religion spread 
 in the district. An Italian priest, Raphael Bordeille, 
 even preached the gospel in the cathedral of Saint- 
 Jean de Maurienne. But he was suddenly arrested. 
 He was seized, tried for the crime of heresy, and burnt 
 in front of the cathedral on Holy Thursday, in Passion 
 Week, 1550. 
 
 Though the Rapin family held many high offices in 
 Church and State, several of them attached themselves 
 to the Reformed religion. Three brothers at length 
 left their home in Savoy, and established themselves in 
 France during the reign of Francis I. Without enter- 
 ing into their history during the long-continued 
 religious wars which devastated the south of France, it 
 may be sufficient to state that two of the brothers took 
 an active part trader Conde. Antoine de Rapin held 
 important commands at Toulouse, at Montauban, at 
 Castres and Montpellier. Philibert de Rapin, his 
 
PIERRE DE RAPIN. 3 1 9 
 
 younger brother, was one of the most valiant and 
 trusted officers of the Reformed party. He was selected 
 by the Prince of Conde to carry into Languedoc the 
 treaty of peace signed at Longjumeaux on the 
 20th March, 1568. 
 
 Feeling safe under the royal commission, he presented 
 to the Parliament at Toulouse the edict with which he 
 was intrusted. He then retired to his country house 
 at Grenade, on the outskirts of Toulouse. He was 
 there* seized like a criminal, brought before the judges, 
 and sentenced to be beheaded in three days. The 
 treaty was thus annulled. War went on as before. 
 Two years after, the army of Coligny appeared before 
 Toulouse. The houses and chateaux of the councillors 
 of Parliament were burnt, and on their smoking ruins 
 were affixed the significant words, " Vengeance de 
 Rapin." 
 
 Philibert de Rapin's son Pierre embraced the career 
 of arms almost from his boyhood. He served under the 
 Prince of Navarre. He was almost as poor as the 
 Prince. One day he asked him for some pistoles to 
 replace a horse which had been killed under him in 
 action. The Prince replied, " I should like to give you 
 them, but do you see I have only three shirts ! " Pierre 
 at length became Seigneur and Baron of Manvers, 
 though his chateau was destroyed and burnt during his 
 absence with the army. Destructions of the same kind 
 were constantly taking place throughout the whole of 
 France. But, to the honour of humanity, it must be 
 told that when his chateau was last destroyed, the 
 Catholic gentlemen of the neighbourhood brought their 
 labourers to the place, and tilled and sowed his 
 abandoned fields. When Rapin arrived eight months 
 later, he was surprised and gratified to find his estate 
 
3 2o CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 in perfect order. This was a touching proof of the 
 esteem with which this Protestant gentleman was held 
 by his Catholic neighbours. 
 
 Pierre de Rapin died in 1647 at the age of eighty- 
 nine. He left twenty-two children by his second wife. 
 His eldest son Jean succeeded to the estate of Manvers 
 and to the title of baron. Like his father, he was a 
 soldier. He first served under the Prince of Orange, 
 who was then a French prince, head of the principality 
 of Orange. He served under the King of Fraflce in 
 the war with Spain. He was a frank and loyal soldier, 
 yet firmly attached to the faith of his fathers. He 
 belonged to the old Huguenot phalanx, who, as the 
 Duke de Mayenne said, " were always ready for death, 
 from father to son." After the wars were over, he 
 gave up the sword for the plough. His chateau was 
 in ruins, and he had to live in a very humble way until 
 his fortunes were restored. He used to say that his 
 riches consisted in his four sons, who were all worthy 
 of the name they bore. 
 
 Jacques de Rapin, Seigneur de Thoyras, was the 
 second son of Pierre de Rapin. Thoyras was a little 
 hamlet near Grenade, adjacent to the baronial estate of 
 Manvers. Jacques studied the law. He became an 
 advocate, and practised with success, for about fifty 
 years, at Castres and other cities and towns in the south 
 of France. When the Edict of Nantes was revoked, 
 the Protestants were no longer permitted to practise 
 the law, and he was compelled to resign his profession. 
 He died shortly after, but the authorities would not 
 even allow his corpse to be buried in the family vault. 
 They demolished his place of interment, and threw his 
 body into a ditch by the side of the road. 
 
 In the meantime Paul de Rapin, son of Jean, Baron 
 
FEMININE INFLUENCE. 3.21 
 
 de Manvers, had married the eldest daughter of Jacques, 
 Seigneur de Thoyras. Paul, like many of his ancestors, 
 entered the army. He served with distinction under 
 the Duke of Luxembourg in Holland, Flanders, and 
 Italy, yet he never rose above the rank of captain. On 
 his death in 1685, his widow and two daughters (being 
 Protestants) were apprehended in their chateau at Man- 
 vers, and incarcerated in convents at Montpellier and 
 Toulouse. Her sons were also taken away, and placed 
 in other convents. They were only liberated after five 
 years' confinement. 
 
 Madame de Rapin then resolved to quit France 
 entirely. She contrived to reach Holland, and 
 established her family at Utrecht. Her brother-in- 
 law, Daniel de Rapin, had already escaped from France, 
 and achieved the position of colonel in the Dutch 
 service. 
 
 Paoul de Cazenove, the author of " Rapin-Thoyras, 
 sa Famille, sa Vie, et ses CEuvres," says, "The women 
 of the house of Rapin distinguished themselves more 
 than once by like courage. Strengthened and fortified 
 by persecutions, the Reformed were willing to die in 
 exile, far from their beloved children who had been 
 violently snatched from them, but leaving with them a 
 holy heritage of example and of firmness in their faith. 
 The pious lessons of their mothers, profoundly engraved 
 on the hearts of their daughters, sufficed more than 
 once to save them from apostacy, which was rendered 
 all the more easy by the feebleness of their youth and 
 the perfidious suggestions by which they were sur- 
 rounded." 
 
 We return to Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, second son of 
 Madame de Rapin. He was born at Castres in 1661. 
 He received his first lessons at home. He learnt the 
 
3 z2 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 Latin rudiments, but his progress was not such as to 
 please his father. He was then sent to the academy at 
 Puylauxens, where the Protestant noblesse of the 
 south of France were still permitted to send their sons. 
 The celebrated Bayle was educated there. But in 1685 
 the academy of Puylaurens was suppressed, as that of 
 Montauban had been a few years before ; and then 
 young Rapin was sent to Saumur, one of the few re- 
 maining schools in France where Protestants were 
 allowed to be educated. 
 
 Rapin finished his studies and returned home. He 
 wished to enter the army, but his father was so much 
 opposed to it, that he at length acceded to his desires 
 and commenced the study of the law. He was already 
 prepared for being received to the office of advocate, 
 when the royal edict was passed which prevented 
 Protestants from practising before the courts; and, 
 indeed, prevented them from following any profession 
 whatever. Immediately after the death of his father, 
 Paul de Rapin, accompanied by his younger brother 
 Solomon, emigrated from France and proceeded into 
 England. 
 
 It was not without a profound feeling of sadness that 
 Rapin- Thoyras left his native country. He left his 
 widowed mother in profound grief, arising from the 
 recent death of her husband. She was now exposed to 
 persecutions which were bitterer by far than the perils of 
 exile. It was at her express wish that Rapin left his 
 native country and emigrated to England. And yet it 
 was for France that his fathers had shed their blood 
 and laid down their lives. But France now repelled 
 the descendants of her noblest sons from her bosom. 
 
 Shortly after his arrival in London, Rapin made the 
 acquaintance of the Abbe of Denbeck, nephew of the 
 
PELISSON. 323 
 
 Bishop of Tournay. The Abbe was an intimate friend 
 of Rapin's uncle, Pelisson, a man notorious in those 
 times for buying up consciences with money. Louis 
 XIV. consecrated to this traffic one-third of the beni- 
 fices which fell to the Crown during their vacancy. 
 They were left vacant for the purpose of paying for the 
 abjurations of the heretics. Pelisson had the adminis- 
 tration of the fund. He had been born a Protestant, 
 but he abjured his religion, and from a convert he 
 became a converter. Voltaire says of him, in his 
 " Si£cle de Louis XIV.," "Much more a courtier than 
 a philosopher, Pelisson changed his religion and made 
 a fortune." 
 
 Pelisson wrote to his friend the Abbe' of Denbeck, 
 then in London at the court of James II., to look after 
 his nephew Rapin-Thoyras, and endeavour to bring 
 him over to the true faith. It is even said that Pelis- 
 son offered Rapin the priory of Saint-Orens d'Auch if 
 he would change his religion. The Abbe did his best. 
 He introduced Rapin to M. de Barillon, then ambas- 
 sador at the English court. James II. was then the 
 pensioner of France, and accordingly had many inti- 
 mate transactions with the French ambassador. M. de 
 Barillon received the young refugee with great kind- 
 ness, and, at the recommendation of the Abbe 1 and 
 Pelisson, offered to present him to the King. Their 
 object was to get Rapin appointed to some public 
 office, and thereby help his conversion. 
 
 But Rapin fled from the temptation. Though no 
 great theologian, he felt it to be wrong to be thus 
 entrapped into a faith which was not his own ; and 
 without much reasoning about his belief, but merely 
 acting from a sense of duty, he left London at once 
 and embarked for Holland. 
 
324 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 At Utrecht lie joined his uncle, Daniel de Rapin, 
 who was in command of a company of cadets wholly 
 composed of Huguenot gentlemen and nobles. Daniel 
 had left the service of France on the 25th of October, 
 1685, three days after the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes. He was then captain of a French regiment in 
 Picardy, but he could no longer, without denying his 
 God, serve his country and his King. In fact, he was 
 compelled, like all other Protestant officers, to leave 
 France unless he would at once conform to the King's 
 faith. 
 
 Rapin was admitted to the company of refugee cadets 
 commanded by his uncle. He was now twenty- seven 
 years old. His first instincts had been military, and 
 now he was about to pursue the profession of arms in 
 his adopted country. His first prospects were not 
 brilliant. He was put under a course of discipline, his 
 pay amounting to only sixpence a day. Indeed, the 
 States- General of Holland were at first unwilling to 
 take so large a number of refugee Frenchmen into their 
 service ; but on the Prince of Orange publicly declaring 
 that he would himself pay the expenses of maintaining 
 the military refugees, they hesitated no longer, but 
 voted money enough to enrol them in their service. 
 
 The Prince of Orange had now a large body of troops 
 at his command. No one knew for what purpose they 
 were enrolled. Some thought they were intended for 
 an attack upon France in revenge for Louis' devastation 
 of Holland a few years before. James II. never dreamt 
 that they were intended for a descent upon the coasts 
 of England. Yet he was rapidly alienating the loyalty 
 of his subjects by hypocrisy, by infidelity to the laws 
 of England, and by unmitigated persecution of those 
 who differed from him in religious belief. In this 
 
SAILS FOR ENGLAND. 325 
 
 state of affairs England looked to the Prince of Orange 
 for help. 
 
 William III. was doubly related to the royal family 
 of England. He was nephew of Charles I. and 
 son-in-law of James II. His wife was the heiress-pre- 
 sumptive to the British throne. Above all, he was 
 a Protestant, while James II. was a Roman Catholic. 
 "Here," said the Archbishop of Rheims of the latter, 
 " is a good sort of man who has lost his three kingdoms 
 for a mass ! " 
 
 William was at length ready with his troops. 
 Louis XIY. suddenly withdrew his army from Flanders 
 and poured them into Germany. William seized the 
 opportunity. A fleet of more than six hundred vessels, 
 including fifty men-of-war, assembled at Helvoetsluys, 
 near the mouth of the Maas. The troops were em- 
 barked with great celerity. William hoisted his flag 
 with the words emblazoned on it, " The Protestant 
 Religion and Liberties of England," and underneath 
 the motto of the House of Nassau, Je mamtiendra — 
 "I will maintain." 
 
 The fleet set sail on the 19th October, the English 
 Admiral Herbert leading the van, the Prince of Orange 
 commanding the main body of the fleet, and the Dutch 
 Vice- Admiral Evertzen bringing up the rear. 
 
 The wind was fair. It was the "Protestant wind " 
 that the people of England had so long been looking for. 
 In a few hours the strong eastern breeze had driven 
 the fleet half across the sea that divides the Dutch and 
 English coasts. Then the wind changed. It began to 
 blow from the west. The wind increased until it blew a 
 violent tempest. The fleet seemed to be in the midst 
 of a cyclone. The ships were blown hither and thither, 
 so that in less than two hours the fleet was completely 
 
3 z6 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 dispersed. At daybreak next morning scarce two ships 
 could be seen together. 
 
 The several ships returned to their rendezvous at 
 Goeree, in the Maas. They returned in a miserable 
 condition — some with their sails blown away, some 
 without their bulwarks, some without their masts. 
 Many ships were still missing. The horses had suffered 
 severely. They had been stowed away in the holds 
 and driven against each other during the storm. 
 Many had been suffocated, others had their legs broken, 
 and had to be killed when the vessels reached the shore. 
 The banks at Goeree were covered with dead horses 
 taken from the ships. Four hundred had been lost. 
 
 Rapin de Thoyras and M. de Chavernay, command- 
 ing two companies of French Huguenots, were on board 
 one of the missing ships. The frightful tempest had 
 separated them from the fleet. They had been driven 
 before the wind as far as the coast of Norway. They 
 thought that each moment might be their last. But 
 the sailors were brave, and the ship was manageable. 
 After enduring a week's storm the wind at last abated. 
 The ship was tacked, and winged its way towards 
 the south. At length, after about eight days' absence, 
 they rejoined the fleet, which had again assembled in the 
 Maas. There were now only two vessels missing, con- 
 taining four companies of the Holstein regiment, and 
 about sixty French Huguenot officers. 
 
 In the meantime the Prince of Orange had caused all 
 the damages in the combined fleet to be repaired. 
 New horses were embarked, new men were added to 
 the army, and new ships were hired for the purpose of 
 accommodating them. The men-of-war were also 
 increased. After eleven days the fleet was prepared to 
 put to sea again. 
 
KING WILLIAM'S FLEET. 327 
 
 On the 1st of November, 1688, the armament started 
 on its second voyage for the English coast. The fleet 
 at first steered northward, and it was thought to be the 
 Prince's intention to land at the mouth of the Humber. 
 But a violent east wind having begun to blow during 
 the night, the fleet steered towards the south-eastern 
 coast of England ; after which the ships shortened sail 
 for fear of accidents. 
 
 The same wind that blew the English and Dutch 
 fleet towards the Channel, had the effect of keeping 
 King James's fleet in the Thames, where they remained 
 anchored at Gunfleet, sixty-one men-of-war, under 
 command of Admiral Lord Dartmouth. 
 
 On the 3rd of November, the fleet under the Prince 
 of Orange entered the English Channel, and lay 
 between Calais and Dover to wait for the ships that 
 were behind. " It is easy," says Rapin Thoyras, " to 
 imagine what a glorious show the fleet made. Five or 
 six hundred ships in so narrow a channel, and both the 
 English and French shores covered with numberless 
 spectators, are no common sight. For my part, who 
 was then on board the fleet, I own it struck me 
 extremely." 
 
 Sunday, the _ 4th of November, was the Prince's 
 birthday, and it was dedicated to devotion. The fleet 
 was then off the Isle of Wight. Sail was slackened 
 during the performance of divine service. The fleet 
 then sped on its way down-channel, in order that 
 the troops might be landed at Dartmouth or Torbay ; 
 but during the night the wind freshened, and the fleet 
 was carried beyond the desired ports. Soon after, 
 however, the wind changed to the south, when the 
 fleet tacked in splendid order, and made for the shore 
 in Torbay. The landing was effected with such dili- 
 
328 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 gence and tranquillity that the whole army was on 
 shore before night. 
 
 There was no opposition to the landing. King 
 James's army greatly outnumbered that of the Prince 
 of Orange. It amounted to about forty thousand troops, 
 exclusive of the militia. But the King's forces had 
 been sent northward to resist the anticipated landing 
 of the deliyering army at the mouth of the Humber, so 
 that the south-west of England was nearly stripped of 
 troops. 
 
 Nor could the King depend upon his forces. The 
 King had already outraged and insulted the gallant 
 noblemen and gentlemen who had heretofore been the 
 bulwark of his throne. He had imprisoned the bishops, 
 dismissed Protestant clergymen from their livings, 
 refused to summon a Parliament, and caused terror and 
 dismay throughout England and Scotland. He had 
 created discontent throughout the army by his dis- 
 missal of Protestant officers, and the King now began 
 to fear that the common soldiers themselves would fail 
 to serve him in his time of need. 
 
 His fears proved prophetic. When the army of the 
 Prince of Orange advanced from Brixton (where it had 
 landed) to Exeter, and afterwards to Salisbury and 
 London, it was joined by noblemen, gentlemen, officers, 
 and soldiers. Lord Churchill, afterwards Duke of 
 Marlborough, Lord Cornbury, with four regiments of 
 dragoons, passed over to the Prince of Orange. The 
 Prince of Denmark, the King's son-in-law, deserted 
 him. His councillors abandoned him. His mistresses 
 left him. The country was up against him. At length 
 the King saw no remedy before him but a precipitate 
 flight. 
 
 The account given by Rapin of James's departure 
 
FLIGHT OF JAMES II. 3*9 
 
 from England is somewhat ludicrous. The Queen 
 went first. On the night between the 9th and 10th of 
 December she crossed the Thames in disguise. She 
 waited under the walls of a church at Lambeth until 
 a coach could be got ready for her at the nearest inn. 
 She went from thence to Gravesend, where she 
 embarked with the Prince of Wales on a small vessel, 
 which conveyed them safely to France. The King set 
 out on the following night. He entered a small boat 
 at "Whitehall, dressed in a plain suit and a bob wig, 
 accompanied by a few friends. He threw the Great 
 Seal into the water, from whence it was afterwards 
 dragged up by a fisherman's net. Before he left, he 
 gave the Earl of Feversham orders to disband the 
 army without pay, in order, probably, to create anarchy 
 after his flight. 
 
 James reached the south shore of the Thames. He 
 travelled, with relays of horses, to Emley Ferry, near 
 the Island of Sheppey. He went on board the little 
 vessel that was to convey him to a French frigate lying 
 in the mouth of the Thames ready to transport him to 
 France. The wind blew strong, and the vessel was 
 unable to sail. 
 
 The fishermen of the neighbourhood boarded the 
 vessel in which the King was. They took him for the 
 chaplain of Sir Edward Hales, one of his attendants. 
 They searched the King, and found upon him four 
 hundred guineas and several valuable seals and jewels, 
 which they seized. A constable was present who 
 knew the King, and he ordered restitution of the 
 valuables which had been taken from him. The King 
 wished to be gone, but the people by a sort of violence 
 conducted him to a public inn in the town of Fever- 
 sham. He then sent for the Earl of Winchelsea, Lord- 
 
330 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 Lieutenant of the county, who prevailed upon him not 
 to leave the kingdom, but to return to London. 
 
 And to London he went. The Prince of Orange 
 was by this time at "Windsor. On the King's arrival 
 in London he was received with acclamations, as if he 
 had returned from victory. He resumed possession of 
 his palace. He published a proclamation, announcing 
 that having been given to understand that divers out- 
 rages had been committed in various parts of the king- 
 dom, by burning, pulling down, and defacing of houses, 
 he commanded all lord-lieutenants, &c, to prevent 
 such outrages for the future, and suppress all riotous 
 assemblies. 
 
 This was his last public act. He was without an 
 army. He had few friends. The Dutch Guards 
 arrived in London, and took possession of St. James's 
 and Whitehall. The Prince of Orange sent three lords 
 to the King to desire his Majesty's departure for Ham 
 — a house belonging to the Duchess of Lauderdale ; but 
 the King desired them to tell the Prince that he wished 
 rather to go to Rochester. The Prince gave his con- 
 sent. 
 
 Next morning the King entered his barge, accom- 
 panied by four earls, six of the Yeomen of his Guard, 
 and about a hundred of the Dutch Guard, commanded 
 by a colonel of the regiment. They arrived at Graves- 
 end, where the King entered his coach, and proceeded 
 across the country to Rochester. 
 
 In the meantime, Barillon, the French ambassador, 
 was requested to leave England. St. Ledger, a French 
 refugee, was requested to attend him and see him 
 embark. "While they were on the road St. Ledger 
 could not forbear saying to the ambassador, " Sir, had 
 any one told you a year ago that a French refugee 
 
IRELAND AND JAMES II. 33 1 
 
 should be commissioned to see you out of England, 
 would you have believed it ? " To which the ambassa- 
 dor answered, " Sir, cross over with me to Calais, and 
 I will give you an answer." 
 
 Shortly after, James embarked in a small French 
 ship, which landed him safely at Ambleteuse, a few 
 miles north of Boulogne ; while the army of William 
 marched into London amidst loud congratulations, and 
 "William himself took possession of the Palace of St. 
 James's, which the recreant King had left for . his 
 occupation. 
 
 James II. fled from England at the end of Decem- 
 ber, 1688. Louis XIV. received him courteously, 
 and entertained him and his family at St. Germain 
 and Versailles. But he could scarcely entertain much 
 regard for the abdicated monarch. James had left 
 his kingdom in an ignominious manner. Though he 
 was at the head of a great fleet and army, he had not 
 struck a single blow in defence of his kingly rights, 
 And now he had come to the court of Louis XIV, to 
 beg for the assistance of a French fleet and army to 
 recover his throne. 
 
 Though England had rejected James, Ireland was 
 still in his favour. The Lord-Deputy Tyrconnel was 
 devoted to him ; and the Irish people, excepting those 
 of the north, were ready to fight for him. About a 
 hundred thousand Irishmen were in arms. Half were 
 soldiers ; the rest were undrilled Eapparees. James 
 was urged by messengers from Ireland to take 
 advantage of this state of affairs. He accordingly 
 begged Louis XIV. to send a French army with him 
 into Ireland to help him to recover his kingdom. 
 
 But the French monarch, who saw before him the 
 prospect of a continental war, was unwilling to send a 
 
332 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 large body of troops out of his kingdom. But he did 
 what he could. 
 
 He ordered the Brest fleet to be ready. He put on 
 board arms and ammunition for ten thousand men. 
 He selected four hundred French officers for the 
 purpose of disciplining the Irish levies. Count Rosen, 
 a veteran warrior, was placed in command. Over a 
 hundred thousand pounds of money was also put on 
 board. When the fleet was ready to sail, James took 
 leave of his patron, Louis XIV. " The best thing 
 that I can wish you," said the French king, " is that I 
 may never see you again in this world." 
 
 The fleet sailed from Brest on the 7th of March, 
 1689, and reached Kinsale, in the south of Ireland, 
 four days later. James II. was received with the 
 greatest rejoicing. Next day he went on to Cork ; he 
 was received by the Earl of Tyrconnel, who caused one 
 of the magistrates to be executed because he had 
 declared for the Prince of Orange. 
 
 The news went abroad that the King had landed. 
 He entered Dublin on the 24th of March, and was 
 received in a triumphant manner. All Roman Catholic 
 Ireland was at his feet. The Protestants in the south 
 were disarmed. There was some show of resistance in 
 the north ; but no doubt was entertained that Ennis- 
 killen and Derry, where the Protestants had taken 
 refuge, would soon be captured and Protestantism 
 crushed. 
 
 The Prince of Orange, who had now been proclaimed 
 King at "Westminster, found that he must fight for his 
 throne, and that Ireland was to be the battle-field. 
 Londonderry was crowded with Protestants, who held 
 out for William III. James believed that the place 
 would fall without a blow. Count Rosen was of the 
 
LONDONDERRY. 333 
 
 same opinion. The Irish army proceeded northwards 
 without resistance. The country, as far as the walls 
 of Derry, was found abandoned by the population. 
 Everything valuable had been destroyed by bands of 
 Rapparees. There was great want of food for the 
 army. 
 
 Nevertheless, James proceeded as far as Derry. 
 Confident of success, he approached within a hundred 
 yards of the southern gate, when he was received with 
 a shout of " No surrender ! " The cannon were fired 
 from the nearest bastion. One of James's officers was 
 killed by his side. Then he fled. A few days later he 
 was on his way to Dublin, accompanied by Count 
 Rosen. 
 
 Londonderry, after an heroic contest, was at length 
 relieved. A fleet from England, laden with food, 
 broke the boom which had been thrown by the Irish 
 army across the entrance to the harbour. The ships 
 reaohed the quay at ten o'clock at night. The whole 
 population were there to receive them. The food was 
 unloaded, and the famished people were at length 
 fed. Three days after, the Irish army burnt their huts, 
 and left the long-beleaguered city. They retreated 
 along the left bank of the Boyne to Strabane. 
 
 While the Irish forces were lying there, the news of 
 another disaster reached them. The Duke of Berwick 
 lay with a strong detachment of Irish troops before 
 Enniskillen. He had already gained some advantage 
 over the Protestant colonists, and the command reached 
 him from Dublin that he was immediately to attack 
 them. The Irish were five thousand in number ; the 
 Enniskilleners under three thousand. 
 
 An engagement took place at Newton Butler. The 
 Enniskillen horse swept the Irish troops before them. 
 
334 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 Fifteen hundred were put to the sword, and four 
 hundred prisoners were taken. Seven pieces of cannon, 
 fourteen barrels of powder, and all the drums and 
 colours were left in the hands of the victors. The 
 Irish army were then at Strabane, on their retreat 
 from Londonderry. They at once struck their tents, 
 threw their military stores into the river, and set out 
 in full retreat for the south. 
 
 In the meantime a French fleet had landed at 
 Bantry Bay, with three thousand men on board, and 
 a large convoy of ammunition and provisions. 
 William III., on his part, determined, with the consent 
 of the English Parliament, to send a force into Ireland 
 to encounter the French and Irish forces under King 
 James. 
 
 "William's troops consisted of English, Scotch, Dutch, 
 and Danes, with a large admixture of French Hugue- 
 nots. There were a regiment of Huguenot horse, of 
 eight companies, commanded by the Duke of Schom- 
 berg, and three regiments of Huguenot foot, com- 
 manded by La Melloniere, Du Cambon, and La 
 Caillemotte. Schomberg, the old Huguenot chief, 
 was put in command of the entire force. 
 
 Rapin accompanied the expedition as a cadet. The 
 army assembled at Highlake, about sixteen miles from 
 Chester. About ninety vessels of all sorts were assembled 
 near the mouth of the Dee. Part of the army was 
 embarked on the 12th of August, and set sail for 
 Ireland. About ten thousand men, horse and foot, 
 were landed at Bangor, near the southern entrance to 
 Belfast Lough. Parties were sent out to scour the 
 adjacent country, and to feel for the enemy. This 
 done, the army set out for Belfast. 
 
 James's forces had abandoned the place, and retired 
 
CARRICKFERGUS. 335 
 
 to Carrickfergus, some ten miles from Belfast, on the 
 north coast of the Lough. Carrickfergus was a forti- 
 fied town. The castle occupies a strong position on a 
 rock overlooking the Lough. The place formed a 
 depot for James's troops, and Schomberg therefore 
 determined to besiege the fortress. 
 
 Rapin has written an account of William's campaigns 
 in England and Ireland ; but with becoming modesty 
 he says nothing about his own achievements. We 
 must therefore supply the deficiency. Before the 
 siege of Carrickfergus, he had been appointed ensign 
 in Lord Kingston's regiment. He was helped to this 
 office by his uncle Daniel, who accompanied the expe- 
 dition. Several regiments of Schomberg's army were 
 detached from Belfast to Carrickfergus, to commence 
 the siege. Among these was Lord Kingston's regiment. 
 
 On their approach, the enemy beat a parley. They 
 desired to march out with arms and baggage. Schom- 
 berg refused, and the siege began. The trenches 
 were opened, the batteries were raised, and the cannon 
 thundered against the walls of the old town. Several 
 breaches were made. The attacks were pursued with 
 great vigour for four days, when a general assault 
 was made. The besieged hoisted the white flag. 
 After a parley, it was arranged that the Irish should 
 surrender the place, and march out with their arms, 
 and as much baggage as they could carry on their 
 
 Carrickfergus was not taken without considerable 
 loss to the besiegers. Lieutenant Briset, of the 
 Flemish Guards* was killed by the first shot fired 
 from the castle. The Marquis de Venours was also 
 killed while leading the Huguenot regiments to the 
 breach. Rapin distinguished himself so much during 
 
3 j6 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 the siege that he was promoted to the rank of lieu- 
 tenant. He was at the same time transferred to 
 another regiment, and served under Lieutenant- General 
 Douglas during the rest of the campaign. 
 
 More troops having arrived from England, Schom- 
 berg marched with his augmented army to Lisburn, 
 Drummore, and Loughbrickland. Here the Ennis- 
 killen Horse joined them, and offered to be the ad- 
 vanced guard of the army. The Enniskilleners were 
 a body of irregular horsemen, of singularly wild and 
 uncouth appearance. They rode together in a con- 
 fused body, each man being attended by a mounted 
 servant, bearing his baggage. The horsemen were 
 each mounted and accoutred after their own fashion, 
 without any regular dress, or arms, or mode of attack. 
 They only assumed a hasty and confused line when 
 about to rush into action. They fell on pell-mell. 
 Yet they were the bravest of the brave, and were 
 never deterred from attacking by inequality of num- 
 bers. They were attended by their favourite preachers, 
 who urged them on to deeds of valour, and encouraged 
 them " to purge the land of idolatry." 
 
 Thus reinforced, Schomberg pushed on to Newry. 
 The Irish were in force there, under command of the 
 Duke of Berwick. But although it was a very strong 
 place, the Irish abandoned the town, first setting fire 
 to it. This news having been brought to Schomberg, 
 he sent a trumpet to the Duke of Berwick, acquainting 
 him that if they went on to burn town,s in that bar- 
 barous manner, he would give no quarter. This notice 
 seems to have had a good effect, for on quitting Dun- 
 dalk the retreating army did no harm to the town. 
 Schomberg encamped about a mile north of Dundalk, 
 in a low, moist ground, where he entrenched his army. 
 
SCHOMBERG AT DUNDALK. 337 
 
 Count Rosen was then at Drogheda with about twenty 
 thousand men, far outnumbering the forces under 
 Schomberg. 
 
 About the end of September, King James's army- 
 approached the lines of Dundalk. They drew up in 
 order of battle. The English officers were for attack- 
 ing the enemy, but Schomberg advised them to refrain. 
 A large party of horse appeared within cannon shot, 
 but they made no further attempt. In a day or two 
 after James drew off his army to Ardee, Count Rosen 
 indignantly exclaiming, "If your Majesty had ten 
 kingdoms, you would lose them all." In the mean- 
 time, Schomberg remained entrenched in his camp. 
 The Enniskilleners nevertheless made various excur- 
 sions, and routed a body of James's troops marching 
 towards Sligo. 
 
 Great distress fell upon Schomberg's army. The 
 marshy land on which they were encamped, the wet 
 and drizzly weather, the scarcity and badness of the 
 food, caused a raging sickness to break out. Great 
 numbers were swept away by disease. Among the 
 officers who died were Sir Edward Deering, of Kent ; 
 Colonel "Wharton, son of Lord Wharton ; Sir Thomas 
 Gower and Colonel Hungerford, two young gentlemen 
 of distinguished merit. Two thousand soldiers died in 
 the camp. Many afterwards perished from cold and 
 hunger. Schomberg at length left the camp at Dun- 
 dalk, and the remains of his army went into winter 
 quarters. 
 
 Rapin shared all the suffering » of the campaign. 
 When the army retreated northward, Rapin was sent 
 with a party of soldiers to occupy a fortified place 
 between Stranorlar and Donegal. It commanded the 
 Pass of Barnes Gap. This is perhaps the most magni- 
 
338 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 ficent defile in Ireland. It is about four miles long. 
 Huare mountains rise on either side. The fortalioe 
 occupied by Rapin is now in ruins. It stands on a 
 height overlooking the northern end of the pass. It is 
 now called Barrack Hill. The Rapparees who lived at 
 the lower end of the Gap were accustomed to come 
 down upon the farming population of the lowland 
 country on the banks of the rivers Finn and Mourne, 
 and carry off all the cattle that they could seize ; Rapin 
 was accordingly sent with a body of troops to defend 
 the lowland farmers from the Rapparees. Besides, it 
 was found necessary to defend the pass against the 
 forces of King James, who then occupied Sligo and the 
 neighbouring towns, under the command of General 
 Sarsfield. 
 
 Schomberg was very much blamed by the English 
 Parliament for having effected nothing decisive in 
 Ireland. But what could he do ? He had to oppose 
 an army more than three times stronger in numbers 
 than his own. King William, Rapin says, wrote 
 twice to him, " pressing him to put somewhat to the 
 venture." But his army was wasted by disease, 
 and had he volunteered an encounter and been 
 defeated, his whole army, and consequently all Ire- 
 land, would have been lost, for he could not have 
 made a regular retreat. " His sure way," says Rapin, 
 " was to preserve his army, and that would save Ulster 
 and keep matters entire for another year. And there- 
 fore, though this conduct of his was blamed by some, 
 yet better judges thought that the managing of this 
 campaign as he did was one of the greatest parts of his 
 life." 
 
 Winter passed. Nothing decisive had been accom- 
 plished on either 'side. Part of Ulster was in the 
 
CAPTURE OF CHARLEMONT. 339 
 
 hands of William ; the remainder of Ireland was in 
 the hands of James. Schomberg' s army was wasted 
 by famine and disease. James made no use of his 
 opportunity to convert his athletic peasants into good 
 soldiers. On the contrary, Schomberg recruited his 
 old regiments, drilled them constantly, and was ready 
 to take the field at the approach of spring. 
 
 His first achievement was the capture of Charlemont, 
 midway between Armagh and Dungannon. It was 
 one of the strongest forts in the north of Ireland. It 
 overlooked the Blackwater, and commanded an im- 
 portant pass. It was surrounded by a morass, and 
 approachable only by two narrow causeways. When 
 Teague O'Regan, who commanded the fort, was sum- 
 moned to surrender, he replied, " Schomberg is an old 
 rogue, and shall not have this castle! " But Caille- 
 motte, with his Huguenot regiments, sat down before 
 the fortress, and starved the garrison into submission. 
 Captain Francis Rapin, cousin of our hero, was killed 
 during the siege. 
 
 The armies on both sides were now receiving reinforce- 
 ments. Louis XIV. sent seven thousand two hundred 
 and ninety men of all ranks to the help of James, 
 under the command of Count Lauzun. They landed 
 at Cork in March, 1689, and marched at once to 
 Dublin. Lauzun described the country as a chaos 
 such as he had read of in the Book of Genesis. On 
 his arrival at Dublin, Lauzun was appointed Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the Irish army, and took up his 
 residence in the castle. 
 
 On the other hand, Schomberg's forces wero 
 recruited -by seven thousand Danes, under a treaty 
 which William III. had entered into with the King 
 of Denmark. New detachments of English and Scotch, 
 
340 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 of Huguenots, Dutch, Flemings, and Brandenburgers, 
 were also added to the allied army. 
 
 "William landed at Carrickfergus on the 14th of 
 June. He passed on to Belfast, where he met Schom- 
 berg, the Prince of Wurtemberg, Major- General Kirk, 
 and other general officers. He then pushed on to 
 Lisburn, the head-quarters of his army. He there 
 declared tbat he would not let the grass grow under his 
 feet, but would pursue the war with the utmost vigour. 
 He ordered the whole army to assemble at Lough- 
 brickland. He found them to consist of sixty-two 
 squadrons of cavalry and fifty -two battalions of 
 infantry — in all, thirty-six thousand English, Dutcb, 
 French, Danes, and Germans, well appointed in every 
 respect. Lieutenant-General Douglas commanded the 
 advance-guard — to which Bapin belonged — and Wil- 
 liam III., Schomberg, and St. Gravenmore commanded 
 the main body. 
 
 William III. had no hesitation in entering at once 
 on the campaign. He had been kept too long in 
 London by parliamentary turmoil, by intrigues be- 
 tween Whigs and Tories, and sometimes by treachery 
 on both sides. But now that he was in the field his 
 spirits returned, and he determined to lose not a day 
 in measuring swords with his enemy. He had very 
 little time to spare. He must lose or win his crown ; 
 though his determination was to win. Accordingly he 
 marched southward without delay. 
 
 William had been in Ireland six days before James 
 knew of his arrival. The passes between Newry and 
 Dundalk had been left unguarded — passes where a 
 small body of well-disciplined troops might easily have 
 checked the advance of William's army. Dundalk 
 was abandoned. Ardee was abandoned. The Irish 
 
THE BOYNE VALLEY. 341 
 
 army were drawn up in a strong position on the south 
 of the Boyne to arrest the progress of the invading 
 army. James had all the advantages that nature 
 could give him. He had a deep river in front, a 
 morass on his left, and the narrow bridge of Slane on 
 his right. Behind was a rising ground stretching 
 along the whole of the field. In the rear lay the 
 church and village of Donore, and the Pass of Duleek. 
 Drogheda lay towards the mouth of the river, where 
 the green and white flags of Ireland and France were 
 flying, emblazoned with the harp and the lilies. 
 
 "William never halted until he reached the summit 
 of a rising ground overlooking the beautiful valley of 
 the Boyne. It is about the most fertile ground in 
 Ireland. As he looked from east to west, "William said 
 to one of his staff, "Behold a land worth fighting 
 for ! " Bapin was there, and has told the story of the 
 crossing of the Boyne. He says that the forces of 
 King James, lying on the other side of the river, 
 amounted to about the same number as those under 
 King "William. They included more than seven thou- 
 sand veteran French soldiers. There was a splendid 
 body of Irish horse, and about twenty thousand Irish 
 foot. 
 
 James's officers were opposed to a battle ; they wished 
 to wait for the large fleet and the additional forces 
 promised by Louis XIV. But James resolved tcr 
 maintain, his position, and thought that he might 
 have one fair battle for his crown. " But," says 
 Bapin, "notwithstanding all his advantages — the 
 deep river in front, the morass on his right, and the 
 rising ground behind him — he ordered a ship to be 
 prepared for him at Waterford, that in case of a defeat 
 he might secure his retreat to France." 
 
3+2 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 On the morning of the 30th of June, "William 
 ordered his whole army to move by break of day by 
 three lines towards the river, about three miles distant. 
 The King marched in front. By nine o'clock they 
 were within two miles of Drogheda. Observing a hill 
 east of the enemy, the King rode up to view the 
 enemy's camp. He found it to lie all along the river 
 in two lines. Here he had a long consultation with 
 his leading officers. He then rode to the pass at Old 
 Bridge, within musket-shot of the ford ; next he rode 
 westward, so as to take a full view of the enemy's 
 camp. He fixed the place where his batteries were 
 to be planted, and decided upon the spot where his 
 army was to cross the river on the following day. 
 
 The Irish on the other side of the river had not been 
 unobservant of the King's movements. They could see 
 him riding up and down the banks, for they were not 
 sixty yards apart. The Duke of Berwick, the Viceroy 
 Tyrconnel, General Sarsfield, and other officers were 
 carefully watching his movements. While the army 
 was marching up the river-side, William dismounted and 
 sat down upon a rising ground to partake of some 
 refreshments, for he had been on horseback since early 
 dawn. During this time a party of Irish horse on the 
 other side brought forward two field-pieces through a 
 ploughed field, and planted them behind a hedge. 
 They took their sight and fired. The first shot killed 
 a man and two horses close by the King. William 
 immediately mounted his horse. The second gun was 
 not so well aimed. The shot struck the water, but 
 rising en ricochet, it slanted on the King's right 
 shoulder, took a piece out of his coat, and tore the skin 
 and the flesh. William rode away stooping in his 
 saddle. The Earl of Coningsby put a handkerchief 
 
WILLIAM III AT THE BOYNE. 343 
 
 over the wound, but William said " there was no 
 necessity, the bullet should have come nearer." 
 
 The enemy, seeing the discomfiture of the King's 
 party, and that he rode away wounded, spread abroad 
 the news that he was killed. "They immediately," 
 says Rapin, " set up a shout all over their camp, and 
 drew down several squadrons of their horse upon a 
 plain towards the river, as if they meant to pass and 
 pursue the English army. Nay, the report of the 
 King's death flew presently to Dublin, and from 
 thence spread as far as Paris, where the people were 
 encouraged to express their joy by bonfires and illumi- 
 nations." In the meantime William returned to his 
 tent, where he had his wound dressed, and again 
 mounted and showed himself to the whole army, in 
 order to dissipate their apprehensions. He remained 
 on horseback until nine at night, though he had been 
 up since one o'clock in the morning. 
 
 William then called a council of war, and declared 
 his resolution of forcing the river next day. Schom- 
 berg opposed this, but finding the King determined, he 
 urged that a strong body of horse and foot should be 
 sent to Slane bridge that night, so as to be able to 
 cross the bridge and get between the enemy and the 
 Pass of Duleek, which lay behind King James's army. 
 This advice, if followed, might perhaps have ended 
 the war in one campaign. Such is Rapin's opinion. 
 The proposal was, however, rejected ; and it was 
 determined to cross the river in force on the follow- 
 ing morning. William inspected the troops at mid- 
 night. He rode along the whole army by torchlight, 
 and after giving out the password " Westminster," he 
 returned to his tent for a few hours' sleep. 
 
 The shades of night lay still over that sleeping host. 
 
344 CAPTAIN RAPIN. . 
 
 The stars looked down in peace on these sixty 
 thousand brethren of the same human family, ready 
 to rise with the sun and imbrue their hands in 
 each other's blood. Tyrannical factions and warring 
 creeds had set them at enmity with each other, and 
 turned the sweetness and joy of their nature into gall 
 and bitterness. The night was quiet. The murmur of 
 the river fell faintly on the ear. A few trembling lights 
 gleamed through the dark from the distant watch- 
 towers of Drogheda. The only sounds that rose from 
 the vast host that lay encamped in the valley of the 
 Boyne were the challenges of the sentinels to each 
 other as they paced their midnight rounds. 
 
 The sun rose clear and beautiful. It was the first 
 day of July — a day for ever memorable in the history 
 of Ireland as well as England. The genirale was beat 
 in the camp of William before daybreak, and as soon 
 as the sun was up the battle began. Lieutenant- 
 General Douglas marched towards the right with six 
 battalions of foot, accompanied by Count Schomberg 
 (son of the Marshal) with twenty-four squadrons of 
 horse. They crossed the river below the bridge of 
 Slane, and though opposed by the Irish, they drove 
 them back and pressed them on towards Duleek. 
 
 When it was supposed that the left wing had crossed 
 the Boyne, the Dutch Blue Guards, beating a march 
 till they reached the river's edge, went in eight or ten 
 abreast, the water reaching above their girdles. When 
 they had gained the centre of the stream they were 
 saluted with a tremendous fire from the Irish foot, 
 protected by the breastworks, lanes, and hedges on the 
 farther side of the river. Nevertheless they pushed on, 
 formed in two lines, and drove the Irish before them. 
 Several Irish battalions were brought to bear upon 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOYNE. 345 
 
 them, but without effect. Then a body of Irish 
 cavalry assailed them, but still they held their ground. 
 
 William, seeing his troops hardly pressed, sent across 
 two Huguenot regiments and one English regiment to 
 their assistance. But a regiment of Irish dragoons, at 
 the moment of their reaching the shore, fell upon their 
 flank, broke their ranks, and put many of them to the 
 sword. Colonel Caillemotte, leader of the Huguenots, 
 received a mortal wound. He was laid on a litter and 
 carried to the rear. As he met his men coming up to 
 the help of their comrades, he called out, "A la gloire, 
 mes enfants ! a la gloire ! " A squadron of Danish 
 horse forded the river, but the Irish dragoons, in one of 
 their dashing charges, broke and defeated them, and 
 drove them across the river in great confusion. 
 
 Duke Schomberg, who was in command of the centre, 
 seeing that the day was going against King William, 
 and that the French Huguenots were fighting without 
 their leader, crossed the river and put himself at their 
 head. Pointing to the Frenchmen in James's ranks, 
 he cried out to his men, " Allons, messieurs, voila vos 
 persecuteurs ! " The words were scarcely out of his 
 mouth when a troop of James's guards, returning full 
 speed to their main body, fell furiously upon the Duke 
 and inflicted two sword cuts upon his head. The regi- 
 ment of Oambon began at once to fire upon the enemy, 
 but by a miss shot they hit the Duke. " They shot the 
 Duke," says Rapin, "through the neck, of which he 
 instantly died, and M. Foubert, alighting to receive 
 him, was shot in the arm." 
 
 The critical moment had arrived. The centre of 
 William's army was in confusion. Their leaders, 
 Schomberg and Caillemotte, were killed. The men 
 were waiting for orders. They were exposed to the 
 
346 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 gallino- fire of the Irish infantry and cavalry. King 
 James was in the rear on the- hill of Dunmore sur- 
 rounded by his French hody-guard. He was looking 
 down upon the field of battle, viewing now here, now 
 there. It is even said that when he saw the Irish 
 dragoons routing the cavalry and riding down the 
 broken infantry of "William, he exclaimed, " Spare ! oh, 
 spare my English subjects ! " 
 
 The firing had now lasted uninterruptedly for more 
 than an hour, when William seized the opportunity of 
 turning the tide of battle against his spiritless adver- 
 sary. Putting himself at the head of the left wing, he 
 crossed the Boyne by a dangerous and difHcult ford a 
 little lower down the river ; his cavalry for the most 
 part swimming across the tide. The ford had been 
 left unguarded, and the whole soon reached the opposite 
 bank in safety. But even there the horse which 
 "William rode sank in a bog, and he was forced to 
 alight until the horse was got out. He was helped to 
 remount, for the wound in his shoulder was very pain- 
 ful. So soon as the troops were got into sufficient 
 order, "William drew his sword, though his wound 
 made it uneasy for him to wield it. He then marched 
 on towards the enemy. 
 
 "When the Irish saw themselves menaced by 
 "William's left wing, they halted, and retired towards 
 Dunmore. But gaining courage, they faced about and 
 fell upon the English horse. They gave way. The 
 King then rode up to the Enniskilleners, and asked, 
 " What they would do for him ? " Not knowing him, 
 the men were about to shoot him, thinking him to be 
 one of the enemy. But when their chief officer told 
 them that it was the King who wanted their help, they 
 at once declared their intention of following him. They 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOYNE. 347 
 
 marched forward and received the enemy's fire. The 
 Dutch troops came up, at the head of whom William 
 placed himself. " In this place," says Rapin, " Duke 
 Schomberg's regiment of horse, composed of French 
 Protestants, and strengthened by an unusual number of 
 officers, behaved with undaunted resolution, like men 
 who fought for a nation amongst whom themselves and 
 their friends had found shelter against the persecution 
 of France." 
 
 Ginckel's troops now arrived on the scene ; but they 
 were overpowered by the Irish horse, and forced to give 
 way. Sir Albert Cunningham's and Colonel Levison's 
 dragoons then came up, and enabled Ginckel's troops 
 to rally ; and the Irish were driven up the hill, after 
 an hour's hard fighting. James's lieutenant-general, 
 Hamilton, was taken prisoner and brought before the 
 King. He was asked " Whether the Irish would fight 
 any more?" "Yes," he answered; "upon my 
 honour I believe they will." The Irish slowly gave 
 way, their dragoons charging again and again, to cover 
 the retreat of the foot. At Dunmore they made a 
 gallant stand, driving back the troops of William 
 several times. The farmstead of Sheephouse was 
 taken and retaken again and again. 
 
 At last the Irish troops slowly retreated up the hill. 
 The French troops had scarcely been engaged. Sars- 
 field implored James to put himself at their head, and 
 make a last fight for his crown. Six thousand fresh 
 men coming into action, when the army of William 
 was exhausted by fatigue, might have changed the 
 fortune of the day. But James would not face the 
 enemy. He put himself at the head of the French 
 troops and Sarsfield's regiment — the first occasion on 
 which he had led during the day — and set out for 
 
3+8 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 Dublin, leaving the rest of his army to shift for 
 themselves. 
 
 The Irish army now poured through the Pass of 
 Duleek. They were pursued by Count Schomberg at 
 the head of the left wing of William's army. The 
 pursuit lasted several miles beyond the village of 
 Duleek, when the Count was recalled by express orders 
 of the King. The Irish army retreated in good order, 
 and they reached Dublin in safety. James was the 
 first to carry thither tbe news of his defeat. On 
 reaching Dublin Castle, he was received by Lady 
 Tyrconnel, the wife of the Viceroy. "Madam," said 
 he, "your countrymen can run well." "Not quite so 
 well as your Majesty," was her retort, " for I see that 
 you have won the race." 
 
 The opinion of the Irish soldiers may be understood 
 from their saying, after their defeat, " Change generals, 
 and we will fight the battle over again." " James had 
 no royal quality about him," says an able Catholic 
 historian ; " nature had made him a coward, a monk, 
 and a gourmand ; and, in spite of the freak of fortune 
 that had placed him on a throne, and seemed inclined 
 to keep him there, she vindicated her authority, and 
 dropped him ultimately in the niche that suited him — 
 
 ' The meanest slave of France's despot lord.' 
 
 William halted on the field that James had occupied 
 in the morning. The troops remained under arms all 
 night. The loss of life was not so great as was 
 expected. On William's side not more than four 
 hundred men were killed; but amongst them were 
 Duke Schomberg, Colonel Caillemotte, and Dr. George 
 Walker, the defender of Derry. " King James's 
 whole loss in this battle," says Rapin, " was generally 
 
WILLIAM III. ENTERS DUBLIN. 349 
 
 computed at fifteen hundred men, amongst whom were 
 the Lord Dungan, the Lord Carlingford, Sir Neil 
 O'Neil, Colonel Fitzgerald, the Marquis d'Hocquin- 
 court, and several prisoners, the chief of whom was 
 Lieutenant-General Hamilton, who, to do him justice, 
 behaved with great courage, and kept the victory 
 doubtful, until he was taken prisoner. 
 
 On the following day Drogheda surrendered without 
 resistance. The garrison laid down their arms, and 
 departed for Athlone. James stayed at Dublin for a 
 night, and on the following morning he started for 
 Waterford, causing the bridges to be broken down 
 behind him, for fear of being pursued by tbe allied 
 forces. He then embarked on a ship-of-war, and was 
 again conveyed to France. 
 
 William's army proceeded slowly to Dublin. The 
 Duke of Ormond entered the city two days after the 
 battle of the Boyne, at the head of nine troops of horse. 
 On the next day the King, with his whole army, 
 marched to Finglas, in the neighbourhood of Dublin ; 
 and on the 6th of July he entered the city, and pro- 
 ceeded to St. Patrick's Church, to return thanks for 
 his victory. 
 
 The whole of the Irish army proceeded towards 
 Athlone and Limerick, intending to carry on the war 
 behind the Shannon. William sent a body of his 
 troops, under Lieutenant-General Douglas, to Athlone, 
 while he himself proceeded to reduce and occupy the 
 towns of the South. Rapin followed his leader, and 
 hence his next appearance at the siege of Athlone. 
 
 Rapin conducted himself throughout the Irish 
 campaign as a true soldier. He was attentive, 
 accurate, skilful, and brave. He did the work he had 
 to do without any fuss ; but he did it. Lieutenant- 
 
3S0 CAPTAIN RAP1N. 
 
 General Douglas, under whom lie served, soon ascer- 
 tained his merits, saw through his character, and 
 ■became much attached to him. He promoted him to 
 the rank of aide-de-camp, so that he might have this 
 able Frenchman continually about his person. 
 
 Douglas proceeded westward, with six regiments of 
 horse and ten of foot, to reduce Athlone. But the 
 place was by far too strong for so small a force to 
 besiege, and still less to take it. Athlone had always 
 been a stronghold. For centuries the bridge and castle 
 had formed the great highway into Connaught. The 
 Irish town is defended on the eastern side by the Shan- 
 non, a deep and wide river, almost impossible to pass 
 in the face of a hostile army. 
 
 Douglas summoned the Irish garrison to surrender. 
 Colonel Bichard Grace, the gallant old governor, re- 
 turned a passionate defiance. " These are my terms," 
 he said, discharging a pistol at the messenger : " when 
 my provisions are consumed, I will defend my trust 
 until I have eaten my boots." 
 
 Abandoning as indefensible the English part of the 
 town, situated on the east side of the Shannon, Grace 
 set fire to it, and retired with all his forces to the 
 western side, blowing up an arch of the bridge behind 
 him. The English then brought up the few cannon 
 they had with them, and commenced battering the 
 walls. The Irish had more cannon, and defended them- 
 selves with vigour. The besiegers made a breach in 
 the castle, but it was too high and too small for an 
 assault. "Notwithstanding this," says Rapin, "the 
 firing continued very brisk on .both sides; but the 
 besiegers having lost Mr. Neilson, their best gunner, 
 and the cavalry suffering very much for want of forage; 
 and at the same time it being reported that Sarsfield 
 
CITY OF LIMERICK. 351 
 
 was advancing with fifteen thousand men to relieve the 
 place, Douglas held a council of war, wherein it was 
 thought fit to raise the siege, which he accordingly 
 did on the 25th, having lost near four hundred men 
 before the town, the greatest part of whom died of sick- 
 ness." 
 
 Thus, after a week's ineffectual siege, Douglas left 
 Athlone, and made all haste to rejoin the army of 
 William, which had already reduced the most important 
 towns in the south of Ireland. On the 7th of August 
 he rejoined William at Cahirconlish, a few miles west 
 of Limerick. The flower of the Irish army was as- 
 sembled at Limerick. The Duke of Berwick and 
 General Sarsfield occupied the city with their forces. 
 The French general, Boileau, commanded the garrison. 
 The besieged were almost as numerous as the besiegers. 
 William, by garrisoning the towns of which he took 
 possession, had reduced his forces to about twenty 
 thousand men. 
 
 Limerick was fortified by walls, batteries, and ram- 
 parts. It was also defended by a castle and citadel. 
 It had always been a place of great strength. The 
 chivalry of the Anglo-Norman monarch, the Ironsides 
 of Cromwell, had been defeated under its walls ; and 
 now the victorious army of William III. was destined 
 to meet with a similar repulse. 
 
 Limerick is situated in an extensive plain, watered 
 by the noble Shannon. The river surrounds the town 
 on three sides. Like Athlone, the city is divided into 
 the English and Irish towns, connected together by a 
 bridge. The English town was much the strongest. 
 It was built upon an island, surrounded by morasses, 
 which could at any time be flooded on the approach of 
 an enemy. The town was well supplied with provi- 
 
352 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 sions — all Clare and Galway being open to it, from 
 whence it could draw supplies. 
 
 Notwithstanding the strength of the fortress, "Wil- 
 liam resolved to besiege it. He was ill supplied with 
 cannon, having left his heavy artillery at Dublin. He 
 had ODly a field train with him, which was quite insuf- 
 ficient for his purpose. "William's advance-guards 
 drove the Irish outposts before them ; . the pioneers 
 cutting down the hedges and filling up the ditches, 
 until they came to a narrow pass between two bogs, 
 where a considerable body of Irish horse and foot were 
 assembled to dispute the pass. 
 
 Two field -pieces were brought up, which played with 
 such effect upon the Irish horse that they soon quitted 
 their post. At the same time Colonel Earle, at the 
 head of the English foot, attacked the Irish who were 
 firing through the hedges, so that they also retired 
 after two hours' fighting. The Irish were driven to 
 the town walls, and "William's forces took possession of 
 two important positions, Cromwell's fort and the old 
 Chapel. The Danes also occupied an old Danish fort, 
 built by their ancestors, of which they were not a little 
 proud. 
 
 The army being thus posted, a trumpeter was sent, 
 on the 9th of August, to summon the garrison to sur- 
 render. General Boileau answered, that he intended 
 to make a vigorous defence of the town with which 
 his Majesty had intrusted him. In the meantime, 
 William had ordered up his train of artillery from 
 Dublin. They were on their way to join him, when a 
 spy from "William's camp went over to the enemy, and 
 informed them of the route, the motions, and the 
 strength of the convoy. Sarsfield at once set out with 
 a strong body of horse. He passed the Shannon in the 
 
ASSAULT OF LIMERICK. 353 
 
 night, nine miles above Limerick, lurked all day in the 
 mountains near Ballyneety, and waited for the approach 
 of the convoy. 
 
 The men of William's artillery, seeing no enemy, 
 turned out their horses to graze, and went to sleep in 
 the full sense of security. Sarsfield's body of horse 
 came down upon them, slew or dispersed the convoy, 
 and took possession of the cannon. Sarsfield could 
 not, however, take the prizes into Limerick. He there- 
 fore endeavoured to destroy them. Cramming the 
 guns with powder up to their muzzles, and burying 
 their mouths deep in the earth, then piling the stores, 
 waggons, carriages, and baggage over them, he laid a 
 train and fired it, just as Sir John Lanier, with a body 
 of cavalry, was arriving to rescue the convoy. The 
 explosion was tremendous, and was heard at the camp 
 of "William, more than seven miles off. Sarsfield's 
 troops returned to Limerick in triumph. 
 
 Notwithstanding these grievous discouragements, 
 William resolved to persevere. He recovered two of 
 the guns, which remained uninjured. He obtained 
 others from Waterford. The trenches were opened on 
 the 17th of August. A battery was raised below the 
 fort to the right of the trenches. Firing went on on 
 both sides. Several redoubts were taken. By the 
 25th, the trenches were advanced to within thirty 
 paces of the ditch near St. John's Gate, and a breach 
 was made in the walls about twelve yards wide. 
 
 The assault was ordered to take place on the 27th. 
 The English grenadiers took the lead, supported by a 
 hundred French officers and volunteers. The enemy 
 were dislodged from the covered way and the two forts 
 which guarded the breach on each side. The assail- 
 ants entered the breach, but they were not sufficiently 
 
 A A 
 
3S4 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 supported. The Irish rallied. They returned to the 
 charge, helped by the women, who pelted the besiegers 
 with stones, broken bottles, and such other missiles as 
 came readily to hand. A Brandenburg regiment hav- 
 ing assailed and taken the Black Battery, it was blown 
 up by an explosion, which killed many of the men. In 
 fine, the assault was vigorously repulsed ; and Wil- 
 liam's troops retreated to the main body, with a loss of 
 six hundred men killed on the spot and as many 
 mortally wounded. 
 
 Bapin was severely wounded. A musket shot hit 
 him in the shoulder, and completely disabled him. 
 His brother Solomon was also wounded. His younger 
 brother fell dead by his side. They belonged to the 
 " forlorn hope," and were volunteers in the assault on 
 the breach. Bapin was raised to the rank of captain. 
 
 The siege of Limerick was at once raised. The 
 heavy baggage and cannon were sent away on the 
 30th of August, and the next day the army decamped 
 and marched towards Clonmel. The King intrusted 
 the command of his army to Lieutenant-General 
 Ginckel, and set sail for England from Duncannon 
 Fort, near "Waterford, on the 5th of September. 
 
 The campaign was not yet over. The Earl of Marl- 
 borough landed near Cork with four thousand men. 
 Beinforced by four thousand Danes and French 
 Huguenots, he shortly succeeded in taking the forti- 
 fied towns of Cork and Kinsale. After garrisoning 
 these places the Earl returned to England. 
 
 General Ginckel went into winter quarters at Mullin- 
 gar, in "Westmeath. The French troops, under com- 
 mand of Count Lauzun, went into Galway. Lauzun 
 shortly after returned to France, and St. Buth was sent 
 over to take command of the French and Irish army. 
 
SIEGE OF ATHLONE. 355 
 
 But they hung ahout Galway doing nothing. In the 
 meantime Ginckel was carefully preparing for the 
 renewal of the campaign. He was reinforced by an 
 excellent body of troops from Scotland, commanded by 
 General Mackay. He was also well supplied, through 
 the vigilance of William, with all'the necessaries of war. 
 Eapin's friend, Colonel Lord Douglas, pressed him to 
 accompany him to Flanders as his aide-de camp ; but the 
 wound in his shoulder still caused him great pain, and he 
 was forced to decline the appointment. Strange to say, 
 his uncle Pelisson — the converter, or rather the buyer, 
 of so many Romish converts in France — sent him a 
 present of fifty pistoles through his cousin M. de la Bas- 
 tide, which consoled him greatly during his recovery. 
 
 General Ginckel broke up his camp at Mullingar at 
 the beginning of June, and marched towards Athlone. 
 The Irish had assembled a considerable army at Bally- 
 more, about midway between Mullingar and Athlone. 
 They had also built a fort there, and intended to dis- 
 pute the passage of Ginckel's army. A sharp engage- 
 ment took place when his forces came up. The Irish 
 were defeated, with the loss of over a thousand prisoners 
 and all their baggage. 
 
 Ginckel then appeared before Athlone, but the 
 second resistance of the besieged was much less success- 
 ful than the first. St. Ruth, the French general, 
 treated the Irish officers and soldiers under his com- 
 mand with supercilious contempt. He admitted none 
 of their officers into his councils. He was as ignorant 
 of the army which he commanded as of the country 
 which he occupied. Nor was he a great general. He 
 had been principally occupied in France in hunting 
 and hanging the poor Protestants of Dauphiny and the 
 Oevennes. He had never fought a pitched battle ; 
 
356 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 and his incapacity led to the defeat of the Irish army 
 at Athlone, and afterwards at Aughrim. 
 
 St. Ruth treated his English adversaries • with as 
 much contempt as he did his Irish followers. "When 
 he heard that the English were ahout to cross the 
 Shannon, he said " it was impossible for them to take 
 the town, and he so near with an army to succour it." 
 He added that he would give a thousand louis if they 
 durst attempt it. To which Sarsfield retorted, " Spare 
 your money and mind your business ; for I know that no 
 enterprise is|too difficult for British courage to attempt." 
 
 Ginckel took possession of the English town after 
 some resistance, when the Irish army retreated to the 
 other side of the Shannon. Batteries were planted, 
 pontoons were brought up, and the siege began with 
 vigour. Ginckel attempted to get possession of the 
 bridge. One of the arches was broken down, on the 
 Connaught side of the river. Under cover of a heavy 
 fire, a party of Ginckel's men succeeded in raising a 
 plank-work for the purpose of spanning the broken 
 arch. The work was nearly completed, when a ser- 
 geant and ten bold Scots belonging to Maxwell's 
 Brigade on the Irish side, pushed on to the bridge ; 
 but they were all slain. A second brave party was 
 more successful than the first. They succeeded in 
 throwing all the planks and beams into the river, only 
 two men escaping with their lives. 
 
 Ginckel then attempted to repair the broken arch 
 by carrying a close gallery on the bridge, in order to 
 fill up the gap with heavy planks. All was ready, and 
 an assault was ordered for next day. It was resolved 
 to cross the Shannon in three places — one body to cross 
 by the narrow ford below the bridge, another by the 
 pontoons above it, while the main body was to force 
 
ASSAULT OF ATHLONE. 357 
 
 the bridge itself. On the morning of the intended 
 crossing, the Irish sent a volley of grenades among the 
 wooden work of the bridge, when some of the fascines 
 took fire, and the whole fabric was soon in a blaze. 
 The smoke blew into the faces of the English, and it 
 was found impossible to cross the river that day. 
 
 A council of war was held, to debate whether it was 
 advisable to renew the attack or to raise the siege and 
 retreat. The cannonade had now continued for eight 
 days, and nothing had been gained. Some of the 
 officers were for withdrawing, but the majority were in 
 favour of making a general assault on the following day 
 — seeing more danger in retreating than in advancing. 
 The Duke of Wurtemberg, Major- Generals Mackay, 
 Talmash, Buvigny, Tetleau, and Colonel Cambon urged 
 "that no brave action could be performed without 
 hazard ; and that the attempt was like to be attended 
 with success." Moreover, they proffered themselves to 
 be the first to pass the river and attack the enemy. 
 
 The assault was therefore agreed upon. The river 
 was then at the lowest state at which it had been for 
 years. Next morning, at six o'clock — the usual hour 
 for relieving guards — 'the detachments were led down 
 to the river. Captain Sands led the first party of sixty 
 grenadiers. They were supported by another strong 
 detachment of grenadiers and six battalions of foot. 
 They went into the water twenty abreast, clad in 
 armour, and pushed across the ford a little below the 
 bridge* The stream was very rapid, and the passage 
 difficult, by reason of the great stones which lay at the 
 bottom of the river. The guns played over them 
 from the batteries and covered their passage. The 
 grenadiers reached the other side amidst the fire and 
 smoke of their enemies. They held their ground and 
 
358 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 made for the bridge. Some of them laid planks over 
 the broken arch, and others helped at preparing the 
 pontoons. Thus the whole of the English army were 
 able to cross to the Irish side of the river. In less than 
 half an hour they were masters of the town. The Irish 
 were entirely surprised. They fled in all directions, and 
 lost many men. The besiegers did not lose above fifty. 
 
 St. Ruth, the Irish commander-in-chief, seemed 
 completely idle during the assault. It is true he 
 ordered several detachments to drive the English from 
 the town after it had been taken ; but, remembering 
 that the fortifications of Athlone, nearest to his camp, 
 had not been razed, and that they were now in posses- 
 sion of the enemy, he recalled his troops, and decamped 
 from before Athlone that very night. In a few days 
 Ginekel followed him, and inflicted on his army a 
 terrible defeat at the battle of Aughrim. With that, 
 however, we have nothing to do at present, but proceed 
 to follow the fortunes of Rapin. 
 
 Rapin entered Athlone with his regiment, and con- 
 ducted himself with his usual valour. Grinckel re- 
 mained only a few days in the place, in order to repair 
 the fortifications. That done, he set out in pursuit of 
 the enemy. He left two regiments in the castle, one 
 of which was that to which Rapin belonged. The 
 soldiers, who belonged to different nationalities, had 
 many contentions with each other. The officers stood 
 upon their order of precedence. The men were dis- 
 posed to quarrel. Aided by a friend, a captain like 
 himself, Rapin endeavoured to pacify the men, and to 
 bring the officers to reason. By his kind, gentle, and 
 conciliatory manner, he soon succeeded in restoring 
 quiet and mutual confidence ; and during his stay at Ath- 
 lone no further disturbance occurred among the garrison. 
 
RAPIN AT KINSALE. 359 
 
 Eapin was ordered to Kilkenny, where he had a 
 similar opportunity of displaying his qualities of con- 
 ciliation. A quarrel had sprung up between the chief 
 magistrate of the town and the officers of the garrison. 
 Eapin interceded, and by his firmness and moderation 
 he reconciled all differences; and, at the same time, he 
 gained the respect and admiration of both the disputing 
 parties. 
 
 By this time the second siege of Limerick had 
 occurred. Ginckel surrounded the city, and battered 
 the walls and fortresses for six weeks. The French 
 and Irish armies at length surrendered. Fourteen 
 thousand Irish marched out with the honours of war. 
 A large proportion of them joined the army of 
 Louis XIV., and were long after known as "The Irish 
 Brigade." Although they fought valiantly and honour- 
 ably in many well-known battles, they were first 
 employed in Louis' persecution of the Protestants in 
 the Vaudois. and Cevennes mountains. Their first 
 encounter was with the Camisards, under Cavalier, 
 their peasant leader. They gained no glory in that 
 campaign, but a good deal of discredit. 
 
 In the meantime Ireland had been restored to peace. 
 After the surrender of Limerick no further resistance 
 was offered to the arms of William III. A consider- 
 able body of English troops remained in Ireland to 
 garrison the fortresses. Bapin's regiment was stationed 
 at Kinsale, and there he rejoined it in 1693. He made 
 the intimate friendship of Sir James Waller, the 
 governor of the town. Sir James was a man of much 
 intelligence, a keen observer, and an ardent student. 
 By his knowledge of political history, he inspired 
 Eapin with a like taste, and determined him at a later 
 period in his life to undertake what was a real want 
 
3 6o CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 at the time, an intelligent and readable history of 
 England. 
 
 Eapin was suddenly recalled to England. He was 
 required to leave his regiment and report himself to 
 King William. No reason was given ; but with his 
 usual obedience to orders he at once set out. He did 
 not leave Ireland without regret. He was attached to 
 his numerous Huguenot comrades, and he hoped yet 
 to rise to higher grades in the King's service. By 
 special favour he was allowed to hand over his com- 
 pany to his brother Solomon, who had been wounded 
 at the first siege of Limerick. His brother received 
 the promotion which he himself had deserved, and 
 afterwards became lieutenant-colonel of dragoons. 
 Rapin's fortune led him in quite another direction. 
 
 It turned out that, by the recommendation of the 
 Earl of Galway (formerly the Marquis de Ruvigny, 
 another French Huguenot), he had been recalled to 
 London for the purpose of being appointed governor 
 and tutor to Lord Woodstock, son of Bentinck, Earl of 
 Portland, one of King William's most devoted servants. 
 Lord Galway was consulted by the King as to the best 
 tutor for the son of his friend. He knew of Rapin's 
 valour and courage during his campaigns in Ireland ; 
 he also knew of his discretion, his firmness, and his 
 conciliatory manners, in reconciling the men under his 
 charge at Athlone and Kilkenny; and he was also 
 satisfied about his thoughtfulness, his delicacy of spirit, 
 his grace and his nobleness — for he had been bred a 
 noble, though he had first served as a common soldier 
 in the army of William. 
 
 The King immediately approved the recommenda- 
 tion of Lord Galway. He knew of Rapin's courage at 
 the battle of the Boyne ; and he remembered — as every 
 
PORTLAND HOUSE. 361 
 
 true captain does remember — the serious wound he 
 had received while accompanying the forlorn hope at 
 the first siege of Limerick. Hence the sudden recall 
 of Eapin from Ireland. On his arrival in London he 
 was presented to the King, and immediately after he 
 entered upon his new function of conducting the edu- 
 cation of the future Duke of Portland. 
 
 Henry, Lord Woodstock, was then about fifteen. 
 Being of delicate health, he had hitherto been the 
 object of his father's tender care, and it was not without 
 considerable regret that Lord Portland yielded to the 
 request of the King and handed over his son to the 
 government of M. Eapin. Though of consider- 
 able intelligence, the powers of his heart were greater 
 than those of his head- Thus Eapin had no difficulty 
 in acquiring the esteem and affection of his pupil. 
 
 Portland House was then the resort of the most 
 eminent men of the Whig party, through whose 
 patriotic assistance the constitution of England was 
 placed in the position which it now occupies. Eapin 
 was introduced by Lord Woodstock to his friends. 
 Having already mastered the English language, he had 
 no difficulty in understanding the conflicting opinions 
 of the times. He saw history developing itself before 
 his eyes. He heard with his ears the discussions which 
 eventuated in Acts of Parliament, confirming the liber- 
 ties of the English people, the liberty of speech, the 
 liberty of writing, the liberty of doing, within the limits 
 of the common law. 
 
 All this was of great importance to Eapin. It pre- 
 pared him for writing his afterwards famous works, his 
 " History of England," and his Dissertation on the 
 Whigs and Tories. Eapin was not only a man of great 
 accomplishments, but he had a remarkable aptitude for 
 
362 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 languages. He knew French and English, as well as 
 Italian, Spanish, and German. He had an extraordi- 
 nary memory, and a continuous application and perse- 
 verance, which enabled him to suck the contents of 
 many volumes, and to bring out the facts in future 
 years during the preparation of his works. His 
 memory seems to have been of the same order as that of 
 Lord Macaulay, who afterwards made use of his works, 
 and complimented his predecessor as to their value. 
 
 According to the custom of those days, the time 
 arrived when Rapin was required to make " the grand 
 tour " with his pupil and friend, Lord Woodstock. 
 This was considered the complement of English educa- 
 tion amongst the highest classes. It was thought 
 necessary that young noblemen should come in contact 
 with foreigners, and observe the manners and customs 
 of other countries besides their own; and that thus 
 they might acquire a sort of cosmopolitan education. 
 Archbishop Leighton even considered a journey of this 
 sort as a condition of moral perfection. He quoted the 
 words of the Latin poet : " Homo sum, et nihil hominem 
 a me alienum puto." 
 
 No one could be better fitted than Rapin to accom- 
 pany the young lord on his foreign travels. They 
 went to Holland, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. 
 Rapin diligently improved himself, while instructing 
 his friend. He taught him the languages of the coun- 
 tries through which they passed ; he rendered him 
 familiar with Greek and Latin; he rendered him 
 familiar with the principles of mathematics. He also 
 studied with him the destinies of peoples and of kings, 
 and pointed out to him the Divine will accomplishing 
 itself amidst the destruction of empires. Withal he 
 sought to penetrate the young soul of the friend com- 
 
AGAIN IN FRANCE. 363 
 
 mitted to his charge with that firmness of belief and 
 piety of sentiment which pervaded his own. 
 
 It was while in Italy that the Earl of Portland, at 
 the instigation of Eapin, requested copies to be made 
 for him of the rarest and most precious medals in point 
 of historic interest ; and also to purchase for him objects 
 of ancient workmanship. Hence Eapin was able to 
 secure for him the Portland Vase, now in the British 
 Museum, one of the most exquisite products of Roman 
 and Etruscan ceramic art. 
 
 In 1699, the Earl of Portland was sent by William III. 
 as ambassador to the court of Louis XI V., in connection 
 with the negotiations as to the Spanish succession. 
 Lord Woodstock attended the embassy, and Eapin 
 accompanied him. They were entertained at Versailles. 
 Persecution was still going on in France, although 
 about eight hundred thousand persons had already left 
 the country. Eapin at one time thought of leaving 
 Lord Woodstock for a few days, and making a rapid 
 journey south to visit his friends near Toulouse. But 
 the thought of being made a prisoner and sent to the 
 galleys for life stayed him, and he remained at Versailles 
 until the return of the embassy. 
 
 Eapin remained with Lord Woodstock for thirteen 
 years. In the meantime he had married, at the Hague, 
 Marie Anne Testart, a refugee from Saint-Quentin. 
 Jean Eou describes her as a true helpmeet for him, 
 young, beautiful, rich, and withal virtuous, and of the 
 most pleasing and gentle temper in the world. Her 
 riches, however, were not great. She had merely, like 
 Eapin, rescued some portion of her heritage from the 
 devouring claws of her persecutors. Eapin accumu- 
 lated very little capital during his tutorship of Lord 
 Woodstock ; but to compensate him, the King granted 
 
364 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 him a pension of £100 a year, payable by the States of 
 Holland, until he could secure some better income. 
 
 Rapin lived for some time at the Hague. While 
 there he joined a society of learned French refugees. 
 Among them were Rotolf de la Denese, Basnage de 
 Beauval, and Jean Rou, secretary to the States-General. 
 One of the objects of the little academy was to translate 
 the Psalms anew into French verse ; but before the 
 version was completed, Rapin was under the necessity 
 of leaving the Hague. William III., his patron, died 
 in 1701, when his pension was stopped. He was pro- 
 mised some remunerative employment, but he was 
 forgotten amidst the press of applicants. 
 
 At length he removed to the little town of Wesel, 
 on the Lower Rhine, in the beginning of May, 1707. 
 He had a wife and four children to maintain, and 
 living was much more reasonable at Wesel than at the 
 Hague. His wife's modest fortune enabled him to live 
 there to the end of his days. Wesel was also a resort 
 of the French refugees — persons of learning and taste, 
 though of small means. It was at his modest retreat 
 at Wesel that Rapin began to arrange the immense 
 mass of documents which he had been accumulating 
 during so many years, relating to the history of 
 England. The first work which he published was " A 
 Dissertation on the Origin and Nature of the English 
 Constitution." It met with great success, and went 
 through many editions, besides being translated into 
 nearly, all the continental languages. 
 
 He next proceeded with his great work, "The 
 History of England." During his residence in Ireland 
 and England, he had read with great interest all books 
 relating to the early history of the Government of 
 England. He began with the history of England after 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 365 
 
 the Norman Conquest ; but he found that he must 
 begin at the beginning. He studied the history of the 
 Anglo-Saxons, but found it " like a vast forest, where 
 the traveller, with great difficulty, finds a few narrow 
 .paths to guide his wandering steps. It was this, how- 
 ever, that inspired him with the design of clearing this 
 part of the English history, by removing the rubbish, 
 and carrying on the thread so as to give, at least, a 
 general knowledge of the earlier history." Then he 
 went back to Julius Caesar's account of his invasion of 
 Britain, for the purpose of showing how the Saxons 
 came to send troops into this country, and how the 
 conquest which had cost them so much was at last 
 abandoned by the Romans. He then proceeded, dur- 
 ing his residence in England, with his work of reading 
 and writing ; but when he came to the reign of 
 Henry II. he was about to relinquish his undertaking, 
 when an unexpected assistance not only induced him 
 to continue it, but to project a much larger history of 
 England than he had at first intended. 
 
 This unexpected assistance was the publication of 
 Rymer's "Fcedera," at the expense of the British 
 Government. The volumes as they came out were 
 sent to Rapin by Le Clerc (another refugee), a friend 
 of Lord Halifax, who was one of the principal pro- 
 moters of the publication. This book was of infinite 
 value to Rapin in enabling him to proceed with his 
 history. He prepared abstracts of seventeen volumes 
 (now in the Cottonian collection), to show the relation 
 of the acts narrated in Rymer's "Fcedera" to the 
 history of England. He was also able to compare the 
 facts stated by English historians with those of the 
 neighbouring states, whether they were written in 
 Latin, French, Italian, or Spanish. 
 
3 66 CAPTAIN RAPIN. 
 
 The work was accomplished with great labour. It 
 occupied seventeen years of Rapin's life. The work 
 was published at intervals. The first two volumes 
 appeared in November, 1723. During the following 
 year six more volumes were published. The ninth and 
 tenth volumes were left in manuscript ready for the 
 press. They ended with the coronation of "William and 
 Mary at Westminster. Besides, he left a large number 
 of MSS., which were made use of by the editor of the 
 continuation of Rapin's history. 
 
 Rapin died at "Weselin 1725, at the age of sixty-four. 
 His work, the cause of his fatal illness, was almost his 
 only pleasure. He was worn out by hard study and 
 sedentary confinement, and at last death came to his 
 rescue. He had struggled all his life against persecu- 
 tion ; against the difficulties of exile ; against the 
 enemy ; and though he did not die on the field of 
 battle, he died on the breach pen in hand, in work and 
 duty, striving to commemorate the independence 
 through which a noble people had worked their way to 
 ultimate freedom and liberty. The following epitaph 
 was inscribed over his grave : — 
 
 " Ici le casque et la science, 
 L' esprit vif, la solidity, 
 La politesse et la sincerity 
 Out fait une heureuse alliance, 
 Dont le public a profite." 
 
 The first edition of Rapin's history, consisting of ten 
 volumes, was published at the Hague by Rogessart. 
 The Rev. David Durand added two more volumes to 
 the second edition, principally compiled from the memo- 
 randa left by Rapin at his death. The twelfth volume 
 concluded the reign of William III. 
 
 The fourth edition appeared in 1733. Being origin- 
 ally composed and published in French, the work was 
 
THE RAPIN FAMILY. 367 
 
 translated into English by Mr. N. Tindal, who added 
 numerous notes. Two editions were published simul- 
 taneously in London, and a third translation was pub- 
 lished some sixty years later. The book was attacked 
 by the Jacobite authors, who defended the Stuart party 
 against the statements of the author. In those fanatical 
 times impartiality was nothing to them. A man must 
 be emphatically for the Stuarts, or against them. Yet 
 the work of Rapin held its ground, and it long continued 
 to be regarded as the best history that had up to that 
 time been written. 
 
 The Rapin family are now scattered over the world. 
 Some remain in Holland, some have settled in Switzer- 
 land, some have returned to France, but the greater 
 number are Prussian subjects. James, the only son of 
 Rapin, studied at Cleves, then at Antwerp, and at 
 thirty-one he was appointed to the important office of 
 Director of the French Colonies at Stettin and Star- 
 gardt. Charles, Rapin's eldest brother, was a captain 
 of infantry in the service of Prussia. Two sons of Louis 
 de Rapin were killed in the battles of Smolensko and 
 Leipsic. 
 
 Many of the Rapins attained high positions in the 
 military service of Prussia. Colonel Philip de Rapin- 
 Thoyras was the head of the family in Prussia. He 
 was with the Allied Army in their war of deliverance 
 against France in the years 1813, 1814, and 1815. He 
 was consequently decorated with the Cross and the 
 Military Medal for his long and valued services to the 
 country of his adoption. 
 
 The handsome volume by Raoul de Cazenove, entitled 
 " Rapin- Thoyras, sa Famille, sa Vie, et ses CEuvres," to 
 which we are indebted for much of the above informa- 
 tion, is dedicated to this distinguished military chief. 
 
III. 
 
 CAPTAIN EIOU, K.tf. 
 
 " Brave hearts ! to Britain's pride 
 Once so faithful and so true, 
 On the deck of fame that died, 
 With the gallant good Riou : 
 Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave ! " 
 Campbell's Battle of the Baltic. 
 
 THE words in which Campbell describes Captain 
 Riou in his noble ode are nearly identical with 
 those used by Lord Nelson himself when alluding to 
 his death in the famous despatch relative to the battle 
 of Copenhagen. These few but pregnant words, " the 
 gallant and the good," constitute nearly all the record 
 that exists of the character of this distinguished officer, 
 though it is no slight glory to have them embalmed in 
 the poetry of Campbell and the despatches of Nelson. 
 
 Having had the good fortune, in the course of recent 
 inquiries as to the descendants of illustrious Huguenots 
 in England, to become acquainted with the principal 
 events in Captain Riou's life, drawn from family papers, 
 I now propose to supplement Lord Nelson's brief 
 epitome of his character by the following memoir of 
 this distinguished seaman. 
 
 Captain Riou was descended from the ancient Riou 
 family of Vernoux, in Languedoc, of whom early men- 
 
MATTHEW LABRUNE. 369 
 
 tion is made in French history, several members of it 
 having specially distinguished themselves as generals 
 in the wars in Spain. Like many other noble families 
 of Languedoc in the seventeenth century, the Eious were 
 staunch Huguenots ; and when, in 1685, Louis XIV. 
 determined to stamp out Protestantism in France, and 
 revoked the Edict of Nantes, the principal members of 
 the family, refusing to conform, left the country, and 
 their estates were confiscated by the Crown. 
 
 Estienne Riou, heir to the estate at Vernoux, was born 
 after the death of his father, who was a man of eminent 
 repute in his neighbourhood ; and he did not leave France 
 until his eleventh year, when he fled with his paternal 
 uncle, Matthew Labrune, across the frontier, and 
 took refuge with him at Berne, in Switzerland. There 
 the uncle engaged in business as a merchant, while the 
 nephew, when of sufficient age, desirous of following 
 the usual career of his family, went into Piedmont to 
 join the little Huguenot army from England, then 
 engaged in assisting the Duke of Savoy against the 
 armies of the French king. Estienne was admitted a 
 cadet in Lord Galway's regiment, then engaged in the 
 siege of Casale ; and be remained with it for two years, 
 when, on the army returning to England, he received 
 an honourable discharge, and went back to reside for a 
 time with his bachelor uncle at Berne. 
 
 In 1698 both uncle and nephew left Switzerland to 
 settle in London as merchants, bringing with them a 
 considerable capital. They exported English manufac- 
 tured goods to the East Indies, Holland, Germany, and 
 Italy ; and imported large quantities of raw silk, 
 principally from Spain and Italy, carrying on their 
 business with uniform probity and credit. In course 
 of time Estienne married Magdalen Baudoin, the 
 
 B B 
 
3 7 o CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 
 
 daughter of a refugee gentleman from Touraine, — 
 the members of refugee families usually intermarrying 
 for several generations after their settlement in Eng- 
 land. The issue of this marriage was an only son, 
 Stephen Piou, who, like his ancestors, embraced the 
 profession of arms, rising to be captain in the Horse 
 Grenadier Guards. He afterwards attended the Con- 
 federate forces in Flanders as an engineer, and on the 
 conclusion of peace, he travelled for nearly four years 
 through the principal countries of Europe, accompany- 
 ing Sir P. Ker Porter on his embassy to Constantinople. 
 He afterwards settled, married, and had two sons, — 
 Philip, the elder, who entered the Royal Artillery, and 
 died senior colonel at "Woolwich in 1817 ; and Edward, 
 the second son, who entered the navy — the subject of 
 the present memoir. 
 
 ■Edward Biou was born at Mount Ephraim, near 
 Faversham, on the 20th November, 1762. The family 
 afterwards removed to London, where Edward received 
 his education, partly at the Marylebone Grammar School 
 and partly at home, where his father superintended his 
 instruction in fortificaticn and navigation. Though 
 of peculiarly sweet and amiable disposition, young 
 Piou displayed remarkable firmness and even fear- 
 lessness as a boy. He rejoiced at all deeds of noble 
 daring, and it was perhaps his love of adventure that 
 early determined his choice of a profession ; for, even 
 when a very little fellow, he was usually styled by the 
 servants and by his playmates, " the noble captain." 
 
 Accordingly, when only twelve years old, he went to 
 sea as midshipman on board Admiral Pye's ship, the 
 Harfleiw ; from whence, in the following year, he was 
 removed to the Romney, Captain Keith Elphinstone, 
 on the Newfoundland station ; and on the return of the 
 
MIDSHIPMAN UNDER CAPTAIN COOK. 371 
 
 ship to England in 1776, he had the good fortune to be 
 appointed midshipman on hoard the Discovery, Captain 
 Charles Clarke, which accompanied Captain Cook in 
 the Resolution in his last voyage round the world. 
 Nothing could have been more to the mind of our 
 aailor-boy than this voyage of adventure and dis- 
 covery, in company with the greatest navigator of the 
 age. 
 
 The Discovery sailed from the Downs on the 18th of 
 June, but had no sooner entered the Channel than a 
 storm arose which did considerable damage to the ship, 
 which was driven into Portland Roads. At Plymouth, 
 the Discovery was joined by the Resolution ; but as the 
 former had to go into harbour for repairs, Captain 
 Cook set sail for the Cape alone, leaving orders for 
 Captain Clarke to follow him there. The Discovery at 
 length put to sea, and after a stormy voyage joined' 
 Captain Cook in Table Bay on the 11th of August. 
 Before setting sail on the longer voyage, Riou had the 
 felicity of being transferred to the Resolution, under 
 the command of Captain Cook himself. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should describe this 
 celebrated voyage, with which every boy is familiar — 
 its storms and hurricanes ; the landings on islands 
 where the white man's face had never been seen 
 before ; the visits to the simple natives of Huahine 
 and Otaheite, then a little Eden ; the perilous coasting 
 along the North American seaboard to Behring's 
 Straits, in search of the North-Western passage ; and 
 finally, the wintering of the ships at Owyhee, where 
 Captain Cook met his cruel death, of which young 
 Riou was a horror-struck spectator from the deck of 
 the Resolution, on the morning of the 14th of February, 
 1779. 
 
372 CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 
 
 After about four years' absence on this voyage, so 
 full of adventure and peril, Riou returned to England 
 with the Resolution, and was shortly after appointed 
 lieutenant of the sloop Scourge, Captain Knatchbull, 
 Commander, which took part, under Lord Rodney, in 
 the bombardment and capture of St. Eustatia. Here 
 Biou was so severely wounded in the eye by a splinter 
 that he lost his sight for many months. In March, 
 1782, he was removed to the Mediator, forty-four guns, 
 commanded by Captain Luttrell, and shared in the 
 glory which attached to the officers and crew of that 
 ship through its almost unparalleled achievement of 
 the 12th of December of that year. 
 
 It was at daybreak that the Mediator sighted five 
 sail of the enemy, consisting of the Minaghre, thirty- 
 six guns en flute ; the Eugene, thirty-six ; and the 
 Dauphin Royal, twenty-eight (French) ; in company 
 with the Alexander, twenty-eight guns, and another 
 brig, fourteen (American), formed in line of battle to 
 receive the Mediator, which singly bore down upon 
 them. The skilful seamanship and dashing gallantry 
 of the English disconcerted the combinations of the 
 enemy, and after several hours' fighting two of their 
 vessels fell out of the line, and went away, badly 
 crippled, to leeward. About an hour later the Alex- 
 ander was cut off, the .Mediator wearing between her 
 and her consorts, and in ten minutes she struck. A 
 chase then ensued after the larger vessels, and late in 
 the evening the Menagere, being raked within pistol 
 shot, hailed for quarter. The rest of the squadron 
 escaped, and the gallant Mediator, having taken 
 possession of her two prizes, set sail with them for 
 England, arriving in Cawsand Bay on the 17th of 
 December. 
 
COMMANDER OF THE " GUARDIAN." 373 
 
 In the year following, Captain Luttrell, having been 
 appointed to the Ganges, took with him Mr. Biou as 
 second lieutenant. He served in this ship until the 
 following summer, when he retired for a time on 
 half-pay, devoting himself to study and continental 
 travel until March, 1786, when we find him serving 
 under Admiral Elliot as second lieutenant of the 
 Salisbury. It was about this time that he submitted 
 to the Admiralty a plan, doubtless suggested by his 
 voyage with Captain Cook, "for the discovery and 
 preservation of a passage through the continent of 
 North America, and for the increase of commerce to 
 this kingdom." The plan was very favourably re- 
 ceived, but as war seemed imminent, no steps were 
 then taken to carry it into effect. 
 
 The young officer had, however, by this time 
 recommended himself for promotion by his admirable 
 conduct and his good service; and in the spring of 
 1789 he was appointed to the command of the Guardian, 
 forty-four guns, armed en flute, which was under 
 orders to take out stores and convicts to New South 
 "Wales. In a chatty, affectionate letter written to 
 his widowed mother, from on shipboard at the Cape 
 while on the voyage out, he says, — " I have no 
 expectation, after the promotion that took place before 
 I left England, of finding myself master and com- 
 mander on my return." After speculating as to what 
 might happen in the meantime while he was so far 
 from home, and expressing an anxiety which was but 
 natural on the part of an enterprising young officer 
 eager for advancement in his profession, he proceeded, 
 — " Politics must take a great turn, I think, by the 
 time of my return. War will likely be begun; in 
 that case we may bring a prize in with us. But our 
 
37+ CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 
 
 foresight is short — and mine particularly so. I hardly 
 ever look forward to beyond three months. 'Tis in 
 Tain to be otherwise, for Providence, which directs all 
 things, is inscrutable." And he concluded his letter 
 thus, — "Now for Port Jackson. I shall sail to-night 
 if the wind is fair. God for ever bless you." 
 
 But neither Riou nor the ill-fated Guardian ever 
 reached Port Jackson ! A fortnight after setting sail 
 from the Cape, while the ship was driving through a 
 thick fog (in lat. 44-5, long. 41) a severe shock 
 suddenly called Riou to the deck, where an appalling 
 spectacle presented itself. The ship had struck upon 
 an iceberg. A body of floating ice twice as high as the 
 masthead was on the lee beam, and the ship appeared 
 to be entering a sort of cavern in its side. In a few 
 minutes the rudder was torn away, a severe leak was 
 sprung, and all hands worked for bare life at the 
 pumps. The ship became comparatively unmanage- 
 able, and masses of overhanging ice threatened every 
 moment to overwhelm her. At length, by dint of 
 incessant efforts, the ship was extricated from the 
 ice, but the leak gained fearfully, and stores, cattle, 
 guns, booms, everything that could be cut away, was 
 thrown overboard. 
 
 It was all in vain. The ship seemed to be sinking ; 
 and despair sat on every countenance save that of the 
 young commander. He continued to hope even against 
 hope. At length, after forty-eight hours of incessant 
 pumping, a cry arose for " the boats," as presenting 
 the only chance of safety. Eiou pleaded with the men 
 to persevere, and they went on bravely again at the 
 pumps. But the dawn of another day revealed so 
 fearful a position of affairs that the inevitable founder- 
 ing of the ship seemed to be a matter of minutes rather 
 
LAST TO LEA VE THE SHIP. 375 
 
 than of hours. The boats were hoisted out, discipline 
 being preserved to the last. Biou's servant hastened 
 to him to ask what boat he would select to go in, that 
 he himself might take a place beside him. His answer 
 was that " he would stay by the ship, save her if he 
 could, and if needs be sink with her, but that the 
 people were at liberty to consult their own safety." 
 He then sat down and wrote the following letter to the 
 Admiralty, giving it in charge to Mr. Clements, the 
 master, whose boat was the only one that ever reached 
 land : — 
 
 " Her Majesty's Ship Guardian, 
 
 " December, 1789, 
 
 " If any part of the officers or crew of the Chiardian 
 should ever survive to reach home, I have only to say 
 that their conduct, after the fatal stroke against an 
 island of ice, was admirable and wonderful in every- 
 thing that relates to their duties, considered either as 
 private men or in his Majesty's service. As there 
 seems no possibility of my remaining many hours in 
 this world, I beg leave to recommend to the considera- 
 tion of the Admiralty a sister, to whom, if my conduct 
 or services should be found deserving any memory, 
 favour might be shown, together with a widowed 
 mother. 
 
 " I am, sir, with great respect, 
 
 " Your ever obedient servant, 
 
 "Edwakd Riou. 
 
 "Philip Stephens, Esq., 
 "Admiralty." 
 
 About half the crew remained with Riou, some 
 because they determined to stand by their commander, 
 and others because they could not get away in the 
 boats, which, to avoid being overcrowded, had put off 
 
376 CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 
 
 in haste, for the most part insufficiently stored and 
 provided. The sea, still high, continued to make 
 breaches over the ship, and many were drowned in 
 their attempts to reach the boats. Those who remained 
 were exhausted by fatigue ; and, without the most 
 distant hope of life, some were mad with despair. A 
 party of these last contrived to break open the spirit- 
 room, and found a temporary oblivion in intoxication. 
 "It is hardly a time to be a disciplinarian," wrote 
 Riou in his log, which continues a valued treasury in 
 his family, " when only a few more hours of life seem 
 to present themselves ; * but this behaviour greatly 
 hurts me." This log gives a detailed account, day by 
 day, of the eight weeks' heroic fortitude and scientific 
 seamanship which preserved the Guardian afloat until 
 she got into the track of ships, and was finally towed 
 by Dutch whalers into Table Bay, Cape of Good 
 Hope. 
 
 The master's boat, in which were also the purser 
 and chaplain, had by a miracle been picked up, and 
 those officers, on their return to England, reported to 
 the Admiralty " the total loss of the Guardian." They 
 also at the same time spoke of Riou's noble conduct in 
 terms of such enthusiasm as to awaken general admira- 
 tion, and occasion the greatest regret at his loss. Ac- 
 cordingly, when the Admiralty received from his own 
 hand the unexpected intelligence of his safety, his 
 widowed mother and only sister had the affectionate 
 sympathy of all England. Lord Hood himself, before 
 unknown to the family, hastened to their house with 
 the news, calling to the servants as he ran up the stairs 
 to "throw off their mourning!" The following was 
 Riou's brief letter to his mother, which he found time 
 to scrawl and send off by a ship just leaving Table 
 
RETURN OF RIOU. 377 
 
 Bay for England as the poor helpless Guardian was 
 
 being towed in : — 
 
 " Cape of Good Hope, 
 
 "February, 22, 1790, 
 
 "Dearest, — God has been merciful. I hope you 
 have no fatal accounts of the Guardian. I am safe ; I 
 am well, notwithstanding you may hear otherwise. 
 Join with me in prayer to that blessed Saviour who 
 hath hung over my ship for two months, and kept thy 
 dear son safe, to be, I hope, thankful for almost a 
 miracle. I can say no more because I am hurried, and 
 the ship sails for England this afternoon. 
 
 " Yours ever and ever, 
 
 " Edward Riou." 
 
 Riou remained many months at the Cape trying to 
 patch up the Guardian, and repair it so as to bring it 
 back to port ; but all his exertions were fruitless, and 
 in October the Admiralty despatched the Sphinx ship- 
 of-war to bring him and the survivors of his crew to 
 England, where they landed shortly after. There 
 was, of course, the usual court-martial held upon him 
 for the loss of his ship, but it was merely a matter of 
 form. At its conclusion he was complimented by the 
 Court in the warmest terms ; and " as a mark of the 
 high consideration in which the magnanimity of his 
 conduct was held, in remaining by his ship from an 
 exalted sense of duty when all reasonable prospects of 
 saving her were at an end," he received the special 
 thanks of the Admiralty, was made commander, and at 
 the same time promoted to the rank of post captain. 
 
 No record exists of the services of Captain Riou 
 from the date of his promotion until 1794, when we 
 find him in command of his Majesty's ship Rose, assist- 
 ing in the reduction of Martinique. He was then 
 
378 CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 
 
 transferred to the Beaulieu, and remained cruising in 
 the West Indian seas till his health became so injured 
 by the climate that he found himself compelled to 
 solicit his recall, and he consequently returned to 
 England in the Theseus in the following year. Shortly 
 after, in recognition of his distinguished services, he 
 was appointed to the command of the royal yacht, the 
 Princess Augusta, in which he remained until the 
 spring of 1790. So soon as his health was sufficiently 
 re-established, he earnestly solicited active employment, 
 and he was accordingly appointed to the command of 
 the fine frigate, the Amazon, thirty- eight guns,- whose 
 name afterwards figured so prominently in Nelson's 
 famous battle before Copenhagen, 
 
 After cruising about in her on various stations, and 
 picking up a few prizes, the Amazon, early in 1801, 
 was attached to Sir Hyde Parker's fleet, destined for 
 the Baltic. The last letter which Riou wrote home 
 to his mother was dated Sunday, the 29th March, " at 
 the entrance to the Sound ; " and in it he said : — " It 
 yet remains in doubt whether we are to fight the Danes, 
 or whether they will be our friends." Already, how- 
 ever, Nelson was arranging his plan of attack, and on 
 the following day, the 30th, the Admiraland all the 
 artillery officers were on board the Amazon, which 
 proceeded to examine the northern channel outside 
 Copenhagen Harbour. It was on this occasion that 
 Riou first became known to Nelson, who was struck 
 with admiration at the superior discipline and seaman- 
 ship which were observable on board the frigate during 
 the proceedings of that day. 
 
 Early in the evening of the 1st of April the signal 
 to prepare for action was made ; and Lord Nelson, 
 with Riou and Foley, on board the Elephant— all the 
 
BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN. 379 
 
 other officers haying returned to their respective ships 
 — arranged the order of battle on the following day. 
 What remains to be told of Riou is matter of history. 
 The science and skill in navigation which made Nelson 
 intrust to him the last soundings, and place under his 
 command the fife-ships which were to lead the way on 
 the following morning, — the gallantry with which the 
 captain of the Amazon threw himself, impar congressus, 
 under the fearful fire of the Trekroner battery, to 
 redeem the failure threatened by the grounding of the 
 ships of the line, — have all been told with a skilful 
 pen, and forms a picture of a great sailor's last hours, 
 which is cherished with equal pride in the affections of 
 his family and the annals of his country. 
 
 Sir Hyde Parker's signal to "leave off action," 
 which Nelson, putting his telescope to his blind eye, 
 refused to see, was seen by Riou and reluctantly 
 obeyed. Indeed, nothing but that signal for retreat 
 saved the Amazon from destruction, though it did not 
 save its heroic commander. As he unwillingly drew 
 off from the destructive fire of the battery he mourn- 
 fully exclaimed, " What will Nelson think of us ! " 
 His clerk had been killed by his side. He himself had 
 been wounded in the head by a splinter, but continued 
 to sit on a gun encouraging his men, who were falling 
 in numbers around him. " Come then, my boys," 
 he cried- " let us all die together." Scarcely had he 
 uttered the words, when a raking shot cut him in two. 
 And thus, in an instant, perished the "gallant good 
 Riou," at the early age of thirty-nine. 
 
 Riou was a man* of the truest and tenderest feelings, 
 yet the bravest of the brave. His private corre- 
 spondence revealed the most endearing qualities of 
 mind and heart, while the nobility of his actions was 
 
380 CAPTAIN RIOU, R.N. 
 
 heightened by lofty Christian sentiment, and a firm 
 reliance on the power and mercy of God. His 
 chivalrous devotion to duty in the face of difficulty 
 and danger heightened the affectionate admiration 
 with which he was regarded, and his death before 
 Copenhagen was mourned almost as" a national be- 
 reavement. The monument erected to his memory in 
 St. Paul's Cathedral represented, however inadequately, 
 the widely felt sorrow which pervaded all classes at 
 the early death of this heroic officer. " Except it had 
 been Nelson himself," says Southey, " the British navy 
 could not have suffered a severer loss." 
 
 Captain Riou's only sister married Colonel Lyde 
 Browne, who closed his honourable career of twenty- 
 three years' active service in Dublin, on July 23rd, 1803. 
 Within two years of her bitter mourning for the death 
 of her brother, she had also to mourn for the loss of 
 her husband. He was colonel of the 21st Fusiliers. 
 He was hastening to the assistance of Lord Kilwarden 
 on the fatal night of Emmett's rebellion, when he was 
 basely assassinated. He was buried in the church- 
 yard of St. Paul's, Dublin, where his brother officers 
 erected a marble tablet to his memory. He left an 
 onlv daughter, who was married, in 1826, to M. Gr. 
 Benson, Esq., of Lulwyche Hall, Salop. It is through 
 this lady that we have been permitted to inspect the 
 family papers relating to the life and death of Captain 
 Riou. 
 
A VISIT TO THE 
 
 COUNTKY OF THE VATIDOI8. 
 
A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF THE 
 VAUDOIS, 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 DAUPHINY is one of the least visited of all the pro- 
 vinces of France. It occupies a remote corner of 
 the empire, lying completely out of the track of ordinary 
 tourists. No great road passes through it into Italy, 
 the Piedmontese frontier of which it adjoins ; and the 
 annual streams of English and American travellers 
 accordingly enter that kingdom by other routes. Even 
 to Frenchmen, who travel little in their own country 
 and still less in others, Dauphiny is very little known ; 
 and M. Joanne, who has written an excellent Itinerary 
 of the South of France, almost takes the credit of 
 having discovered it. 
 
 Yet Dauphiny is a province full of interest. Its 
 scenery almost vies with that of Switzerland in gran- 
 deur, beauty, and wildness. The great mountain masses 
 of the Alps do not end in Savoy, but extend through 
 the south-eastern parts of France, almost to the mouths 
 
3^4 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 of the Phone. Packed closer together than in most 
 parts of Switzerland, the mountains of Dauphiny are 
 furrowed by deep valleys, each with its rapid stream or 
 torrent at bottom, in some places overhung by pre- 
 cipitous rocks, in others hemmed in by green hills, 
 over which are seen the distant snowy peaks and 
 glaciers of the loftier mountain ranges. Of these, 
 Mont Pelvoiix — whose double pyramid can be seen 
 from Lyons on a clear day, a hundred miles off — 
 and the Aiguille du Midi, are among the larger 
 masses, rising to a height little short of Mont Blanc 
 itself. 
 
 From the ramparts of Grenoble the panoramic view 
 is of wonderful beauty and grandeur, extending along 
 the valleys of the Isere and the Drac, and across that 
 of the Romanche. The massive heads of the Grand 
 Chartreuse mountains bound the prospect to the 
 north; and the summits of the snow-clad Dauphiny 
 Alps on the south and east present a combination 
 of bold valley and mountain scenery, the like of which 
 is not to be seen in Prance, if in Europe. 
 
 But it is not the scenery, or the geology, or the flora 
 of the province, however marvellous these may be, that 
 constitutes the chief interest for the traveller through 
 these Dauphiny valleys, so much as the human en- 
 durance, suffering, and faithfulness of the people who 
 have lived in them in past times, and of which so many 
 interesting remnants still survive. For Dauphiny forms 
 a principal part of the country of the ancient Vaudois 
 or Waldenses— literally, the people inhabiting the 
 Vaux, or valleys — who for nearly seven hundred years 
 bore the heayy brunt of Papal persecution, and are now, 
 after all their sufferings, free to worship God according 
 to the dictates of their conscience. 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES. 385 
 
 The country of the Vaudois is not confined, as is 
 generally supposed, to the valleys of Piedmont, but 
 extends over the greater part of Dauphiny and Pro- 
 vence. From the main ridge of the Cottian Alps, which 
 divide France from Italy, great mountain spurs are 
 thrown out, which run westward as well as eastward, 
 and enclose narrow strips of pasturage, cultivable 
 land, and green shelves on the mountain sides, where 
 a poor, virtuous, and hard-working race have long 
 contrived to earn a scanty subsistence, amidst trials 
 and difficulties of no ordinary kind, — the greatest of 
 which, strange to say, have arisen from the pure and 
 simple character of the religion they professed. 
 
 The tradition which exists among them is, that the 
 early Christian missionaries, when travelling from Italy 
 into Gaul by the Roman road passing over Mont 
 Genevre, taught the Gospel in its primitive form to the 
 people of the adjoining districts. It is even surmised 
 that St. Paul journeyed from Rome into Spain by that 
 route, and may himself have imparted to the people of 
 the valleys their first Christian instruction. The 
 Italian and Gallic provinces in that quarter were cer- 
 tainly Christianized in the second century at the latest, 
 and it is known that the early missionaries were in the 
 habit of making frequent journeys from the provinces 
 to Rome. Wherefore it is reasonable to suppose that 
 the people of the valleys would receive occasional visits 
 from the wayfaring teachers who travelled by the 
 mountain passes in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 their dwellings. 
 
 As years rolled on, and the Church at Rome became 
 rich and allied itself with the secular power, it gradually 
 departed more and more from its primitive condition,* 
 
 * The ancient Vaudois had a saying, known in other countries — 
 
386 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 until at length, it was scarcely to be recognised from 
 the Paganism which it had superseded. The heathen 
 gods were replaced by canonised mortals ; Venus and 
 Cupid by the Virgin and Child ; Lares and Penates by 
 images and crucifixes ; while incense, flowers, tapers, 
 and showy dresses came to be regarded as essential 
 parts of the ceremonial of the new religion as they had 
 been of the old. Madonnas winked and bled again, as 
 the statues of Juno and Pompey had done before ; and 
 stones and relics worked miracles as in the time of the 
 Augurs. 
 
 Attempts were made by some, of the early bishops to 
 stem this tide of innovation. Thus, in the fourth 
 century, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and Philastrius, 
 Bishop of Brescia, acknowledging no authority on 
 earth as superior to that of the Bible, protested against 
 the introduction of images in churches, which they held 
 to be a return to Paganism. Four centuries later, 
 Claude, Bishop of Turin, advanced like views, and 
 opposed with energy the worship of images, which he 
 regarded as absolute idolatry. In the meanwhile, the 
 simple Vaudois, shut up in their almost inaccessible 
 valleys, and knowing nothing of these innovations, con- 
 tinued to adhere to their original primitive form of 
 worship ; and it clearly appears, from a passage in the 
 writings of St. Ambrose, that, in his time, the super- 
 stitions which prevailed elsewhere had not at all ex- 
 tended into the mountainous regions of his diocese. 
 
 The Vaudois Church was never, in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, a "Reformed" Church, simply 
 because it had not become corrupted, and did not stand 
 
 "Religion brought forth wealth, and the daughter devoured the 
 mother;" and another of like meaning, hut less known — "When 
 the bishops' croziers became golden, the bishops themselves became 
 wooden." 
 
THE VAVDOIS " UNREFORMEB." 387 
 
 in need of "reformation." It was not the Vaudois 
 who left the Church, but the Roman Church that left 
 them in search of idols. Adhering to their primitive 
 faith, they never recognised the paramount authority 
 of the Pope ; they, never worshipped images, nor used 
 incense, nor observed Mass ; and when, in the course 
 of time, these corruptions became known to them, and 
 they found that the Western Church had ceased to be 
 Catholic, and become merely Roman, they openly 
 separated from it, as being no longer in conformity 
 with the principles of the Gospel as inculcated in the 
 Bible and delivered to them by their fathers. Their 
 ancient manuscripts, still extant, attest to the purity of 
 their doctrines. They are written, like the Nobla 
 Leycon, in the Romance or Provencal — the earliest of 
 the modern classical languages, the language of the 
 troubadours — though now only spoken as a patois in 
 Dauphiny, Piedmont, Sardinia, the north of Spain, and 
 the Balearic Isles.* 
 
 If the age counts for anything, the Yaudois are 
 justified in their claim to be considered one of the 
 oldest churches in Europe. Long before the conquest 
 of England by the Normans, before the time of Wallace 
 and Bruce in Scotland, before England had planted its 
 foot in Ireland, the Vaudois Church existed. Their 
 remoteness, their poverty, and their comparative un- 
 importance as a people, for a long time protected them 
 from interference; and for centuries they remained 
 unnoticed by Rome. But as the Western Church ex- 
 tended its power, it became insatiable for uniformity. 
 It would not tolerate the independence which charac- 
 terized the early churches, but aimed at subjecting 
 them to the exclusive authority of Rome. 
 
 * Sismondi, " Litterature du Midi de l'Europe," i. 159. 
 
3 S8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 The Vaudois, however, persisted in repudiating the 
 doctrines and formularies of the Pope. When argu- 
 ment failed, the Church called the secular arm to its 
 aid, and then hegan a series of persecutions, extending 
 over several centuries, which, for hrutality and ferocity, 
 are prohahly unexampled in history. To crush this 
 unoffending but faithful people, Rome employed her 
 most irrefragable arguments — the curses of Lucius and 
 the horrible cruelties of Innocent — and the " Vicar of 
 Christ " bathed the banner of the Cross in a carnage 
 from which the wolves of Romulus and the eagles of 
 Csesar would have turned with loathing. 
 
 Long before the period of the Reformation, the 
 Vaudois valleys were ravaged by fire and sword because 
 of the alleged heresy of the people. Luther was not 
 born until 1483 ; whereas nearly four centuries before, 
 the Vaudois were stigmatized as heretics by Rome. 
 As early as 1096, we find Pope Urban II. describing 
 Val Louise, one of the Dauphiny valleys — then 
 called Vallis Gyrontana, from the torrent of Gyr, 
 which flows through it — as "infested with heresy." 
 In 1179, hot persecution raged all over Dauphiny, 
 extending to the Albigeois of the South of France, 
 as far as Lyons and Toulouse ; one of the first martyrs 
 being Pierre "Waldo, or Waldensis,* of Lyons, who 
 was executed for heresy by the Archbishop of Lyons 
 in 1180. 
 
 Of one of the early persecutions, an ancient writer 
 says : " In the year 1243, Pope Innocent II. ordered 
 the Bishop of Metz rigorously to prosecute the Vaudois, 
 especially because they read the sacred books in the 
 
 * It has been surmised by some writers that the "Waldenses derived 
 their name from this martyr; but being known as "heretics" long 
 before his time, it is more probable that they gave the name to him 
 than that he did to them. 
 
THE EARLY PERSECUTIONS. 389 
 
 vulgar tongue."* From time to time, new persecu- 
 tions were ordered, and conducted with ever-increasing 
 ferocity — the scourge, the brand, and the sword being 
 employed by turns. In 1486, while Luther was still 
 in his cradle, Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull of 
 extermination against the Vaudois, summoning all 
 true Catholics to the holy crusade, promising free par- 
 don to all manner of criminals who should take part 
 in it, and concluding with the promise of the remission 
 of sins to every one who should slay a heretic. f The 
 consequence was, the assemblage of an immense horde 
 of brigands, who were let loose on the valleys of Dau- 
 phiny and Piedmont, which they ravaged and pillaged, 
 in company with eighteen thousand regular troops, 
 jointly furnished by the French king and the Duke of 
 Savoy. 
 
 Sometimes the valleys were under the authority of 
 the kings of France, sometimes under that of the dukes 
 of Savoy, whose armies alternately overran them ; but 
 change of masters and change of popes made little 
 difference to the Vaudois, It sometimes, however, 
 happened, that the persecution waxed hotter on one 
 side of the Cottian Alps, while it temporarily relaxed 
 on the other ; and on such occasions the French and 
 Italian Vaudois were accustomed to cross the mountain 
 passes, and take refuge in each others' valleys. But 
 when, as in the above case, the kings, soldiers, and 
 brigands, on both sides, simultaneously plied the brand 
 and the sword, the times were very troublous indeed 
 for these poor hunted people. They had then no 
 alternative but to climb up the mountains into the 
 
 * Jean Leger, " Histoire Generate des Eglises Evangeliques des 
 Viillees de Piedmont, ou Vaudoises." Leyde, 1669. Part ii. 330. 
 t Leger, ii. 8-20. 
 
390 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 least accessible places, or hide themselves away in dens 
 and caverns with their families, until their enemies' had 
 departed. But they were often tracked to their hiding- 
 places by their persecutors, and suffocated, strangled, 
 or shot — men, women, and children. Hence there is 
 scarcely a hiding-place along the mountain-sides of 
 Dauphiny but has some tradition connected with it re- 
 lating to these dreadful times. In one, so many women 
 and children were suffocated; in another, so many 
 perished of cold and hunger ; in a third, so many were 
 ruthlessly put to the sword. If these caves of Dauphiny 
 had voices, what deeds of horror they could tell ! 
 
 "What is known as the Easter massacre of 1655 made 
 an unusual sensation in Europe, but especially in 
 England, principally through the attitude which Oliver 
 Cromwell assumed in the matter. Persecution had 
 followed persecution for nearly four hundred years, and 
 still the Vaudois were neither converted nor extirpated. 
 The dukes of Savoy during all that time pursued a 
 uniform course of treachery and cruelty towards this 
 portion of their subjects. Sometimes the Vaudois, 
 pressed by their persecutors, turned upon them, and 
 drove them ignominiously out of their valleys. Then 
 the reigning dukes would refrain for a time; and, 
 probably needing their help in one or other of the wars 
 in which they were constantly engaged, would promise 
 them protection and privileges. But such promises 
 were invariably broken ; and at some moment when the 
 Vaudois were thrown off their guard by his pretended 
 graciousness, the duke for the time being would 
 suddenly pounce upon them and carry fire and sword 
 through their valleys. 
 
 Indeed, the dukes of Savoy seem to have been about 
 
CELEBRATION OF EASTER, :65s- 39* 
 
 the most wrong-headed line of despots that ever 
 cursed a people by their rule. Their mania was 
 soldiering, though they were oftener beaten than 
 victorious. They were thrashed out of Dauphiny by 
 France, thrashed out of Geneva by the citizens, thrashed 
 out of the valleys by their own peasantry ; and still 
 they went on raising armies, making war, and massa- 
 cring their Vaudois subjects. Being devoted servants 
 of the Pope, in 1655 they concurred with him in the 
 establishment of a branch of the society JDe Propaganda 
 Fide at Turin, which extended over the whole of Pied- 
 mont, for the avowed purpose of extirpating the 
 heretics. On Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy 
 "Week, the society commenced active proceedings. The 
 army of Savoy advanced suddenly upon La Tour, and 
 were let loose upon the people. A general massacre 
 began, accompanied with shocking brutalities, and con- 
 tinued for more than a week. In many hamlets not a 
 cottage was left standing, and such of the people as had 
 not been able to fly into the upper valleys were in- 
 discriminately put to the sword. And thus was Easter 
 celebrated. 
 
 The noise of this dreadful deed rang through Europe, 
 and excited a general feeling of horror, especially in 
 England. Cromwell, then at the height of his power, 
 offered the fugitive Vaudois an asylum in Ireland ; but 
 the distance which lay between was too great, and tht 
 Vaudois asked him to help them in some other way. 
 Forthwith, he addressed letters, written by his secre- 
 tary, John Milton,* to the principal European powers, 
 calling upon them to join him in putting a stop to these 
 
 • It was at this time that Milton wrote his noble sonnet, begin- 
 ning — 
 
 *' Avenge, Lord , Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold," &c. 
 
392 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 horrid barbarities committed -upon an unoffending people. 
 Cromwell did more. He-sent »the exiles £2,000 out of 
 his own purse ; appointed a day of humiliation and a 
 general collection all over England, by which some 
 £38,000 were raised; and dispatched Sir Samuel 
 Morland as his plenipotentiary to expostulate in person 
 with the Duke of Savoy. Moreover, a treaty was on 
 the eve of being signed with France ; and Cromwell 
 refused to complete it until Cardinal Mazarin had 
 undertaken to assist him in getting right done to the 
 people of the valleys. 
 
 These energetic measures had their effect. The 
 Vaudois who survived the massacre were permitted to 
 return to their devastated homes, under the terms of 
 the treaty known as the "Patents of Grace," which 
 was only observed, however, so long as Cromwell lived. 
 At the Restoration, Charles II. seized the public fund 
 collected for the relief of the Vaudois, and refused to 
 remit the annuity arising from the interest thereon 
 which Cromwell had assigned to them, declaring that 
 he would not pay the debts of a usurper ! 
 
 After that time, the interest felt in the Vaudois was 
 very much of a traditional character. Little was known 
 as to their actual condition, or whether the descendants 
 of the primitive Vaudois Church continued to exist or 
 not. Though English travellers — amongst others, 
 Addison, Smollett, and Sterne — passed through the 
 country in the course of last century, they took no 
 note of the people of the valleys. And this state of 
 general ignorance as to the district continued down to 
 within about the last fifty years, when quite a new 
 interest was imparted to the subject through the 
 labours and researches of the late Dr. Gilly, Prebendary 
 of Durham. 
 
DR. GILLY. 393 
 
 It happened that that gentleman was present at a 
 meeting of the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
 ledge, in the year 1820, when a very touching letter 
 was read to the board, signed "Frederick Peyrani, 
 minister of Pramol," requesting the assistance of the 
 society in supplying books to the Vaudois churches of 
 Piedmont, who were described as maintaining a very 
 hard struggle with poverty and oppression. Dr. Grilly 
 was greatly interested by the reading of this letter. 
 Indeed/ the subject of it so strongly arrested his atten- 
 tion, that he says it " took complete possession of him." 
 He proceeded to make search for information about the 
 Vaudois, but could find very little that was definite or 
 satisfactory respecting them. Then it was that he 
 formed the determination of visiting the valleys and 
 ascertaining the actual condition of the people in 
 person. 
 
 His visit was made in 1823, and in the course 
 of the following year Dr. Grilly published the result 
 in his " Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains 
 of Piedmont." The book excited much interest, not 
 only in England, but in other countries ; and a move- 
 ment was shortly -after set on foot for the relief and 
 assistance of the Vaudois. A committee was formed, 
 and a fund was raised — to which the Emperor of Russia 
 and the Kings of Prussia and Holland contributed — 
 with the object, in the first place, of erecting a hospital 
 for the sick and infirm Vaudois at La Tour, in the 
 valley of Luzern. It turned out that the money raised 
 was not only sufficient for this purpose, but also to 
 provide schools and a college for the education of 
 pastors, which were shortly after erected at the same 
 place. 
 
 In 1829, Dr. Gilly made a second visit to the Pied- 
 
39+ THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 montese valleys, partly in order to ascertain how far 
 the aid thus rendered to the poor Vaudois had proved 
 effectual, and also to judge in what way certain further 
 sums placed at his disposal might best be employed for 
 their benefit.* It was in the course of his second visit 
 that Dr. Gilly became aware of the fact that the 
 Vaudois were not confined to the valleys of Piedmont, 
 but that numerous traces of them were also to be found 
 on the French side of the Alps, in Dauphiny and Pro- 
 vence. He accordingly extended his journey across 
 the Col de la Croix into France, and cursorily visited 
 the old Yaudois district of Val Fressiniere and Val 
 Queyras, of which an account will be given in the 
 following chapters. It was while on this journey that 
 Dr. Gilly became acquainted with the self-denying 
 labours of the good Felix Neff among those poor out- 
 lying Christians, with whose life and character he was 
 so fascinated that he afterwards wrote and published 
 the memoir of Neff, so well known to English readers. 
 Since that time occasional efforts have been made in 
 aid of the French Yaudois, though those on the Italian 
 side have heretofore commanded by far the larger share 
 of interest. There have been several reasons for this. 
 In the first place, the French valleys are much less 
 accessible ; the roads through some of the most interest- 
 ing valleys are so bad that they can only be travelled 
 on foot, being scarcely practicable even for mules. 
 There is no good hotel accommodation in the district, 
 only auberges, and these of an indifferent character. 
 The people are also more scattered, and even poorer 
 than they are on the Italian side of the Alps. Then 
 the climate is much more severe, from the greater eleva- 
 
 • Dr. Gtllj-'s narrative of his second visit to the valleys was pub- 
 lished in 1831, under the title of " Waldcnsian Researches." 
 
INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL EXAMPLE. 395 
 
 tion of the sites of most of the Vaudois villages ; so 
 that when pastors were induced to settle there, the 
 coldj and sterility, and want of domestic accommoda- 
 tion, soon drove them away. It was to the rigour of 
 the climate that Felix Neff was eventually compelled 
 to succumb. 
 
 Yet much has been done of late years for the ameli- 
 oration of the French Vaudois ; and among the most 
 zealous workers in their behalf have been the Rev. Mr. 
 Freemantle, rector of Claydon, Bucks, and Mr. Edward 
 Milsom, the well-known merchant of Lyons. It was 
 in the year 1851 that the Rev. Mr. Freemantle first 
 visited the Vaudois of Dauphiny. His attention was 
 drawn to the subject while editing the memoir of a 
 young English clergyman, the Rev. Spencer Thornton, 
 who had taken Felix Neff for his model ; and he was 
 thereby induced to visit the scene of Neff's labours, 
 and to institute a movement on behalf of the people of 
 the French valleys, which has issued in the erection of 
 schools, churches, and pastors' dwellings in several of 
 the most destitute places. 
 
 It is curious and interesting to trace the influence of 
 personal example on human life and action. As the 
 example of Oberlin in the Ban de la Roche inspired 
 Felix Neff to action, so the life of Felix Neff inspired 
 that of Spencer Thornton, and eventually led Mr. 
 Freemantle to enter upon the work of extending 
 evangelization among the Vaudois. In like manner, a 
 young French pastor, M. Bost, also influenced by the 
 life and labours of Neff, visited the valleys some years 
 Bince, and wrote a book on the subject, the perusal of 
 which induced Mr. Milsom to lend a hand to the work 
 which the young Genevese missionary had begun. 
 And thus good example goes on ever propagating 
 
396 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 itself; and though, the tombstone may record "Hie 
 jacet" over the crumbling dust of the departed, his 
 spirit still lives and works through other minds — 
 stimulates them to action, and inspires them with 
 hope — "allures to brighter worlds, and leads the 
 way." 
 
 A few words as to the origin of these fragmentary 
 papers. In chalking out a summer holiday trip, one 
 likes to get quite away from the ordinary round of 
 daily life and business. Half the benefits of such a trip 
 consists in getting out of the old ruts, and breathing 
 fresh air amidst new surroundings. But this is very 
 difficult if you follow the ordinary tourist's track. 
 London goes with you and elbows you on your way, 
 accompanied by swarms of commissionaires, guides, 
 and beggars. You encounter London people on the 
 Righi, on the Wengern Alp, and especially at Chamouni. 
 Think of being asked, as I once was on entering the 
 Pavilion at Montanvert, after crossing the Mer de 
 Glace from the Mauvais Pas, " Pray, can you tell me 
 what was the price of Brighton stock when you left 
 town P" 
 
 There is no risk of such rencontres in Dauphiny, 
 whose valleys remain in almost as primitive a state as 
 they were hundreds of years ago. Accordingly, when 
 my friend Mr. Milsom, above mentioned, invited me to 
 accompany him in one of his periodical visits to the 
 country of the Vaudois, I embraced the opportunity 
 with pleasure. I was cautioned beforehand as to the 
 inferior accommodation provided for travellers through 
 the district. Tourists being unknown there, the route 
 is not padded and cushioned as it is on all the beaten 
 continental rounds. English is not spoken ; Bass's 
 
TOUR IN FRANCE. 397 
 
 pale ale has not yet penetrated into Dauphiny ; nor do 
 you encounter London tourists carrying their tin baths 
 about with them as you do in Switzerland. Only an 
 occasional negotiant conies up from Gap or Grenoble, 
 seeking orders in the villages, for whom the ordinary 
 auberges suffice. 
 
 Where the roads are practicable, an old-fashioned 
 diligence may occasionally be seen plodding along, 
 freighted with villagers bound for some local market ; 
 but the roads are, for the most part, as silent as the 
 desert. 
 
 Such being the case, the traveller in the valleys must 
 be prepared to " rough it" a little. I was directed to 
 bring with me only a light knapsack, a pair of stout 
 hob-nailed shoes, a large stock of patience, and a small 
 parcel of insect powder. The knapsack and the shoes 
 I found exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable ; but 
 I had very little occasion to draw upon either my 
 stock of patience or insect powder. The French are 
 a tidy people, and though their beds, stuffed with 
 maize chaff, may be hard, they are tolerably clean. 
 The food provided in the auberges is doubtless very 
 different from what one is accustomed to at home ; but 
 with the help of cheerfulness and a good digestion 
 that difficulty too may be got over. 
 
 Indeed, among the things that most strikes a tra- 
 veller through France, as characteristic of the people, 
 is the skill with which persons of even the poorest 
 classes prepare and serve up food. The French women 
 are careful economists and excellent cooks. Nothing is 
 wasted. The pot au feu is always kept simmering on 
 the hob, and, with the help of a hunch of bread, a good 
 meal may at any time be made from it. Even in the 
 humblest auberge, in the least frequented district, the 
 
398 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 dinner served up is of a quality such as can very rarely 
 be had in any English public-house, or even in most 
 of our country inns. Cooking seems to be one of the 
 lost arts of England, if indeed it ever possessed it; 
 and our people are in the habit, through want of 
 knowledge, of probably wasting more food than would 
 sustain many another nation. But in the great system 
 of National Education that is to be, no one dreams of 
 including as a branch of it skill in the preparation and 
 economy in the use of human food. 
 
 There is another thing that the traveller through 
 France may always depend upon, and that is civility. 
 The politeness of even the French poor to each other is 
 charming. They respect themselves, and they respect 
 each other. I have seen in France what I have not 
 yet seen in England — young working men walking out 
 their aged mothers arm in arm in the evening, to hear 
 the band play in the " Place," or to take a turn on the 
 public promenade. But the French are equally polite 
 to strangers. A stranger lady may travel all through 
 the rural districts of France, and never encounter a rude 
 look ; a stranger gentleman, and never receive a rude 
 word. That the French are a self-respecting people 
 is also evinced by the fact that they are a sober 
 people. Drunkenness is scarcely known in France; 
 and one may travel all through it and never witness 
 the degrading sight of a drunken man. 
 
 The French are also honest and thrifty, and exceed- 
 ingly hard-working. The industry of the people is 
 unceasing. Indeed it is excessive; for they work 
 Sunday and Saturday. Sunday has long ceased to be 
 a Sabbath in France. There is no day of rest there. 
 Before the Revolution, the saints' days which the 
 Church ordered to be observed so encroached upon the 
 
FRENCH SUNDAY WORK. 399 
 
 hours required for labour, that in course of time Sunday 
 became an ordinary working day. And when the 
 Revolution abolished saints' days and Sabbath days 
 alike, Sunday work became an established practice. 
 
 What the so-called friends of the working classes are 
 aiming at in England, has already been effected in 
 France. The public museums and picture-galleries are 
 open on Sunday. But you look for the working people 
 there in Tain. They are at work in the factories, whose 
 chimneys are smoking as usual ; or building houses, or 
 working in the fields, or they are engaged in the various 
 departments of labour. The government works all go 
 on as usual on Sundays. The railway trains run pre- 
 cisely as on week days. In short, the Sunday is 
 secularised, or regarded but as a partial holiday.* 
 
 As you pass through the country on Sundays, as 
 on week-days, you see the people toiling in the fields. 
 And as dusk draws on, the dark figures may be. seen 
 
 * I find the following under the signature of "An Operative 
 Bricklayer," in the Times of the 30th July, 1867: "I found there 
 were a great number of men in Paris that worked on the buildings 
 who were not residents of the city. The bricklayers are called 
 linwusim; they come from the old province Le Limousin, where they 
 keep their home, and many of them are landowners. They work in 
 Paris in the summer time ; they come up in large numbers, hire a 
 place in Paris, and live together, and by so doing they live cheap. 
 In the winter time, when they cannot work on the buildings, they go 
 back home again and take their savings, and stop there until the spring, 
 which is far better than it is in London ; when the men cannot work 
 they are hanging about the streets. It was with regret that I saw so 
 many working on the Sunday desecrating the Sabbath. I inquired 
 why they worked on Sunday ; they told me it was to make up the 
 time they lose through wet and other causes. I saw some working 
 with only their trousers and shoes on, with a belt round their waist to 
 keep their trousers up. Their naked back was exposed to the sun, 
 and was as brown as if it had been dyed, and shone as if it had been 
 varnished. I asked if they had any hard-working hearty old men. 
 They answered me " No ; the men were completely worn out by the 
 time they reached forty years." That was a clear proof that they 
 work against the laws of nature. I thought to myself — Glory be to 
 you, Englishmen, you know the Fourth Commandment ; you know 
 the value of the seventh day, the day of rest I " 
 
400 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 moving about so long as there is light to see by. It ia 
 the peasants working the land, and it is their own. 
 Such is the "magical influence of property," said 
 Arthur Young, when he observed the same thing. 
 
 It is to be feared, however, that the French peasantry 
 are afflicted with the disease which Sir "Walter Scott 
 called the "earth-hunger;" and there is danger of the 
 gravel getting into their souls. Anyhow, their con- 
 tinuous devotion to bodily labour, without a seventh 
 day's rest, cannot fail to exercise a deteriorating effect 
 upon their physical as well as their moral condition ; 
 and this we believe it is which gives to the men, and 
 especially to the women of the country, the look of a 
 prematurely old and overworked race. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE KOMANCHff— BKIANCON. 
 
 THE route from Grenoble to the frontier fortress of 
 Briancon lies for the most part up the valley of 
 the Romanche, which presents a variety of ■wild and 
 beautiful scenery. In summer the river is confined 
 within comparatively narrow limits ; but in autumn and 
 spring it is often a furious torrent, flooding the low- 
 lying lands, and forcing for itself new channels. The 
 mountain heights which bound it, being composed for 
 the most part of schist, mica slate, and talcose slate, 
 large masses become detached in winter — split off by 
 the freezing of the water behind them — when they 
 descend, on the coming of thaw, in terrible avalanches 
 of stone and mud. Sometimes the masses are such as 
 to dam up the river and form temporary lakes, until 
 the accumulation of force behind bursts 'the barrier, 
 and a furious flood rushes down the valley. By one 
 of such floods, which occurred a few centuries since, 
 through the bursting of the lake of St. Laurent in the 
 valley of the Romanche, a large part of Grenoble 
 was swept away, and many of the inhabitants were 
 drowned. 
 
 The valley of the Romanche is no sooner entered, a 
 few miles above Grenoble, than the mountains begin 
 
 D D 
 
+02 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 to close, the scenery becomes wilder, and the fury of 
 the torrent is evinced by the masses of debris strewed 
 along its bed. Shortly after passing the picturesque 
 defile called L'Etroit, where the river rushes through 
 a deep cleft in the rocks, the valley opens out again, 
 and we shortly come in sight of the ancient town 
 of Vizille — the most prominent building in which is 
 the chateau of the famous Due de Lesdiguieres, gover- 
 nor of the province in the reign of Henry IV., and 
 Constable of France in that of Louis XIII. 
 
 Wherever you go in Dauphiny, you come upon the 
 footmarks of this great soldier. At Grenoble there is 
 the Constable's palace, now the Prefecture ; and the 
 beautiful grounds adjoining it, laid out by himself, are 
 now the public gardens of the town. Between Grenoble 
 and Vizille there is the old road constructed by him, 
 still known as " Le chemin du Conn^table." At St. 
 Bonnet, in the valley of the Drac, formerly- an almost 
 exclusively Protestant town, known as " the Geneva of 
 the High Alps," you are shown the house in which 
 the Constable was born ; and a little lower down the 
 same valley, in the commune of Glaizil, on a hill over- 
 looking the Drac, stand the ruins of the family castle, 
 where the Constable was buried. The people of the 
 commune were in the practice of carrying away the 
 bones from the family vault, believing them to possess 
 some virtue as relics, until the prefect of the High 
 Alps ordered it to be walled up to prevent the entire 
 removal of the skeletons. 
 
 In the early part of his career, Lesdiguieres was one 
 of the most trusted chiefs of Henry of Navarre, often 
 leading his Huguenot soldiers to victory ; capturing 
 town after town, and eventually securing possession of 
 
DUC DE LESDIGUIERES. 403 
 
 the entire province of Dauphiny, of which Henry ap- 
 pointed him governor. In that capacity he carried 
 out many important public works — made roads, built 
 bridges, erected fourteen fortresses, and enlarged and 
 beautified his palace at Grenoble and his chateau at 
 Vizille. He enjoyed great popularity during his life, 
 and was known throughout his province as " King of 
 the Mountains." But he did not continue staunch 
 either to his party or his faith. As in the case of many 
 of the aristocratic leaders of those times, Lesdiguieres' 
 religion was only skin deep. It was but a party 
 emblem — a flag to fight under, not a faith to live by. 
 So, when ambition tempted him, and the Constable's 
 baton dangled before his eyes, it cost the old soldier 
 but little compunction to abandon the cause which he 
 had so brilliantly served in his youtb. To secure the 
 prize which he so coveted, he made public abjuration of 
 his faith in the church of St. Andrew's at Grenoble in 
 1622, in the presence of the Marquis de Crequi, the 
 minister of Louis XIII., who, immediately after Lesdi- 
 guieres' first mass, presented him with the Constable's 
 baton. 
 
 But the Lesdiguieres family has long since passed 
 away, and left no traces. At the Revolution, the 
 Constable's tomb was burst open, and his coffin torn up. 
 TTjh monument was afterwards removed to Gap, which, 
 when a Huguenot, he had stormed and ravaged. His 
 chateau at Vizille passed through different hands, until 
 in 1775 it came into the possession of the Perier family, 
 to which tbe celebrated Casimir Perier belonged. The 
 great Gothic hall of the chateau has witnessed many 
 strange scenes. In 1623, shortly after his investment 
 as Constable, Lesdiguieres entertained Louis XIII. and 
 his court there, while on his journey into Italy, in tho 
 
4°4 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 course of which he so grievously ravaged the Vaudois 
 villages. In 1788, the Estates of Dauphiny met there, 
 and prepared the first bold remonstrance against 
 aristocratic privileges, and in favour of popular repre- 
 sentation, which, in a measure, proved the commence- 
 ment of the great Revolution. And there too, in 1822, 
 Felix Neff preached to large congregations, who were 
 so anxious and attentive that he always after spoke of 
 the place as his " dear Vizille ; " and now, to wind up 
 the vicissitudes of the great hall, it is used as a place 
 for the printing of Bandana handkerchiefs ! 
 
 When Neff made his flying visits to Vizille, he was 
 temporarily stationed at Mens, which was the scene of 
 his first labours in Dauphiny. The place lies not far 
 from Vizille, away among the mountains towards the 
 south. During the wars of religion, and more especially' 
 after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Mens 
 became a place of refuge for the Protestants, who still 
 form about one-half of its population. Although, 
 during the long dark period of religious persecution 
 which followed the Revocation, the Protestants of Mens 
 and the neighbouring villages did not dare to show 
 themselves, and worshipped, if at all, only in their 
 dwellings, in secret, or in " the Desert," no sooner did 
 the Revolution set them at liberty than they formed 
 themselves again into churches, and appointed pastors ; 
 and it was to serve them temporarily in that capacity 
 that Felix Hen 7 first went amongst them, and laboured 
 there and at Vizille with such good effect. 
 
 Not far from Mens is a place which has made much 
 more noise in the world- 1 — no other than La Salette, the 
 scene of the latest Roman "miracle." La Salette is 
 
LA SALETTE. 4°5 
 
 one of the side- valleys of the large valley of the. Drac, 
 which joins the Romanclie a few miles above Grenoble. 
 There is no village of La Salette, but a commune, 
 which is somewhat appropriately called La Salette- 
 Fallavaux, the latter word being from fallax vallte, or 
 " the lying valley." 
 
 About twenty- seven years ago, on the 19th of 
 September, 1846, two children belonging to the hamlet 
 of Abladens — the one a girl of fourteen, the other a boy 
 of twelve years old — came dowA from the lofty pasturage 
 of Mont Gargas, where they had been herding cattle, 
 and told the following strange story, They had seen 
 the Virgin Mary descend from heaven with a crucifix 
 suspended from her neck by a gold chain, and a ham- 
 mer and pincers suspended from the chain, but without 
 any visible support. The figure sat down upon a large 
 stone, and wept so piteously as shortly to fill a large 
 pool with her tears. 
 
 When the story was noised abroad, people came 
 from all quarters, and went up the mountain to see 
 where the Virgin had sat. The stone was soon broken 
 off in chips and carried away as relics, but the fountain 
 filled with the tears is still there, tasting very much 
 like ordinary spring water. 
 
 Two priests of Grenoble, disgusted at what they 
 believed to be an imposition, accused a young person 
 of the neighbourhood, one Mdlle. de Lamerliere, 
 as being the real author of the pretended miracle, on 
 which she commenced an action against them for 
 defamation of character. She brought the celebrated 
 advocate Jules Favre from Paris to plead her cause, 
 but the verdict was given in favour of the two priests. 
 The " miracle " was an imposture ! 
 
 Notwithstanding this circumstance, the miracle came 
 
406 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAVD01S. 
 
 to be generally believed in the neighbourhood. The 
 number of persons who resorted to the place with money 
 in their pockets steadily increased. The question was 
 then taken up by the local priests, who vouched for 
 the authenticity of the miracle seen by the two children. 
 The miracle was next accepted by Rome.* A church 
 was built on the spot by means of the contributions of 
 the visitors — L'Eglise de la Salette — and thither 
 pilgrims annually resort in great numbers, the more 
 devout climbing the hill, from station to station, on 
 their knees. As many as four thousand persons of both 
 sexes, and of various ages, have been known to climb, 
 the hill in one day — on the anniversary of the appear- 
 ance of the apparition — notwithstanding the extreme 
 steepness and difficulties -of the ascent. 
 
 As a pendant to this story, another may be given of 
 an entirely different character, relating to the inhabit- 
 ants of another commune in the same valley, about 
 midway between La Salette and Grenoble. In 1860, 
 while the discussion about the miracle at La Salette was 
 still in progress, the inhabitants of Nbtre-Dame-de- . 
 
 * An authorised account was prepared by Cardinal Wiseman for 
 English readers, entitled " Manual of the Association of our Lady of 
 Reconciliation of La Salette," and published as a tract by Burns, 17, 
 Fortman Street, in 1853. Since I passed through the country in 
 1869, the Germans have invaded France, the surrender has occurred 
 at Sedan, the Commune has been defeated at Faris, but Our Lady 
 of La Salette is greater than ever. A temple of enormous dimensions 
 has risen in her honour ; the pilgrims number over 100,000 yearly, 
 and the sale of the water from the Holy 'Well, said to have sprang 
 from the Virgin's tears, realises more than £12,000. Since the 
 success of La Salette, the Virgin has been making repeated appear- 
 ances in France. Her last appearance was in a part of Alsace which 
 is strictly Catholic. The Virgin appeared, as usual, to a boy of the 
 mature age of six, " dressed in black, floating in the air, her hands 
 bound with chains," — a pretty strong religio-political hint. When 
 a party of the 5th Bavarian Cavalry was posted in Bet tweiler, the 
 Virgin ceased to make her appearance. 
 
PROTESTANTISM AT COMIERS. 407 
 
 Couriers, dissatisfied with the conduct of their cur£, 
 invited M. Fermaud, pastor of the Protestant church at 
 Grenoble, to come over and preach to them, as they 
 were desirous of embracing Protestantism. The pastor, 
 supposing that they were influenced by merely tempo- 
 rary irritation against their cur£, cautioned the deputa- 
 tion that waited upon him as to the gravity of their 
 decision in such a matter, and asked them to reflect 
 further upon it. 
 
 For several years M. Fermaud continued to maintain 
 the same attitude, until, in 1865, a formal petition 
 was delivered to him by the mayor of the place, signed 
 by forty-three heads of families, and by nine out of the 
 ten members of the council of the commune, urging 
 him to send them over a minister of the evangelical 
 religion. Even then he hesitated, and recommended 
 the memorialists to appeal to the bishop of the diocese 
 for redress of the wrongs of which he knew they com- 
 plained, but in vain, until at length, in the beginning of 
 1868, with the sanction of the consistory of Grenoble 
 a minister was sent over to Comiers to perform the first 
 acts of Protestant worship, including baptism and 
 marriage ; and it was not until October in the same 
 year that Pastor Fermaud himself went thither -to 
 administer the sacrament to the new church. 
 
 The service was conducted in the public hall of the 
 commune, and was attended by a large number of per- 
 sons belonging to the town and neighbourhood. The 
 local clergy tried in vain to check the movement. 
 Quite recently, when the cure entered one of the schools 
 to inscribe the names of the children who were to 
 attend their first mass, out of fifteen of the proper age 
 eleven answered to the interrogatory of the priest, 
 "Monsieur, nous sommes Protestantes." The move- 
 
408 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 ment has also extended into the neighbouring* com- 
 munes, helped by the zeal of the new converts, one of 
 whom is known in the neighbourhood as "Pere la 
 Bible," and it is possible that before long it may even 
 extend to La Salette itself. 
 
 The route from Vizille up the valley of the Romanche 
 continues hemmed in by rugged mountains, in some 
 places almost overhanging the river. At Sechilienne 
 it opens out sufficiently to afford space for a terraced 
 garden, amidst which stands a handsome chateau, 
 flanked by two massive towers, commanding a beautiful 
 prospect down the valley. The abundant water which 
 rushes down from the mountain behind is partly col- 
 lected in a reservoir, and employed to feed a jet d'eau 
 which rises in a lofty column under the castle windows. 
 Further up, the valley again contracts, until the Gorge 
 de Loiret is passed. The road then crosses to the left 
 bank, and used to be continued along it, but the terrible 
 torrent of 1868 washed it away for miles, and it 
 has not yet been reconstructed. Temporary bridges 
 enable the route to be pursued by the old road on the 
 right bank, and after passing through several hamlets 
 of little interest, we arrive at length at the cultivated 
 plain hemmed in by lofty mountains, in the midst of 
 which Bourg d'Oisans lies seated. 
 
 This little plain was formerly occupied by the lake 
 of St. Laurent, formed by the barrier of rocks and 
 debris which had tumbled down from the flank of the 
 Petite Voudene, a precipitous mountain escarpment 
 overhanging the river. At this place, the strata are 
 laid completely bare, and may be read like a book. 
 For some distance along the valley they exhibit the 
 most extraordinary contortions and dislocations, im- 
 
BOURG D'OISANS. 409 
 
 pressing the mind with the enormous natural forces 
 that must have been at work to occasion such tremen- 
 dous upheavings and disruptions. ■ Elie de Beaumont, 
 the French geologist, who has carefully examined the 
 district, says that at the Montague d'Oisans he found 
 the granite in some places resting upon the limestone, 
 cutting through the Calcareous beds, rising like a wall 
 and lapping over them. 
 
 On arriving at Bourg d'Oisans, we put up at the 
 Hdtel de Milan close by the bridge ; but though digni- 
 fied with the name of hotel, it is only a common road- 
 side inn. Still, it is tolerably clean, and in summer the 
 want of carpets is not missed. The people were civil 
 and attentive, their bread wholesome, their pottage and 
 bouilli good — being such fare as the people of the 
 locality contrive to live and thrive upon. The accom- 
 modation of the place is, indeed, quite- equal to the 
 demand ; for very few travellers accustomed to a better 
 style of living pass that way. When the landlady was 
 asked if many tourists had passed this year, she replied, 
 " Tourists ! We rarely see such travellers here. You 
 are the first this season, and perhaps you may be the 
 last." 
 
 Yet these valleys are well worthy of a visit, and an 
 influx of tourists would doubtless have the same effect 
 that it has already had in Switzerland and elsewhere, 
 of greatly improving the hotel accommodation through- 
 out the district. There are many domestic arrange- 
 ments, costing very little money, but greatly ministering 
 to cleanliness and comfort, which might very readily be 
 provided. But the people themselves are indifferent to 
 them, and they need the requisite stimulus of " pressure 
 from without." One of the most prominent defects — 
 common to all the inns of Danphiny — having been 
 
4-ro THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 brought under the notice of the landlady, she replied, 
 " C'est vrai, monsieur ; mais — il laisse quelque chose a 
 desirer ! " How neatly evaded ! The very defect was 
 itself an advantage ! What would life he — what would 
 hotels be — if there were not "something left to be 
 desired ! " 
 
 The view from the inn at the bridge is really charm- 
 ing. The little river which runs down the valley, and 
 becomes lost in the distance, is finally fringed with trees 
 — alder, birch, and chestnut. Ridge upon ridge of 
 mountain rises up behind on the right hand and the 
 left, the lower clothed with patches of green larch, and 
 the upper with dark pine. Above all are ranges of 
 jagged and grey rocks, shooting up in many places into 
 lofty peaks. The setting sun, shining across the face of 
 ihe mountain opposite, brings out the prominent masses 
 in bold relief, while the valley beneath hovers between 
 light and shadow, changing almost from one second to 
 another as the sun goes down. In the cool of the 
 evening, we walked through the fields across the plain, 
 to see the torrent, visible from the village, which rushes 
 from the rocky gorge on the mountain-side to join its 
 waters to the Romanche. All along the valleys, water 
 abounds — sometimes bounding from the heights, in 
 jets, in rivulets, in masses, leaping from rock to rock, 
 and reaching the ground only in white clouds of spray, ' 
 or, as in the case of the little river which flows along- 
 side the inn at the bridge, bursting directly from the 
 ground in a continuous spring ; these waterfalls, and 
 streams, and springs being fed all the year through by 
 the immense glaciers that fill the hollows of the moun- 
 tains on either side the valley. 
 
 Though the scenery of Bourg d'Oisans is not, as its 
 eulogists allege, equal to that of Switzerland, it will at. 
 
GORGE OF FRENEY. 4 , , 
 
 least stand a comparison with that of Savoy. Its moun- 
 tains are more precipitous and abrupt, its peaks more 
 jagged, and its aspect more savage and wild. The 
 scenery of Mont Pelvoux, which is best approached 
 from Bourg d'Oisans, is especially grand and sublime, 
 though of a wild and desolate character. The road 
 from Bourg d'Oisans to Briancon also presents some 
 magnificent scenery ; and there is one part of it that is 
 not perhaps surpassed even by the famous Via Mala 
 leading up to the Spliigen. It is about three miles 
 above Bourg d'Oisans, from which we started early 
 next morning. There the road leaves the plain and 
 enters the wild gorge of Freney, climbing by a steep 
 road up the Rampe des Commieres. The view from 
 the height when gained is really superb, commanding 
 an extremely bold and picturesque valley, hemmed in 
 by mountains. The ledges on the hill- sides spread out 
 in some places so as to afford sufficient breadths for 
 cultivation ; occasional hamlets appear amidst the fields 
 and pine- woods ; and far up, between you and the sky, 
 an occasional church spire peeps up, indicating still 
 loftier settlements, though how the people contrive to 
 climb up to those heights is a wonder to the spectator 
 who views them from below. 
 
 The route follows the profile of the mountain, 
 winding in and out along its rugged face, scarped and 
 blasted so as to form the road. At one place it passes 
 along a gallery about six hundred feet in length, cut 
 through a precipitous rock overhanging the river, which 
 dashes, roaring and foaming, more than a thousand feet 
 below, through the rocky abyss of the Gorge de l'ln- 
 fernet. Perhaps there is nothing to be seen in Switzer- 
 land finer of its kind than the succession of charming 
 landscapes which meet the eye in descending this pass. 
 
41 z THE COUNTRY OF THE VAVDOIS. 
 
 Beyond the village of Freney we enter another defile, 
 so narrow that in places there is room only for the 
 river and the road ; and in winter the river sometimes 
 plays sad havoc with the engineer's constructions. 
 Above this gorge, the Romanche is joined by the 
 Ferrand, an impetuous torrent which comes down from 
 the glaciers of the Grand Rousses. Immediately over 
 their point of confluence, seated on a lofty promontory, 
 is the village of Mizoe'n — a place which, because of the 
 outlook it commands, as well as because of its natural 
 strength, was one of the places in which the Vaudois 
 were accustomed to take refuge in the times of the per- 
 secutions. Further on, we pass through another gallery 
 in the rock, then across the little green valley of Cham- 
 bon to Le Dauphin, after which the scenery becomes 
 wilder, the valley — here called the Combe de Malaval 
 (the "Cursed Valley ")-^-rocky and sterile, the only 
 feature to enliven it being the Cascade de la Fisse, 
 which falls from a height of over six hundred feet, first 
 in one jet, then becomes split by a projecting rock into 
 two, and finally reaches the ground in a shower of spray. 
 Shortly after we pass another cascade, that of the 
 Riftort, which also joins the Romanche, and marks the 
 boundary between the department of the Isere and that 
 of the Hautes Alpes, which we now enter. 
 
 More waterfalls — the Sau de la Pucelle, which falls 
 from a height of some two hundred and fifty feet, re- 
 sembling the Staubbach — besides rivulets without 
 number, running down the mountain-sides like silver 
 threads ; until we arrive at La Grave, a village about 
 five thousand feet above the sea-level, directly opposite 
 the grand glaciers of Tabuchet, Pacave, and Vallon, 
 which almost overhang the Romanche, descending from 
 the steep slopes of the gigantic Aiguille du Midi, the 
 
COL DE LAUTERET. 413 
 
 highest mountain in the French Alps, — being over 
 13,200 feet above the level of the sea. 
 
 After resting some two hours at La Grave, we pro- 
 ceeded by the two tunnels under the hamlet ol Vente- 
 long — one of which is 650 and the other 1,800 feet 
 long — to the village of Villard d'Arene, which, though 
 some five thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
 is so surrounded by lofty mountains that for months 
 together the sun never shines on it. From thence 
 a gradual ascent leads up to the summit of the Col 
 de Lauteret, which divides the valley of the Eo- 
 manche from that of the Guisanne. The pastures 
 along the mountain-side are of the richest verdure ; 
 and so many rare and beautiful plants are found 
 growing there that M. Rousillon has described it 
 as a " very botanical Eden." Here Jean Jacques Rous- 
 seau delighted to herborize, and here the celebrated 
 botanist Mathonnet, originally a customs officer, born 
 at the haggard village of Villard d'Arene, which we 
 have just passed, cultivated his taste for natural history, 
 and laid the foundations of his European reputation. 
 The variety . of temperature which exists along the 
 mountain-side, from the bottom to the summit, its ex- 
 posure to the full rays of the sun in some places, and 
 its sheltered aspect in others, facilitate the growth of 
 an extraordinary variety of beautiful plants and wild 
 flowers. In the low grounds meridianal plants flourish ; 
 on the middle slopes those of genial climates; while 
 on the summit are found specimens of the flora of Lap- 
 land and Greenland. Thus almost every variety of 
 flowers is represented in this brilliant natural garden — 
 orchids, cruciferae, leguminse, rosacese, caryophyllse, 
 lilies of various kinds, saxifrages, anemones, ranun- 
 culuses, swertia, primula, and varieties of the sedum, 
 
4H THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 some of which are peculiar to this mountain, and 
 are elsewhere unknown. 
 
 After passing the Hospice near the summit of the 
 Col, the valley of the Guisanne comes in sight, showing 
 a line of bare and rugged mountains on the right hand 
 and on the left, with a narrow strip of land in the 
 bottom, in many parts strewn with stones carried down 
 by the avalanches from the cliffs above. Shortly we 
 come in sight of the distant ramparts of Briancon, ap- 
 parently closing in the valley, the snow- clad peak of 
 Monte Viso rising in the distance. Halfway between 
 the Col and Briancon we pass through the village of 
 Monestier, where, being a saint's day, the bulk of the 
 population are in the street, holding festival. The 
 place was originally a Roman station, and the people 
 still give indications of their origin, being extremely 
 swarthy, black-haired, and large-eyed, evidently much 
 more Italian than French. 
 
 But though the villagers of Monestier were taking 
 holiday, no one can reproach them with idleness. Never 
 was there a more hard-working people than the 
 peasantry of these valleys. Every little patch of ground 
 that the plough or spade can be got into is turned to 
 account. Tbe piles of stone and rock collected by the 
 sides of the fields testify to the industry of the people 
 in clearing the soil for culture. And their farming is 
 carried on in the face of difficulties and discouragements 
 of no ordinary character, for sometimes the soil of many 
 of the little farms will be swept away in a night by an 
 avalanche of snow in winter or of stones in spring. 
 The wrecks of fields are visible all along the valley, 
 especially at its upper part. Lower down it widens, 
 and affords greater room for culture ; the sides of the 
 mountains become better wooded ; and, as we approach 
 
BRIANCON. 4.1 s 
 
 the fortress of Briancon, with its battlements seem- 
 ingly piled one over the other up the mountain-sides, 
 the landscape becomes exceedingly bold and picturesque. 
 
 When passing the village of Villeneuve la Salle, a 
 few miles from Briancon, we were pointed to. a spot on 
 the opposite mountain-side, over the pathway leading to 
 the Col de l'Echuada, where a cavern was discovered a 
 few years since, which, upon examination, was found to 
 contain a considerable quantity of human bones. It was 
 one of the caves in which the hunted Vaudois were 
 accustomed to take refuge during the persecutions ; 
 and it continued to be called by the peasantry " La 
 Roche armee" — the name being thus perpetuated, 
 though the circumstances in which it originated had 
 been forgotten. 
 
 The fortress of Briancon, which we entered by a 
 narrow winding roadway round the western rampart, is 
 the frontier fortress which guards the pass from Italy 
 into France by the road over Mont Genevre. It must 
 always have been a strong place by nature, overlooking 
 as it does the valley of the Durance on the one hand, 
 and the mountain road from Italy on the other, while 
 the river Clairee, running in a deep defile, cuts it 
 off from the high ground to the south and east. The 
 highest part of the town is the citadel, or Fort du 
 Chateau, built upon a peak of rock on the site of the 
 ancient castle. It was doubtless the nucleus round 
 which the early town became clustered, until it filled 
 the lower plateau to the verge of the walls and battle- 
 ments. There being no room for the town to expand, 
 the houses are closely packed together and squeezed up, 
 as it were, so as to occupy the smallest possible space. 
 The streets are narrow, dark, gloomy, and steep, being 
 altogether impassable for carriages. The liveliest sight 
 
416 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 in the place is a stream of pure water, that rushes down 
 an open conduit in the middle of the principal street, 
 which is exceedingly steep and narrow. The town is 
 sacrificed to the fortifications, which dominate every- 
 where. With the increasing range and power of 
 cannon, they have been extended in all directions, until 
 they occupy the flanks of the adjoining mountains and 
 many of their summits, so that the original castle now 
 forms but a comparatively insignificant part of the 
 fortress. The most important part of the population is 
 the soldiery— the red-trousered missionaries of " civili- 
 sation," according to the gospel of Louis Napoleon, 
 published a short time before our visit. 
 
 Other missionaries, are, however, at work in the town 
 and neighbourhood; and both at Briancon and Vil- 
 leneuve Protestant stations have been recently estab- 
 lished, under the auspices of the Protestant Society of 
 Lyons. In former times, the population of Briancon 
 included a large number of Protestants. In the year 
 1575, three years after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 they were so numerous and wealthy as to be able to 
 build a handsome temple, almost alongside the cathedral, 
 and it still stands there in the street called Rue du 
 Temple, with the motto over the entrance, in old 
 French, " Cerches et vos troveres." But at the Revo- 
 cation of the Edict of If antes, the temple was seized 
 by the King and converted into a granary, and the 
 Protestants of the place were either executed, banished, 
 or forced to conform to the Papal religion. Since then 
 the voice of Protestantism has been mute in Briancon 
 until within the last few years, during which a mission 
 has been in operation. Some of the leading persons in 
 the town have embraced the Reform faith, amongst 
 others the professor of literature in the public college ; 
 
PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE. 417 
 
 but he had no sooner acknowledged to the authorities 
 the fact of his conversion, than he was dismissed from 
 his office, though he has since been appointed to a more 
 important profession at Nice. The number of members 
 is, however, as yet very small, and the mission has to 
 contend with limited means, and to carry on its opera- 
 tions in the face of many obstructions and difficulties. 
 
 What are the prospects of the extension of Pro- 
 testantism in France ? Various answers have been 
 given to the question. Some think that the prevailing 
 dissensions among French Protestants interpose a 
 serious barrier in the way of progress. Others, more 
 hopeful, think, that these divisions are only the indi- 
 cations of renewed life and vigour, of the friction of 
 mind with mind, which evinces earnestness, and cannot 
 fail to lead to increased activity and effort. The obser- 
 vations of a young Protestant pastor on this point are 
 worth repeating. " Protestantism," said he, " is based 
 on individualism : it recognises the free action of the 
 human mind ; and so long as the mind acts freely there 
 will be controversy. The end of controversy is death. 
 True, there is much incredulity abroad ; but the in- 
 credulity is occasioned by the incredibilities of Popery. 
 Let the ground once be cleared by free inquiry, and our 
 Church will rise up amidst the ruins of superstition and 
 unbelief, for man must have religion ; only it must be 
 consistent with reason on the one hand, and with Divine 
 revelation on the other. I for one do not fear the 
 fullest and freest inquiry, having the most perfect con- 
 fidence in the triumph of the truth." 
 
 It is alleged by others that the bald form in which 
 Protestantism is for the most part presented abroad, is 
 not conformable with the " genius " of the men of Celtic 
 
 E E 
 
4i 8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 and Latin race. However this may be, it is too gene- 
 rally the case that where Frenchmen, like Italians and 
 Spaniards, throw off Roman Catholicism, they do not 
 stop at rejecting its superstitions, but reject religion 
 itself. They find no intermediate standpoint in Pro- 
 testantism, but fly off into the void of utter unbelief. 
 The same tendency characterizes them in politics. They 
 seem to oscillate between Csesarism and Red Repub- 
 licanism ; aiming not at reform so much as revolution. 
 They are averse to any via media. When they have 
 tried constitutionalism, they have broken down. So it 
 has been with Protestantism, the constitutionalism of 
 Christianity. The Huguenots at one time constituted 
 a great power in France ; but despotism in politics and 
 religion proved too strong for them, and they were 
 persecuted, banished, and stamped for a time out of 
 existence, or at least out of sight. 
 
 Protestantism was more successful in Germany. Was 
 it because it was more conformable to the " genius " of 
 its people ? When the Germans " protested " against 
 the prevailing corruptions in the Church, they did not 
 seek to destroy it, but to reform it. They "stood upon 
 the old ways," and sought to make them broader, 
 straighter, and purer. They have pursued the same 
 course in politics. Cooler and less impulsive than their 
 Gallican neighbours, they have avoided revolutions, but 
 are constantly seeking reforms. Of this course England 
 itself furnishes a notable example. 
 
 It is certainly a remarkable fact, that the stronghold 
 of- Protestantism in France was recently to be found 
 among the population of Germanic origin seated along 
 the valley of the Rhine; whereas in the western 
 districts Protestantism is split up by the two irre- 
 concilable parties of Evangelicals and Rationalists. 
 
PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE. 419 
 
 At the same time it should be borne in mind that 
 Alsace did not become part of France until the year 
 1715, and that the Lutherans of that province were 
 never exposed to the ferocious persecutions to which 
 the Evangelical Protestants of Old France were sub- 
 jected, before as well as after the Revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes. 
 
 In Languedoc, in Dauphiny, and in the southern 
 provinces generally, men and women who professed 
 Protestantism were liable to be hanged or sent to the 
 galleys, down to nearly the end of the last century. 
 A Protestant pastor who exercised his vocation did so 
 at the daily peril of his life. Nothing in the shape of 
 a Protestant congregation was permitted to exist, and 
 if Protestants worshipped "together, it was in secret, in 
 caves, in woods, among the hills, or in the " Desert." 
 Yet Protestantism nevertheless contrived to exist 
 through this long dark period of persecution, and even 
 to increase. And when at length it became tolerated, 
 towards the close of the last century, the numbers of 
 its adherents appeared surprising to those who had 
 imagined it to be altogether extinct. 
 
 Indeed, looking at the persistent efforts made by 
 Louis XIV. to exterminate the Huguenots, and to the 
 fact that many hundred thousand of the best of them 
 emigrated into foreign countries, while an equal number 
 are supposed to have perished in prison, on the scaffold, 
 at the galleys, and in their attempts to escape, it may 
 almost be regarded as matter of wonder that the Eglise 
 Reformee — the Church of the old Huguenots — should 
 at the present day number about a thousand congrega- 
 tions, besides the five hundred Lutheran congregations 
 of Alsatia ; and that the Protestants of France should 
 amount, in the whole, to about two millions of souls. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 VAL LOUISE HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 
 
 CtOME eight miles south of Briancon, on the road 
 U to Fort Dauphin, a little river called the Gyronde 
 comes down from the glaciers of Mont Pelvoux, and 
 falls into the Durance nearly opposite the village of 
 La Bessie. This river flows through Val Louise, the 
 entrance into which can be discerned towards the north- 
 west. Near the junction of the rivers, the ruins of an 
 embattled wall, with entrenchments, are observed ex- 
 tending across the valley of the Durance, a little below 
 the narrow pass called the " Pertuis-Rostan," evidently 
 designed to close it against an army advancing from 
 the south. The country people still call these ruins 
 the "Walls of the Vaudois;"* and according to tradi- 
 tion a great Vaudois battle was fought there ; but of 
 any such battle history makes no mention. 
 
 Indeed, so far as can be ascertained, the Vaudois of 
 Dauphiny rarely if ever fought battles. They were 
 too few in number, too much scattered among the 
 
 * A gap in the mountain-wall to the left, nearly over La Bessie, is 
 still known as " La Porte de Hannibal," through which, it is con- 
 jectured, that general led his army. Bnt opinion, which is much 
 divided as to the route he took, is more generally in favour of his 
 marching up the Isere, and passing into Italy by the Little St, 
 Bernard. 
 
VAL LOUISE. 4 z r 
 
 mountains, and too poor and ill-armed, to be able to 
 contend against the masses of disciplined soldiery that 
 were occasionally sent into the valleys. All that they 
 did was to watch, from their mountain look-outs, their 
 enemies' approach, and hide themselves in caves; or 
 flee up to the foot of the glaciers till they had passed 
 by. The attitude of the French Vaudois was thus for 
 the most part passive ; and they very rarely, like the 
 Italian Vaudois, offered any determined or organized 
 resistance to persecution. Hence they have no such 
 heroic story to tell of battles and sieges and victories. 
 Their heroism was displayed in patience, steadfastness, 
 and long-suffering, rather than in resisting force by 
 force ; and they were usually ready to endure death in 
 its most frightful forms rather than prove false to 
 their faith. 
 
 The ancient people of these valleys formed part of 
 the flock of the Archbishop of Embrun. But history 
 exhibits him as a very cruel shepherd. Thus, in 1335, 
 there appears this remarkable entry in the accounts 
 current of the bailli of Embrun : " Item, for perse- 
 cuting the Yaudois, eight sols and thirty deniers of 
 gold," as if the persecution of the Vaudois had become 
 a regular department of the public service. What was 
 done with the Vaudois when they were seized and tried 
 at Embrun further appears from the records of the 
 diocese. In 1348, twelve of the inhabitants of Val 
 Louise were strangled at Embrun by the public execu- 
 tioner ; and in 1393, a hundred and fifty inhabitants 
 of the same valley were burned alive at the same place 
 by order of the Inquisitor Borelli. But the most fatal 
 of all the events that befell the inhabitants of Val 
 Louise was that which occurred about a century later, 
 in 1488, when nearly the whole of the remaining popu- 
 
422 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 lation of the valley were destroyed in a cavern near 
 the foot of Mont Pelvoux. 
 
 This dreadful massacre was perpetrated by a French 
 army, under the direction of Albert Catan£e, the papal 
 legate. The army had been sent into Piedmont with 
 the object of subjugating or destroying the Vaudois on 
 the Italian side of the Alps, but had returned dis- 
 comfited to Briancon, unable to effect their object. 
 The legate then determined to take his revenge by an 
 assault upon the helpless and unarmed French Vaudois, 
 and suddenly directed his soldiers upon the valleys of 
 Fressinieres and Louise. The inhabitants of the latter 
 valley, surprised, and unable to resist an army of 
 some twenty thousand men; abandoned their dwellings, 
 and made for the mountains with all haste, accompanied 
 by their families, and driving their flocks before them. 
 On the slope of Mont Pelvoux, about a third of the way 
 up, there was formerly a great cavern, on the combe 
 of Capescure, called La Balme-Chapell& — though now 
 nearly worn away by the disintegration of the mountain- 
 side — in which the poor hunted people contrived to 
 find shelter. They built up the approaches to the 
 cavern, filled the entrance with rocks, and considered 
 themselves to be safe. But their confidence proved 
 fatal to them. The Count La Palud, who was in com- 
 mand of the troops, seeiDg that it was impossible to 
 force the entrance, sent his men up the mountain pro- 
 vided with ropes ; and fixing them so that they should 
 hang over the mouth of the cavern, a number of the 
 soldiers slid down in full equipment, landing on the 
 ledge right in front of the concealed Vaudois. Seized 
 with a sudden panic, and being unarmed, many of them 
 precipitated themselves over the rocks and were killed. 
 The soldiers slaughtered all whom they could reach, 
 
VAL LOUISE. 42 j 
 
 after which, they proceeded to heap up wood at the 
 cavern mouth which they set on fire, and thus suffo- 
 cated the remainder. Perrin says four hundred children 
 were afterwards found in the cavern, stifled, in the 
 arms of their dead mothers, and that not fewer than 
 three thousand persons were thus ruthlessly destroyed. 
 The little property of the slaughtered peasants was 
 ordered by the Pope's legate to be divided amongst the 
 vagabonds who had carried out his savage orders. The 
 population having been thus exterminated, the district 
 was settled anew some yeara later, in the reign of 
 Louis XII., who gave his name to the valley ; and a 
 number of " good and true Catholics," including many 
 goitres and idiots,* occupied the dwellings and pos- 
 sessed the lands of the slaughtered Vaudois. There is 
 an old saying that " the blood of the martyrs is the 
 seed of the Church," but assuredly it does not apply to 
 Val Louise, where the primitive Christian Church has 
 been completely extinguished. 
 
 There were other valleys in the same neighbour- 
 hood, whither we are now wending, where the perse- 
 cution, though equally ferocious, proved less destructive ; 
 the inhabitants succeeding in making their escape into 
 comparatively inaccessible places in the mountains 
 before they could be put to the sword. For instance, in 
 Val Fressiniere — also opening into the valley of the 
 Durance a little lower down than Val Louise — the 
 Vaudois Church has never ceased to exist, and to this 
 day the majority of the inhabitants belong to it. From 
 the earliest times the people of the valley were dis- 
 tinguished for their " heresy ; " and as early as the 
 
 • It has been noted that these unfortunates abound most in tho 
 Tillages occupied by the new settlers. Thus, of the population of the 
 village of St. Crepin, in the valley of the Durance, not fewer than 
 jue-tenth are deaf and dumb, with a large proportion of idiots. 
 
424 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 fourteenth century eighty persons of Fressinieres and 
 the neighbouring valley of Argentines, — willing to be 
 martyrs rather than apostates, — were burnt at Embrun 
 because of their religion. In the following century 
 (1483) we find ninety-nine informations laid before 
 John Lord Archbishop of Embrun against supposed 
 heretics of Val Fressinieres. The suspected were 
 ordered to wear a cross upon their dress, before and 
 bebind, and not to appear at church without displaying 
 such crosses. But it further appears from the records, 
 tbat, instead of wearing the crosses, most of the persons 
 so informed against fled into the mountains and hid 
 themselves away in caves for the space of five years. 
 
 The next steps taken by the Archbishop are de- 
 scribed in a Latin manuscript,* of which the following 
 is a translation : — 
 
 " Also, that in consequence of the above, the monk Francis Splireti, 
 of the order of Mendicants, Professor in Theology, was deputed in the 
 quality of Inquisitor of the said valleys ; and that in the year 1489, 
 on the 1st of January, knowing that those of Freyssinier had relapsed, 
 into infamous heresy, and had not obeyed their orders, nor carried 
 the cross on their dress, hut on the contrary had received their ex- 
 communicated and banished brethren without delivering them over to 
 the Church, sent to them new citation, to which not having appeared, 
 an adjournment of their condemnation as hardened heretics, when 
 their goods would be confiscated, and themselves handed over to the 
 secular power, was made to the 28th of June ; hut they remaining 
 more obstinate than ever, so much so that no hope remains of bring- 
 ing them back, all persons were forbidden to hold any communication 
 whatsoever with them without permission of the Church, and it was 
 ordered by the Procureur Fiscal that the aforesaid Inquisitor do pro- 
 ceed, without further notice, to the execution of his office." 
 
 "What the execution of the Inquisitor's office meant, 
 is, alas ! but too well known. Bonds and imprison- 
 ment, scourgings and burnings at Embrun. The poor 
 people appealed to the King of France for help against 
 
 * This was one of the MSS deposited by Samuel Morland (Oliver 
 Cromwell's ambassador to Piedmont) at Cambridge in 1658, and is 
 quoted by Jean Leger in his History of the Vaudois Churches. 
 
VAL FRESSINIERES. 425 
 
 tlieir persecutors, but in Tain. In 1498 the inhabitants 
 of Fressinieres appeared by a procurator at Paris, on 
 the occasion of the new sovereign, Louis XII., ascend- 
 ing the throne. But as the King was then seeking the 
 favour of 1 divorce from his wife, Anne of Brittany, 
 from Pope Alexander VI., he turned a deaf ear to 
 their petition for mercy. On the contrary, Louis con- 
 firmed all the decisions of the clergy, and in return for 
 the divorce which he obtained, he granted to the Pope's 
 son, the infamous Caesar Borgia, that very part of 
 Dauphiny inhabited by the Vaudois, together with the 
 title of Duke of Valentinois. They had appealed, as 
 it were, to the tiger for mercy, and they were referred 
 to the vulture. 
 
 The persecution of the people of- 4h.e valleys thus 
 suffered no relaxation, and all that remained for them 
 was flight into the mountains, to places where they 
 were most likely to remain unmolested. Hence they 
 fled up to the very edge of the glaciers, and formed 
 their settlements at almost the farthest limits of 
 vegetation. There the barrenness of the soil, the in- 
 hospitality of the climate, and the comparative in- 
 accessibility of their villages, proved their security. 
 Of them it might be truly said, that they " wandered 
 about in sheep-skins and goat-skins ; being destitute, 
 afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not 
 worthy) ; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, 
 and in dens and caves of the earth." Yet the charactei 
 of these poor peasants was altogether irreproachable. 
 Even Louis XII. said of them, " "Would to God that I 
 were as good a Christian as the worst of these people ! " 
 The wonder is that, in the face of their long-continued 
 persecutions, extending over so many centuries, any 
 remnant of the original population of the valleys 
 
426 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 should have been* preserved. Long after the time of 
 Louis XII. and Caesar Borgia, the French historian, 
 De Thou (writing in 1556), thus describes the people 
 of Val Fressinieres : " Notwithstanding their squalid- 
 ness, it is surprising that they are very far from being 
 uncultivated in their morals. They almost all under- 
 stand Latin; and are able to write fairly enough. 
 They understand also as much of French as will enable 
 them to read the Bible and to sing psalms ; nor would 
 you easily find a boy among them who, if he were 
 questioned as to the religious opinions which they 
 hold in common with the Waldenses, would not be 
 able to give from memory a reasonable account of 
 them." * 
 
 After the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, the 
 Vaudois enjoyed a brief respite from tbeir sufferings. 
 They then erected temples, appointed ministers, and 
 worshipped openly. This, however, only lasted for a 
 short time, and when the Edict was revoked, and per- 
 secution began again, in the reign of Louis XIV., their 
 worship was suppressed wherever practicable. But 
 though the Vaudois temples were pulled down and 
 their ministers banished, .the Roman Catholics failed 
 to obtain a footing in the valley. Some of the pas- 
 tors continued to brave the fury of the persecutors, 
 and wandered about from place to place among the 
 scattered flocks, ministering to them at the peril of 
 their lives. Rewards were offered for their appre- 
 hension, and a sort of " Hue and Cry " was issued by 
 the police, describing their age, and height, and 
 features, as if they had been veritable criminals. And 
 when they were apprehended they were invariably 
 hanged. As late as 1767 the parliament of Grenoble 
 • De Thou's History, book xxvii. 
 
HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 427 
 
 condemned their pastor Berenger to death for con- 
 tinuing to preach to congregations in the " Desert." 
 
 This religious destitution of the Vaudois continued 
 to exist until a comparatively recent period. The 
 people were without either pastors or teachers, and 
 religion had become a tradition with them rather than 
 an active living faith. Still, though poor and destitute, 
 they held to their traditional belief, and refused to 
 conform to the dominant religion. And so they con- 
 tinued until within the last forty years, when the fact 
 of the existence of these remnants of the ancient 
 Vaudois in the valleys of the High Alps came to the 
 knowledge of Felix Neff, and he determined to go to 
 their help and devote himself to their service. 
 
 One would scarcely expect to find the apostle of the 
 High Alps in the person of a young Swiss soldier of 
 artillery. Yet so it was. In his boyhood, Neff read 
 Plutarch, which filled his mind with admiration of the 
 deeds of the great men of old. While passing through 
 the soldier phase of his career the " Memoirs of Oberlin " 
 accidentally came under his notice, the perusal of which 
 gave quite a new direction to his life. Becoming 
 impressed by religion, his ambition now was to be 
 a missionary. Leaving the army, in which he had 
 reached the rank of sergeant at nineteen, he proceeded 
 to prepare himself for the ministry, and after studying 
 for a time, and passing his preliminary examinations, 
 he was, in conformity with the custom of the Geneva 
 Church, employed on probation as a lay helper in 
 parochial work. In this capacity Neff first went to 
 Mens, in the department of Isere, where he officiated 
 in the absence of the regular pastor, as well as occa- 
 sionally at Vizille, for a period of about two years. 
 
428 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 It was while residing at Mens that the young mis- 
 sionary first heard of the existence of the scattered 
 communities of primitive Christians on the High Alps, 
 descendants of the ancient Vaudois ; and his mind 
 became inflamed with the desire of doing for them 
 what Oberlin had done for the poor Protestants of the 
 Ban de la Roche. " I am always dreaming of the High 
 Alps," he wrote to a friend, " and I would rather he 
 stationed there than under the beautiful sky of 
 Languedoc." 
 
 But it was first necessary that he should receive 
 ordination for the ministry ; and accordingly in .1823, 
 when in his twenty-fifth year, he left Mens with that 
 object. He did not, however, seek ordination by the 
 National Church of Geneva, which, in his opinion, had 
 in a great measure ceased to hold Evangelical truth ; 
 but he came over to London, at the invitation of Mr. 
 Cook and Mr. Wilks, two Congregational ministers, by 
 whom he was duly ordained a minister in the Inde- 
 pendent Chapel, Poultry. 
 
 Shortly after his return to France, Neff, much to his 
 own satisfaction, was invited as pastor to the very dis- 
 trict in which he so much desired to minister — the 
 most destitute in the High Alps. Before setting out 
 he wrote in his journal, " To-morrow, with the blessing 
 of God, I mean to push for the Alps by the sombre and 
 picturesque valley of L'Oisan." After a few days, the 
 young pastor was in the scene of his future labours; 
 and he proceeded to explore hamlet after hamlet in 
 search of the widely- scattered flock committed to his 
 charge, and to arrange his plans for the working of his 
 extensive parish. 
 
 But it was more than a parish, for it embraced 
 several of the most extensive, rugged, and mountainous 
 
HISTORF OF FELIX NEFF. 4.29 
 
 arrondissements of the High Alps. Though the whole 
 number of people in his charge did not amount to more 
 than six or seven hundred, they' lived at great distances 
 from each other, the churches to which he ministered 
 being in some cases as much as eighty miles apart, 
 separated by gorges and mountain-passes, for the most 
 part impassable in winter. Neff's district extended in 
 one direction from Vars to Briancon, and in another 
 from Champsaurin the valley of the Drac to San Veran 
 on the slope of Monte Viso, close to the Italian frontier. 
 His residence was fixed at La Chalp, above Queyras, 
 but as he rarely slept more than three nights in one 
 place, he very seldom enjoyed its seclusion. 
 
 The labour which Neff imposed upon himself was 
 immense ; and it was especially in the poorest and most 
 destitute districts that he worked the hardest. He dis- 
 regarded alike the summer's heat and the winter's cold. 
 His first visit to Dormilhouse, in Val Fressinieres, 
 was made in January, when the mountain-paths were 
 blocked with ice and snow; but, assembling the young 
 men of the village, he went out with them armed with 
 hatchets, and cut steps in the ice to enable the worship- 
 pers from the lower hamlets to climb up to service in 
 the village church. The people who first came to hear 
 him preach at Violens brought wisps of straw with 
 them, which they lighted to guide them through the 
 snow, while others, who had a greater distance to walk, 
 brought pine torches. 
 
 Nothing daunted, the valiant soldier, furnished 
 with a stout staff and shod with heavy-nailed shoes, 
 covered with linen socks to prevent slipping on the 
 snow, would set out with his wallet on his back 
 across the Col d'Orcieres in winter, in the track of the 
 lynx and the chamois, with the snow and sleet beating 
 
43° THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 against his face, to visit his people on the other side 
 of the mountain. His patience, his perseverance, his 
 sweetness of temper, were unfailing. " Ah ! " said one 
 unbelieving Thomas of Val Fressinieres in his mountain 
 patois, " you have come among us like a woman who 
 attempts to kindle a fire with green wood ; she exhausts 
 her breath in blowing it to keep the little flame alive, 
 but the moment she quits it, it is instantly extin- 
 guished." 
 
 If eff nevertheless laboured on with hope, and neither 
 discouragement nor obstruction slackened his efforts. 
 And such labours could not fail of their effect. He 
 succeeded in inspiring the simple mountaineers with 
 his own zeal, he evoked their love, and excited their 
 enthusiastic admiration. When he returned to Dormil- 
 house after a brief absence, the whole village would 
 turn out and come down the mountain to meet and 
 embrace him. " The rocks, the cascades, nay, the very 
 glaciers," he wrote to a friend, " all seemed animated, 
 and presented a smiling aspect ; the savage country 
 became agreeable and dear to me from the moment 
 its inhabitants were my brethren." 
 
 Unresting and indefatigable, Neff was always at 
 work. He exhorted the people in hovels, held schools 
 in barns in which he taught the children, and cate- 
 chised them in stables. His hand was in every good 
 work. He taught the people to sing, he taught them 
 to read, he taught them to pray. To be able to speak 
 to them familiarly, he learnt their native patois, and 
 laboured at it like a schoolboy. He worked as a mis- 
 sionary among savages. The poor mountaineers had 
 been so long destitute of instruction, that everything 
 had as it were to be begun with them from the begin- 
 ning. Sharing in their hovels and stables, with their 
 
HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 431 
 
 squalor and smoke, he taught them how to improve 
 them by adding chimneys and windows, and showed 
 how warmth might he obtained more healthfully than 
 by huddling together in winter-time with the cattle. 
 He taught them manners, and especially greater respect 
 for women, inculcating the lesson by his own gentle- 
 ness and tender deference. Out of doors, he showed 
 how they might till the ground to greater advantage, 
 and introduced an improved culture of the potato, which 
 more than doubled the production. Observing how the 
 pastures of Dormilhouse were scorched by the summer 
 sun, he urged the adoption of a system of irrigation. 
 The villagers were at first most obstinate in their oppo- 
 sition to his plans ; but he persevered, laid out a canal, 
 and succeeded at last in enlisting a body of workmen, 
 whom he led out, pickaxe in hand, himself taking a 
 foremost part in the work ; and at last the waters were 
 let into the canal amidst joy and triumph. At Violens 
 he helped to build and finish the chapel, himself doing 
 mason- work, smith-work, and carpenter- work by turns. 
 At Dormilhouse a school was needed, and he showed 
 the villagers how to build one ; preparing the design, 
 and taking part in the erection, until it was finished 
 and ready for use. In short, he turned his hand to 
 everything — nothing was too high or too low for this 
 noble citizen of two worlds. At length a serious 
 accident almost entirely disabled him. "While on one 
 of his mountain journeys, he was making a detour 
 amongst a mass of rocky debris, to avoid the dangers 
 of an avalanche, when he had the misfortune to fall and 
 severely sprain his knee. He became laid up for a 
 time, and when able to move, he set out for his mother's 
 home at Geneva, in the hope of recovering health and 
 strength; for his digestive powers were also by this 
 
433 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 time seriously injured. When he went away, the 
 people of the valleys felt as if they should never see 
 him more; and their sorrow at his departure was 
 heart-rending. After trying the baths of Plombieres 
 without effect, he proceeded onwards to Geneva, which 
 he reached only to die ; and thus this good and noble 
 soldier — one of the bravest of earth's heroes — passed 
 away to his eternal reward at the early age of thirty- 
 one. 
 
 The valley of Fressinieres — the principle scene of 
 Neff's labours — joins the valley of the Durance nearly 
 opposite the little hamlet of La Roche. There we 
 leave the high road from Briancon to Fort Dauphin, 
 and crossing the river by a timber bridge, ascend the 
 steep mountain-side by a mule path, in order to reach 
 the entrance to the valley of Fressinieres, the level of 
 which is high above that of the Durance. Not many 
 years since, the higher valley could only be approached 
 from this point by a very difficult mountain-path amidst 
 rocks and stones, called the Ladder, or Pas de l'Echelle. 
 It was dangerous at all times, and quite impassable in 
 winter. The mule-path which has lately been made, 
 though steep, is comparatively easy. 
 
 What the old path was, and what were the discom- 
 forts of travelling through this district in Neff's time, 
 may be appreciated on a perusal of the narrative of the 
 young pastor Bost, who in 1840 determined to make a 
 sort of pilgrimage to the scenes of his friend's labours 
 some seventeen years before. M. Bost, however, rather 
 exaggerates the difficulties and discomforts of the 
 valleys than otherwise. He saw no beauty nor grandeur 
 in the scenery,, only " horrible mountains in a state of 
 dissolution " and constantly ready to fall upon the heads 
 
PARSONAGE AT PALONS. 433 
 
 of passing travellers. He had no eyes for the picturesque 
 though gloomy lake of La Eoche, but saw only tho 
 miserable hamlet itself. He slept in the dismal 
 little inn, as doubtless Neff had often done before, and 
 was horrified by the multitudinous companions that 
 shared his bed ; and, tumbling out, he spent the rest of 
 the night on the floor. The food was still worse — cold 
 cafe noir, and bread eighteen months old, soaked in 
 water before it could be eaten. His breakfast that 
 morning made him ill for a week. Then his mounting 
 up the Pas de l'Echelle, which he did not climb " with- 
 out profound emotion," was a great trouble to him. Of 
 all this we find not a word in the journals or letters of 
 Neff, whose early life as a soldier had perhaps better 
 inured him to "roughing it" than the more tender 
 bringing-up of Pastor Bost. 
 
 As we rounded the shoulder of the hill, almost, 
 directly overlooking the ancient Roman town of Rama 
 in the valley of the Durance underneath, we shortly 
 came in sight of the little hamlet of Palons, a group of 
 "peasants' nests," overhung by rocks, with the one 
 good house in it, the comfortable parsonage of the Pro- 
 testant pastor, situated at the very entrance to the 
 valley. Although the peasants' houses which consti- 
 tute the hamlet of Palons are still very poor and 
 miserable, the place has been greatly improved since 
 Neff's time, by the erection of the parsonage. It was 
 found that the pastors who were successively appointed 
 to minister to the poor congregations in the valley very 
 soon became unfitted for their work by the hardships 
 to which they were exposed ; and being without any 
 suitable domestic accommodation, one after another of 
 them resigned their charge. 
 
 To remedy this defect, a movement was begun in 
 
 2F 
 
43+ THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 1852 by the Rev. Mr. Freemantle, rector of Claydon, 
 Bucks, assisted by the Foreign Aid Society and a few 
 private friends, with the object of providing pastors' 
 dwellings, as well as chapels when required, in the 
 more destitute places. The movement has already been 
 attended with considerable success ; and among its first 
 results was the erection in 1857 of the comfortable 
 parsonage of Palons, the large lower room of which 
 also serves the purpose of a chapel. The present in- 
 cumbent is M. Charpiot, of venerable and patriarchal 
 aspect, whose white hairs are a crown of glory — a man 
 beloved by his extensive flock, for his parish embraces 
 the whole valley, about twelve miles in extent, includ- 
 ing the four villages of Bibes, Violens, Minsals, and 
 Dormilhouse ; other pastors having been appointed of 
 late years to the more distant stations included in the 
 original widely- scattered charge of Felix Neff, 
 
 The situation of the parsonage and adjoining grounds 
 at Palons is charmingly picturesque. It stands at 
 the entrance to the defile which leads into Val Fres- 
 sinieres, having a background of bold rocks enclosing a 
 mountain plateau known as the " Camp of Catinat," a 
 notorious persecutor of the Vaudois. In front of the 
 parsonage extends a green field planted with walnut 
 and other trees, part of which is walled off as the 
 burying-ground of the hamlet. Alongside, in a deep 
 rocky gully, runs the torrent of the Biasse, leaping 
 from rock to rock on its way to the valley of the 
 Durance, far below. This fall, or cataract, is not in- 
 appropriately named the " Gouffouran," or roaring 
 gulf; and its sullen roar is heard all through the 
 night in the adjoining parsonage. The whole height 
 of the fall, as it tumbles from rock to rock, is about 
 four hundred and fifty feet ; and about half-way down, 
 
VAL LOUISE. 435 
 
 the water shoots into a deep, dark cavern, where it 
 becomes completely lost to sight. 
 
 The inhabitants of the hamlet are a poor hard-work- 
 ing people, pursuing their industry after very primitive 
 methods. Part of the Biasse, as it issues from the 
 defile, is turned aside here and there to drive little 
 fulling-mills of the rudest construction, where the 
 people "waulk" the cloth of their own making. In 
 the adjoining narrow fields overhanging the Gouffouran, 
 where the ploughs are at work, the oxen are yoked to 
 them in the old Roman fashion, the pull being by a 
 bar fixed across the animals' foreheads. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Palons, as at various other 
 places in the valley, there are numerous caverns which 
 served by turns in early times as hiding-places and as 
 churches, and which were not unfrequently consecrated 
 by the Vaudois with their blood. One of these is still 
 known as the " Grlesia," or " Eglise." Its opening is 
 on the crest of a frightful precipice, but its diameter 
 has of late years been considerably reduced by the dis- 
 integration of the adjoining rock. JSeff once took 
 Captain Cotton up to see it, and chanted the Te Beum 
 in the rude temple with great emotion. 
 
 Palons is, perhaps, the most genial and fertile spot 
 in the valley ; it looks like a little oasis in the 
 desert. Indeed, NefF thought the soil of the place too 
 rich for the growth of piety. " Palons," said he in his 
 journal, " is more fertile than the rest of the valley, and 
 even produces wine : the consequence is, that there is 
 less piety here." Neff even entertained the theory that 
 the poorer the people the greater was their humility and 
 fervour, and the less their selfishness and spiritual pride. 
 Thus, he considered " the fertility of the commune of 
 Champsaur, and its proximity to the high road and to 
 
436 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Gap, great stumbling-blocks." The loftiest, coldest, 
 and most barren spots— such as San Veran and Dormil 
 house— ^were, in his opinion, by far the most promising. 
 Of the former he said, "It is the highest, and conse- 
 quently the most pious, village in the valley of Queyras ; " 
 and of the inhabitants of the latter he said, " From the 
 first moment of my arrival I took them to my heart, 
 and I ardently desired to be unto them even as another 
 Oberlin." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE YAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSE. 
 
 F11HE valley of Fressinieres could never have main- 
 ■*■ tained a large population. Though about twelve 
 miles in extent, it contains a very small proportion of 
 arable land— only a narrow strip, of varying width, 
 lying in the bottom, with occasional little patches of cul- 
 tivated ground along the mountain-sides, where the soil 
 has settled on the ledges, the fields seeming in many 
 cases to hang over precipices. At the upper end of the 
 valley, the mountains come down so close to the river 
 Biasse that no space is left for cultivation, and the 
 elopes are so rocky and abrupt as to be unavailable even 
 for pasturage, excepting of goats. 
 
 Yet the valley seems never to have been without a 
 population, more or less numerous according to the 
 rigour of the religious persecutions which prevailed in 
 the neighbourhood. Its comparative inaccessibility, 
 its inhospitable climate, and its sterility, combined to 
 render it one of the most secure refuges of the Vaudois 
 in the Middle Ages. It could neither be easily entered 
 by an armed force, nor permanently occupied by them. 
 The scouts on the hills overlooking the Durance could 
 always see their enemies approach, and the inhabit- 
 ants were enabled to take refuge in caves in the mount- 
 
433 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 ain-sides, or flee to the upper parts of the valley, before 
 the soldiers could clamber up the steep Pas de l'Echelle, 
 and reach the barricaded defile through which the 
 Biasse rushes down the rocky gorge of- the Gouffouran. 
 "When the invaders succeeded in penetrating this barrier, 
 they usually found the hamlets deserted and the people 
 fled. They could then only wreak their vengeance on 
 the fields, which they laid waste, and on the dwellings, 
 which they burned ; and when the " brigands " had at 
 length done their worst and departed, the poor people 
 crept back to their ruined homes to pray, amidst their 
 ashes, for strength to enable them to bear the heavy 
 afflictions which they were thus called upon to suffer for 
 conscience' sake. 
 
 The villages in the lower part of the valley were 
 thus repeatedly ravaged and destroyed. But far up, at 
 its extremest point, a difficult footpath led, across the 
 face almost of a precipice, which the persecutors never 
 ventured to scale, to the hamlet of Dormilhouse, seated 
 on a few ledges of rock on a lofty mountain-side, five 
 thousand feet above the level of the sea ; and this place, 
 which was for centuries a mountain fastness of the 
 persecuted, remains a Vaudois settlement to this day. 
 
 An excursion to this interesting mountain hamlet 
 having been arranged, our little party of five persons 
 set out for the place on the morning of the 1st of July, 
 under the guidance of Pastor Charpiot. Though the 
 morning was fine and warm, yet, as the place of our 
 destination was situated well up amongst the clouds, we 
 were warned to provide ourselves with umbrellas and 
 waterproofs, nor did the provision prove in vain. We 
 were also warned that there was an utter want of accom- 
 modation for visitors at Dormilhouse, for which we 
 must be prepared. The words scratched on the window 
 
VAL FRESSIN1ERES. 439 
 
 of the Norwegian inn might indeed apply to it : " Here 
 the stranger may find very good entertainment — pro- 
 vided he bring it icith him J" We accordingly carried 
 our entertainment with us, in the form of a store of 
 blankets, bread, chocolate, and other articles, which, 
 with the traveller's knapsacks, were slung across the 
 back of a donkey. 
 
 After entering the defile, an open part of the valley 
 was passed, amidst which the little river, at present 
 occupying very narrow limits, meandered ; but it was 
 obvious from the width of the channel and the debris 
 widely strewn about, that in winter it is a roaring tor- 
 rent. A little way up we met an old man coming down 
 driving a loaded donkey, with whom one of our party, 
 recognising him as an old acquaintance, entered into 
 conversation. In answer to an inquiry made as to the 
 progress of the good cause in the valley, the old man 
 replied very despondingly. "There was," he said, " a 
 great lack of faith, of zeal, of earnestness, amongst the 
 rising generation. They were too fond of pleasures, too 
 apt to be led away by the fleeting vanities of this 
 world." It was only the old story — the complaint of 
 the aged against the young. When this old peasant 
 was a boy, his elders doubtless thought and said the 
 same of him. The generation growing old always 
 think the generation still young in a state of degene- 
 racy. So it was forty years since, when Felix Neff was 
 amongst them, and so it will be forty years hence. One 
 day NefF met an old man near Mens, who recounted 
 to him the story of the persecutions which his parents 
 and himself had endured, and he added : " In those times 
 there was more zeal than there is now ; my father and 
 mother used to cross mountains and forests by night, in 
 the worst weather, at the risk 'of their lives, to be 
 
440 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 present at divine service performed in secret; but 
 now we are grown lazy : religious freedom is the death- 
 blow to piety." 
 
 An hour's walking brought us to the principal hamlet 
 of the commune, formerly called Fressinieres, but now 
 known as Les Bibes, occupying a wooded height on 
 the left bank of the river. The population is partly 
 Roman Catholic and partly Protestant. The Roman 
 Catholics have a church here, the last in the valley, the 
 two other places of worship higher up being Protestant. 
 The principal person of Les Ribes is M. Baridon, son 
 of the Joseph Baridon, receiver of the commune, so 
 often mentioned with such affection in the journal of 
 Neff. He is the only person in the valley whose 
 position and education give him a claim to the title of 
 " Monsieur ; " and his house contains the only decent 
 apartment in the Val Fressinieres where pastors and 
 visitors could be lodged previous to the erection, by 
 Mr. Freemantle, of the pleasant little parsonage at 
 Palons. This apartment in the Baridons' house Neff 
 used to call the " Prophet's Chamber." 
 
 Half an hour higher up the valley we reached the 
 hamlet of Violens, where all the inhabitants are Pro- 
 testants. It was at this place that Neff helped to build 
 and finish the church, for which he designed the seats 
 and pulpit, and which he opened and dedicated on the 
 29th of August, 1824, the year before he finally left 
 the neighbourhood. Violens is a poor hamlet situated 
 at the bottom of a deep glen, or rocky abyss, called La 
 Combe ; the narrow Valleys of Dauphiny, like those of 
 Devon, being usually called combes, doubtless from the 
 same original Celtic word ctcm, signifying a hollow or 
 dingle. 
 
 A little above Violens the valley contracts almost to 
 
VAL FRESSINIERES. j^ t 
 
 a ravine, until we reach the miserable hamlet of 
 Minsals, so shut in by steep crags that for nine 
 months of the year it never sees the sun, and during 
 several months in winter it lies buried in snow. The 
 hamlet consists for the most part of hovels of mud and 
 stone, without windows or chimneys, being little better 
 than stables ; indeed, in winter time, for the sake of 
 warmth, the poor people share them with their cattle. 
 How they contrive to scrape a living out of the patches 
 of soil rescued from the rocks, or hung upon the pre- 
 cipices on the mountain-side, is a wonder. 
 
 One of the horrors of this valley consists in the con- 
 stant state of disintegration of the adjoining rocks, 
 which, being of a slaty formation, frequently break 
 away in large masses, and are hurled into the lower 
 grounds. This, together with the fall of avalanches in 
 winter, makes the valley a most perilous place to live 
 in. A little above Minsals, only a few years since, a 
 tremendous fall of rock and mud swept over nearly the 
 whole of the cultivated ground, since which many of 
 the peasantry have had to remove elsewhere. "What 
 before was a well-tilled meadow, is now only a desolate 
 waste, covered with rocks and debris. 
 
 Another of the horrors of the place is its liability to 
 floods, which come rushing down from the mountains, 
 and often work sad havoc. Sometimes a fall of rocks 
 from the cliffs above dams up the bed of the river, when 
 a lake accumulates behind the barrier until it bursts, 
 and the torrent swoops down the valley, washing away 
 fields, and bridges, and mills, and hovels. 
 
 Even the stouter-built dwelling of M. Baridon at 
 Les Bibes was nearly carried away by one of such in- 
 undations twelve years ago. It stands about a hundred 
 vards from the mountain-stream which comes down 
 
44* THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 "from the Pic de la Sea. One day in summer a storm 
 burst over the mountain, and the stream at once became 
 swollen to a torrent. The inmates of the dwelling 
 thought the house must eventually be washed away, and 
 gave themselves up to prayer. The flood, bearing 
 with it rolling rocks, came nearer and nearer, until it 
 reached a few old walnut trees on a line with the 
 torrent. A rock of some thirty feet square tumbled 
 against one of the trees, which staggered and bent, but 
 held fast and stopped the rock. The debris at once 
 rolled upon it into a bank, the course of the torrent was 
 turned, and the dwelling and its inmates were saved. 
 Another incident, illustrative of the perils of daily 
 life in Val Fressinieres, was related to me by Mr. 
 Milsom while passing the scene of one of the mud and 
 rock avalanches so common in the valley. Etienne 
 Baridon, a member of the same Les Ribes family, an 
 intelligent young man, disabled for ordinary work by 
 lameness and deformity, occupied himself in teaching 
 the children in the Protestant school at Violens, 
 whither he walked daily, accompanied by the pupils 
 from Les Ribes. One day, a heavy thunderstorm 
 burst over the valley, and sent down an avalanche of 
 mud, debris, and boulders, which rolled quite across 
 the valley and extended to the river. The news of 
 the circumstance reached Etienne when in school at 
 Violens ; the road to Les Ribes was closed ; and he 
 was accordingly urged to stay over the night with the 
 children. But thinking of the anxiety of their parents, 
 he determined to guide them back over the fall of rocks 
 if possible. Arrived at the place, he found the mass 
 still on the move, rolling slowly down in a ridge of 
 from ten to twenty feet high, towards the river. Sup- 
 ported by a stout staff, the lame Baridon took first one 
 
DORMILHOUSE. 
 
 443 
 
 child and then another upon his hump-bach, and con- 
 trived to carry them across in safety ; but while making 
 his last journey with the last child, his foot slipped and 
 his leg got badly crushed among the still- rolling stones. 
 He was, however, able to extricate himself, and reached 
 Les Bibes in safety with all the children. "This 
 Etienne," concluded Mr. Milsom, "was really a noble 
 fellow, and his poor deformed body covered the soul of 
 a hero." 
 
 At length, after a journey of about ten miles up this 
 valley of the shadow of death, along which the poor 
 persecuted Yaudois were so often hunted, we reached 
 an apparent cul-de-sac amongst the mountains, beyond 
 which further progress seemed impracticable. Pre- 
 cipitous rocks, with their slopes of debris at foot, closed 
 in the valley all round, excepting only the narrow gullet 
 by which we had come ; but, following the footpath, a 
 way up the mountain-side gradually disclosed itself — a 
 zigzag up the face of what seemed to be a sheer pre- 
 cipice — and this we were told was the road to Dormil- 
 house. The zigzag path is known as the Tourniquet. 
 The ascent is long, steep, and fatiguing. As we passed 
 up,- we observed that the precipice contained many 
 narr jw ledges upon which soil has settled, or to which 
 it has been carried. Some of these are very narrow, only 
 a few yards in extent, but wherever there is room for a 
 spade to turn, the little patches bear marks of cultiva- 
 tion ; and these are the fields of the people of Dormil- 
 house ! 
 
 Far up the mountain, the footpath crosses in front 
 of a lofty cascade — La Pisse du Dormilhouse — which 
 leaps from the summit of the precipice, and sometimes 
 dashes over the roadway itself. Looking down into 
 the valley from this point, we see the Biasse meander- 
 
444 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 ing like a thread in the hollow of the mountains, 
 becoming lost to sight in the ravine near Minsals. 
 Wehaye now ascended to a great height, and the air 
 feels cold and raw. "When we left Palons, the sun was 
 shining brightly, and its heat was almost oppressive, 
 but now the temperature feels wintry. On our way up, 
 rain began to fall ; as we ascended the Tourniquet the 
 rain became changed to sleet ; and at length, on reach- 
 ing the summit of the rising ground from which we 
 first discerned the hamlet of Dormilhouse, on the first 
 day of July, the snow was falling heavily, and all the 
 neighbouring mountains were clothed in the garb of 
 winter. 
 
 This, then, is the famous mountain fastness of the 
 Vaudois — their last and loftiest and least accessible 
 retreat when hunted from their settlements in the 
 lower valleys hundreds of years ago. Driven from 
 rock to rock, from Alp to Alp, they clambered up on 
 to this lofty mountain-ledge, five thousand feet high, 
 and made good their settlement, though at the daily 
 peril of their lives. It was a place of refuge, a fortress 
 and citadel of the faithful, where they continued to 
 worship God according to conscience during the long 
 dark ages of persecution and tyranny. The dangers 
 and terrors of the situation are indeed so great, that it 
 never could have been chosen even for a hiding-place, 
 much less for a permanent abode, but from the direst 
 necessity. What the poor people suffered while esta- 
 blishing themselves on these barren mountain heights 
 no one can tell, but they contrived at length to make 
 the place their home, and to become inured to their 
 hard life, until it became almost a second nature to 
 them. 
 
 The hamlet of Dormilhouse is said to have existed 
 
DORMILHOUSE. 445 
 
 for nearly six hundred years, during which the religion 
 of its inhabitants has remained the same. It has been 
 alleged that the people are the descendants of a colony 
 of refugee Lombards ; but M. Muston, and others well 
 able to judge, after careful inquiry on the spot, have 
 come to the conclusion that they bear all the marks of 
 being genuine descendants of the ancient Vaudois. In 
 features, dress, habits, names, language, and religious 
 doctrine, they have an almost perfect identity with the 
 Vaudois of Piedmont at the present day. 
 
 Dormilhouse consists of about forty cottages, in- 
 habited by some two hundred persons. The cottages 
 are perched " like eagles' nests," one tier ranging over 
 another on the rocky ledges of a steep mountain-side. 
 There is very little soil capable of cultivation in the 
 neighbourhood, but the villagers seek out little patches 
 in the valley below and on the mountain shelves, from 
 which they contrive to grow a little grain for home 
 use. The place is so elevated and so exposed, that in 
 some seasons even rye will not ripen at Dormilhouse, 
 while the pasturages are in many places inaccessible to 
 cattle, and scarcely safe for sheep. 
 
 The principal food of the people is goats' milk and 
 unsifted rye, which they bake into cakes in the autumn, 
 and these cakes last them the whole year — the grain, 
 if left unbaked, being apt to grow mouldy and spoil in 
 so damp an atmosphere. Besides, fuel is so scarce that 
 it is necessary to exercise the greatest economy in its 
 use, every stick burnt in the village having to be 
 brought from a distance of some twelve miles, on the 
 backs of donkeys, by the steep mountain-path leading 
 up to the hamlet. Hence, also, the unsavoury means 
 which they are under the necessity of adopting to 
 economize warmth in the winter, by stabling the cattle 
 
446 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 with themselves in the cottages. The huts are for the 
 most part wretched constructions of stone and' mud, 
 from which fresh air, comfort, and cleanliness seem to 
 be entirely excluded. Excepting that the people are 
 for the most part comfortably dressed, in clothing of 
 coarse wool, which they dress and weave themselves, 
 their domestic accommodation and manner of living are 
 centuries behind the age ; and were a stranger suddenly 
 to be set down in the village, he could with difficulty 
 be made to believe that he was in the land of civilised 
 Frenchmen. 
 
 The place is dreary, stern, and desolate-looking even 
 in summer. Thus, we entered it with the snow falling 
 on the 1st of July ! Few of the balmy airs of the sweet 
 South of France breathe here. In the hollow of the 
 mountains the heat may be like that of an oven ; but 
 here, far up on the heights, though the air may be 
 fresh and invigorating at times, when the wind blows 
 it often rises to a hurricane. Here the summer comes 
 late and departs early. "While flowers are blooming in 
 the valleys, not a bud or blade of corn is to be seen at 
 Dormilhouse. At the season when vegetation is else- 
 where at its richest, the dominant features of the land- 
 scape are barrenness and desolation. The very shapes 
 of the mountains are rugged, harsh, and repulsive. 
 Eight over against the hamlet, separated from it by a 
 deep gully, rises up the grim, bare Grramusac, as black 
 as a wall, but along the ledges of which, the hunters of 
 Dormilhouse, who are very daring and skilful, do not 
 fear to stalk the chamois. 
 
 But if the place is thus stern and even appalling in 
 summer, what must it be in winter ? There is scarcely 
 a habitation in the village that is not exposed to the 
 danger of being carried away by avalanches or falling 
 
DORMILHOUSE. 4+7 
 
 rocks. The approach to the mountain is closed by ice 
 and snow, while the rocks are all tapestried with icicles. 
 The tourmente, or snow whirlwind, occasionally swoops 
 up the valley, tears the roofs from the huts, and scatters 
 them in destruction. 
 
 Here is a passage from Neff's journal, vividly de- 
 scriptive of winter life at Dormilhouse : — 
 
 " The weather has been rigorous in the extreme ; the falls of 
 snow are very frequent, and when it becomes a little milder, a general 
 thaw takes place, and our hymns are often sung amid the roar of the 
 avalanches, which, gliding along the smooth face of the glacier, hurl 
 themselves from precipice to precipice, like vast cataracts of silver." 
 
 Writing in January, he says : — 
 
 " We have been buried in four feet of snow since of 1st of Novem- 
 ber. At this very moment a terrible blast is whirling the snow in 
 thick blinding clouds. Travelling is exceedingly difficult and even 
 dangerous among these valleys, particularly in the neighbourhood of 
 Dormilhouse, by reason of the numerous avalanches falling every- 
 where One Sunday evening our scholars and many of the 
 
 Dormilhouse people, when returing home after the sermon at Violens, 
 narrowly escaped an avalanche. It rolled through a narrow defile 
 between two groups of persons : a few seconds sooner or later, and it 
 would have plunged the flower of our youth into the depths of an 
 
 unfathomable gorge In fact, there are very few habitations in 
 
 these parts which are not liable to be swept away, for there is not a 
 spot in the narrow corner of the valley which can be considered abso- 
 lutely safe. But terrible as their situation is, they owe to it their re- 
 ligion, and perhaps their physical existence. If their country had 
 been more secure and more accessible, they would have been extermi- 
 nated like the inhabitants of Val Louise." 
 
 Such is theinteresting though desolate mountain ham- 
 let to the service of whose hardy inhabitants the brave 
 Felix Keff devoted himself during the greater part of 
 his brief missionary career. It was characteristic of 
 him to prefer to serve them because their destitution 
 was greater than that which existed in any other 
 quarter of his extensive parish ; and he turned from the 
 grand mountain scenery of Arvieux and his comfortable 
 cottage at La Chalp, to spend his winters in the dismal 
 hovels and amidst the barren wastes of Dormilhouse. 
 
448 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 "When Neff first went amongst them, the people wero 
 in a state of almost total spiritual destitution. They 
 had not had any pastor stationed amongst them for 
 nearly a hundred and fifty years. During all that 
 time they had Tbeen without schools of any kind, and 
 generation after generation had grown up and passed 
 away in ignorance. Yet with all the inborn tenacity 
 of their race, they had throughout refused to conform 
 to the dominant religion. They belonged to the 
 Vaudois Church, and repudiated Romanism. 
 
 There was probably a Protestant church existing at 
 Dormilhouse previous to the Revocation, as is shown 
 by the existence of an ancient Vaudois church-bell, 
 which was hid away until of late years, when it was 
 dug up and hung in the belfry of the present church. 
 In 1745, the Roman Catholics endeavoured to effect a 
 settlement in the place, and then erected the existing 
 church, with a residence for the cure\ But the people, 
 though they were on the best of terms with the cure, 
 refused to enter his church. During the twenty years 
 that he ministered there, it is said the sole congrega- 
 tion consisted of his domestic servant, who assisted 
 him at mass. 
 
 The story is still told of the cure - bringing up from 
 Les Ribes a large bag of apples — an impossible crop at 
 Dormilhouse — by way of tempting the children to come 
 to him and receive instruction. But they went only so 
 long as the apples lasted, and when they were gone the 
 children disappeared. The cure" complained that during 
 the whole time he had been in the place he had not 
 been able to get a single person to cross himself. So, 
 finding he was not likely to be of any use there, he 
 petitioned his bishop to be allowed to leave ; on which, 
 his request being complied with, the church was closed. 
 
DORMILHOUSE. 449 
 
 This continued until the period of the French Revo- 
 lution, when religious toleration became recognised. 
 The Dormilhouse people then took possession of the 
 Dhurch. They found in it several dusty images, the 
 basin for the holy water, the altar candlesticks, and 
 other furniture, just as the cure had left them many 
 years before ; and they are still preserved as curiosities. 
 The new occupants of the church whitewashed the 
 pictures, took down the crosses, dug up the old Vaudois 
 bell and hung it up in the belfry, and rang the villagers 
 together to celebrate the old worship again. But they 
 were still in want of a regular minister until the period 
 when Felix Neff settled amongst them. A zealous 
 young preacher, Henry Laget, had before then paid 
 them a few visits, and been warmly welcomed; and 
 when, in his last address, he told them they would see 
 his face no more, " it seemed," said a peasant who re- 
 lated the incident to Neff, " as if a gust of wind had 
 extinguished the torch which was to light us in our 
 passage by night across the precipice." And even 
 Neff 's ministry, as we have above seen, only lasted for 
 the short space of about three years. 
 
 Some years after the death of Neff, another attempt 
 was made by the Roman Catholics to establish a mission 
 at Dormilhouse. A priest went up from Les Ribes 
 accompanied by a sister of mercy from Gap — "the 
 pearl of the diocese," she was called — who hired a 
 room for the purpose of commencing a school. To give 
 iclat to their enterprise, the Archbishop of Embrun 
 himself went up, clothed in a purple dress, riding a 
 white horse, and accompanied by a party of men bear- 
 ing a great red cross, which he caused to be set up at 
 the entrance to the village. But when the archbishop 
 appeared, not a single inhabitant went out to meet 
 
 G G 
 
+ S0 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 him ; they had all assembled in the church to hold a 
 prayer-meeting, and it lasted during the whole period 
 of his visit. All that he accomplished was to set up 
 the great red cross, after which he went down the 
 Tourniquet again; and shortly after, the priest and 
 the sister of mercy, finding they could not obtain a 
 footing, also left the village. Somehow or other, the 
 red cross which had been set up mysteriously dis- 
 appeared, but how it had been disposed of no one would 
 ever reveal. It was lately proposed to commemorate 
 the event of the archbishop's visit by the erection of an 
 obeKsk on the spot where he had set up the red cross ; 
 and a tablet, with a suitable inscription, was provided 
 for it by the Rev. Mr. Freemantle, of Claydon. But 
 when he was told that the site was exposed to the full 
 force of the avalanches descending from the upper part 
 of the mountain in winter, and would speedily be swept 
 away, the project of the memorial pillar was abandoned, 
 and the tablet was inserted, instead, in the front wall 
 of the village church, where it reads as follows : — 
 
 a la gioike de dieu 
 
 dont de les temps ancien8 
 
 et 1 travep.b le martyr de leurs peres 
 
 a maintenu 
 
 a dormilhouse 
 
 la poi donne aux saints 
 
 et la connai8sance de la parole 
 
 les habitants ont eleve 
 
 cette pierre 
 
 mdccclxiv. 
 
 Having thus described the village and its history, a 
 few words remain to be added as to the visit of our 
 little party of travellers from Palons. On reaching the 
 elevated point at which the archbishop had set up the 
 red cross, the whole of the huts lay before us, and a 
 
DORMILHOUSE. +SI 
 
 little way down the mountain- side we discerned the 
 village church, distinguished by its. little belfry. 
 Leaving on our right the Swiss-looking chalet with 
 overhanging roof, in which Neff used to lodge with 
 the Baridon- Verdure family while at Dormilhouse, and 
 now known as " Felix Neffs house," we made our way 
 down a steep and stony footpath towards the school- 
 house adjoining the church, in front of which we found 
 the large ash trees, shading both church and school, 
 which Neff himself had planted. Arrived at the school- 
 house, we there found shelter and accommodation for 
 the night. The schoolroom, fitted with its forms and 
 desks, was our parlour, and our bedrooms, furnished 
 with the blankets we had brought with us, were in the 
 little chambers adjoining. 
 
 At eight in the evening the church bell rang for 
 service — the summoning bell. The people had been 
 expecting the visit, and turned out in full force, so 
 that at nine o'clock, when the last bell rang, the church 
 was found filled to the door. Every seat was occupied 
 — by men on one side, and by women on the other. 
 The service was conducted by Mr. Milsom, the mis- 
 sionary visitor from Lyons, who opened with prayer, 
 then gave out the twenty-third Psalm, which was sung 
 to an accompaniment on the harmonium ; then another 
 prayer, followed by the reading of a chapter in the 
 New Testament, was wound up by an address, in 
 which the speaker urged the people to their continu- 
 ance in well-doing. In the course of his remarks he 
 said : " Be not discouraged because the results of your 
 labours may appear but small. "Work on and faint 
 not, and God will give the spiritual increase. Pastors, 
 teachers, and colporteurs are too often ready to despond, 
 because the fruit does not seem to ripen while they are 
 
45* THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 watching it. But the best fruit grows slowly. Think 
 how the Apostles laboured. They were all poor men, 
 but men of brave hearts ; and they passed away to 
 their rest long before the seed which they planted grew 
 up and ripened to perfection. Work on then in 
 patience and hope, and be assured that Grod will at 
 length help you." 
 
 Mr. Milsom's address was followed by another from 
 the pastor, and then by a final prayer and hymn, after 
 which the service was concluded, and the villagers 
 dispersed to their respective homes a little after ten 
 o'clock. The snow had ceased falling, but the sky was 
 still overcast, and the night felt cold and raw, like 
 February rather than July. 
 
 The wonder is, that this community of Dormilhouse 
 should cling to their mountain eyrie so long after the 
 necessity for their living above' the clouds has ceased; 
 but it is their home, and they have come to love it, and 
 are satisfied to live and die there. Rather than live 
 elsewhere, they will walk, as some of them do, twelve 
 miles in the early morning, to their work down in the 
 valley of the Durance, and twelve miles home again, 
 in the evenings, to their perch on the rocks at Dormil- 
 house. 
 
 They are even proud of their mountain home, and 
 would not change it for the most smiling vineyard of 
 the plains. They are like a little mountain clan — all 
 Baridons, or Michels, or Orcieres, or Bertholons, or 
 Arnouds — proud of their descent from the ancient 
 Vaudois. It is their boast that a Roman Catholic does 
 not live among them. Once, when a young shepherd 
 came up from the valley to pasture his flock in the 
 mountains, he fell in love ^cith a maiden of the 
 village, and proposed to marry her. " Yes," was the 
 
RETURN TO PALONS. 453 
 
 answer,, with, this condition, that he joined the Vaudois 
 Church. And he assented, married the girl, and set 
 tied for life at Dormilhouse.* 
 
 The next morning hroke clear and hright overhead. 
 The sun shone along the rugged face of the Gramusac 
 right over against the hamlet, bringing out its bolder 
 prominences. Far below, the fleecy clouds were still 
 rolling themselves up the mountain -sides, or gradually- 
 dispersing as the sun caught them on their emerging 
 from the valley below. The view was bold and striking, 
 displaying the grandeur of the scenery of Dormilhouse 
 in one of its best aspects. 
 
 Setting out on the return journey to Palons, we 
 descended the face of the mountain on which Dormil- 
 house stands, by a steep footpath right in front of it, 
 down towards the falls of the Biasse. Looking back, 
 the whole village appeared above us, cottage over 
 cottage, and ledge over ledge, with its stern back- 
 ground of rocky mountain. 
 
 Immediately under the village, in a hollow between 
 two shoulders of rock, the cascade of the Biasse leaps 
 down into the valley. The highest leap falls in a jet 
 of about a hundred feet, and the lower, divided into two 
 by a projecting ledge, breaks into a shower of spray 
 which falls about a hundred and fifty feet more into 
 the abyss below. Even in Switzerland this fall would 
 
 • Since the date of our visit, we learn that a Bad accident — strik- 
 ingly illustrative of the perils of village life at Dormilhouse— has 
 befallen this young shepherd, hy name Jean Joseph Lagier. One day 
 in October, 1869, while engaged in gathering wood near the brink of 
 the precipice overhanging Minsals, he accidently fell over and was 
 killed on the spot, leaving behind him a widow and a large family. 
 He was a person of such excellent character and conduct, that he had • 
 been selected as colporteur for the neighbourhood. 
 
454 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 be considered a fine object ; but in this out-of-the-way 
 place, it is rarely seen except by the villagers, who 
 have water and cascades more than enough. 
 
 "We were told on the spot, that some eighty years 
 since an avalanche shot down the mountain immediately 
 on to the plateau on which we stood, carrying with it 
 nearly half the village of Dormilhouse ; and every year 
 the avalanches shoot down at the same place, which is 
 strewn with the boulders and ddbris that extend far 
 down into the valley. 
 
 At the bottom of the Tourniquet we joined M. 
 Charpiot, accompanying the donkey laden with the 
 blankets and knapsacks, and proceeded with him on 
 our way down the valley towards his hospitable 
 parsonage at Palons. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 GUILLESTRE AND THE VALLEY OF QTJEYKAS. 
 
 WE left Palons on a sharp, bright morning in July, 
 with the prospect of a fine day before us, though 
 there had been a fall of snow in the night, which 
 whitened the tops of the neighbouring hills. Follow- 
 ing the road along the heights on the right bank of 
 the Biasse, and passing the hamlet of Chancellas, 
 another favourite station of NefFs, a rapid descent led 
 us down into the valley of the Durance, which we 
 crossed a little above the village of St. Crepin, with the 
 strong fortress of Mont Dauphin before us a few miles 
 lower down the valley. 
 
 This remote corner in the mountains was the scene 
 of much fighting in early times between the Roman 
 Catholics and the Huguenots, and afterwards between 
 the French and the Piedmontese. It was in this 
 neighbourhood that Lesdiguieres first gave evidence of 
 his skill and valour as a soldier. The massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew at Paris in 1572 had been followed by 
 like massacres in various parts of France, especially iu 
 the south. The Roman Catholics of Dauphiny, deem- 
 ing the opportunity favourable for the extirpation of 
 the heretical Vaudois, dispatched the military com- 
 mandant of Embrun against the inhabitants of Val 
 
456 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Fressinieres at the head of an army of twelve hundred 
 men. Lesdiguieres, then scarce twenty-four years old, 
 being informed of their march, hastily assembled a 
 Huguenot force in the valley of the Drac, and, crossing 
 the Col d'Orcieres from Champsaur into the valley of the 
 Durance, he suddenly fell upon the enemy at St. Crepin, 
 routed them, and drove them down the valley to 
 Embrun. Twelve years later, during the wars of the 
 League, Lesdiguieres distinguished himself in the 
 same neighbourhood, capturing Embrun, Guillestre, 
 and Chateau Queyras, in the valley of the Guil, thereby 
 securing the. entire province for his royal master, 
 Henry of Navarre. 
 
 The strong fortress of Mont Dauphin, at the junction 
 of the Guil with the Durance, was not constructed 
 until a century later. Victor-Amadeus II., when 
 invading the province with a Piedmontese army, at 
 sight of the plateau commanding the entrance of both 
 valleys, exclaimed, " There is a pass to fortify." The . 
 hint was not neglected by the French general, Catinat, 
 under whose directions the great engineer, Vauban, 
 traced the plan of the present fortifications. It is a 
 very strong place, completely commanding the valley 
 of the Durance, while it is regarded as the key of 
 the passage into Italy by the Guil and the Col de la 
 Croix. 
 
 Guillestre is a small old-fashioned town, situated on 
 the lowest slope of the pine-clad mountain, the Tete de 
 Quigoulet, at the junction of the Bioubel and the 
 Chagne, rivulets in summer but torrents in winter, 
 which join the Guil a little below the town. Guillestre 
 was in ancient times a strong place, and had for its 
 lords the Archbishops of Embrun, the ancient perse- 
 cutors of the Vaudois. The castle of the archbishop, 
 
GUILLESTRE. 457 
 
 flanked by six towers, occupied a commanding site 
 immediately overlooking the town ; but at the French 
 Revolution of 1789, the first thing which the arch- 
 bishop's flock did was to pull his castle in pieces, 
 leaving not one stone upon another ; and, strange to 
 say, the only walled enclosure now within its pre- 
 cincts is the little burying-ground of the Guillestre 
 Protestants. One memorable stone has, however, been 
 preserved, the stone trough in which the peasants were 
 required to measure the tribute of grain payable by 
 them to their reverend seigneurs. It is still to be 
 seen laid against a wall in an open space in front of the 
 church. 
 
 It happened that the fair of Guillestre, which is held 
 every two months, was afoot at the time of our visit. 
 It is frequented by the people of the adjoining valleys, 
 of which Guillestre is the centre, as well as by Pied- 
 montese from beyond the Italian frontier. On the 
 principal day of the fair we found the streets filled 
 with peasants buying and selling beasts. They were 
 apparently of many races. Amongst them were many 
 well-grown men, some with rings in their ears — horse- 
 dealers from Piedmont, we were told ; but the greater 
 number were little, dark, thin, and poorly-fed peasants. 
 Some of them, dark-eyed and tawny-skinned, looked 
 like Arabs, possibly descendants of the Saracens who 
 once occupied the province. There were one or two 
 groups of gipsies, differing from all else; but the 
 district is too poor to be much frequented by people ot 
 that race. 
 
 The animals brought for sale showed the limited 
 resources of the neighbourhood. One hill- woman came 
 along dragging two goats in milk ; another led a sheep 
 and a goat ; a third a donkey in foal ; a fourth a cow in 
 
458 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 milk ; and so on. The largest lot consisted of about 
 forty lambs, of various sizes and breeds, which, had 
 been driven down from the cool air of the mountains, 
 and, gasping with heat, were cooling their heads 
 against the shady side of a stone wall. There were 
 several lots of pigs, of a bad but probably hardy sort — 
 mostly black, round-backed, long-legged, and long- 
 eared. In selling the animals, there was the usual 
 chaffering, in shrill patois, at the top of the voice — the 
 seller of some poor scraggy beast extolling its merits, 
 the intending buyer running it down as a " miserable 
 bossu," &c, and disputing every point raised in its 
 behalf, until the contest .of words rose to such a height — 
 men, women, and even children, on both sides, taking 
 part in it — that the bystander would have thought 
 it impossible they could separate without a fight. 
 But matters always came to a peaceable conclusion, for 
 the French are by no means a quarrelsome people. 
 
 There were also various other sorts of produce offered 
 for sale — wool, undressed sheepskins, sticks for firewood, 
 onions and vegetable produce, and considerable quanti- 
 ties of honeycomb ; while the sellers of scythes, whet- 
 stones, caps, and articles of dress, seemed to meet with 
 a ready sale for their wares, arranged on stalls in the 
 open space in front of the church. Altogether, ' the 
 queer collection of beasts and their drivers, who were 
 to be seen drinking together greedily and promiscuously 
 from the fountains in the market-place; the steep 
 streets, crowded with lean goats and cows and pigs, 
 and their buyers and sellers ; the braying of donkeys 
 and the shrieking of chafferers, with here and there a 
 goitred dwarf of hideous aspect, presented a picture of 
 an Alpine mountain fair, which, once seen, is not 
 readily forgotten. 
 
GUILLESTRE. 459 
 
 There is a similar fair held at the village of La 
 Bessie, before mentioned, a little higher up the 
 Durance, on the road to Briancon ; but it is held only 
 once a year, at the end of October, when the inhabit- 
 ants of Dormilhouse come down in a body to lay in 
 their stock of necessaries for the winter. " There then 
 arrives," says M. Albert, " a caravan of about the most 
 singular character that can be imagined. It consists 
 of nearly the whole population of the mountain hamlet, 
 who resort thither to supply themselves with the 
 articles required for family use during the winter, 
 such as leather, lint, salt, and .oil. These poor 
 mountaineers are provided with very little money, 
 and, to procure the necessary commodities, they 
 have recourse to barter, the most ancient and primi- 
 tive method of conducting trade. Hence they bring 
 with them rye, barley, pigs, lambs, chamois skins 
 and horns, and the produce of their knitting during 
 the past year, to exchange for the required articles, 
 with which they set out homeward, laden as they 
 had come." 
 
 The same circumstances which have concurred in 
 making Ghiillestre the seat of the principal fair of the 
 valleys, led Felix JNeff to regard it as an important 
 centre of missionary operations amongst the Vaudois. 
 In nearly all the mountain villages in its neighbour- 
 hood descendants of the ancient Vaudois are to be 
 found, sometimes in the most remote and inaccessible 
 places, whither they had fled in the times of the perse- 
 cutions. Thus at Vars, a mountain hamlet up the 
 torrent Rioubel, about nine miles from Guillestre, 
 there is a little Christian community, which, though 
 under the necessity of long concealing their faitb, 
 
460 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 never ceased to be Vaudois in spirit.* Then, up the 
 valley of the Guil, and in the lateral valleys which join 
 it, there are, in some places close to the mountain 
 barrier which divides France from Italy, other villages 
 and hamlets, such as Arvieux, San Veran, Fongilarde, 
 &c, the inhabitants of which, though they concealed 
 their faith subsequent to the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, never conformed to Roman Catholicism, but took 
 the earliest opportunity of declaring themselves openly 
 so soon as the dark period of persecution had passed by. 
 The people of these scattered and distant hamlets 
 were, however, too poor to supply themselves with 
 religious instructors, and they long remained in a state 
 of spiritual destitution. Felix Neffs labours were too 
 short, and scattered over too extensive a field, to pro- 
 duce much permanent effect. Besides, they were 
 principally confined to the village of Dormilhouse, 
 which, as being the most destitute, had, he thought, 
 the greatest claim upon his help ; and at his death 
 comparatively little had been done or attempted in the 
 Gruillestre district. But he left behind him what was 
 worth more than any endowment of money, a noble 
 example, which still lives, and inspires the labourers 
 who have come after him. 
 
 * The well-known Alpine missionary, J. L. Eostan, of whom an 
 interesting biography has recently been published by the Rev. A. J. 
 French, for the "Wesleyan Conference, was a native of Vara. He was 
 one of the favourite pupils of Felix Neff, with whom he resided at 
 Dormilhouse in 1825-7 ; Neff saying of him : " Among the best of my 
 pupils, as regards spiritual things and secular too, is Jean Eostan, of 
 Vara : he is probably destined for the ministry ; such at least is my 
 hope." Neff bequeathed to him. the charge of his parish during his 
 temporary absence, but he never returned ; and shortly after, Eostan 
 left, to pursue his studies at Montauban. He joined the Methodist 
 Church, settled and ministered for a time in La Yaunage and the 
 CeVennes, afterwards labouring as a missionary in the High Alps, 
 and eventually settled as minister of the church at Lisieuz, Jersey, in 
 charge of which he died, July, 1859. 
 
GUILLESTRE. 4 6i 
 
 It was not until within the last twenty years that a 
 few Vaudois families of Guillestre began to meet 
 together for religious purposes, which they did at first 
 in the upper chamber of an inn. There the Rev. Mr. 
 Freemantle found them when paying his first visit to 
 the valleys in 1851. He was rejoiced to see the zeal of 
 the people, holding to their faith in the face of con- 
 siderable opposition and opprobrium ; and he exerted 
 himself to raise the requisite funds amongst his friends 
 in England to provide the Guillestre Vaudois with a 
 place of worship of their own. His efforts were 
 attended with success ; and in 1854 a comfortable 
 parsonage, with a commodious room for public worship, 
 was purchased for their use. A fund was also provided 
 for the maintenance of a settled ministry ; a pastor was 
 appointed ; and in 1857 a congregation of from forty 
 to seventy persons attended worship every Sunday. 
 Mr. Freemantle, in a communication with which he 
 has favoured us, says : " Our object has not been to 
 make an aggression upon the Roman Catholics, but to 
 strengthen the hands and establish the faith of the 
 Vaudois. And in so doing we have found, not un- 
 frequently, that when an interest has been excited 
 among the Roman Catholic population of the district, 
 there has been some family or hereditary connection 
 with ancestors who were independent of the see of 
 Rome, and such have again joined themselves to the 
 faith of their fathers." 
 
 The new movement was not, however, allowed to 
 proceed without great opposition. The "Momiers," 
 or mummers — the modern nickname of the Vaudois — 
 were denounced by the cure 1 of the place, and the people 
 were cautioned, as they valued their souls' safety, 
 against, giving any countenance to their proceedings. 
 
462 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 The cure was doubtless seriously impressed by the 
 gravity of the situation; and to protect the parish 
 against the assaults of the evil one, he had a large num- 
 ber of crosses erected upon the heights overlooking the 
 town. On one occasion he had a bad dream, in which 
 he beheld the valley filled with a vast assembly come to 
 be judged ; and on the site of the judgment-seat which 
 he saw in his dream, he set up, on the summit of the Come 
 Chauve, a large tin cross hearted with wood. "We were 
 standing in the garden in front of the parsonage at 
 Guillestre late in the evening, when M. Schell, the 
 pastor, pointing up to the height, said, " There you see 
 it now ; that is the curb's erection." The valley below 
 lay in deep shadow, while the cross upon the summit 
 brightly reflected the last rays of the setting sun. 
 
 The cure 1 , finding that the " Momiers " did not cease 
 to exist, next adopted the expedient of preaching them 
 down. On the occasion of the F&te Napoleon, 1862, 
 when the Rev. Mr. Freemantle visited Ghiillestre for 
 the purpose of being present at the Vaudois services on 
 Sunday, the 10th of August, the cure preached a special 
 sermon to his congregation at early morning mass, 
 telling them that an Englishman had come into the 
 town with millions of francs to buy up the souls of 
 Ghiillestre, and warning them to abstain from such 
 men. 
 
 The people were immediately filled with curiosity to 
 know what it was that this stranger had come all the 
 way from England to do, backed by "millions of 
 francs." Many of them did not as yet know that there 
 was such a thing as a Vaudois church in Ghiillestre ; but 
 now that they did know, they were desirous of ascer- 
 taining something about the doctrines taught there. 
 The consequence was, that a crowd of people — amongst 
 
GUILLESTRE. 4 6 3 
 
 whom were some of the highest authorities in the town, 
 the registrar, the douaniers, the chief of a neighbouring 
 commune, and persons of all classes — assembled at noon 
 to hear M. de Faye, the Protestant pastor, who preached 
 to them an excellent sermon under the trees of the 
 parsonage orchard, while a still larger number attended 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 When the cure heard of the conduct of his flock he 
 was greatiy annoyed. " What did you hear from the 
 heretics ? " he asked of one of the delinquents. " I heard 
 your sermon in the morning, and a sermon upon charity 
 in the afternoon," was the reply. 
 
 Great were the surprise and excitement in Guillestre 
 when it became known that the principal sergeant of 
 gendarmerie — the very embodiment of law and order 
 in the places-had gone oyer and joined the " Momiers" 
 with his wife and family. M. Laugier was quite a 
 model gendarme. He was a man of excellent character, 
 steady, sensible, and patient, a diligent self-improver, 
 a reader of books, a botanist, and a bit of a geologist. He 
 knew all the rare mountain plants, and had a collection 
 of those that would bear transplantation, in his garden 
 at the back of the town. No man was more respected 
 in Guillestre than the sergeant. His long and faithful 
 service entitled bf-m to the midailk militaire, and it 
 would have been awarded to him, but for the circum- 
 stance which came to light, and which he did not seek 
 to conceal, that he had joined the Protestant connexion. 
 Not only was the medal withheld, but influence was 
 used to get bim sent away from the place ; and he was 
 packed off to a station in the mountains at Chateau 
 Queyras. 
 
 Though this banishment from Guillestre was intended 
 as a punishment, it only served to bring out the sterling 
 
464 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAVDOIS. 
 
 qualities of the sergeant, and to ensure his eventual 
 reward. It so happened that the station at Chateau 
 Queyras commanded the approaches into an extensive 
 range of mountain pasturage. Although not required 
 specially to attend to their safety, our sergeant had 
 nevertheless carefully noted the flocks and herds as 
 they went up the valleys in the spring. When winter 
 approached, they were all brought down again from 
 the mountains for safety. 
 
 The winter of that year set in early and severely. 
 The sergeant, making his observations on the flocks as 
 they passed down the valley, noted that one large flock 
 of about three thousand sheep had not yet made its ap- 
 pearance. The mountains were now covered with snow, 
 and he apprehended that the sheep and their shepherds 
 had been storm-stayed. Summoning to his assistance a 
 body of men, he set out at their head in search of the 
 lost flock. After a long, laborious, and dangerous 
 journey — for the snow by this time lay deep in the 
 hollows of the hills — he succeeded in discovering the 
 shepherds and the sheep, almost reduced to their last 
 gasp — the sheep, for want of food, actually gnawing 
 each other's tails. With great difficulty the whole 
 were extricated from their perilous position, and 
 brought down the mountains in safety. 
 
 No representation was made to head-quarters by the 
 authorities of Guillestre of the conduct of the Protestant 
 sergeant in the matter ; but when the shepherds got 
 down to Gap, they were so full of the sergeant's 
 praises, and of his bravery in rescuing them and their 
 flock from certain death, that a paragraph descriptive 
 of the affair was inserted in the local papers, and was 
 eventually copied into -the Parisian journals. Then it 
 was .that an inquiry was made into his conduct, and the 
 
GUILLESTRE CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 465 
 
 result was so satisfactory that the sergeant was at once 
 decorated not only with the midaille militaire, but with 
 the medaille de sauvetage — a still higher honour ; and, 
 shortly after, he was allowed to retire from the service 
 on full pay. He then returned to his home and family 
 at Ghiillestre, where he now officiates as Regent of the 
 Vaudois church, reading the prayers and conducting 
 the service in the absence of the stated minister. 
 
 We spent a Sunday in the comfortable parsonage at 
 Guillestre. There was divine service in the temple at 
 half-past ten a.m., conducted by the regular pastor, M. 
 Schell, and instruction and catechizing of the children 
 in the afternoon. The pastor's regular work consists 
 of two services at Guillestre and Vars on alternate 
 Sundays, with Sunday-school and singing lesson ; and 
 on week days he gives religious instruction in the 
 Guillestre school. The missionary's wife is a true 
 " helpmeet," and having been trained as a deaconess 
 at Strasbourg, she regularly visits the poor, occasionally 
 assisting them with medical advice. 
 
 Another important part of the work at Guillestre is 
 the girls' school, for which suitable premises have been 
 taken; and it is conducted by an excellent female 
 teacher. Here not only the usual branches of education 
 are taught, but domestic industry of different kinds. 
 Through the instrumentality of Mr. Milsom, glove- 
 sewing has been taught to the girls, and it is hoped 
 that by this and similar efforts this branch of home 
 manufacture may become introduced in the High Alps, 
 and furnish profitable employment to many poor per- 
 sons during their long and dreary winter. 
 
 By the aid of a special fund, a few girl boarders^ 
 belonging to scattered Protestant families who have no 
 
 HH 
 
466 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 other means for the education of their children, are also 
 received at the school. The girls seem to he extremely 
 well taken care of, and the house, which we went over, 
 is a very pattern of cleanliness and comfort. 
 
 The route from Gruillestre into Italy lies up the 
 valley of the Guil, through one of the wildest and 
 deepest gorges, or rather chasms, to he found in Europe. 
 Brockedon says it is " one of the finest in the Alps." 
 M. Bost compares it to the Moutier-GfTand-Val, in the 
 canton of Berne, but says it is much wilder. He even 
 calls it frightful, which it is not, except in rainy weather, 
 when the rocks occasionally fall from overhead. At sueh 
 times people avoid travelling through the gorge. M. 
 Bost also likens it to the Via Mala, though here the 
 road, at the narrowest and most precipitous parts, runs 
 in the bottom of the gorge, in a ledge cut in the rock, 
 there being room only for the river and the road. It 
 is only of late years that the road has been completed, 
 and it is often partly washed away in winter, or covered 
 with rock and stones brought down by the torrent. 
 When Neff travelled the gorge, it was passable only on 
 foot, or on muleback. Yet light-footed armies have 
 passed into Italy by this route. Lesdiguieres clam- 
 bered over the mountains and along the Guil to reach 
 Chateau Queyras, which he assaulted and took. Louis 
 XIII. once accompanied a French army about a league 
 up the gorge, but he turned back, afraid to go farther ; 
 and the hamlet at which his progress was arrested is 
 3till called Maison du Roi. About three leagues higher 
 up, after crossing the Guil from bank to bank several 
 times, in order to make use of such ledges of the rock 
 as are suitable for the road, the gorge opens into the 
 Combe du Queyras, and very shortly the picturesque- 
 
CHATEAU QUEYRAS. 467 
 
 looking Castle of Queyras comes in sight, occupying 
 the summit of a lofty conical rock in the middle of the 
 valley. 
 
 As we approached * Chateau Queyras the ruins of a 
 building were pointed out by Mr. Milsom in the bottom 
 of the valley, close by the river-side. " That," said he, 
 " was once the Protestant temple of the place. It was 
 burnt to the ground at the Eevocation. You see that 
 old elm-tree growing near it. That tree was at the 
 same time burnt to a black stump. It became a saying 
 in the valley that Protestantism was as dead as that 
 stump, and that it would only reappear when that dead 
 stump came to life ! And, strange to say, since Felix 
 Neff has been here, the stump has come to life — you see 
 how green it is — and again Protestantism is like the elm- 
 tree, sending out its vigorous offshoots in the valley." 
 
 Chateau Queyras stands in the centre of the valley of 
 the Gruil, which is joined near this point by two other 
 valleys, the Combe of Arvieux joining it on the right 
 bank, and that of San Yeran on the left. The heads of 
 the streams which traverse these valleys have their 
 origin in the snowy range of the Cottian Alps, which 
 form the boundary between France and Italy. As in 
 the case of the descendants of the ancient Yaudois at 
 Donnilhouse, they are here also found at the farthest 
 limit of vegetation, penetrating almost to the edge of 
 the glacier, where they were least likely to be molested 
 The inhabitants of Arvieux were formerly almost 
 entirely Protestant, and had a temple there, which was 
 pulled down at the Revocation. From that time down 
 to the Revolution they worshipped only in secret, 
 occasionally ministered to by Yaudois pastors, who made 
 precarious visits to them from the Italian valleys at the 
 risk of their lives. 
 
468 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Above Arvieux is the hamlet of La Chalp, containing 
 a considerable number of Protestants, and where Neff 
 had his home — a small, low cottage undistinguishable 
 from the others save by its whitewashed front. Its 
 situation is cheerful, facing the south, and commanding 
 a pleasant mountain prospect, contrasting strongly with 
 the barren outlook and dismal hovels of Dormilhouse. 
 But Neff never could regard the place as his home. 
 " The inhabitants," he observed in his journal, "have 
 more traffic, and the mildness of the climate appears 
 somehow or other not favourable to the growth of piety. 
 They are zealous Protestants, and show me a thousand 
 attentions, but they are at present absolutely im- 
 penetrable." The members of the congregation at 
 Arvieux, indeed, complained of his spending so little of 
 his time among them ; but the comfort of his cottage at 
 La Chalp, and the comparative mildness of the climate 
 of Arvieux, were insufficient to attract him from the 
 barren crags but warm hearts of Dormilhouse. 
 
 The village of San Veran, which lies up among the 
 mountains some twelve miles to the east of Arvieux, on 
 the opposite side of the Val Queyras, was another 
 of the refuges of the ancient Vaudois. It is at the foot 
 of the snowy ridge which divides France from Italy. 
 Dr. Gfilly says, " There is nothing fit for mortal to take 
 refuge in between San Yeran and the eternal snows 
 which mantle the pinnacles of Monte Yiso." The village 
 is 6,692 feet above the level of the sea, and there 
 is a provincial saying that San Veran is the highest 
 spot "in Europe where bread is eaten. Felix Neff said, 
 "It is the highest, and consequently the most pious, 
 in the valley of Queyras." Dr. Grilly was the second 
 Englishman who had ever found his way to the place, 
 and he was accompanied on the occasion by Mrs. GKlly. 
 
NEFF'S CHARGE. #9 
 
 " The sight of a female," lie says, " dressed entirely 
 in linen, -was a phenomenon so new to those simple 
 peasants, whose garments are never anything but 
 woollen, that Pizarro and his mail-clad companions 
 were not greater objects of curiosity to the Peruvians 
 than we were to these mountaineers." 
 
 Not far distant from San Veran are the mountain 
 hamlets of Pierre Grosse and Fon-gillarde, also 
 ancient retreats of the persecuted Vaudois, and now for 
 the most part inhabited by Protestants. The remote- 
 ness and comparative inaccessibility of these mountain 
 hamlets may be inferred from the fact that in 1786, 
 when the Protestants of France were for the first 
 time since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
 permitted to worship in public without molestation, 
 four years elapsed before the intelligence reached San 
 Veran. 
 
 "We have now reached almost the extreme limits of 
 France ; Italy lying on the other side of the snowy 
 peaks which shut in the upper valleys of the Alps. In 
 Neff's time the parish of which he had charge ex- 
 tended from San Veran, on the frontier, to Champsaur, 
 in the valley of the Drac, a distance of nearly eighty 
 miles. His charge consisted of the scattered popula- 
 tion of many mountain hamlets, to visit which in suc- 
 cession involved his travelling a total distance of not 
 less than one hundred and eighty miles. It was, of 
 course, impossible that any single man, no matter how 
 inspired by zeal and devotion, could do justice to a 
 charge so extensive. The difficulties of passing through 
 a country so wild and rugged were also very great, 
 especially in winter. Neff records that on one occasion 
 he took six hours to make the journey, in the midst of 
 a snow-storm which completely hid the footpath, front 
 
470 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 his cottage at La Chalp to San Veran, a distance of 
 only twelve miles. 
 
 The pastors who succeeded Neff had the same diffi- 
 culties to encounter, and there were few to be found 
 who could brave them. The want of proper domestic 
 accommodation for the pastors was also felt to be a 
 great hindrance. Accordingly, one of the first things 
 to which the Rev. Mr. Freemantle directed his atten- 
 'ion, when he entered upon his noble work of supplying 
 the spiritual destitution of the French Vaudois, was to 
 take steps not only to supply the poor people with more 
 commodious temples, but also to provide dwelling- 
 houses for 4he pastors. And in the course of a few 
 years, helped by friends in England, he has been 
 enabled really to accomplish a very great deal. The 
 extensive parish of Neff is now divided into five sub- 
 parishes — that of Fressinieres, which includes Palons, 
 Violins, and Dormilhouse, provided with three temples, 
 a parsonage, and schools ; Arvieux, with the hamlets 
 of Brunissard (where worship was formerly conducted 
 in a stable) and La Chalp, provided with two temples, 
 a parsonage, and schools ; San Veran, with Fongillarde 
 and Pierre Grrosse, provided with three temples, a 
 parsonage, and a school; St. Laurent du Cros and 
 Champsaur, in the valley of the Drac, provided with a 
 temple, school, &c, principally through the liberality 
 of Lord Monson; and Guillestre and Vars, provided 
 with two temples, a parsonage, and a girls' school. A 
 temple, with a residence for a pastor, has also of late 
 years been provided at Briancon, with a meeting-place 
 also at the village of Villeneuve. 
 
 Such are the agencies now at work in the district of 
 the High Alps, helped on by a few zealous workers 
 in England and abroad. While the object of the 
 
ABRIES. 471 
 
 pastors, in the words of Mr. Freemantle, is "not to 
 regard themselves as missionaries to proselytize Roman 
 Catholics, but as ministers residing among their own 
 people, whose faith, and love, and holiness they have 
 to promote," they also endeavour to institute measures 
 with the object of improving the social and domestic 
 condition of the Vaudois. Thus, in one district — that 
 of St. Laurent du Cros — a banque de privoyance, or 
 savings-bank, has been established ; and though it was 
 at first regarded with suspicion, it has gradually made 
 its way and proved of great value, being made use of 
 by the indigent Roman Catholics as well as Protestant 
 families of the district. Such efforts and such agencies 
 as these cannot fail to be followed by blessings, and to 
 be greatly instrumental for good. 
 
 Our last night in France was spent in the miserable 
 little town of Abries, situated immediately at the foot 
 of the Alpine ridge which separates France from Italy. 
 On reaching the principal hotel, or rather auberge, we 
 found every bed taken ; but a peep into the dark and 
 dirty kitchen, which forms the entrance-hall of the 
 place, made us almost glad that there was no room for 
 us in that inn. We turned out into the wet streets to 
 find a better ; but though we succeeded in finding beds 
 in a poor house in a back lane, little can be said in their 
 praise. We were, however, supplied with a tolerable 
 dinner, and contrived to pass the night in rest, and to 
 start refreshed early on the following morning on our 
 way to the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont. 
 
VALLEY OP LUSERNE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE PELICE LA T0LR- 
 
 THE FRA DTJ TOUR. 
 
 -ANGROGNA 
 
 HHHE village of Abries is situated close to the Alpine 
 -*- ridge, the summit of which marks the boundary 
 between France and Italy. On the other side lie the 
 valleys of Piedmont, in which the French Vaudois were 
 accustomed to take refuge when persecution ravaged 
 their own valleys, passing by the mountain-road we 
 were now about to travel, as far as La Tour, in the 
 valley of the Pelice. 
 
 Although there are occasional -villages along the 
 route, there is no good resting-place for travellers short 
 of La Tour, some twenty-six miles distant from Abries ; 
 and as it was necessary that we should walk the 
 distance, the greater part of the road being merely a 
 track, scarcely practicable for mules, we were up be- 
 times in the morning, and on our way. The sun had 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE PELICE. 473 
 
 scarcely risen above the horizon. The mist was still 
 hanging along the mountain-sides, and the stillness of 
 the scene was only broken by the murmur of the Ghril 
 running in its rocky bed below. Passing through the 
 hamlet of Monta, where the French douane has its last 
 frontier station, we began the ascent ; and soon, as the 
 sun rose and the mists cleared away, we saw the profile 
 of the mountain up which we were climbing cast boldly 
 upon the range behind us on the further side of the 
 ■ valley. A little beyond the ravine of the Combe de la 
 Croix, along the summit of which the road winds, we 
 reached the last house within the French frontier — a 
 hospice, not very inviting in appearance, for the accom- 
 modation of travellers. A little further is the Col, and 
 passing a stone block carved with the fleur-de-lis and 
 cross of Savoy, we crossed the frontier of France and 
 entered Italy. 
 
 On turning a shoulder of the mountain, we looked 
 down upon the head of the valley of the Pelice, a grand 
 and savage scene. The majestic, snow-capped Monte 
 Viso towers up on the right, at the head of the valley, 
 amidst an assemblage of other great mountain masses. 
 From its foot seems to steal the river Pelice, now a 
 quiet rivulet, though in winter a raging torrent. 
 Right in front, lower down the valley, is the rocky 
 defile of Mirabouc, a singularly savage gorge, seemingly 
 rent asunder by some tremendous convulsion of nature ; 
 beyond and over which extends the valley of the Pelice, 
 expanding into that of the Po, and in the remote 
 distance the plains of Piedmont ; while immediately 
 beneath our feet, as it were, but far below, lies a con- 
 siderable breadth of green pasture, the Bergerie of Pra, 
 enclosed on all sides by the mountains over which we 
 look. 
 
474 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 The descent from the Col down into the Pra is very 
 difficult, in some places almost precipitous — far more 
 abrupt than on the French side, where the incline up 
 to the summit is comparatively easy. 
 
 The zigzag descends from one rock to another, along 
 the face of a shelving slope, by a succession of notches 
 (from which the footpath is not inappropriately termed 
 La Coche) affording a very insecure footing for the 
 few mules which occasionally cross the pass. Dr. 
 Gilly crossed here from La Tour with Mrs. Gilly in 
 .1829, when about to visit the French valleys ; but he 
 found the path so difficult and dangerous, that the lady 
 had to walk nearly the whole way. 
 
 As we descended the mountain almost by a succession 
 of leaps, we overtook M. Gariod, deputy judge of Gap, 
 engaged in botanizing among the rocks ; and he in- 
 formed ns that among the rarer specimens he had col- 
 lected in the course of his journey on the summit were 
 the Polygonum alpinum and Silene valle&ia, above Monta ; 
 the Leucanthemum alpinum, near the Hospice ; the 
 Linaria alpina and Cirsium spinosissimus on the Col ; 
 while the Lloydia serotina, Arabis alpina, Phyteuma 
 hemisphericum, and Rhododendrum ferrugineum, were 
 found all over the face of the rocky descent to the Pra. 
 
 At the foot of the Coche we arrived at the first house 
 in Italy, the little auberge of the Pra, a great resort of 
 sportsmen, who come to hunt the chamois in the adjoin-, 
 ing mountains during the season. Here is also the 
 usual customs station, with a few officers of the Italian 
 douane, to watch the passage of merchandise across 
 the frontier. 
 
 The road from hence to la Tour is along the river 
 Pelice, which is kept in sight nearly the whole way. 
 A little below the Pra, where it enters the defile of 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE PELICE. 475 
 
 Mirabouc, the path merely follows what is the bed of 
 the torrent in winter. The descent is down ledges and 
 notches, from rock to rock, with rugged precipices 
 overhanging the ravine for. nearly a mile. At its 
 narrowest part stand the ruins of the ancient fort of 
 Mirabouc, built against the steep escarpments of the 
 mountain, which, in ancient times, completely com- 
 manded and closed the defile against the passage of an 
 enemy from that quarter. And difficult though the 
 Col de la Croix is for the passage of an army, it has on 
 more than one occasion been passed by French detach- 
 ments in their invasion of Italy. 
 
 It is not until we reach Bobi, or Bobbio, several miles 
 lower down the Pelice, that we at last feel we are in 
 Italy. Here the valley opens out, the scenery is soft 
 and inviting, the fields are well tilled, the vegetation is 
 rich, and the clusters of chestnut-trees in magnificent 
 foliage. We now begin to see the striking difference 
 between the French and the Italian valleys. The former 
 are precipitous and sterile, constant falls of slaty rock 
 blocking up the defiles ; while here the mountains lay 
 aside their savage aspects, and are softened down into 
 picturesquely wooded hills, green pastures, and fertile 
 fields stretching along the river- sides, yielding a rich 
 territory for the plough. 
 
 Yet, beautiful and peaceful though this valley of the 
 Pelice now appears, there is scarcely a spot in it but 
 has been consecrated by the blood of martyrs to the 
 cause of liberty and religion. In the rugged defile of 
 the Mirabouc, which we have just passed, is the site of 
 a battle fought between the Piedmontese troops and the 
 Vaudois peasants, at a place called the Pian-del-Mort, 
 where the persecuted, turning upon the persecutors, 
 drove them back, and made good their retreat to their 
 
476 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAVDOIS. 
 
 mountain fastnesses. Bobi itself was the scene of many 
 deadly struggles. A little above tbe village, on a rocky 
 plateau, are the remains of an ancient fort, near the 
 hamlet of Sibaud, where the Vaudois performed one of 
 their bravest exploits under Henri Arnaud, after their 
 "Glorious Return" from exile, — near which, on a 
 stone still pointed out, they swore fidelity to each other, 
 and that they would die to the last man rather than 
 abandon their country and their religion. 
 
 Near Bobi is still to be seen a remarkable illustration 
 of English interest long ago felt in the people of these 
 valleys. This is the long embankment or breakwater, 
 built by a grant from Oliver Cromwell, for the purpose 
 of protecting the village against the inundations of the 
 Pelice, by one of which it was nearly destroyed in the 
 time of the Protectorate. It seems strange indeed that 
 England should then have stretched out its hand so far, 
 to help a people so poor and uninnuential as the 
 Vaudois; but their sufferings had excited the sym- 
 pathies of all Europe, and of Protestant England in 
 particular, which not only sent them sympathy, but 
 substantial succour. Cromwell also, through the in- 
 fluence of Cardinal Mazarin, compelled the Duke of 
 Savoy to suspend for a time the persecution of his 
 subjects, — though shortly after the Protector's death it 
 waxed hotter than ever. 
 
 All down the valley of the Pelice, we come upon 
 village after village — La Piante, Villar, and Cabriol — 
 which have been the scenes sometimes of heroic combats, 
 and sometimes of treacherous massacres. Yet all the 
 cruelty of Grand Dukes and Popes during centuries did 
 not avail in turning the people of the valley from their 
 faith. For they continue to worship after the same 
 primitive forms as they did a thousand years ago ; and 
 
LA TOUR. 
 
 477 
 
 in the principal villages and hamlets, though Romanism 
 has long heen supported by the power of the State and 
 the patronage af the Church, the Protestant Vaudois 
 continue to constitute the majority of the population. 
 
 Rising up on the left of the road, between Villar and 
 La Tour, are seen the bold and almost perpendicular 
 rocks of Castelluzzo, terminating in the tower-like 
 summit which has given to them their name. On the 
 face of these rocks is one of the caverns in which the 
 Vaudois were accustomed to hide their women and 
 children when they themselves Were forced to take the 
 field. When Dr. Gilly first endeavoured to discover 
 this famous cavern in 1829, he could not find any one 
 who could guide him to it. Tradition said it was half 
 way down the perpendicular face of the rock, and it was 
 known to be very difficult to reach ; but the doctor 
 could not find any traces of it. Determined, however, 
 not to be baffled, he made a second attempt a month 
 later, and succeeded. He had to descend some fifty feet 
 from the top of the cliff by a rope ladder, until a plat- 
 form of rock was reached, from which the cavern was 
 entered. It was found to consist of an irregular, rugged, 
 sloping gallery in the face of the rock, of considerable 
 •extent, roofed in by a projecting crag. It is quite 
 open to the south, but on all other sides it is- secure ; 
 and it can only be entered from above. Such were 
 the places to which the people of the valleys were 
 driven for shelter in the dark days so happily passed 
 away. 
 
 One of the best indications of the improved rigime 
 that now prevails, shortly presented itself in the hand- 
 some Vaudois church, situated at the western entrance 
 of the town of La Tour, near to which is the college for 
 the education of Vaudois pastors, together with resi- 
 
478 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 dences for the clergy and professors. The founding of 
 this establishment, as ■well as of the hospital for the 
 poor and infirm Vaudois, is in a great measure due to 
 the energetic zeal of the Dr. Gilly so often quoted 
 above, whose writings on behalf of the faithful but 
 destitute Protestants of the Piedmontese valleys, about 
 forty years since, awakened an interest in their behalf 
 in England, as well as in foreign countries, which has 
 not yet subsided. 
 
 More enthusiastic, if possible, even than Dr. Gilly, 
 was the late General Beckwith, who followed up, with 
 extraordinary energy, the work which the other had so 
 well begun. The general was an old Peninsular veteran, 
 who had followed the late Duke of "Wellington through 
 most of his campaigns, and lost a leg while serving 
 under him at the battle of Waterloo. Hence the desig- 
 nation of him by a Roman Catholic bishop in an article 
 published by him in one of the Italian journals, as " the 
 adventurer with the wooden leg." 
 
 The general's attention was first attracted to the 
 subject of the Vaudois in the following curiously acci- 
 dental way. Being a regular visitor at Apsley House, 
 he called on the Duke one morning, and, finding him 
 engaged, he strolled into the library to spend an idle 
 half-hour among the books. The first he took up was 
 Dr. Gilly's '' Narrative," and what he read excited so 
 lively an interest in his mind that he went direct to his 
 bookseller and ordered all the publications relative to 
 the Vaudois Church that could be procured. 
 
 The general's zeal being thus fired, he set out shortly 
 after on a visit to the Piedmontese valleys. He re- 
 turned to them again and again, and at length settled 
 at La Tour, where he devoted the remainder of his life 
 and a large portion of his fortune to the service of the 
 
LA TOUR. 479 
 
 Vaudois Church and people. He organized a move- 
 ment for the erection of schools, of which not fewer than 
 one hundred and twenty were provided mainly through 
 his instrumentality in different parts of the valleys, 
 besides restoring and enlarging the collage at La Tour, 
 erecting the present commodious dwellings for the pro- 
 fessors, providing a superior school for the education 
 of pastors' daughters, and contributing towards the 
 erection of churches wherever churches were needed. 
 
 The general was so zealous a missionary, so eager 
 for the propagation of the Gospel, that some of his 
 friends asked him why he did not preach to the people. 
 " No," said he ; " men have their special gifts, and mine 
 is a brick-and-mortar gift." The general was satisfied 
 to go on as he had begun, helping to build schools, 
 colleges, and churches for the Vaudois, wherever most 
 needed. His crowning work was the erection of the 
 grand block of buildings on the Viale del Re at Turin, 
 which not only includes a handsome and commodious 
 Vaudois church, but an English church, and a Vaudois 
 hospital and schools, erected at a cost of about fourteen 
 thousand pounds, principally at the cost of the general 
 himself, generously aided by Mr. Brewin and other 
 English contributors. 
 
 Nor were the people ungrateful to their benefactor. 
 " Let the name of General Beckwith be blessed by all 
 who pass this way," says an inscription placed upon 
 one of the many schools opened through his efforts and 
 generosity; and the whole country responds to the 
 sentiment. 
 
 To return to La Tour. The style of the buildings at 
 its western end — the church, college, residences, and 
 adjoining cottages, with their pretty gardens in front, 
 designed, as they have been, by English architects — 
 
480 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 give one the idea of the best part of an English town. 
 But this disappears as you enter the town itself, and 
 proceed through the principal street, which is long, 
 narrow, and thoroughly Italian. The situation of the 
 town is exceedingly fine, at the foot of the Vandalin 
 Mountain, near the confluence of the river Angrogna 
 with the Pelice. The surrounding scenery is charming ; 
 and from the high grounds, north and south of the town, 
 extensive views may be had in all directions — especially 
 up the valley of the Pelice, and eastward over the plains 
 of Piedmont — the whole country being, as it were, em- 
 broidered with vineyards, corn-fields, and meadows, here 
 and there shaded with groves and thickets, spread over 
 a surface varied by hills, and knolls, and undulating 
 slopes. 
 
 The size, importance, industry, and central situation 
 of La Tour have always caused it to be regarded as the 
 capital of the valleys. One-half of the Vaudois popu- 
 lation occupies the valley of the Pelice and the lateral 
 valley of Angrogna ; the remainder, more widely scat- 
 tered, occupying the valleys of Perouse and Pragela, 
 and the lateral valley of St. Martin — the entire number 
 of the Protestant population in the several valleys 
 amounting to about twenty thousand. 
 
 Although, as we have already said, there is scarcely 
 a hamlet in the valleys but has been made famous by 
 the resistance of its inhabitants in past times to the 
 combined tyranny of the Popes of Rome and the Dukes 
 of Savoy, perhaps the most interesting events of all have 
 occurred in the neighbourhood of La Tour, but more 
 especially in the valley of Angrogna, at whose entrance 
 it stands. 
 
 The wonder is, that a scattered community of half- 
 armed peasantry, without resources, without magazines, 
 
THE VALLEY OF ANGROGNA. 481 
 
 without fortresses, should have been able for any length 
 of time to resist large bodies of regular troops — Italian, 
 French, Spanish, and even Irish! — led by the most 
 experienced commanders of the day, and abundantly 
 supplied 'with arms, cannon, ammunition, and stores of 
 all kinds. All that the people had on their side — and 
 it compensated for much — was a good cause, great 
 bravery, and a perfect knowledge of the country in 
 which, and for which, they fought. 
 
 Though the Vaudois had no walled towns, their 
 district was a natural fortress, every foot of which was 
 known to them — every pass, every defile, every barri- 
 cade, and every defensible position. Resistance in the 
 open country, they knew, would be fatal to them. 
 Accordingly, whenever assailed by their persecutors, 
 they fled to their mountain strongholds, and there 
 waited the attack of the enemy. 
 
 One of the strongest of such places — the Thermopylae 
 of the Vaudois — was the valley of Angrogna, up which 
 the inhabitant's of La Tour were accustomed to retreat 
 on any sudden invasion by the army of Savoy. The 
 valley is one of exquisite beauty, presenting a combi- 
 nation of mingled picturesqueness and sublimity, the 
 like of which is rarely to be seen. It is hemmed in by 
 mountains, in some places rounded and majestic, in 
 others jagged and abrupt. The sides of the valley are 
 in many places finely wooded, while in others well- 
 tilled fields, pastures, and vineyards slope down to the 
 river-side. Orchards are succeeded by pine- woods, and 
 these again by farms and gardens. Sometimes a little 
 cascade leaps from a rock on its way to the valley 
 below ; and little is heard around, save the rippling of 
 water, and the occasional lowing of cattle in the pastures, 
 mingled with the music of their bells. 
 
 1 1 
 
482 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Shortly after entering the valley, we passed the scene 
 of several terrible struggles between the Vaudois and 
 their persecutors. One of the most famous spots is the 
 plateau of Rochemalan, where the heights of St. John 
 abut upon the mountains of Angrogna. It was shortly 
 after the fulmination of a bull of extermination against 
 the Vaudois by Pope Innocent VIII., in 1486, that an 
 army of eighteen thousand regular French and Pied- 
 montese troops, accompanied by a horde of brigands to 
 whom the remission of sins was promised on condition 
 of their helping to slay the heretics, encircled the 
 valleys and proceeded to assail the Vaudois in their 
 fastnesses. The Papal legate, Albert Catanee, Arch- 
 . deacon of Cremona, had his head-quarters at Pignerol, 
 from whence he superintended the execution of the 
 Pope's orders. First, he sent preaching monks up the 
 valleys to attempt the conversion of the Vaudois before 
 attacking them with arms. But the .peasantry refused 
 to be converted, and fled to their strongholds in the 
 mountains. 
 
 Then Catanee took the field at the head of his army, 
 advancing upon Angrogna. He extended his lines so 
 as to enclose the entire body of heretics, with the object 
 of cutting them off to a man. The Vaudois, however, 
 defended themselves resolutely, though armed only with 
 pikes, swords, and bows and arrows, and everywhere 
 beat back the assailants. The severest struggle occurred 
 at Rochemalan, which the crusaders attacked with great 
 courage. But the Vaudois had the advantage of the 
 higher ground, and, encouraged by the cries and prayers 
 of the women, children, and old men whom they were 
 defending, they impetuously rushed forward and drove 
 the Papal troops down-hill in disorder, pursuing them 
 into the very plain. 
 
BATTLE OF ROCHEMALAN. 483 
 
 The next day the Papalini renewed the attack, 
 ascending by the bottom of the valley, instead of by 
 the plateau on which they had been defeated. But one 
 of those dense mists, so common in the Alps, having 
 settled down upon the valley, the troops became con- 
 fused, broken up, and entangled in difficult paths ; and 
 in this state, marching, apprehensively, they were fallen 
 upon by the Vaudois and again completely defeated. 
 Many of the soldiers slid over the rocks and were 
 drowned in the torrent, — the chasm into which the 
 captain of the detachment (Saquet de Planghere) fell, 
 being still known as Toumpi de Saquet, or Saquet's 
 Hole. 
 
 The resistance of the mountaineers at other points, in 
 the valleys of Pragela and St. Martin, having been 
 almost equally successful, Catanee withdrew the Papal 
 army in disgust, and marched it back into France, to 
 wreak his vengeance on the defenceless Vaudois of the 
 Val Louise, in the manner described in a preceding 
 chapter. 
 
 Less than a century later, a like attempt was made 
 to force the entrance to the valley of Angrogna, by an 
 army of Italians and Spaniards, under the command of 
 the Count de la Trinite. A proclamation had been 
 published, and put up in the villages of Angrogna, 
 to the effect that all would be destroyed by fire and 
 sword who did not forthwith return to the Church of 
 Home. And as the peasantry did not return, on the 
 2nd November, 1560, the Count advanced at the head 
 of his army to extirpate the heretics. The Vaudois 
 were provided with the rudest sort of weapons ; many 
 of them had only slings and cross-bows. But they felt 
 strong in the goodness of their cause, and prepared to 
 defend themselves to the death. 
 
+84 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 As the Count's army advanced, the Vaudois retired 
 until they reached the high ground near Rochemalan, 
 where they took their stand. The enemy followed, and 
 halted in the valley beneath, lighting their bivouac 
 fires, and intending to pass the- night there. Before 
 darkness fell, however, an accidental circumstance led 
 to an engagement. A Yaudois boy, who had got hold 
 of a drum, began beating it in a ravine close by. The 
 soldiers, thinking a hostile troop had arrived, sprang up 
 in disorder and seized their arms. The Vaudois, on 
 their part, seeing the movement, and imagining that an 
 attack was about to be made on them, rushed forward 
 to repel it. The soldiers, surprised and confused, for 
 the most part threw away their arms, and fled down 
 the valley. Irritated by this disgraceful retreat of 
 some twelve hundred soldiers before two hundred 
 peasants, the Count advanced a second time, and was 
 again repulsed by the little band of heroes, who charged 
 his troops with loud shouts of "Viva Jesu Christo!'* 
 driving the invaders in confusion down the valley. 
 
 It may be mentioned that the object of the Savoy 
 general, in making this attack, was to force the valley, 
 and capture the strong position of the Pra du Tour, 
 the celebrated stronghold of the Vaudois, from whence 
 we shall afterwards find them again driven back, 
 baffled and defeated. 
 
 A hundred years passed, and still the Vaudois 
 remained unconverted and unexterminated. The 
 Marquis of Pianesse now advanced upon Angrogna 
 — always with the same object, "ad extirpandos 
 hereticos," in obedience to the order of the Propaganda. 
 On this occasion not only Italian and Spanish but 
 Irish troops were engaged in a combined effort to 
 exterminate the Vaudois. The Irish were known as 
 
BATTLE OF ANGROGNA. 485 
 
 " the assassins" by the people of the valleys, because of 
 their almost exceptional ferocity ; and the hatred they 
 excited by their outrages on women and children was 
 so great, that on the assault and capture of St. Legont 
 by the Vaudois peasantry, an Irish regiment surprised 
 in barracks was completely destroyed. 
 
 A combined attack was made on Angrogna on the 
 15th of June, 1655. On that day four separate bodies 
 of troops advanced up the heights from different 
 directions, thereby enclosing the little Vaudois army of 
 three hundred men assembled there, and led by the 
 heroic Javanel. This leader first threw himself upon 
 the head of the column which advanced from Rocheplate, 
 and drove it downhill. Then he drew off his little 
 body towards Rochemalan, when he suddenly found 
 himself opposed by the two bodies which had come 
 up from St. John and La Tour. Retiring before them, 
 he next found himself face to face with the fourth 
 detachment, which had come up from Pramol. With 
 the quick instinct of military genius, Javanel threw 
 himself upon it before the beaten Rocheplate detach- 
 ment were able to rally and assail him in flank; and 
 he succeeded in cutting the Pramol force in two and 
 passing through it, rushing up to the summit of the 
 hill, on which he posted himself. And there he stood 
 at bay. 
 
 This hill is precipitous on one side, but of compara- 
 tively easy ascent on the side up which the little band 
 of heroes had ascended. At the foot of the slope the 
 four detachments, three thousand against three hundred, 
 drew up and attacked him ; but firing from a distance, 
 their aim was not very deadly. For five hours Javanel 
 resisted them as he best could, and then, seeing signs 
 of impatience and hesitation in the enemy's ranks, he 
 
4 86 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 called cnit to his men, "Forward, my friends!" and 
 they rushed down-hill like an avalanche. The three 
 thousand men recoiled, broke, and fled before the three 
 hundred ; and Javanel returned victorious to his 
 entrenchments before Angrogna. 
 
 Yet, again, some eight years later, in 1663, was this 
 neighbourhood the scene of another contest, and again 
 was Javanel the hero. On this occasion, the Marquis 
 de Fleury led the troops of the Duke of Savoy, whose 
 object, as before, was to advance up the valley, and 
 assail the Vaudois stronghold of Pra du Tour; and 
 again the peasantry resisted them successfully, and 
 drove them back into the plains. Javanel then went 
 to rejoin a party of the men whom he had posted at 
 the " Gates of Angrogna" to defend the pass up the 
 valley ; and again he fell upon the enemy engaged in 
 attempting to force a passage there, and defeated them 
 with heavy loss. 
 
 Such are among the exciting events which have 
 occurred in this one locality in connection with the 
 Vaudois struggle for country and liberty. 
 
 Let us now proceed up the valley of Angrogna, 
 towards the famous stronghold of the Pra du Tour, the 
 object of those repeated attacks of the enemy in the 
 neighbourhood of Rochemalan. As we advance, the 
 mountains gradually close in upon the valley, leaving 
 a comparatively small width of pasture land by the 
 river-side. At the hamlet of Serre the carriage road 
 ends ; and from thence the valley grows narrower, the 
 mountains which enclose it become more rugged and 
 abrupt, until there is room enough only for a footpath 
 along a rocky ledge, and the torrent running in. its 
 deep bed alongside. This continues for a considerable 
 distance, the path in some places being overhung by 
 
PRA DU TOUR. 487 
 
 precipices, or encroached upon by rocks and bowlders 
 fallen from the heights, until at length we emerge 
 from the defile, and find ourselves in a comparatively 
 open space, the famous Pra du Tour; the defile we 
 have passed, alongside the torrent and overhung by 
 the rocks, being known as the Barricade. 
 
 i The Pra du Tour, or Meadow of the Tower, is a 
 little amphitheatre surrounded by rugged and almost 
 inaccessible mountains, situated at the. head of the 
 valley oft >Angrogna. The steep slopes bring down 
 into this deep dell the headwaters of the torrent, which 
 escape among the rocks down the defile we have just 
 ascended. The path up the defile forms the only ap- 
 proach to the Pra from the valley, but it is so narrow, 
 tortuous, and'difiicult, that the labours of only a few 
 men in blocking up the pathway with rocks and stones 
 that lie_ ready at hand, might at any time so barricade 
 the approach as to render it impracticable. The 
 extremely secluded position of the place, its natural 
 strength and ^inaccessibility, and its proximity to the 
 principal Vaudois towns and villages, caused it to be 
 regarded from the earliest times as their principal 
 refuge. It was their fastness, their fortress, and often 
 their home. It was more — it was their school and 
 college ; for in the depths of the Pra du Tour the 
 pastors, or barbas* educated young men for the 
 ministry, and provided for the religious instruction of 
 the Vaudois population. 
 
 It was the importance of the Pra du Tour as a 
 stronghold that rendered it so often the object of 
 attack through the valley of Angrogna. When the 
 hostile troops of "Savoy advanced upon La Tour, the 
 
 * Barba — a title of respect ; in the Yaudois dialect literally signify- 
 ing an uncle. 
 
488 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAVDOIS. 
 
 inhabitants of the neighbouring valleys at once fled to 
 the Pra, into which they drove their cattle, and carried 
 what provisions they could ; there constructing mills, 
 ovens, houses, and all that was requisite for subsistence, 
 as in a fort. The men capable of bearing arms stood on 
 their guard to defend the passes of tbe Yachere and 
 Houssine, at the extreme heads of the valley, as well 
 as the defile of the Barricade, while other bodies, 
 stationed lower down, below the Barricade, prepared to 
 resist the troops seeking to force an entrance up the 
 valley ; and hence the repeated battles in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Itochemalan above described. 
 
 On the occasion of the defeat of the Count de la 
 Trinite by the little Vaudois band near the village of 
 Angrogna, in November, 1560, the general drew off, 
 and waited the arrival of reinforcements. A large 
 body of Spanish veterans having joined him, in the 
 course of the following spring he . again proceeded up 
 the valley, determined, if possible, to force the Barri- 
 cade — the royal forces now numbering some seven 
 thousand men, all disciplined troops. The peasants, 
 finding their first position no longer tenable in the 
 face of such numbers, abandoned Angrogna and the 
 lower villages, and retired, with the whole population, 
 to the Pra du Tour. The Count followed them with 
 his main army, at the same time directing two other 
 bodies of troops to advance upon the place round by 
 the mountains, one by the heights of the Vachere, and 
 another by Les Fourests. The defenders of the Pra 
 would thus be assailed from three sides at once, their 
 forces divided, and victory rendered certain. 
 
 But the Count did not calculate upon the desperate 
 bravery of the defenders. All three bodies were 
 beaten back in succession. For four days the Count 
 
PRA DU TOUR. 489 
 
 made every effort to force the defile, and failed. Two 
 colonels, eight captains, and four hundred men fell in 
 these desperate assaults, without gaining an inch of 
 ground. On the fifth day a combined attack was made 
 with the reserve, composed of Spanish companies, but 
 this, too, failed; and the troops, when ordered to 
 return to the charge, refused to obey. The Count, 
 who commanded, is said to have wept as he sat on a 
 rock and looked upon so many of his dead — the 
 . soldiers themselves exclaiming, " God fights for these 
 people, and we do them wrong ! " 
 
 About a hundred years later, the Marquis de 
 Pianesse, who, like the Count de la Trinite, had been 
 defeated at Rochemalan, made a similar attempt to 
 surprise the Vaudois stronghold, with a like result. 
 The peasants were commanded on this occasion by 
 John Leger, the pastor and historian. Those who 
 were unarmed hurled rocks and stones on the assailants 
 from the heights ; and the troops being thus thrown 
 into confusion, the Vaudois rushed from behind their 
 ramparts, and drove them in a state of total rout down 
 the valley. 
 
 On entering the Pra du Tour, one of the most pro- 
 minent objects that meets the eye is the Roman 
 Catholic chapel recently erected there, though the few 
 inhabitants of the district are still almost entirely 
 Protestant. The Roman Catholic Church has, however, 
 now done what the Roman Catholic armies failed to do 
 — established itself in the midst of the Vaudois strong- 
 hold, though by no means in the hearts of the people. 
 
 Desirous of ascertaining, if possible, the site of the 
 ancient college, we proceeded up the Pra, and hailed a 
 young woman whom we observed crossing the rustic 
 bridge over the Pele, one of the mountain rivulets 
 
490 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 running into the torrent of Angrogna. Inquiring of 
 her as to the site of the college, she told us we had 
 already passed it, and led us hack to the place — up 
 the rocky side of the hill leading to the Yachere — 
 past the cottage where she herself lived, and pointed to 
 the site: "There," she said, "is where the ancient 
 college of the Vaudois stood." The old building has, 
 however, long since been removed, the present struc- 
 ture being merely part of a small farmsteading. 
 Higher up the steep hill-side, on successive ledges of 
 rock, are -the ruins of various buildings, some of which 
 may have been dwellings, and one, larger than the 
 rest, on a broader plateau, with an elder-tree growing 
 in the centre, may possibly have been the temple. 
 
 From the higher shelves on this mountain-side the 
 view is extremely wild and grand. The acclivities 
 which surround the head of the Pra seem as if battle- 
 mented walls; the mountain opposite throws its 
 sombre shadow over the ravine in which the torrent 
 runs; whilst, down the valley, rock seems piled on 
 rock, and mountain on mountain. All is perfectly 
 still, and the silence is only audible by the occasional 
 tinkling of a sheep-bell, or the humming of a bee in 
 search of flowers on the mountain-side. So peaceful 
 and quiet is the place, that it is difficult to believe it 
 could ever have been the scene of such deadly strife, 
 and rung with the shouts of men thirsting for each 
 other's blood. 
 
 After lingering about the place until the sun was 
 far on his way towards the horizon, we returned by the 
 road we had come, the valley seeming more beautiful 
 than ever under the glow of evening, and arrived 
 at our destination about dusk, to find the fireflies dart- 
 ing about the streets of La Tour. 
 
MR. EDWARD MILSOM. 49 r 
 
 The next day saw us at Turin, and our summer 
 excursion at an end. Mr. Milsom, who had so plea- 
 santly accompanied me through the valleys, had been 
 summoned to attend the death-bed of a friend at 
 Antibes, and he set out on the journey forthwith. 
 While still there, he received a telegram intimating 
 the death of his daughter at Allevard, near Grenoble, 
 and he arrived only in time to attend her funeral. 
 Two months later, he lost another dear daughter; 
 shortly after, his mother-in-law died; and in the 
 following December he himself died suddenly of heart 
 disease, and followed them to the grave. 
 
 One could not but conceive a hearty liking for 
 Edward Milsom — he was such a thoroughly good man. 
 He was a native of London, but spent the greater part 
 of his life at Lyons, in France, where he long since 
 settled and married. He there carried on a large 
 business as a silk merchant, but was always ready to 
 give a portion of his time and money to help forward 
 any good work. He was an " ancien," or elder, of the 
 Evangelical church at Lyons, originally founded by 
 Adolphe Monod, to whom he was also related by 
 marriage. 
 
 Some years since he was very much interested by 
 the perusal of Pastor Bost's account of his visit to the 
 scene of Felix Neff's labours in the High Alps. He 
 felt touched by the simple, faithful character of the 
 people, and keenly sympathised with their destitute 
 condition. " Here," said he, " is a field in which I 
 may possibly be of some use." And he at once went to 
 their help. He visited the district of Fressinieres, 
 including the hamlet of Dormilhouse, as well as the 
 more distant villages of Arvieux and Sans Veran, up 
 the vale of Queyras ; and nearly every year thereafter 
 
492 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 he devoted a certain portion of Lis time in visiting the 
 poorer congregations of the district, giving them such 
 help and succour as lay in his power. 
 
 His repeated visits made him well known to the 
 people of the valleys, who valued him as a friend, if they 
 did not even love him as a brother. His visits were 
 also greatly esteemed by the pastors, who stood much 
 in need of encouragement and help. He cheered the 
 wavering, strengthened the feeble-hearted, and stimu- 
 lated all to renewed life and action. Wherever he 
 went, a light seemed to shine in his path ; and when 
 he departed, he was followed by many blessings. 
 
 In one place he would arrange for the opening of a 
 new place of worship ; in another, for the opening of a 
 boys' school ; in a third, fox the industrial employment 
 of girls; and wherever there was any little heart- 
 burning or jealousy to be' allayed, he would set himself 
 to remove it. His admirable tact, his unfailing temper, 
 and excellent good sense, rendered him a wise counsellor 
 and a most successful conciliator. 
 
 The last time Mr. Milsom visited England, towards 
 the end of 1869, he was occupied, as usual, in collecting 
 subscriptions for the poor Vaudois of the High Alps. 
 Now that the good "merchant missionary" has rested 
 from his labours, they will indeed feel the loss of their 
 friend. Who is to assume his mantle ? 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE GLORIOUS RETURN: 
 AK EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN VAUDOIS. 
 
 WHAT is known as The Glorious Return, or re- 
 entry of the exiled Vaudois in 1689 to resume 
 possession of the valleys from which they had been 
 banished, will always stand out as one of the most 
 remarkable events in history. 
 
 If ever a people fairly established their right to live 
 in their own country, and to worship God after their 
 own methods, the Yaudois had surely done so. They 
 had held conscientiously and consistently to their 
 religion for nearly five hundred years, during which 
 they laboured under many disabilities and suffered 
 much persecution. But the successive Dukes of Savoy 
 were no better satisfied with them as subjects than 
 before. They Could not brook that any part of their 
 people should be of a different form of religion from 
 that professed by themselves ; and they continued, at 
 the instance of successive popes, to let slip the dogs of 
 war upon the valleys, in the hopes of eventually com- 
 pelling the Vaudois to "come in" and make their peace 
 with the Church. 
 
 The result of these invasions was almost uniform. 
 At the first sudden inroad of the troops, the people, 
 
494 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 taken by surprise, usually took to flight ; on which 
 their dwellings were burnt and their fields laid waste 
 But when they had time to rally and collect their 
 forces, the almost invariable result was that the 
 Piedmontese were driven out of the valleys again with 
 ignominy and loss. The Duke's invasion of 1655 was, 
 however, attended with greater success than usual. 
 His armies occupied the greater part of the valleys, 
 though the Vaudois still held out, and made occasional 
 successful sallies from their mountain fastnesses. At 
 length, the Protestants of the Swiss Confederation, 
 taking compassion on their co-religionists in Piedmont, 
 sent ambassadors to the Duke of Savoy at Turin to 
 intercede for their relief; and the result was the 
 amnesty granted to them in that year under the title 
 of the "Patents of Grace." The terms were very 
 hard, but they were agreed to. The Vaudois were to 
 be permitted to re-occupy their valleys, conditional on 
 their rebuilding all the Catholic churches which had 
 been destroyed, paying to the Duke an indemnity of 
 fifty thousand francs, and ceding to him the richest 
 lands in the valley of Luzerna — the last relics of their 
 fortunes being thus taken from them to remunerate 
 the barbarity of their persecutors. 
 
 It was also stipulated by this treaty, that the pastors 
 of the Vaudois churches were to be natives of the 
 district only, and that they were to be at liberty to 
 administer religious instruction in their own manner 
 in all the Vaudois parishes, excepting that of St. John, 
 near La Tour, where their worship was interdicted. 
 The only persons excepted from the terms of the 
 amnesty were Javanel, the heroic old captain, and 
 Jean Leger, the pastor-historian, the most prominent 
 leaders of the Vaudois in the recent war, both of 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 495 
 
 wlioin were declared to be banished the ducal do- 
 minions. 
 
 Under this treaty the Vaudois enjoyed peace for 
 about thirty years, during which they restored the 
 cultivation of the valleys, rebuilt the villages, and were 
 acknowledged to be among the most loyal, peaceable, 
 and industrious of the subjects of Savoy. 
 
 There were, however, certain parts of the valleys to 
 which the amnesty granted by the Duke did not apply. 
 Thus, it did not apply to the valleys of Perouse and 
 Pragela, which did not then form part of the dominions 
 of Savoy, but were included within the French frontier. 
 It was out of this circumstance that a difficulty arose 
 with the French monarch, which issued in the revival 
 of the persecution in the valleys, the banishment of 
 the Vaudois into Switzerland, and their eventual 
 " Glorious Return" in the manner we are about briefly 
 to narrate. 
 
 When Louis XIV. of France revoked the Edict of 
 Nantes in 1685, and interdicted all Protestant worship 
 throughout his dominions, the law of pourse applied to 
 the valleys of Perouse and Pragela as to the other 
 parts of France. The Vaudois pastors were banished, 
 and the people were forbidden to profess any other 
 religion than that prescribed by the King, under 
 penalty of confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, 
 or banishment. The Vaudois who desired' to avoid 
 t*ese penalties while they still remained staunch to 
 their faith, did what so many Frenchmen then did — 
 they fled across the frontier and took refuge in foreign 
 lands. Some of the inhabitants of the French valleys 
 went northward into Switzerland, while others passed 
 across the mountains towards the south, and took 
 refuge in the valley of the Pelice, where the Vaudois 
 
496 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 religion continued to be tolerated under the terms of 
 the amnesty above referred to, which had been granted 
 by the Duke of Savoy. 
 
 The French king, when he found his Huguenot 
 subjects flying in all directions rather than remain in 
 France and be "converted" to Roman Catholicism, 
 next tried to block up the various avenues of escape, 
 and to prevent the rulers of the adjoining countries 
 from giving the fugitives asylum. Great was his dis- 
 pleasure when he heard of the flight of the Vaudois of 
 Perouse and Pragela into the adjoining valleys. He 
 directed the French ambassador at Turin to call upon 
 the Duke of Savoy, and require him to prevent their 
 settlement within his dominions. At the same time, 
 he called upon the Duke to take steps to compel the 
 conversion of his people from the pretended reformed 
 faith, and offered the aid of his troops to enforce their 
 submission, " at whatever cost." 
 
 The Duke was irritated at the manner in which he 
 was approached. Louis XIV. was treating him as a 
 vassal of France rather than as an independent 
 sovereign. But he felt himself to be weak, and com- 
 paratively powerless to resent the insult. So he first 
 temporised, then vacillated, and being again pressed by 
 the French king, he eventually yielded. The amnesty 
 was declared to be at an end, and the Vaudois were 
 ordered forthwith to become members of the Church of 
 Rome. An edict was issued on the 31st of January", 
 1686, forbidding the exercise by the Vaudois of their 
 religion, abolishing their ancient privileges, and 
 ordering the demolition of all their places of worship. 
 Pastors and schoolmasters who refused to be converted 
 were ordered to quit the country within fifteen days, 
 on pain of death and confiscation of their goods. AH 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 
 
 497 
 
 refugee Protestants from France were ordered to leave 
 under the same penalty. All children born of 
 Protestant parents were to be compulsorily educated as 
 Roman Catholics. This barbarous measure was merely 
 a repetition by the Duke of Savoy in Piedmont of 
 what his master Louis XIY. had already done in 
 France. 
 
 The Vaudois expostulated with their sovereign, 
 but in vain. They petitioned, but there was no reply. 
 They requested the interposition of the Swiss Govern- 
 ment as before, but the Duke took no notice of their 
 memorial. The question of resistance was then dis- 
 cussed ; but the people were without leaders. Javanel 
 was living in banishment at Geneva — old and worn out, 
 and unable to lead them. Besides, the Vaudois, before 
 taking up arms, wished to exhaust every means of con- 
 ciliation. Ambassadors next came from Switzerland, 
 who urged them to submit to the clemency of the Duke, 
 and suggested that they should petition him for per- 
 mission to leave the country ! The Vaudois were 
 stupefied by the proposal. They were thus asked, 
 without a contest, to submit to all the ignominy and 
 punishment of defeat, and to terminate their very 
 existence as a people ! The ambassadors represented 
 that resistance to the combined armies of Savoy, 
 France, and Spain, without leaders, and with less 
 than three thousand combatants, was little short of 
 madness. 
 
 ^Nevertheless, a number of tbe Vaudois determined 
 not to leave their valleys without an attempt to hold 
 them, as they had so often successfully done before. 
 The united armies of France and Savoy then advanced 
 upon the valleys, and arrangements were made for a 
 general attack upon the Vaudois position on Easter 
 
 K K 
 
498 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Monday, 1686, at break of day, — the Duke of Savoy 
 assailing the valley of Luzerna, while Catinat, com- 
 mander of the French troops, advanced on St. Martin. 
 Catinat made the first attack on the village of St. 
 Germain, and was beaten back with heavy loss after 
 six hours' fighting. Henry Arnaud, the Huguenot 
 pastor from Die in Dauphiny, of which he was a 
 native, particularly distinguished himself by his bravery 
 in this affair,, and from that time began to be regarded 
 as one of the most promising of the Vaudois leaders. 
 
 Catinat renewed the attack on the following day 
 with the assistance of fresh troops ; and he eventually 
 succeeded in overcoming the resistance of the handful 
 of men who opposed him, and sweeping the valley of 
 St. Martin. Men, women, and children were indis- 
 criminately put to the sword. In some of the parishes 
 no resistance was offered, the inhabitants submitting 
 to the Duke's proclamation ; but whether they submitted 
 or not, made no difference in their treatment, which 
 was barbarous in all cases. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Duke of Savoy's army advanced from 
 the vale of Luzerna upon the celebrated heights of 
 Angrogna, and assailed the Vaudois assembled there at 
 all points. The resistance lasted for an entire day, and 
 when night fell, both forces slept on the ground upon 
 which they had fought, kindling their bivouac fires on 
 both sides. On the following day the attack was 
 renewed, and again the battle raged until night. Then 
 Don Gabriel of Savoy, who was in command, resolved 
 to employ the means which Catinat had found so suc- 
 cessful: he sent forward messengers to inform the 
 Vaudois that their brethren of the Val St. Martin had 
 laid down their arms and been pardoned, inviting them 
 to follow their example. The result of further parley 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 499 
 
 was, that on the express promise of his Royal Highness 
 that they should receive pardon, and that neither their 
 persons nor those of their wives or children should he 
 touched, the credulous Vaudois, still hoping for fair 
 treatment, laid down their arms, and permitted the 
 ducal troops to take possession of their entrenchments ! 
 
 The same treacherous strategy proved equally suc- 
 cessful against the defenders of the Pra du Tour. 
 After heating hack their assailants and firmly holding 
 their ground for an entire day, they were told of 
 the surrender of their compatriots, promised a full 
 pardon, and assured of life and liberty, on condition of 
 immediately ceasing further hostilities. They accord- 
 ingly consented to lay down their arms, and the 
 impregnable fastness of the Pra du Tour, which had 
 never been taken by force, thus fell before falsehood 
 and perfidy. " The defenders of this ancient sanctuary 
 of the Church," says Dr. Huston, " were loaded with 
 irons ; their children were carried off and scattered 
 through the Roman Catholic districts ; their wives and 
 daughters were violated, massacred, or made captives. 
 As for those that still remained, all whom the enemy 
 could seize became a prey devoted to carnage, spoliation, 
 fire, excesses which cannot be told, and outrages which 
 it would be impossible to describe."* 
 
 "All the valleys are now exterminated," wrote a 
 French officer to his friends ; " the people are all killed, 
 hanged, or massacred." The Duke, Victor Amadeus, 
 issued a decree, declaring the Vaudois to be guilty of 
 high treason, and confiscating all their property. 
 Arnaud says as many as eleven thousand persons were 
 killed, or perished in prison, or died of want, in conse- 
 
 * Huston's " Israel of the Alps," translated by Montgomery j 
 Glasgow, 1857 ; vol. i. p. 446. 
 
500 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 quence of this horrible Easter festival of blood. Six 
 thousand were taken prisoners, and the greater number 
 of these died in gaol of hunger and disease. When 
 the prisons were opened, and the wretched survivors 
 were ordered to quit the country, forbidden to return 
 to it on pain of death, only about two thousand six 
 hundred contrived to struggle across the frontier into 
 Switzerland. 
 
 And thus at last the Vaudois Church seemed utterly 
 uprooted and destroyed. What the Dukes of Savoy 
 had so often attempted in vain was now accomplished. 
 A second St. Bartholomew had been achieved, and 
 Rome rang with Te Beums in praise of the final dis- 
 persion of the Vaudois. The Pope sent to Victor 
 Amadeus II. a special brief, congratulating him on the 
 extirpation of heresy in his dominions; and Pied- 
 montese and Savoyards, good Catholics, were presented 
 with the lands from which the Vaudois had been driven. 
 Those of them who remained in the country " uncon- 
 verted" were as so many scattered fugitives in the 
 mountains — sheep wandering about without a shepherd. 
 Some of the Vaudois, for the sake of their families and 
 homes, pretended conversion ; but these are admitted to 
 have been comparatively few in number. In short, the 
 "Israel of the Alps" seemed to be no more, and its 
 people utterly and for ever dispersed. Pierre Allix, 
 the Huguenot refugee pastor in England, in his 
 " History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont," 
 dedicated to William III., regarded the Vaudois 
 Church as obliterated — "their present desolation 
 seeming so universal, that the world looks upon them 
 no otherwise than as irrecoverably lost, and finally 
 destroyed." 
 
 Three years passed The expelled Vaudois reached 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. S oi 
 
 Switzerland in greatly reduced numbers, many women 
 and children having perished on their mountain 
 journey. The inhabitants of Geneva received them 
 with great hospitality, clothing and feeding them until 
 they were able to proceed on their way northward. 
 Some went into Brandenburg, some into Holland, 
 while others settled to various branches of industry in 
 different parts of Switzerland. Many of them, however, 
 experienced great difficulty in obtaining a settlement. 
 Those who had entered the Palatinate were driven 
 thence by war, and those who had entered Wurtemburg 
 were expelled by the Grand Duke, who feared incurring 
 the ire of Louis XIV. by giving them shelter and pro- 
 tection. Hence many little bands of the Vaudois 
 refugees long continued to wander along the valley of 
 the Rhine, unable to find rest for their weary feet. 
 There were others trying to earn a precarious living in 
 Geneva and Lausanne, and along the shores of Lake 
 Leman. Some of these were men who had fought under 
 Javanel in his heroic combats with the Piedmontese ; 
 and they thought with bitter grief of the manner in 
 which they had fallen into the trap of Oatinat and the 
 Duke of Savoy, and abandoned their country almost 
 without a struggle. 
 
 Then it was that the thought occurred to them 
 whether they might not yet strike a blow for the 
 recovery of their valleys ! The idea seemed chimerical 
 in the extreme. A few hundred destitute men, 
 however valiant, to think of recovering a country 
 defended by the combined armies of France and Savoy ! 
 Javanel, the old Vaudois hero, disabled by age and 
 wounds, was still alive — an exile at Geneva — and he 
 was consulted on the subject. Javanel embraced the 
 project with enthusiasm ; and the invasion of the 
 
502 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 valleys was resolved upon ! A more daring, and appa- 
 rently more desperate enterprise, was never planned. 
 
 Who was to be their leader ? Javanel himself was 
 disabled. Though his mind was clear, and his patriotic 
 ardour unquenched, his body was weak ; and all that 
 he could do was to encourage and advise. But ho 
 found a noble substitute in Henry Arnaud, the Hugue- 
 not refugee, who had already distinguished himself in 
 his resistance to the troops of Savoy. And Arnaud 
 was now ready to offer up his life for the recovery of 
 the valleys. 
 
 The enterprise was kept as secret as possible, yet not 
 so close as to prevent the authorities of Berne obtaining 
 some inkling of their intentions. Three confidential 
 messengers were first dispatched to the valleys to ascer- 
 tain the disposition of the population, and more par- 
 ticularly to exa min e the best route by which an 
 invasion might be made. On their return with the 
 necessary information, the plan was settled by Javanel, 
 as it was to be carried out by Arnaud. In the mean- 
 time, the magistrates of Geneva, having obtained 
 information as to the intended movement, desirous of 
 averting the hostility of France and Savoy, required 
 Javanel to leave their city, and he at once retired to 
 Ouchy, a little farther up the lake. 
 
 The greatest difficulty experienced by the Vaudois 
 in carrying out their enterprise was the want of means. 
 They were poor, destitute refugees, without arms, 
 ammunition, or money to buy them. To obtain the 
 requisite means, Arnaud made a journey into Holland, 
 for the purpose of communicating the intended project 
 to William of Orange. William entered cordially into 
 the proposed plan, recommended Arnaud to several 
 Huguenot officers, who afterwards .took part in the 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 503 
 
 expedition, supplied him with, assistance in money, and 
 encouraged him to carry out the design. Several 
 private persons in Holland — amongst others the post- 
 master-general at Leyden — also largely contributed to 
 the enterprise. 
 
 At length all was ready. The men who intended 
 to take part in the expedition came' together from 
 various quarters. Some came from Brandenburg, 
 others from Bavaria and distant parts of Switzerland ; 
 and among those who joined them was a body of 
 French Huguenots, willing to share in their dangers 
 and their glory. One of their number, Captain Turrel, 
 like Arnaud, a native of Die in Dauphiny, was even 
 elected as the general of the expedition. Their rendez- 
 vous was in the forest of Prangins, near IsTyon, on the 
 north bank of the Lake of Geneva ; and there, on the 
 night of the 16th of August, 1689, they met in the 
 hollow recesses of the wood. Fifteen boats had been 
 got together, and lay off the shore. After a fervent 
 prayer by the pastor-general Arnaud, imploring a 
 blessing upon the enterprise, as many of the men as 
 could embark got into the boats. As the lake is there 
 at its narrowest, they soon rowed across to the other 
 side, near the town of Tvoire, and disembarked on the 
 shore of Savoy. Arnaud had posted sentinels in all 
 directions, and the little body waited the arrival of the 
 remainder of their comrades from the opposite shore. 
 They had all crossed the lake by two o'clock in the 
 morning ; and about eight hundred men, divided into 
 nineteen companies,* each provided with its captain, 
 were now ready to march. 
 
 * Of the nineteen companies three were composed of the Vaudois 
 of Angrogna ; those of Bobi and St. John furnished two each ; and 
 those of La Tour, Villar, Prarustin, Prali, Macel, St. Germain, and 
 Pramol, furnished one each. The remaining six companies were com 
 
50+ THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 At the very commencement, however, they met with 
 a -misfortune. One of the pastors, having gone to seek 
 a guide in the village near at hand, was seized as a 
 prisoner by the local authorities, and carried off. On 
 this, the Vaudois, seeing that they were treated as 
 enemies, sent a party to summon Yvoire to open its 
 gates, ifnd it obeyed. The lord of the manor and the 
 receiver of taxes were taken as hostages, and made to 
 accompany the troop until they reached the next com- 
 mune, when they were set at liberty, and replaced by 
 other hostages. 
 
 "When it became known that the little army of 
 Vaudois had set out on their march, troops were dis- 
 patched from all quarters to intercept them and cut 
 them off; and it was believed that their destruction 
 was inevitable. "What possible chance is there," 
 asked the Historic Mercury of the day, " of this small 
 body of men penetrating to their native country through 
 the masses of French and Piedmontese troops accumu- 
 lating from all sides, without being crushed and 
 exterminated? " "It is impossible," wrote the Lei/den 
 Gazette, "notwithstanding whatever precautions they 
 may take, that the Yaudois can extricate themselves 
 without certain death, and the Court of Savoy may 
 therefore regard itself safe so far as they are con- 
 cerned." 
 
 No sooner had the boats left the shore at Nyon for 
 the further side of the lake than the young seigneur of 
 Prangins, who had been watching their movements, 
 
 posed of French Huguenot refugees from Dauphiny and Lanijuedoc 
 under their respective officers. Besides these, there were different 
 smaller parties who constituted a volunteer company. The entire 
 force of about eight hundred men was marshalled in three divisions — 
 vanguard, main body, and rearguard — and this arrangement was 
 strictly observed in the order of march. - 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 505 
 
 rode off at full speed to inform the French resident at 
 Geneva of the departure of the Yaudois ; and orders 
 were at once dispatched to Lyons for a strong body of 
 cavalry to march immediately towards Savoy to cut 
 them off. But the Vaudois had well matured their 
 plans, and took care to keep out of reach of the advan- 
 cing enemy. Their route at first lay up the valleys 
 towards the mountains, whose crests they followed, 
 from glacier to glacier, in places almost inaccessible to 
 regular troops, and thus they eluded the combined 
 forces of France and Savoy, which vainly endeavoured 
 to bar their passage. 
 
 The first day's march led them into the valley of the 
 Arve, by the Col de Voirons, from which they took 
 their last view of the peaceful Lake of Geneva ; thence 
 they proceeded by the pyramidal mountain called the 
 Mole to the little town of Viu, where they rested for 
 two hours, starting again by moonlight, and passing 
 through St. Joire, where the magistrates brought out 
 a great cask of wine, and placed it in the middle of the 
 street for their refreshment. The little army, however, 
 did not halt there, but marched on to the bare hill of 
 Carman, where, after solemn prayer, they encamped 
 about midnight, sleeping on the bare ground. Next 
 day found them in front of the small walled town of 
 Cluse, in the rocky gorge of the Arve. The authorities 
 shut the gates, on which the Vaudois threatened to 
 storm the place, when the gates were opened, and they 
 inarched through the town, the inhabitants standing 
 under arms along both sides of the street. Here the 
 Vaudois purchased a store of food and wine, which 
 they duly paid for. 
 
 They then proceeded on to Sallanches, where resist- 
 ance was threatened. They found a body of men posted 
 
S o6 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 on the wooden bridge which there separated the Tillage 
 of St. Martin from Sallanches ; but rushing forward, 
 the defenders of the bridge fled, and the little army 
 passed over and proceeded to range themselves in order 
 of battle over against the town, which was defended by 
 six hundred troops. The Vaudois having threatened 
 to burn the town, and kill the hostages whom they 
 "had taken on the slightest show of resistance, the threat 
 had its effect, and they were permitted to pass without 
 further opposition, encamping for the night at a little 
 village about a league further on. And thus closed 
 the second day's march. 
 
 The third day they passed over the mountains of 
 Lez Pras and Haute Luce, seven thousand feet above 
 the sea-level, a long and fatiguing march. At one 
 place the guide lost his way, and rain fell heavily, 
 soaking the men to the skin. They spent a wretched 
 night in some empty stables at the hamlet of St. 
 Nicholas de Yerose ; and started earlier than usual on 
 the following morning, addressing themselves to the 
 formidable work of climbing the Col Bonhomme, which 
 they passed with the snow up to their knees. They 
 were now upon the crest of the Alps, looking down 
 upon the valley of the Isere, into which they next 
 descended. They traversed the valley without resist- 
 ance, passing through St. Germain and Scez, turning 
 aside at the last-mentioned place up the valley of 
 Tignes, thereby avoiding the French troops lying in 
 wait for them in the neighbourhood of Moutiers, lower 
 down the valley of the Isere. Later in the evening 
 they reached Laval, at the foot of Mont Iseran ; and 
 here Arnaud, for the first time during eight days, 
 snatched a few hours' sleep on a bed in the village. 
 The sixth day saw the little army climbing the 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 507 
 
 steep slopes of Mont Iseran, where the shepherds gave 
 them milk and -wished them God-speed ; but they 
 warned them that a body of troops lay in their way at 
 Mont Cenis. On they went — over the mountain, and 
 along the crest of the chain, until they saw Bonneval 
 in the valley beneath them, and there they descended, 
 passing on to Bessant in the valley of the Arc, where 
 they encamped for the night. 
 
 Next day they marched on Mont Cenis, which they 
 ascended. As they were crossing the mountain a 
 strange incident occurred. The Vaudois saw before 
 them a large convoy of mules loaded with baggage. 
 And shortly after there came up the carriage and 
 equipage of some grand personage. It proved to 
 be Cardinal Ranuzzi, on his way to Home to take part 
 in the election of Pope Alexander VIII. The Vaudois 
 seized the mules carrying the baggage, which contained 
 important documents compromising Louis XIV. with 
 Victor Amadeus ; and it is said that in consequence of 
 their loss, the Cardinal, who himself aspired to the 
 tiara, afterwards died of chagrin, crying in his last 
 moments, " My papers ! oh, my papers ! " 
 
 The passage of the Great and Little Cenis was 
 effected with great difficulty. The snow lay thick on 
 the ground, though it was the month of August, and 
 the travellers descended the mountain of Tourliers by 
 a precipice rather than a road. When night fell, they 
 were still scattered on the mountain, and lay down to 
 snatch a brief sleep, overcome with hunger and fatigue. 
 Next morning they gathered together again, and 
 descended into the sterile valley of the Gaillon, and 
 shortly after proceeded to ascend the mountain 
 opposite. 
 
 They were now close upon the large towns. Susa 
 
508 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 lay a little to the east, and Exilles was directly in their 
 way. The garrison of the latter place came out to 
 meet them, and from the crest of the mountain rolled 
 large stones and flung grenades down upon the invaders. 
 Here the Vaudois lost some men and prisoners, and 
 finding the further ascent impracticahle, they retreated 
 into the valley from which they had come, and again 
 ascended the steep slope of Tourliers in order to turn 
 the heights on which the French troops were posted. 
 At last, after great fatigue and peril, unable to proceed 
 further, they gained the crest of the mountain, and 
 sounded their clarions to summon the scattered body. 
 
 After a halt of two hours they proceeded along the 
 ridge, and perceived through the mist a body of soldiers 
 marching along with drums beating ; it was the gar- 
 rison of Exilles. The Vaudois were recognised and 
 followed by the soldiers at a distance. Proceeding a 
 little further, they came in sight of the long valley of 
 the Doire, and looking down into it, not far from the 
 bridge of Salabertrans, they discerned some thirty-six 
 bivouac fires burning on the plain, indicating the 
 presence of a large force. These were their enemies — 
 a well-appointed army of some two thousand five 
 hundred men — whom they were at last to meet in 
 battle. Nothing discouraged, they descended into the 
 valley, and the advanced guard shortly came in contact 
 with the enemy's outposts. Firing between them went 
 on for an hour and a half, and then night fell. 
 
 The Vaudois leaders held a council to determine 
 what they should do ; and the result was, that an 
 immediate attack was resolved upon, in three bodies. 
 The principal attack was made on the bridge, the pas« 
 sage of which was defended by a strong body of French 
 soldiers, under the command of Colonel de Larrey. 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. S og 
 
 On the advance of the Vaudois in the darkness, they 
 were summoned to stand, but continued to advance, 
 when the enemy fired a volley on them, killing three 
 men. Then the Vaudois brigade rushed to the bridge, 
 but seeing a strong body on the other side preparing 
 to fire again, Arnaud called upon his men to lie down, 
 and the volley went over their heads. Then Turrel, 
 the Vaudois captain, calling out "Forward ! the bridge 
 is won ! " the Vaudois jumped to their feet and rushed 
 on. The two wings at the same time concentrated 
 their fire on the defenders, who broke and retired, and 
 the bridge was won. But at the further side, where 
 the French were in overpowering numbers, they re- 
 fused to give way, and poured down their fire on their 
 assailants. The Vaudois boldly ' pressed on. They 
 burst through the French force, cutting it in two ; 
 and fresh men pouring over, the battle was soon won. 
 The French commander was especially chagrined at 
 having been beaten by a parcel of cowherds. "Is it 
 possible," he exclaimed, "that I have lost both the 
 battle and my honour?" 
 
 The rising moon showed the ground strewed with 
 about seven hundred dead; the Vaudois having lost 
 only twenty- two killed and eight wounded. The victors 
 filled their pouches with ammunition picked up on the 
 field, took possession of as many arms and as much 
 provisions as they could carry, and placing the re- 
 mainder in a heap over some barrels of powder, 
 they afiixed a lighted match and withdrew. A tremen- 
 dous explosion shook the mountains, and echoed along 
 the valley, and the remains of the French camp were 
 blown to atoms. The Vaudois then proceeded at once 
 to climb the mountain of Sci, which had to be crossed 
 in order to enter the valley of Pragelas. 
 
510 THE COUNTRV OF THE VAVDOIS. 
 
 It was early on a Sabbath morning, the ninth day of 
 their march, that the Vaudois reached the crest of the 
 mountain overlooking Fenestrelles, and saw spread out 
 before them the beloved country which they had come 
 to win. They halted for the stragglers, and when 
 these had come up, Arnaud made them kneel down 
 and thank God for permitting them again to see their 
 native land ; himself offering up an eloquent prayer, 
 which cheered and strengthened them for further 
 effort. And then they descended into the valley of 
 Pragelas, passing the river Clusone, and halting to 
 rest at the little village of La Traverse. They were 
 now close to the Vaudois strongholds, and in a country 
 every foot of which was familiar to most of them. But 
 their danger was by no means over ; for the valleys 
 were swarming with dragoons and foot-soldiers; and 
 when they had shaken off those of France, they had 
 still to encounter the troops of Savoy. 
 
 Late in the afternoon the little army again set out 
 for the valley of St. Martin, passing the night in the 
 mountain hamlet of Jussand, the highest on the Col 
 du Pis. Next day they descended the Col near Seras, 
 and first came in contact with the troops of Savoy ; but 
 these having taken to flight, no collision occurred; 
 and on the following day the Vaudois arrived, without 
 further molestation, at the famous Balsille. 
 
 This celebrated stronghold is situated in front of the 
 narrow defile of Macel, which leads into the valley of 
 St. Martin. It is a rampart of rock, standing at the 
 entrance to the pass, and is of such natural strength, 
 that but little art was needed to make it secure against 
 any force that could be brought against it. There is 
 only one approach to it from the valley of St. Martin, 
 which is very diflicult ; a portion of the way being in 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. S" 
 
 a deep wooded gorge, where a few men could easily 
 arrest the progress of an army. The rock itself con- 
 sists of three natural stages or terraces, the highest 
 part rising steep as a wall, being surmounted by a 
 natural platform. The mountain was well supplied 
 with water, which gushed forth in several places. 
 Caverns had been hollowed out in the sides of the 
 rocks, which served as hiding-places during the per- 
 secutions which so often ravaged the valleys; and these 
 were now available for storehouses and barracks. 
 
 The place was, indeed, so intimately identified with 
 the past sufferings and triumphs of the Vaudois, and it 
 was, besides, so centrally situated, and so secure, that 
 they came to regard its possession as essential to the 
 success of their enterprise. The aged Javanel, who 
 drew up the plan of the invasion before the eight 
 hundred set out on their march, attached the greatest 
 importance to its early occupation. " Spare no labour 
 nor pains," he said, in the memorandum of directions ' 
 which he drew up, " in fortifying this post, which will 
 be your most secure fortress. Do not quit it unless in 
 the utmost extremity. . . . You will, of course, be 
 told that you cannot hold it always, and that rather 
 than not succeed in their object, ail France and Italy 
 will gather together against you. . . . But were 
 it the whole world, and only yourselves against all, 
 fear ye the Almighty alone, who is your protection." 
 
 On the arrival of the Yaudois at the Balsille, they 
 discerned a small body of troops advancing towards 
 them by the Col du Pis, higher up the valley. They 
 proved to be Piedmontese, forty- six in number, sent to 
 occupy the pass. They were surrounded, disarmed, 
 and put to death, and their arms were hid away 
 amongst the rocks. No quarter was given on either 
 
512 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 side during this war ; the Vaudois had no prisons in 
 which to place their captives; and they themselves, 
 when taken, were treated not as soldiers, hut as bandits, 
 being instantly hung on the nearest trees. The Vaudois 
 did not, however, yet take up their permanent position 
 at the Balsille, being desirous of rousing the valleys 
 towards the south. The day following, accordingly, 
 they marched to Pralis, in the valley of the Germanasca, 
 when, for the first time since their exile, they celebrated 
 Divine worship in one of the temples of their ancestors. 
 
 They were now on their way towards the valley of 
 the Pelice, to reach which it was necessary that they 
 should pass over the Col Julian. An army of three 
 thousand Piedmontese barred their way, but nothing 
 daunted by the great disparity of force, the Vaudois, 
 divided into three bodies, as at Salabertrans, mounted 
 to the assault. As they advanced, the Piedmontese 
 cried, " Come on, ye devil's Barbets, there are more 
 than three thousand of us, and we occupy all the 
 posts ! " In less than half an hour the whole of the 
 posts were carried, the pass was cleared, and the Pied- 
 montese fled down the further side of the mountain, 
 leaving all their stores behind them. On the following 
 day the Vaudois reached Bobi, drove out the new 
 settlers, and resumed possession of the lands of the 
 commune. Thus, after the lapse of only fourteen days, 
 this little band, of heroes had marched from the shores 
 of the Lake of Geneva, by difficult mountain-passes, 
 through bands of hostile troops, which they had defeated 
 in two severe fights, and at length reached the very 
 centre of the Vaudois valleys, and entered into posses- 
 sion of the " Promised Land." 
 
 They resolved to celebrate their return to the 
 country of their fathers by an act of solemn worship 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 513 
 
 on the Sabbath following. The whole body assembled 
 on the hill of Silaoud, commanding an extensive 
 prospect of the valley, and with their arms piled, and 
 resting under the shade of the chestnut-trees which 
 crown the hill, they listened to an eloquent sermon 
 from the pastor Montonx, who preached to them stand- 
 ing on a platform, consisting of a door resting upon 
 two rocks, after which they chanted the 74th Psalm, 
 to the clash of arms. They then proceeded to enter 
 into a solemn covenant with each other, renewing the 
 ancient oath of union of the valleys, and swearing never 
 to rest from their enterprise, even if they should be 
 reduced to only three or four in number, until they had 
 "re-established in the valleys the kingdom of the 
 Gospel." Shortly after, they proceeded to divide 
 themselves into two bodies, for the purpose of occupy- 
 ing simultaneously, as recommended by Javanel, the 
 two valleys of the Pelice and St. Martin, 
 
 But the trials and sufferings they had already 
 endured were as nothing compared with those they 
 were now about to experience. Armies concentrated 
 on them from all points. They were pressed by the 
 French on the north and west, and by the Piedmontese 
 on the south and east. Encouraged by their success 
 at Bobi, the Vaudois rashly attacked Villar, lower down 
 the valley, and were repulsed with loss. From thence 
 they retired up the valley of Rora, and laid it waste ; 
 the enemy, in like manner, destroying the town of Bobi 
 and laying waste the neighbourhood. 
 
 The war now became one of reprisals and mutual 
 devastation, the two parties seeking to deprive each 
 other of shelter and the means of subsistence. The 
 Vaudois could only obtain food by capturing the 
 enemy's convoys, levying contributions from the plains, 
 
 L L 
 
SH THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 and making incursions into Dauphiny. The enterprise 
 on which they had entered seemed to become more 
 hopeless from day to day. This handful of men, half 
 famished and clothed in rags, had now arrayed against 
 them twenty- two thousand French and Sardinians, 
 provided with all the munitions of war. That they 
 should have been able to stand against them for two 
 whole months, now fighting in one place, and perhaps 
 the next day some twenty mil es across the mountains 
 in another, with almost invariable success, seems little 
 short of a miracle. But flesh and blood could not 
 endure such toil and privations much longer. No 
 wonder that the faint-hearted began to despair. 
 Turrel, the military commander, seeing no chance of a 
 prosperous issue, withdrew across the French frontier, 
 followed by the greater number of the Vaudois from 
 Dauphiny ;* and there remained only the Italian 
 Vaudois, still unconquered in spirit, under the leader- 
 ship of their pastor-general Arnaud, who never 
 appeared greater than in times of difficulty and 
 danger. 
 
 With his diminished forces, and the increasing 
 numbers of the enemy, Arnaud found it impossible to 
 hold both the valleys, as intended ; besides, winter was 
 approaching, and the men must think of shelter and 
 provisions during that season, if resistance was to be 
 prolonged. It was accordingly determined to concen- 
 trate their little force upon the Balsille, and all haste 
 was made to reach that stronghold without further 
 delay. Their knowledge of the mountain heights and 
 passes enabled them to evade their enemies, who were 
 watching for them along the valleys, and they passed 
 
 • The greater number of them, including Turrel, were taken 
 prisoners and shot, or sent to the galleys, where they died. This last 
 waa the fate of Turrel. 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 515 
 
 from the heights of Rodoret to the summit of the 
 Balsille by night, before it was known that they were 
 in the neighbourhood. They immediately set to work 
 to throw up entrenchments and erect barricades, so as 
 to render the place as secure as possible. Foraging 
 parties were sent out for provisions, to lay in for the 
 winter, and they returned laden with corn from the 
 valley of Pragelas. At the little hamlet of Balsille 
 they repaired the mill, and set it a-going, the rivulet 
 which flowed down from the mountain supplying 
 abundance of water-power. 
 
 It was at the end of October that the little band of 
 heroes took possession of the Balsille, and they held it 
 firmly all through- the winter. For more than six 
 months they beat back every force that was sent against 
 them. The first attack was made by the Marquis 
 d'Ombrailles at the head of a French detachment ; but 
 though the enemy reached the village of Balsille, they 
 were compelled to retire, partly by the bullets of the 
 defenders, and partly by the snow, which was falling 
 heavily. The Marquis de Parelles next advanced, and 
 summoned the Vaudois to surrender ; but in vain. 
 "Our storms are still louder than your cannon," 
 replied Arnaud, " and yet our rocks are not shaken." 
 Winter having set in, the besiegers refrained for a time 
 from further attacks, but strictly guarded all the passes 
 leading to the fortress; while the garrison, availing 
 themselves of their knowledge of the locality, made 
 frequent sorties into the adjoining valleys, as well as 
 into those of Dauphiny, for the purpose of collecting 
 provisions, in which they were usually successful. 
 
 When the fine weather arrived, suitable for a 
 mountain campaign, the French general, Catinat, 
 assembled a strong force, and marched into the valley, 
 
S i6 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 determined to make short work of this little nest of 
 bandits on the Balsille. On Sunday morning, the 30th 
 of April, 1690, while Arnaud was preaching to his 
 flock, the sentinels on the look-out discovered the 
 enemy's forces swarming up the valley. Soon other 
 bodies were seen approaching by the Col du Pis and 
 the Col du Clapier, while a French regiment, supported 
 by the Savoyard militia, climbed Mont Guinevert, and 
 cut off all retreat in that quarter. In short, the Balsille 
 was completely invested. 
 
 A general assault was made on the position on the 
 2nd of May, under the direction of General Catinat in 
 person. Three French regiments, supported by a 
 regiment of dragoons, opened the attack in front ; 
 Colonel de Parat, who commanded the leading regi- 
 ment, saying to his soldiers as they advanced, " My 
 friends, we must sleep to-night in that barrack," 
 pointing to the rude Vaudois fort on the summit of the 
 Balsille. They advanced with great bravery ; but the 
 barricade could not be surmounted, while they were 
 assailed by a perfect storm of bullets from the defenders, 
 securely posted above. 
 
 Catinat next ordered the troops stationed on the 
 Guinevert to advance from that direction, so as to carry 
 the position from behind. But the assailants found un- 
 expected intrenchments in their way, from behind 
 which the Vaudois maintained a heavy fire, that 
 eventually drove them back, their retreat being acce- 
 lerated by a shower of stones and a blinding fall of 
 snow and hail. In the meantime, the attack on the 
 bastion in front continued, and the Vaudois, seeing 
 the French troops falling back in disorder, made a 
 vigorous sortie, and destroyed the whole remaining 
 force, excepting fifteen men, who fled, bare-headed and 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 517 
 
 without arms, and carried to the camp the news of 
 their total defeat. 
 
 A Savoyard officer thus hriefly described the issue of 
 the disastrous affair in a letter to a friend : " I have 
 only time to tell you that the French have failed in 
 their attack on the Balsille, and they have been 
 obliged to retire after having lost one hundred and 
 fifty soldiers, three captains, besides subalterns and 
 wounded, including a colonel and a lieutenant-colonel 
 who have been made prisoners, with the two sergeants 
 who remained behind to help them. The lieutenant- 
 colonel was surprised at finding in the fort some nine- 
 teen or twenty officers in gold and silver lace, who 
 treated him as a prisoner of war and very humanely, 
 even allowing him to go in search of the surgeon- 
 major of his regiment for the purpose of bringing 
 him into the place, and doing all that was necessary." 
 
 Catinat did not choose again to renew the attack in 
 person, or to endanger his reputation by a further 
 defeat at the hands of men whom he had described as 
 a nest of paltry bandits, but entrusted the direction of 
 further operations to the Marquis de Feuquieres, who 
 had his laurels still to win, while Catinat had his to 
 lose. The Balsille was again completely invested by 
 the 12th of May, according to the scheme of operations 
 prepared by Catinat, and the Marquis received by 
 anticipation the title of " Conqueror of the Barbets." 
 The entire mountain was surrounded, all the passes 
 were strongly guarded, guns were planted in positions 
 which commanded the Vaudois fort, more particularly 
 on the Ghrinevert ; and the capture or extermination of 
 the Vaudois was now regarded as a matter of certainty. 
 The attacking army was divided into five corps. Each 
 soldier was accompanied by a pioneer carrying a 
 
S i8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. , 
 
 fascine, In order to form a cover against the Vaudois 
 bullets as they advanced. 
 
 Several days elapsed before all the preliminaries for 
 the grand attack were completed, and then the Marquis 
 ordered a white flag to be hoisted, and a messenger was 
 sent forward, inviting a parley with the defenders of 
 the Balsille. The envoy was asked what he wanted. 
 " Your Immediate surrender ! " was the reply. " You 
 shall each of you receive five hundred louis d'or, and 
 good passports for your retirement to a foreign country ; 
 but if you resist, you will be infallibly destroyed." 
 "That is as the Lord shall will," replied the Vaudois 
 messenger. 
 
 The defenders refused to capitulate on any terms. 
 The Marquis himself then wrote to the Vaudois, offer- 
 ing them terms on the above basis, but threatening, in 
 case of refusal, that every man of them would be hung. 
 Arnaud's reply was heroic. " We are not subjects," 
 he said, " of the King of France ; and that monarch 
 not being master of this country, we can enter into no 
 treaty with his servants. We are in the heritage 
 which our fathers have left to us, and we hope, with 
 the help of the God of armies, to live and die in it, 
 even though there may remain only ten of us to 
 defend it." That same night the Vaudois made a 
 vigorous sortie, and killed a number of the besiegers : 
 this was their final answer to the summons to sur- 
 render. 
 
 On the 14th of May the battery on Mont Guinevert 
 was opened, and the enemy's cannon began to play 
 upon the little fort and bastions, which, being only of 
 dry stones, were soon dismantled. The assault was 
 then made simultaneously on three sides ; and after a 
 stout resistance, the Vaudois retired from their lower 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 5 '9 
 
 intrenchments, and retreated to those on the higher 
 ledges of the mountain. They continued their resist- 
 ance until night, and then, taking counsel together, 
 and feeling that the place was no longer defensible in 
 the face of so overpowering a force, commanded, as it 
 was, at the same time by the cannon on the adjoining 
 heights, they determined to evacuate the Balsille, after 
 holding it for a period of nearly seven months. • 
 
 A thick mist having risen up from the valley, the 
 Vaudois set out, late at night, under the guidance of 
 Captain Poulat, a native of the district, who well knew 
 the paths in the mountains. They climbed up on to 
 the heights above, over icy slopes, passing across gaping 
 crevices and along almost perpendicular rocks, admit- 
 ting of their passage only in single file, sometimes 
 dragging themselves along on their bellies, clinging to 
 the rocks or to the tufts of grass, occasionally resting 
 and praying, but never despairing. At length they 
 succeeded, after a long detour of the mountain crests, 
 in gaining the northern slope of Guinevert. Here they 
 came upon and surprised the enemy's outpost, which 
 fled towards the main body ; and the Vaudois passed 
 on, panting and half dead with fatigue. When the 
 morning broke, and the French proceeded to penetrate 
 the last redoubt on the Balsille, lo, it was empty ! The 
 defenders had abandoned it, and they could scarcely 
 believe their eyes when they saw the dangerous moun- 
 tain escarpment by which they had escaped in the night. 
 Looking across the valley, far off, they saw the fugitives, 
 thrown into relief by the snow amidst which they 
 marched, like a line of ants, apparently making for the 
 mass of the central Alps. 
 
 For three days they wandered from place to place, 
 gradually moving southwards, their obiect now being 
 
5*0 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 to take up their position at the Pra du Tour, the 
 ancient fortress of the Barbas in the valley of Angrogna. 
 Before, however, they could reach this stronghold, and 
 while they were still at Pramol in the valley of Perosa, 
 news of the most unexpected kind reached them, which 
 opened up the prospect of their deliverance. The news 
 was no other than this— Savoy had declared war against 
 France ! 
 
 A rupture between the two powers had for some 
 time been imminent. Louis XIV. had become more 
 and more exacting in his demands on the Duke of 
 Savoy, until the latter felt himself in a position of 
 oppressive vassalage. Louis had even intimated his 
 intention of occupying Verrua and the citadel of Turin ; 
 and the Duke, having previously ascertained through 
 his cousin, Prince Eugene, the willingness of the 
 Emperor of Austria, pressed by William of Orange, 
 to assist him in opposing the pretensions of France, he at 
 length took up his stand and declared war against Louis. 
 
 The Vaudois were now a power in the state, and 
 both parties alike appealed to them for help, promising 
 them great favours. But the Vaudois, notwithstanding 
 the treachery and cruelty of successive Dukes of Savoy, 
 were true to their native prince. They pledged them- 
 selves to hold the valleys and defend the mountain 
 passes against France. 
 
 In the first engagements which took place between 
 the French and the Piedmontese, the latter were over- 
 powered, and the Duke became a fugitive. Where did 
 he find refuge ? In the valleys of the Vaudois, in a 
 secluded spot in the village of Eora, behind the 
 Pelice, he found a safe asylum amidst the people 
 whose fathers he had hunted, proscribed, and con- 
 demned to death. 
 
THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 521 
 
 But the tide of war turned, and the French were 
 eventually driven out of Piedmont. Many of the 
 Vaudois, who had settled in Brandenburg, Holland, and 
 Switzerland, returned and settled in the valleys ; and 
 though the Dukes of Savoy, with their accustomed 
 treachery, more than once allowed persecution to recom- 
 mence, their descendants continue to enjoy the land, 
 and to worship after the manner of their fathers down 
 to the present day. 
 
 The Vaudois long laboured under disabilities, and 
 continued to be deprived of many social and civil rights. 
 But they patiently bided their time ; and the time at 
 length arrived. In 1848 their emancipation was one 
 of the great questions of North Italy. It was taken 
 up and advocated by the most advanced minds of 
 Piedmont. The petition to Charles Albert in their 
 favour was in a few days covered with the names of its 
 greatest patriots, including those of Balbo, Cavour, and 
 D'Azeglio. Their emancipation was at length granted, 
 and the Yaudois now enjoy the same rights and liberties 
 as the other subjects of Victor Emanuel. 
 
 Nor is the Vaudois Church any longer confined to 
 the valleys, but it has become extended of late years 
 all over Italy — to Milan, Florence, Brescia, Verona, 
 Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Palermo, Cataneo, Venice, 
 and even to Rome itself. In most of these places there 
 are day-schools and Sunday-schools, besides churches. 
 The new church at Venice, held in the Cavagnis palace, 
 seems to have proved especially successful, the Sunday 
 services being regularly attended by from three to four 
 hundred persons ; while the day-schools in connection 
 with the churches at Turin, Leghorn, Naples, and 
 Cataneo have proved very successful. 
 
 Thus, in the course of a few years, thirty-three 
 
522 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 Vaudois churches and stations, with about an equal 
 number of schools, have been established in various 
 parts of Italy. The missionaries report that the 
 greatest difficulties they have to encounter arise from 
 the incredulity and indifference which are the natural 
 heritage of the Romish Church ; but that, nevertheless, 
 the work makes satisfactory progress — the good seed 
 is being planted, and will yet bring forth its increase 
 in God's due time. 
 
 Finally, it cannot but be acknowledged that the 
 people of the valleys, in so tenaciously and conscien- 
 tiously adhering to their faith, through good and 
 through evil, during so many hundred years, have set 
 a glorious example to Piedmont, and have possibly been 
 in no small degree instrumental in establishing the 
 reign of right and of liberty in Italy. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aiguemortes, Huguenot prison 
 
 at, 193, 273, 300 
 Albigenses, 75 
 
 Anabaptists of Minister, 282-3 
 Anduze, visit to, 125 
 Angrogna, valley of, 481 ; fight- 
 . ing in, 481-86, 498 
 Arnaud, Henry, 215, 512; leads 
 
 tack the Vaudois, 503-15 ; 
 
 defends the Balsille, 515-19 
 Athlone, siege of, 349-50, 355-8 
 
 Balsille, the, 510 ; defence of, 
 515-19 ; given up, 519 
 
 Baridon, Etienne, 442-3 
 
 Barfllon, M. de, 323, 330-1 
 
 Baville on the Protestants of 
 Languedoc, 77, 86; occupies 
 the Cevennes, 87 ; at Pont-de- 
 Montvert, 92 
 
 Beauval, Basnage de, 364 
 
 Beauveau, Prince de, 273-4 
 
 Beckwith, General, 478 
 
 Berwick, Duke of, 310-11, 333, 
 351 
 
 Bibles, destruction and scarcity 
 of, 215-16 
 
 Boileau, General, 351-2 
 
 Bonnafoux repulsed by Cami- 
 sards, 142 
 
 Book-burning, 215, 235-6 
 
 Bordeille, Raphael, 318 
 
 Bourg d'Oisans, 409-10 
 
 Boyne, battle of the, 341-7 
 
 Briancon, 414-16 
 
 Briset, Lieut., death of, 335 
 
 Broglie, Count, 143-4, 148; su- 
 perseded, 149 
 
 Brousson. Claude, 30 ; advocate for 
 
 Protestant church at Nismes, 
 31; meeting in house of, 34;' 
 petition by, 35; escape from 
 Nismes, 42; at Lausanne, 43, 
 46 ; at Berlin, 44 ; in the Ce- 
 vennes, 50-2, 54 ; reward offered 
 for, 56 ; at Nismes, 57 ; preach- 
 ing of, 58-9 ; to Lausanne, 
 England, and Holland, 61-2 ; at 
 Sedan, 64 ; through France, 
 66-7 ; portraiture of, 68 (note) ; 
 to Nismes again, 69 ; taken, 
 tried, and executed, 70-3 
 
 Browne, Col. Lyde, 380 
 
 Brueys on fanaticism in Langue- 
 doc, 91 
 
 Bull of Clement XI. against 
 Camisards, 160 
 
 Caillemotte, Col., 339; death 
 of, 345, 348 
 
 Calas, Jean, 257 ; executed, 258 ; 
 case taken up by Voltaire, 259- 
 62 ; reversal of judgment on, 
 262-3 
 
 Calvinism and race, 100 (note) 
 
 Calvinists, French and Scotch, 
 compared, 100 
 
 Cambon, Col., 357 
 
 Camisards, the origin of name, 
 107 ; led by Laporte, 109 ; 
 organization of, 112-13 ; en- 
 counter troops, 113-14, 117 ; 
 war-song of , 1 15 ; organized by 
 Boland, 123-4 ; successes of, 
 134-40, 142, 146-50; spread 
 of insurrection of, 138-9 ; mea- 
 sures against, 1 39, 146-7 ; de- 
 feat of, at Vagnas, 150 ; defeat 
 
5*4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of, near Pompignan, 152; 
 success of, at Maitinargues, 162- 
 4 ; bull against, 160 ; success at 
 Salindres, 164-5 ; defeated near 
 Nismes, 168-9 ; reverses of, 
 170-1 ; success at Font-morte, 
 176-7; defeated at Pont-de- 
 Montvert, and end of insurrec- 
 tion, 187-9 
 Camisards, White, 160-1 
 Carrickfergus, siege of, 335 
 Castanet, Andre, 111, 113, 118, 
 
 123, 189 
 Cavalier, John, joins insurgents, 
 108, 111; family of, 121; to 
 Geneva, 121 ; to the Ce- 
 vennes, 122 ; portrait of, 124 ; in 
 Lower Languedoc, 133 ; de- 
 feats Royalists, 134-5 ; takes 
 Chateau Servas, 136-7 ; re- 
 pulses Bonnafoux, 142; at 
 Nismes, 144-5; successes of, 
 14H ; winter campaign, 148-9 ; 
 at Vagnas, 160-1, 153 ; betrayed 
 at Tower of Belliot, 156-8 ; at 
 Martiuargues, 162-4 ; at Rosni, 
 169 ; his cave magazines, 170-1 ; 
 his interview with Lalande, 
 173-6 ; attempts peace, 177 ; his 
 interviews with Yillars, 177- 
 83 ; deserted by followers, 
 183-5 ; to England, and subse- 
 quent career, 186 
 Caves in the Cevennes, 125, 127- 
 
 9 ; at La Tour, 477 
 Cazenove, Eaoul de, 321, 367 
 Cevennes, the, persecutions in, 39, 
 62-3, 85; secret meetings in, 
 54, 84-8; executions in, 69, 
 67-8; description of, 79-82; 
 arming of the people, 85-6 ; 
 occupied by troops, 88; pro- 
 phetic mania in, 88 ; encounter 
 at Pont-de-Montvert, 92 ; out- 
 break against Du Chayla, 96-7 ; 
 map of, 98 ; Protestants of, 
 compared with Covenanters, 
 100-1 ; organization in, 123-5 ; 
 caves in, 125, 1-27-9; visit to, 
 125-9 ; present inhabitants of, 
 129, 131 - 2 ; devastation of, 
 154-5 
 Champ Domergue, battle at, 114 
 
 Charlemont, capture of, 339 
 
 Chateau Queyras, 467 
 
 Chaumont, 271 
 
 Chayla, Du, 93-4, 97 
 
 Chenevix, 15 (note) 
 
 Choiseul, Due de, 268 
 
 Claris, 237 
 
 Colognac, execution of, 59 
 
 Comiers, 407 
 
 Conderc, Salomon, 119, 123 
 
 " Conversions," rapid, 289 
 
 Converts, 19-23, 38-9 
 
 Cook, Captain, last voyage round 
 the world, 371 ; cruel death, 
 371 
 
 Court profligacy, 275 (note) 
 
 Court, Antoine, 206-17 ; organizes 
 school for preachers, 224 ; 
 marriage of, 231 ; retires to 
 Switzerland, 232 ; results of his 
 work, 233-4; in Languedoc, 
 239 
 
 Covenanters compared with Pro- 
 testants of the Cevennes, 100-2 
 
 Cromwell, 391-2, 476 
 
 D'Agtoesseau's opinion of Pro- 
 testants of Languedoc, 76-7 
 
 Dauphiny, map of, 382; aspect 
 of, 383-4 
 
 Delada, Mdlle. de, 295 
 
 Denbeck, Abb6 of, 322-3 
 
 Denese, Botolf de la, 364 
 
 Desert, assemblies in the, 83-8, 
 218-23 
 
 Desparves, M., 297 
 
 Dormilhouse, 438, 443-54 
 
 Dortial, 238 
 
 Douglas, Lieut.-Gteneral, 349-51, 
 365 
 
 Dragonnades, 36-7, 42, 54-5, 288 ; 
 horrors of, 291 
 
 Drogheda, surrender of, 349 
 
 Dumas, death of, 52 
 
 Dundaik, Schomberg's army at, 
 337-8 
 
 Durand, Pierre, 236 
 
 Easter massacre of the Vaudois, 
 
 390-92 
 England attempts to assist the 
 
 Camisards, 166-7 
 Enniskilleners, the, 336 
 
INDEX. 
 
 5*5 
 
 Evertzen, Yioe-Admiral, 325 
 Execution of Pastors, 27 
 
 Fabre, Jean, 265 ; sent to galleys, 
 266-9 ; obtains leaveof absence, 
 269 ; exonerated, 270 ; life 
 dramatized, and result, 270 
 
 Fermaud, Pastor, 407 
 
 Freemantle, Bev. Mr., vimts of, 
 to the Yaudois, 395, 450, 
 462 
 
 French labouring classes, present 
 condition of, 397-400 
 
 Freney, gorge of, 411 
 
 Fusiliers, missionary, 293 
 
 Gauey, description of, 197-8 ; 
 
 use in war, 200-4 
 Galley-slaves, treatment of, 194- 
 
 204 ; liberation of Protestants, 
 
 204, 264 (note), 271-3 
 Galway, Earl of, 360 
 Gilly, Dr., visit to the Yaudois, 
 
 393-4, 468, 477 
 Ginckel, Lieut-General, 347, 354 
 
 et seq. 
 Glorious Beturn of the Yaudois, 
 
 493-5 
 Grace, Col. Kicbard, 351 
 Gnarrison, Mdlle. de, 294 
 Guerin, death of, 67 
 Guignon betrays Cavalier, 156 ; 
 
 executed, 159 
 Guil, valley of the, 466 
 GuUlestre, 456-66 
 Guion executed, 57 
 
 Herbert, Admiral, 325 
 
 Homel, tortures and death of, 40 
 
 Hood, Lord, 376 
 
 Huguenots, the (see Camisards) ; 
 emigrations of, 43, 76-8, 83, 287, 
 316 ; persecution of , after Cami- 
 Bard insurrection, 190-204; as 
 galley-slaves, 194-204 ; brought 
 together by Court, 210-17 ; re- 
 organization of, 218-228; out- 
 rages on, 228 ; great assemblies 
 of, 239-40; last of the execu- 
 tions, 258 ; last of the galley- 
 slaves, 265-273; character of, 
 274-5; later history of, 276- 
 283 ; decrees against, 285-6 ; 
 
 in England, 309 ; foreign ser- 
 vices of, 316-17 
 
 Ireland and James II., 331 et 
 
 seq. 
 Irish Brigade, 140-2, 359 
 Iron Boot, the, 102 
 
 Jambs II., flight of, 309, 329; 
 lands with an army in Ireland, 
 309, 332 ; campaign against 
 "William III., 309 et seq., 333 
 et seq. ; deserted, 328 ; taken 
 prisoner, 329 ; his last procla- 
 mation, 330 ; at the French 
 court, 331 ; cowardice, 337, 347- 
 8 ; Catholic estimate of his 
 character, 348 
 
 Joany, Nicholas, insurgent leader, 
 120, 123, 151 
 
 Johannot, 269 
 
 Julien, Brigadier, 147, 150-1 
 
 Lagier, Jean, 452, 453 (note) 
 
 Lajonquiere defeated at Martin- 
 argues, 162-4 
 
 Lalande, his interview with Cava- 
 lier, 173-6 
 
 Languedoc (see Cevennes), early 
 liberty in, 75 ; Albigenses in, 
 75 ; Protestants of, 76-7 ; indus- 
 try of, 70 ; emigration from, 
 after Bevocation, 78, 289 ; arm- 
 ing of people of, 85-6 ; outbreak 
 of fanaticism in, 88-92 ; present 
 inhabitants of, 280-3 
 
 Laporte, leader of Camisards, 109- 
 10 ; organizes insurgents, 112 ; 
 at Collet, 113; at Champ Do- 
 mergue, 114 ; killedatMolezon, 
 117 
 
 La Salette, 404 ; miracle of, 406-6 
 
 La Tour, 476-80 
 
 Laugier at Guillestre, 463 ; at 
 Chateau Queyras, 464 
 
 Lausanne, school for preachers 
 at, 224; Society of Help at, 
 224-5 
 
 Lauteret, Col de, 413 
 
 Lauzun, Count, 339, 358 
 
 Lesdiguieres, Due de, 402-3, 455 
 
 Limerick, siege of, 351-4, 359 
 
526 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lintarde, Marie, imprisonment 
 of, 54 
 
 Locke, John, on Protestants of 
 Nismes, 31 (note) 
 
 Londonderry, siege of, 333 
 
 Louis XIV., 2, 10, 146, 205 
 
 Louis XV., 275 
 
 Louis XVI., 276 ; maxim of, 285 ; 
 his decrees against Protestants, 
 285-6; his mode of stopping 
 the emigration of Huguenots, 
 287-8 ; expulsion of Protest- 
 ants, 316; assists James II., 
 332 
 
 Luttrell, Capt., brilliant naval 
 achievement of, 372 
 
 Mackay, Major-General, 355, 357 
 Marillac, Michel de, inventor of 
 
 the dragonnades, 288 
 Marion on influence of Camisard 
 
 prophets, 119 
 Marlborough, Earl of, 354 
 Marteilhe, autobiography of, 195, 
 
 201-4 
 Marfcinargues, battle at, 162-4 
 Massillon on Louis XTV., 10 
 Mazel, Abraham, 120, 123 
 Mialet, visit to, 127-8 
 Milsom, Edward, 395, 451, 490- 
 
 92 
 Missionaries, booted, 288 
 Montandre, Marquis de, 314 
 Montauban, persecutions at, 289- 
 
 90 
 Montpellier, Protestant Church 
 
 at, 32-3 ; the Peyrou at, 72 ; 
 
 execution of Brousson at, 73, 
 
 300 
 Montrevel, Marshal, in Langue- 
 
 doc, 149 ; at Pompignan, 152 ; 
 
 adopts extermination, 153; at 
 
 Tower of Belliot, 156-8 ; cha- 
 racter of, 159; recalled, 167; 
 
 defeats Cavalier, 168-9 
 
 Nantes, Revocation of Edict of, 
 and its results, 1-19, 24, 44-5, 
 78; contemporary opinion upon, 
 1-10 ; enactments of Edict of 
 Revocation, 12-15, 285-6 
 
 Neff, Felix, 427-32; life of, 394, 
 404 ; his account of winter at 
 
 Dormilhouse, 447 ; his charge, 
 469 
 
 Nelson, Lord, eulogium on Capt. 
 Riou, 368; at the battle of 
 Copenhagen, 378-9 
 
 Ners, visit to, 131 
 
 Newton Butler, engagement at, 
 333 
 
 Nismes, Protestant Church at, 31 ; 
 petition from, 41 ; Broussonat, 
 67, 69 ; Guion at, 67 ; country 
 about, 81, 130-2; success of 
 Camisards near, 143; Cavalier 
 at, 144-5, 177-83 ; treaty of,179- 
 80 ; Huguenot meetings at, 265 
 
 Osmond,' Duke of, 349 
 
 Palons, 433-6 
 
 Paulet, Mdlle., forgeries in name 
 of, 32-4 
 
 Pechell, Augustus, 315 
 
 Pechell, Capt. William Cecil, 315 
 
 Pechell, Col. Jacob, 313 
 
 PechelL Paul, 314 
 
 Pechell, Samuel, extraordinary 
 probity of, 314 
 
 Pechell, Sir G. E. Brooke, 315 
 
 Pechell, Sir Thomas, 315 
 
 Pechels de la Boissonade, Samuel 
 de, narrative of his persecu- 
 tions, 291 et seq. ; imprison- 
 ment, 296_, 299-301 ; meeting 
 with his wife, 297 ; condemned 
 to banishment, 299 ; embarka- 
 tion, 302; sails for America, 
 303 ; sufferings, 304-5 ; reaches 
 the West Indies, 305; illness 
 and arrival in London, 307; 
 accepts a commission in the 
 English army, 309; campaign 
 in Ireland, 310 ; return to 
 London, 311; removal with his 
 wife and son to Dublin, 312 ; 
 death of, 312 ; his descendants, 
 313 
 
 Pechels, family of, 290 
 
 Pechels, Madame de, inhumanity 
 'towards, 294-5; touching in- 
 terview with her husband, 297 ; 
 further trials, 297; escape to 
 Geneva, 298 ; in London, 308 ; 
 reunited to her husband, 311 
 
INDEX. 
 
 5*7 
 
 Felice, Valley of the, 472 
 
 Pelisson, 323 
 
 Pont-de-Montvert, outbreak at, 
 92-7; description of, 93-4; endof 
 Camisard insurrection at, 187-9 
 
 Portland, Earl of, 361, 363 
 
 Portland Vase, 363 
 
 Poul, Captain, in UpperCevennes, 
 108 ; at Champ Domergue, 114- 
 16 ; takes Laporte at Slolezon, 
 117 ; defeated and killed near 
 Nismes, 143-4 
 
 Pra du Tour, 486-90, 499 
 
 Preachers, education of, 221-4; 
 hardships of, 226-9, 236-8 
 
 Project, the, 34 
 
 " Protestant -wind," the, 325 
 
 Protestantism in France, present 
 chances of, 417 
 
 Quoite, execution of, 53 
 
 Bapin, Capt. Paul, birth and edu- 
 cation, 321-2; emigrates to 
 England, 322 ; embarks for 
 Holland, 323 ; a cadet in the 
 Dutch army, 324; sails for 
 England, 325 ; encounters a 
 storm, 326 ; with the army of 
 William III., 335 et seq. ; aide- 
 de-camp, 350 ; wounded and 
 promoted, 354 ; conciliatory 
 spirit, 358-9 ; at Kinsale, 359 ; 
 tutor to Lord Woodstock, 360 ; 
 presented to the King, 371; 
 makes the " grand tour" with 
 his pupil, 362-3 ; seeures the 
 Portland Vase, 363 ; marriage, 
 
 363 ; at the Hague and "Wesel, 
 
 364 ; his " Dissertation on the 
 Origin and Nature of the Eng- 
 lish Constitution," 364; "His- 
 tory of England," 364-7 ; death 
 of, 366 
 
 Bapin, Daniel de, 324 
 Bapin family, 317-21, 367 
 Bapin, Solomon, 354, 360 
 Bavanel, insurgent leader, defeats 
 Boyalists near Nismes, 143; 
 near Bouquet, 145 ; supplants 
 Cavalier, 182-5 ; death of, 189 
 Bedothiere, Isabeau, 53 
 Besseguerie, M. de la, 297 
 
 Bey, Fulcran, his preaching and 
 death, 25-7 
 
 Biou, Capt., B.N., Lord Nelson's 
 opinion of, 368 ; ancestry, 368- 
 70 ; birth and education, 370 ; 
 becomes a midshipman, 370 ; 
 accompanies Capt. Cook in his 
 last voyage, 371 ; witnesses the 
 murder of the captain, 371 ; 
 return to England and ap- 
 pointed lieutenant, 372 ; a 
 sharer in the glory of Capt. 
 Luttrell's brilliant achieve- 
 ment, 372; appointed to the 
 command of the Guardian, 373 ; 
 letters to his mother, 373, 377 ; 
 his ship strikes upon an iceberg, 
 374 ; remains with the vessel, 
 375; letter to the Admiralty, 
 375 ; extract from his log, 376 ; 
 rescued by Dutch whalers, and 
 return to England, 376; re- 
 ceives the special thanks of the 
 Admiralty, 377 ; commander of 
 the royal yacht Princess Au- 
 gusta, 378 ; at the battle of 
 Copenhagen, 378-9; death of, 
 379 ; his character, 379-80 ; 
 monument in St. Paul's Ca- 
 thedral, 380 
 
 Bochemalan, Vaudois struggles 
 at, 482-6 
 
 Boger, Jacques, 213 
 . Boland, nephew of Laporte, 111 ; 
 insurgent leader, 113 ; succeeds 
 Laporte, 118 ; in Lower Ce- 
 vennes, 122; organizes Cami- 
 sards, 123-5 ; takes Sauve, 137 ; 
 at Pompignan, 152 ; at Salin- 
 dres, 164-6 ; at Eont-Morte, 
 176-7 ; at Pont-de-Montvert, 
 187 ; death of, 188 
 
 Bomanche, Valley of the, 401, 408 
 
 Bosen, Count, 332; indignation 
 against Bong James, 337 
 
 Eostan, Alpine missionary, 460 
 (note) 
 
 Eou, Jean, 363-4 
 
 Boussel, Alexandre, 232 
 
 Buvigny, Major-General, 357 
 
 St. Bartholomew, doubt thrown 
 upon massacre of, 27 
 
5*8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Saint-Etienne, Rabout, 276-7 
 
 St. Hypolite, meeting at, 35 
 
 Saint-Ruth, Marshal, 38 ; in Ire- 
 land, 38 (note), 354 et seq, 
 
 Saint-Simon on the treatment of 
 converts, 23 
 
 Sands, Captain, 357 
 
 San Veran, 468 
 
 Sarsfield, General, 351-3, 356 
 
 Savoy and France, war declared, 
 520 
 
 Savoy, Duke of, takes refuge -with 
 the Vaudois, 520 
 
 Sohomberg, Marshal, 309 et seq., 
 317, 344 et seq. ; death of, 345 
 
 Schomberg, Count, 348 
 
 Sedan, prosperity of, before Re- 
 vocation, 64-5 ; Brousson at, 
 65-6 
 
 Seguier, Pierre, insurgent leader, 
 96, 103; at Erugferes, 104; at 
 Eont-Morte, 106 ; taken, tried, 
 and executed, 106-7 
 
 Sirven, 263 ; case of, taken up by 
 Voltaire, 264 
 
 Society of Friends in Languedoc, 
 281-2 
 
 Souverain executed, 52 
 
 Squeezers, the, 101 (note) 
 
 Synod of French Protestant 
 Church, 283 
 
 Talmash, Major-General, 357 
 Telford, anecdote of, 82 
 Testart, Marie Anne, 363 
 Tetleau, Major-General, 367 
 Toleration, Ediot of, 276 
 " Troopers' Lane," 310 
 Tyrconnel, Earl of, 331-2 
 Tyrconnel, Lady, retort to King 
 James, 348 
 
 Val Fressinieres, 423-5, 432-43 
 Val Louise, 420 ; massacre at, 
 
 422 
 Vaudois, the country of, 385 ; 
 
 early Christianity of, 385-6; 
 
 early persecutions of, 388 ; 
 
 Easter massacre of, 390-1 ; visits 
 
 of Dr. Gilly to, 393-4, 468, 
 477 ; passiveness of, 420-1 ; mas- 
 sacre of, at Val Louise, 422 ; 
 persecutions of, 424-6, 455, 481, 
 495-500, 513-20; refuges of, 
 459, 467, 475, 477, 481 ; strug- 
 gles of, at Boehemalan, 482-6 ; 
 flight at the Revocation, 495 ; 
 apparently exterminated, 600 ; 
 in Switzerland, 501 ; prepare to 
 return, 502 ; Arnaud appointed 
 leader, 602; assisted by "William 
 of Orange, 503 ; The Glorious 
 Return of, 504-13 ; struggles of, 
 at the Balsille, 515 ; assist Duke 
 of Savoy, 520 ; emancipation.of, 
 521-2 
 
 Venours, Marquis de, death of, 
 335 
 
 Vesson, 212, 214 
 
 Vidal, Isaac, preacher, 48 
 
 Villais, Marshal, on prophetic 
 mania in Languedoc, 90 ; ap- 
 pointed to command in Langue- 
 doc, 167; at Nismes, 169; 
 clemency of, 172-86 ; treate 
 with Cavalier, 177, 185; sup- 
 presses insurrection of Cami- 
 sards, 188 
 
 Vincent, Isabel, prophetess, 89, 90 
 
 Vivens, death of, fi,6 
 
 Voltaire, takes up case of Calas, 
 259-63 ; takes' up case of Sirven, 
 264 ; case of Chaumont, 27J 
 
 Waldenses, the, 384 
 
 "Walker, Dr. George, death of, 
 348 
 
 "Waller, Sir James, 359 
 
 "Wheel, punishment of the, 258 
 (note) 
 
 "William of Orange lands in Eng- 
 land, 308 ; proclaimed King, 
 309 ; campaign against James 
 II., 309 et seq., 340 et seq.; his 
 fleet, 325-7; wounded, 342; 
 death of, 364 
 
 "Woodstock, Lord, 360-3 
 
 "Wnrtemberg, Duke of, 340, 367 
 
 FEINTED BY VJE ' l ' UK AND CO., LIMITED, CITY EOAD, LONDON. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX9454.S64 H8 1881 
 
 Huguenots in France after the revocation 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 484 197 
 

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