THE CAMISARDS
The country of the Camisards—Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes—Shepherdess and angel—Corbière—Gabriel Astier—Excitement in
the Boutières—Expectations of help from England—Prophecies—Murder
of Tirbon—Prophetic gifts at Porchères—Attack of Cheilaret—What
the prophetic gift really was—Isabeau Charras—Vivens—Battle of
Florac—Assassinations—Correspondence with Schomberg—Capture
of Vivens—Peace of Ryswick—Second outbreak of prophetic
ecstasies—Children prophets—Cruelties—Break-up of
meetings—Massacre of Creux de Vaie—Durand Fage—The Abbé du
Chayla—Séguier—Pont de Montvert—Fresh murders—Séguier taken and
burnt—Catinat—Murder of Saint Cômes—Laporte—Roland—Additional
murders—Battle of Ste. Croix—Four degrees of inspiration—The
prophet Clary passes through fire—Fight at Mas de Gaffard—Death
of Captain Poul—Moussac—Jean Cavalier—Defeat of Du Roure—Rout
of Camisards—Flight of Cavalier—Massacre of Chamborigaud—La
Tour de Belot—Battle of Ste. Chatte—Marshal Villars—Change of
tactics—Submission of Cavalier—Cessation of prophecy—What produced
the prophetic exaltation.
We are now drawing near to the country of the Camisards, and I must
give a brief sketch of the rise of the movement due to prophets and
prophetesses, its culmination in revolt, and its suppression.
The Edict of Nantes had been revoked; shoals of Huguenots had left
France, where the exercise of their religion was no longer tolerated;
the temples had been levelled with the dust, the pastors arrested,
imprisoned, and executed. Those who escaped to Geneva or Holland
exhorted such of their flock as remained to continue steadfast to
their convictions and to their prejudices. In the spring of 1668, near
Castres, a shepherdess, aged ten, had a vision of an angel, who forbade
her to attend Mass. The news spread everywhere, and crowds went to see
the girl and hear her narrative from her own lips. This was the first
manifestation, but it was not till twenty years had elapsed that such
became common. A preacher, Corbière, from the same district, by some
trickery caused two angels armed with sticks to enter the assembly
where he was haranguing and to well thrash and expel such as had
attended Mass. The intendant of the province sent his agents to take
him. Corbière was surprised whilst holding a meeting in a wood. He drew
a circle about him with a stick, and thundered, "Get thee behind me,
Satan!" The dragoons hesitated, but the commandant shot him through the
head.
Now appeared in Dauphiné la belle Isabeau, a shepherdess of about
seventeen, who went into trances and preached and prophesied when in
them. When she emerged from one of these ecstasies she remembered
nothing about what she had said and done when in it. Usually to
prophesy she lay on a bed, and this was the position almost always
adopted by the prophets and prophetesses who succeeded her.
She was arrested and imprisoned, but treated with the utmost kindness,
well fed, and visited daily by good charitable ladies. Under this
influence, and when well nourished, her fits became fewer, and finally
totally left her. Then she married a lusty young peasant, and ceased to
be of consequence in the movement.
Meanwhile a pastor, Jurieu, from the place of his exile, Rotterdam, had
proclaimed himself to be inspired. He had a medal struck with "Jurius
Propheta" on it, and largely circulated in the Cévennes. Moreover, he
printed his prophecies in 1686, and they passed from hand to hand. In
them he announced that the Papacy would fall in the year 1690, and that
the Reformation would be established throughout France.
But the spirit was not quenched when la belle Isabeau gave up
prophesying. It broke out in a peasant of twenty-two named Gabriel
Astier, of Clieu. His first solicitude was to communicate the spirit
to his father, his mother, and his sisters; then he inoculated his
neighbours and all the inhabitants of his village. Finding himself
an object of pursuit by the police, he escaped over the Rhône into
the Vivarais, and, followed by a troup of prophets and prophetesses,
he went through the Boutières. His words propagated the agitation;
men, women, and children went into fits and preached and announced
the future. The epidemic passed through the country with the rapidity
of a fire driven by the wind. No preacher, even at the time when the
inspiration was at its height, possessed the power over crowds that
Astier exercised.
Vast multitudes attended his assemblies in the mountains, and the
meetings were always held in places which commanded a view of the
country round, so that they might be dispersed in the event of the
dragoons being seen to approach. Often the wandering multitude remained
for many days away from their homes, feeding on apples and chestnuts.
Nothing like it had been seen since John the Baptist drew crowds to the
banks of the Jordan, or the Son of Man had preached in the wilderness
of Judea.
The theme of the preacher was always the same: "Repent; do penance
for having attended Mass." And the thrilled congregation fell on the
ground, screaming out, "Pardon, Lord, O pardon!"
At this very time it was that the Revolution occurred in England, when
James II. fled and the nation summoned William of Orange to the throne.
William, it must be remembered, drew his title from the Principality of
Orange, which he held, and this adjoined Dauphiné, where the prophetic
afflatus had first been felt. It was concluded as certain that William
would come to the aid of his afflicted co-religionists. Astier was
so confident, that he ventured to predict the day on which William
would arrive at the head of an army of a hundred thousand men, led by
an exterminating angel. Then all the levelled temples would sprout
up, built without hands, and the Catholic churches which had replaced
them would go off in a puff of smoke. A star would fall from heaven on
Babylon and consume the papal chair. He assured his hearers that God
had made them invulnerable, so that neither sword nor ball could hurt
them. Another prophet, named Palette, made the same assurances to the
Calvinists, and as he and his congregation came upon a Captain Tirbon
with his soldiers, they rushed on them, flinging stones, and killed the
captain and nine of his soldiers, but not till some of the elect had
fallen.
This event alarmed Colonel Folleville, in command of the troops in the
province.
M. de Broglie, brother-in-law of Bâville, intendant of Languedoc,
went to Porchères where he heard that a religious assembly was to be
held. In this hamlet lived a poor old man named Paul Béraut, who had
for long resisted the Spirit; but one day he heard his children tell
of the marvels that took place in the assemblies, and all at once a
convulsion shook him; he jumped up in bed, pulled down the canopy of
the four-poster and flung it into the middle of the room, uttering
incoherent words. This sublime victory of the Spirit over their father
filled his children with joy. They ran through the village, entering
every house, saying, "Come and see our father who has received the
Spirit, and is prophesying!" The old man was in wild excitement when
M. de Broglie arrived in the village. Béraut and his eldest daughter
Sarah, at the head of all those who had been listening to his prophetic
utterances, rushed on de Broglie and his troop, throwing stones. The
soldiers retaliated, the new-made prophet and a dozen others were
killed, and Sarah was taken prisoner.
Folleville, learning that Gabriel Astier was holding an assembly on the
height of Cheilaret, surrounded the mountain. As soon as the dragoons
were seen, Astier harangued the faithful: "Children of God, be without
fear. I promise you that your bodies will be as adamant against ball
and sabre. The angels of the Lord will fight for us."
Before attacking, Folleville sent the provost of his regiment to urge
the fanatics to disperse and return to their duty. He was met with
shouts of "Tartara! Get thee behind me, Satan!" The cry of Tartara
was supposed to have the power to paralyse the enemy. Then one of the
Calvinists rushed upon the provost and pelted him with stones, so that
he was forced to fly. Folleville, reluctant to proceed to extremities,
sent another parliamentary to the crowd; he was received with a volley
of stones. The fanatics could be seen breathing on one another to
communicate the gift of the Spirit to all. Then they marched in a
solid body against the soldiers, shouting Tartara! Some were armed with
guns, most carried large stones. They fought valiantly, but their ranks
were broken; three hundred were left dead on the field, fifty who were
wounded were taken to Privas, and those who recovered were hung.
The prophetic inspiration was really nothing more than an epidemic
malady, such as is found among the North American Indians, the
tribes in Siberia, and such as broke out among the early Quakers
and Wesleyans. It is a nervous disorder, as natural as chicken-pox,
though not so common. Roman Catholic nuns have it, so had the pagan
prophetesses of old.
Some Calvinist women professed to have received the gift of shedding
tears of blood, and showed the crimson streaks washing their cheeks.
This was by no means necessarily a fraud. Roman Catholic ecstatics have
had the same, and the stigmata as well.
Fléchier, a contemporary, thus describes the ecstasy of Isabeau
Charras, one of the principal prophetesses, and not to be confounded
with la belle Isabeau. He gives it from the relation of an ecclesiastic
who with some friends entered her cottage to see what really took place.
"Ils furent surpris du spectacle qui s'offrit à leurs yeux.
La prophétesse était couchée à la renverse dans une cuisine,
les jambes nues et l'estomac tout à fait découvert. Tous les
assistants, à genoux autour d'elle, étaient attentifs à ces
pieuses nudités. Le prêtre voulut faire quelque remontrance à la
fille, mais la mère indignée lui dit: 'Quoi! malheureux que tu
êtes, vous ne respectez pas ma fille qui a le Saint Esprit dans
l'estomac!'"
Gabriel Astier was finally taken and broken on the wheel in 1690.
François Vivens was a wool-comber of Valleraux, a small man and lame,
but with a robust and indefatigable body. He had gone to Holland, but,
on the accession of William to the English throne, felt so confident
that the Prince of Orange would bring all the power of his kingdom to
assist the Calvinists of Languedoc, that he returned thither. When he
arrived in the Cévennes he found the people agitated by the spirit of
prophecy. He was the first to organise rebellion. He exhorted to it,
and collected arms, manufactured powder, and cast bullets. He soon had
four hundred men under arms, and he met Bâville and de Broglie near
Florac at the head of a considerable body. A fight ensued. Vivens was
obliged to fly and hide in a wood; he lost three men killed, and some
prisoners, who were hung next day.
Bâville executed several persons charged with having given him
shelter. To revenge this Vivens, with his own hand, killed the curé of
Conguérac, and had the priest of S. Marcel and the vicaire stabbed and
four officers assassinated, either in their houses or on the roads.
"This Cevenol," says Peyrat in his _Histoire des Pasteurs du Desert_,
"had in his soul something of the Tishbite who had four hundred and
fifty of the prophets of Baal slain by the brook of Carmel."
Whilst Vivens was ordering these bloody reprisals he was carrying on
a correspondence with Schomberg, late Marshal of France, who was at
this time in Savoy in command of a regiment of refugee Protestants.
He proposed to Schomberg a plan. He was to raise an army of several
thousands, make a sudden descent on Aigues-Mortes, march across
the plain, and join hands with the Cevenols. The correspondence was
intercepted, and Bâville, seeing he had to do with a dangerous man, put
a price on his head.
A preacher named Languedoc, a companion of Vivens, was arrested,
and made revelations—amongst others that Vivens had converted four
dragoons, who kept him informed of every movement of the royal troops.
These men were taken, and one betrayed where Vivens hid, in a cave. The
commandant of Alais with a body of soldiers went to the place, which
was not far off. The cavern was in a rock that had to be surmounted,
and descent to the cave was by a narrow path. Vivens, who was there
with two of his lieutenants, was only aware of his danger when the
enemy were close at hand. His first assailant, a sergeant, he shot as
he descended. Vivens had several guns loaded that were passed out to
him by his companions. He killed two more soldiers and wounded the
lieutenant, but was himself shot by a man who had succeeded in creeping
down in his rear. All but one of the pastors in the Cévennes, Pierre
Roman, had been captured and hung. The death of Vivens and the peace of
Ryswick deprived the Calvinists there of hope of assistance from the
Protestant powers, and resistance ceased. However, although all seemed
quiet, the authorities redoubled their measures of severity. Everywhere
new excesses of cruelty were committed by the governors of the
provinces, the judges and the provosts of the mounted police, against
poor creatures who desired only to be let alone to serve God according
to their dim lights.
"In 1700," says Court, the historian of the Camisards, "the
country groaned with the crowds languishing in prison and in
irons. In April a chain of sixty-three were sent to the galleys,
whose only crime was fidelity to and zeal for their religion, and
among them were several fathers of families with grey heads."
The death of Charles II., King of Spain, at the close of 1700, roused
expectations of a new foreign war, into which England and Holland would
be drawn to take part with Austria against France. The news of the War
of Succession breaking out, spread through the provinces, and revived
the hopes of the Reformed; the spirit of prophecy that had languished
since the execution of Gabriel Astier burst forth again. At the end of
that year, 1700, an old maid who earned her livelihood by tailoring
in the villages on the Ardèche brought the prophetic gift into the
Cévennes. She communicated it to a number of young boys and girls, and
they in turn transmitted it to the population of the mountains. This
was done by wild gesticulation, loud invocation of the Spirit, and by
breathing into the mouths of those who were to be inspired. The winter
had not passed before the epidemic had spread with astounding rapidity,
and prophets prophesied by the thousands. Women and children were
especially liable to take the contagion. It was calculated that as many
as eight thousand children in the Cévennes preached and prophesied. The
Governor of Languedoc had a number of them arrested and put in prison,
and required the faculty of medicine at Montpellier to examine into the
nature of the phenomenon. The doctors observed, discussed, wrangled,
and produced an opinion that these children were _fanatics_. That was
the sum of what they had to say.
Bâville released the youngest of the children, but sent the rest
either to the galleys or to serve in the army. He announced that he
would hold the parents responsible for their offspring who prophesied,
and that they should be fined. Dragoons were quartered upon those
who could not cure their children or prevent them from taking this
epidemic. Things went so far that some parents denounced their own
children so as to shelter themselves from these violent measures. They
handed them over to the magistrates, and said, "There, take them, and
do with them what you will; cure them if you can."
But the spirit of prophecy did not remain with the children, it
communicated itself to their elders. Bâville had such arrested as he
could lay hold on and hung or sent them to the galleys.
But in spite of these cruelties, or rather in consequence of them, the
prophets multiplied more and more. The prospect of the gallows, the
wheel, or the galleys only served to fire their zeal to madness.
The number and importance of the assemblies increased, and the Governor
of Languedoc began to deal with hearers as he had with prophets. In
October, 1701, he sent a company to disperse one of these meetings near
Alais. Three of the audience, unable to escape in time, were broken on
the wheel. But the most atrocious of these executions was that of Creux
de Vaie, in the Vivarais. The massacre was so great that, beside the
bodies left on the field, a boat and two wagons were laden with the
wounded who were taken captive, and these were conveyed to Montpellier.
Among them was a prophet with his four sons. The prophet was hung, one
son died of his wounds in prison, three were sent to the galleys; and
his house was torn down. Thus, in one day, the wife was deprived of
husband, children, home, and substance.
Throughout the Cévennes spirits were stirred with expectation of a
great deliverance. A prophetess announced that the millennium was at
hand. A prophet declared that a ladder was about to be let down from
heaven.
In February, 1702, Durand Fage was at an assembly, carrying arms. The
prophetess Marguerite Bolle, aged twenty-three, fell into an ecstasy,
and announced that the sword of Durand would smite the enemies of the
truth hip and thigh. Later on the great prophets of the mountains,
Abraham Mazel, Solomon Couderc, and Pierre Séguier, received similar
revelations.
The Abbé du Chayla, arch-priest and inspector of missions in the
Cévennes, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt at Pont-de-Montvert.
He had been a missionary in China, and had there suffered martyrdom,
was left for dead, and brought back to life by the charity of a poor
Chinese. One Massys, a muleteer, was guiding a party of fugitives who
were escaping to Geneva, and on him, with his convoy, consisting mostly
of women dressed as men, Du Chayla laid his hands. He was a cruel man;
he plucked out the beards and eyebrows with pincers, he put live coals
into the hands of his victims and then forced them to clench their
fists. Sometimes he surrounded their fingers with cotton steeped in oil
and set fire to it.
On the Sunday following the capture of the convoy there was a gathering
of the Protestants in the woods of Altefage, on Mount Bougès, when
Séguier fell into ecstasy and prophesied. He was a wool-carder,
tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of energy and
self-confidence. He declared that the Spirit announced that arms must
be taken, the prisoners at Pont-de-Montvert delivered, and the priest
of Moloch destroyed.
On July 24th, 1702, at half-past ten at night, were heard at
Pont-de-Montvert strains of distant psalmody drawing nearer and nearer;
it was Esprit Séguier, the terrible prophet, who was on his way with
fifty-three of his men, and as they marched they sang Marot's psalm—
"Nous as-tu rejeté, Seigneur, sans espérance
De ton sein paternel?
N'apaiseras-tu pas, après tant de soufferances,
Ton courroux éternel?
Sion, qui dut avoir l'éclat et la durée
Du céleste flambeau,
Regarde, hélas! Seigneur, ta Sion adorée
N'est qu'un vaste tombeau!"
Du Chayla heard the chant, and did not trouble himself much about it.
He went to the window and saw the assembled crowd. "Get away with you!"
he shouted; "dogs of Huguenots!"
But the door was burst in by a beam of wood driven against it, and the
house was invaded. The fanatics occupied the ground floor. Du Chayla
and his men held the staircase. "Children of God!" shouted the prophet,
"let us set fire to the house of Baal and burn it and its priest." The
flames spread. Du Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden
by means of knotted sheets; some escaped across the river under the
fire of the insurgents, but the Inspector of Missions fell and broke
his thigh, and could only crawl among some bushes. The Calvinists went
through the house shouting for his blood. Finding on the staircase a
priest who had not escaped, they murdered him. They hunted for their
arch-enemy, and at last, by the light of the flames, found him. To the
last he maintained his composure. "If I be damned," said he, "will you
damn yourselves also?" Séguier gave the order, and he was despatched,
in the _place_ of the little town to which they dragged him. According
to Brueys, Séguier fell into an ecstasy, and offered Du Chayla his life
if he would apostatise. The priest peremptorily refused. "Then die,"
said the prophet, and stabbed him. Then began a horrible scene. All the
insurgents one after another approached, and driving their weapons into
the bleeding body, reproached Du Chayla for some of the barbarities he
had committed. "This thrust," said one, "is for my father, whom you
caused to be executed on the wheel." "And this for my brother," said
another, "whom you sent to the galleys." "And this for my mother,"
exclaimed a third, as he ran his sword through the body, "who died of
grief." The body of the Abbé du Chayla received fifty-three stabs,
every one of which he had richly deserved. But the astounding thing in
the whole story is that he, a man who had suffered all but absolute
martyrdom for the Faith in China, should not have seen that barbarities
could not turn a soul from one conviction to another.
Séguier and his companions employed the remainder of the night in
prayer, kneeling around the corpses. They had murdered all found in the
house, except the prisoners whom they had released, one soldier and a
servant. When dawn broke they retired in good order, still singing, and
ascended the Tarn to Frugères. When the last notes of their psalmody
died away, two Capuchins who had managed to conceal themselves in a
cellar of one of the houses in the town, crept from their retreat
and carried off the body of Du Chayla to the church of S. Germain de
Colberte, for burial.
But during the funeral a cry was heard outside, "The insurgents are
coming! Frugères, S. Maurice, S. André de Lancize, have been given up
to fire and massacre!" At once all the assembled clergy fled for their
lives, and some did not stay their feet till they had found refuge
behind the walls of Alais.
However, the storm that threatened to break over S. Germain rolled away
to the west.
Séguier, whose name in the patois signifies The Mower, had assumed the
appellation of Esprit, as he deemed himself a channel through whom the
Holy Spirit spoke. He was subject to frequent ecstasies, and he had no
doubt but that it was due to direct inspiration that he was prompted
to the deeds of blood of which he was guilty. It is deserving of note
that when he or any of the prophets and prophetesses gave forth their
oracles it was never in their own names. They always spoke as if the
Holy Spirit were uttering commands through their mouths, as, "I, the
Spirit of God, command."
Whilst the funeral of Du Chayla was in progress, actually Séguier,
followed by a band of thirty men singing psalms, had entered Frugères
and shot the parish priest. They went on to S. Marcel, but thence the
vicaire had escaped. At S. André the curé, hearing of the approach of
the band, rang the alarm bell. Séguier's men pursued him, flung him out
of a belfry window, and then hacked him to death. The school-master
was also murdered and his body mutilated. Wherever he went Séguier
destroyed the crosses and every emblem of Catholicism. On the night
of the 29th July the band surrounded the Castle of Ladevèse, where was
a store of arms taken from the Protestants. When summoned to deliver
them up, the seigneur replied by a volley which killed two men. The
insurgents, furious at their loss, broke in and massacred all the
inhabitants of the château, not sparing even a mother aged eighty, or a
young girl who on her knees prayed for her life.
The authorities, in serious alarm, took immediate measures to repress
the insurrection, and gave the command of the troops to a Captain
Poul, who managed to capture Esprit Séguier, and The Mower was tried
at Florac and sentenced to have his hand cut off and then to be
burnt alive. On August 12th, 1702, Séguier underwent his sentence at
Pont-de-Montvert. Neither the blow of the axe nor the violence of the
flames could draw from him a cry or a groan. He shouted from his pyre,
"Brethren, await and hope in the Eternal One! Carmel that is desolate
will flourish; Lebanon that is left barren will blossom as a rose."
The command of the insurgents, who now were given the name of Camisards
by their enemies, but called themselves the Children of God, was
assumed by Laporte, an ironmonger. He was joined by Castanet, a
forester of the Aigoual, by Jean Cavalier, a baker's boy, and by
Abdias Morel, an old soldier, who went by the name of Catinat, on
account of his admiration for the general of that name; also by the two
arch-prophets, Abraham Mazel and Solomon Couderc. Many other prophets
and prophetesses joined the band, and excited it to undertake the most
daring enterprises.
The execution of Séguier was avenged on the following day. The band,
knowing that the Baron de Saint-Cômes, who was especially obnoxious
to them as a convert to the Church from Calvinism, was going in his
carriage to Calvisson, Catinat and six of his men laid an ambush for
him, stopped the carriage, blew out the brains of the baron, and
murdered his valet.
The insurrection spread rapidly. Laporte declared: "The God of Hosts
is with us! We will thunder forth the psalm of battle, and from the
Lozère to the sea all Israel will rise." His prediction was fulfilled;
the revolt extended from the mountains to the plain, even to the shores
of the Mediterranean. Laporte had sent his nephew Roland into lower
Languedoc to collect recruits. Circumstances favoured his project.
Executions had multiplied of persons merely suspected of having
attended the religious assemblies, so that the Calvinists alarmed fled
their homes and in great numbers joined the bands of insurgents. The
Camisards next caught and killed the secretary of Du Chayla, the prior
of S. Martin, and Jourdan, a militia captain who had shot Vivens. Panic
fell on the Catholics; fifteen churches were in flames, and great
numbers of the curés had fled.
On October 22nd, 1702, being a Sunday, Captain Poul and his corps, led
by a traitor, surprised Laporte on a hill at Ste. Croix with a body of
the faithful. Laporte had barely time to marshal his men for defence.
Unfortunately for him a heavy rain came on that disabled their guns;
only three could be fired. Poul, who saw the disadvantage, charged with
impetuosity. Laporte fell shot through the heart, but the Children of
God effected their retreat without disorder, having left nine of their
comrades dead on the field.
Roland, nephew of Laporte, now assumed the command. He had served
in the army under Catinat in the campaigns of the Alps, and had
consequently acquired military experience in mountainous country.
Roland was a middle-sized man with a robust constitution; he had a
broad face marked by small-pox, large grey eyes, flowing brown hair. He
was naturally grave, silent, imperious, and was aged twenty-five.
The Catholics in derision called him Count Roland, but he assumed
the title of General of the Children of God. It was not his military
experiences or capacity that gave the young chief the ascendancy over
his co-religionists, but his prophetic ecstasies. There were four
degrees of inspiration. The first was the Announcement, or Call; the
second was the Breathing. Those who had received the _breath_ were
highly regarded, but not considered capable of becoming leaders. The
third degree was Prophecy, and such as had this were regarded as
vehicles for the communication of the will of God. But the highest of
all was the Gift. Those who had received this could work miracles; they
disdained to prophesy, but were supposed to be exalted into personal
communication with God. Roland had passed through all these degrees.
There were now five legions of insurgents under their several captains,
but all subject to the supreme control of Roland. This remarkable man
now set to work to collect the material of war. He created magazines,
powder mills, arsenals, and even hospitals in the caverns that abound
in the Cévennes, notably in the limestone mountains. He also required
all his co-religionists to pay a tax in money or goods for the
maintenance of the army. He formed wind and water mills on heights
or by streams, and as the chestnut woods produced abundance of food
there was little fear of starvation. When the hosts were assembled
the prophets prophesied, and pointed out men here and there whom they
declared to be false brethren; these men were at once led aside and
summarily shot.
On one occasion a prophet, Clary, pointed out two traitors and demanded
their execution. Cavalier had them bound, but a good many of those
present murmured and expressed doubts. Clary, who was in a condition of
delirious elevation, cried out: "Oh, men of little faith! Do you doubt
my power? I will that ye light a great fire, and I say to thee, my son,
that I will carry thee unhurt through the flames." The people cried out
that they no longer needed the ordeal; they were satisfied, and the
traitors should be executed. But Clary, still a prey to his exaltation,
insisted, and a huge bonfire was made. An eye-witness, quoted in the
"Théâtre sacré des Cévennes," describes what follows:—
"Clary wore a white smock, and he placed himself in the midst of
the faggots, standing upright and having his hands raised above
his head. He was still agitated, and spoke by inspiration. Some
told me that he himself set the pile on fire by merely touching
it—a miracle I observed often, especially when one cried, _A sac!
à sac!_ against the temples of Babylon. The wife of Clary and his
father-in-law and sisters and his own relatives were there, his
wife crying loudly. Clary did not leave the fire till the wood
was completely consumed, and no more flames arose. The Spirit did
not leave him all the while, for about a quarter of an hour. He
spoke with convulsive movements of the breast and great sobs. M.
Cavalier made prayer. I was one of the first to embrace Clary and
examine his clothing and hair, which the flames had respected,
even to having left no trace on them. His wife and kinsfolk were
in raptures, and all the assembly praised and glorified God for
the miracle. I saw and heard these things."
This seems precise and conclusive, but Court, in his account, gives
another colour to the story. He says:—
"This incident made a great noise in the province; it was
attested in its main features by a great many witnesses, but the
information I obtained on the spot went to establish these three
points:
"1. Clary did not remain in the midst of the fire.
"2. He dashed through it twice.
"3. He was so badly burnt in the neck and arms that he was forced
to be taken to Pierredou to have his wounds attended to. The
Brigadier Montbonnoux, an intimate friend of Clary, and one who
lived with him long after this event, confirmed all these three
points, but nevertheless considered that he would have been more
seriously injured but for miraculous intervention."
The condition of wild excitement in which the Calvinists were rendered
them incapable of calm observation, and led them involuntarily to
pervert facts and imagine miracles. It is curious, moreover, that
although the prophecies of the inspired were almost always belied by
the event, the insurgents never lost their confidence in these oracles
of God.
At this point it becomes necessary to devote a few words to Jean
Cavalier, the ablest commander of the Camisards. He was born at Ribaut,
near Anduze, was the son of a labourer, had been a swineherd and then
a baker's boy. He was short and stoutly built, had a big head, broad
shoulders, and the neck of a bull. His eyes were blue, his hair long
and fair. Sent as a boy to school, he was encouraged by his mother,
a venomous Calvinist, to oppose and hate everything that savoured of
Catholicism. Every evening, on his return from school, she sought
to undo all the doctrinal teaching that had been given him there.
His father, a Catholic, urged him to attend Mass; the boy refused.
The persecution to which the Huguenots were subjected led him to
quit the land at the age of sixteen, and he went to Geneva, where he
resumed his occupation as a baker. Meeting a Cevenol refugee in the
streets of Geneva, he was told that his mother had been imprisoned
at Aigues-Mortes, and his father, as suspected, at Carcassonne. He
determined to return to the Cévennes, and he crossed the frontier in
1702. He found that his father and mother had been released, she on
promising conformity. He at once dissuaded her from attending Mass, and
he succeeded equally with his father.
A few days later occurred the murder of the arch-priest Du Chayla, at
Pont-de-Montvert. Cavalier at once offered his hands to The Mower, and
he speedily gathered about him a body of followers, and they secured
arms by forcing the doors of the parsonage of S. Martin-de-Durfort,
where was a collection of weapons, but no injury was done to the prior
in charge there, who had taken no part in the persecution of the
Calvinists.
The area of insurrection extended through six dioceses, those of Mende,
Alais, Viviers, Uzès, Nîmes and Montpellier—in fact, over the present
departments of Lozère, Ardèche, Gard and Hérault.
In January, 1703, the Marshal de Broglie, with a considerable force of
dragoons and militia, went to Vaunage in quest of Cavalier, but could
not find him, for he, in fact, was then in Nîmes, disguised, purchasing
powder. De Broglie was on his way back when some dragoons, who were
reconnoitring, came to him to announce that a large body of Camisards
was assembled, with drums beating and singing psalms, at two farms
forming a hamlet called the Mas de Gaffard. He gave immediate orders
to Captain Poul, who was in command, to dislodge them. De Broglie
was in the centre, Poul on the right wing, and La Dourville, captain
of dragoons, on the left. When the insurgents saw the royal troops
approach they drew up, prepared for battle, in a situation naturally
adapted for defence. The insurgents received the first volley without
breaking formation; they replied by a musket discharge that disordered
the left wing and centre of the enemy. The militia were seized with
panic, and in turning to fly threw the dragoons into confusion. Poul
alone rushed forwards brandishing his sword, when a boy threw a stone
at him that brought him down from his saddle, and Catinat rushing
forward despatched him. Then seeing the royal troops in rout the
Camisards pursued, shouting "Voilà votre Poul (cock)! We have plucked
his feathers; stay to eat him."
Immediately after this success the Camisards marched to Roquecourbe,
near Nîmes, and on the way set fire to the church and village of Pouls
and massacred several of the inhabitants. Thence they directed their
attentions to Moussac, where was a garrison of militia commanded by M.
de Saint-Chattes. They took the place, and the whole detachment was
either slaughtered by them or were drowned in the endeavour to escape
across the Gardon.
Cavalier now departed at the head of eight hundred men to rouse the
Vivarais. The Count du Roure, at the head of the militia, attempted
to stop him; a desperate conflict ensued in the night. The Baron de
Largorce, wounded in the thigh, a very old man, fell from his horse. Du
Roure was forced to retreat with only sixty men. Five hundred corpses
of his men strewed the battlefield. Largorce was lying on the snow. He
was clubbed to death by Cavalier's men.
But this victory was a preliminary to a disaster. Cavalier was drawn
into an ambuscade by S. Julien, the new commander of the troops; he
lost two hundred of his men, was obliged to fly and hide himself, and
make his way back to his comrades in the Cévennes as best he might.
As the contest went on, each side became more cruel. Forests were set
on fire that were supposed to serve as hiding-places for the Camisards,
villages were burnt that were known to harbour them.
On their side the insurgents did not spare even the Protestant nobles
who hesitated about joining in the insurrection. In December, 1702,
the Camisards burnt the church of S. Jean de Ceyrargues, and taking
the curé they bound him hand and foot, and putting knives into the
children's hands, bade them stab him to death, encouraging them with
the words, "Dip your hands in the blood of the ungodly."
In January, 1703, Cavalier burnt the church and thirteen houses in S.
Jean de Marvejols, that belonged to Catholics, and massacred twenty of
these latter, among them four women and a child of two years old.
In February, 1703, at Robiac, the insurgents murdered seven persons,
among these a woman whom they dismembered alive because she refused to
abjure her religion.
On the 17th of the same month, in the same year, the band under Joany
entered Chamborigaud and committed atrocious acts. They tied three
children up in sacks and threw them into a furnace. A mother flying
with her five children was caught; her eldest son was stabbed with a
bayonet and his tongue torn out, the youngest had his eyes scooped
out, the third was dismembered; the mouth of the fourth was filled
with burning coals, and the fifth was brained with clubs. The mother
was then stabbed to death. The six victims were then put on a bed,
along with other inhabitants of the place, in one heap, and the whole
consumed by fire. Twenty-four victims perished. When Joany left, the
Catholics retaliated by destroying the houses of the Protestants, so
that only two houses remained standing, those of the Catholics having
been burnt by Joany. The two last were burnt by the fanatics on August
27th, 1703, and three more Catholics killed. Next year seven houses
that had been rebuilt or repaired were again set on fire and three
Catholic families slaughtered.
At S. Génies de Malgoire, Cavalier took the place in April, 1704, and
cut the whole garrison to pieces. He set fire to the church and the
houses of the Catholics, and burnt in them seven of the inhabitants and
the curé and vicaire.
At Ambais Sommière, on September 27th, 1703, the band of Cavalier
roasted a girl of three years old over a slow fire.
The war was degenerating into fiendish reprisals on one side as well
as the other. But the sad feature in this was that the victims in most
cases were not those who had been actively engaged in hostilities, but
inoffensive peasants.
Thirty-one parishes in the Cévennes, by order of the governor, were
destroyed, every house was required to be burnt, and three days only
were accorded to the inhabitants to retire with their cattle and their
substance.
It is unnecessary to relate all the engagements in which the Camisards
were either victorious or defeated by the royal troops. Cavalier and
Roland marked themselves out as the most able commanders, but Roland
was defeated at Pompignan, with the loss of three hundred men. A month
later, April, 1703, a body of the same number were surrounded in La
Tour de Belot; Cavalier, who was with them, escaped; the rest perished
by fire, the place catching from the hand grenades cast in.
The last and final victory gained by Cavalier was at Ste. Chatte at
the end of 1704, against the royal troops commanded by La Jonquière,
who was himself wounded. A whole regiment of six hundred soldiers and
twenty-five officers was swept away by the Camisards.
Montrevel, the governor after Bâville, had shown equal incapacity
and barbarity. He was now replaced by the Marshal Villars, who at
once inaugurated a different system in dealing with the insurgents.
He recognised that the cruelties committed had exasperated the evil.
He announced that he was come to pacify spirits, not to outrage
consciences; all he desired was to bring those who were in revolt into
allegiance to the King. He was ready to accept the submission of the
Camisard leaders, to grant them commissions in the army, and to let the
past be forgotten. Cavalier received a pension and retired, first to
Holland and then to England. The revolt lingered on, the most fanatical
refusing all compromise; but gradually opposition died away, prophecy
ceased—prophecy that had always proved false and had led to terrible
disaster. And very many years had not passed before dead indifference
had settled down over a people that had gone mad with zeal.
When we come to look at what was the creed and what the moral code of
these Cevenols, we are not surprised at this collapse of faith. They
had but one article of belief—conviction that they themselves were
the infallible oracles of the Holy Ghost. They had but one duty—to
overthrow and root out whatever pertained to Catholic faith and
worship. They recognised but one sin—attendance at Mass.
Their fanaticism was the natural and irresistible outcome of the cruel
persecution to which they were subjected. Their prophetic trances,
revelations, visions, ecstasies were due to nervous and cerebral
exaltation caused by lack of wholesome nourishment. Had they been
treated as was la belle Isabeau at the first, inspiration, as they
considered it, would have ceased. Cavalier, with tears in his eyes,
when well nourished on English beef and ale, lamented that the spirit
of prophecy had left him.
And finally, what was gained to the Church of Rome by these forcible
conversions and these butcheries? Ferdinand Fabre well says:—
"No land bears so deeply impressed on it the scars of battles
fought for liberty of conscience as does our Cevenol country.
Nowhere else in the world were fire and sword employed with
more savagery to conquer the human being to God, and nowhere
has it succeeded worse. It is the chastisement of all criminal
enterprises to lead to ends the reverse of those aimed at. Our
mountaineers have remained what the Romans found them—energetic,
sober, satirical. Certainly we have no end of processions;
corporations and pious congregations abound. But it is a
remarkable fact, that these gatherings of the faithful lack that
gravity which a religious character should impress upon them.
There is prayer, perhaps, but most assuredly there is diversion as
well."
Cavalier in England was made a great deal of; he was fêted as a hero,
received into the best society, and died Governor of Jersey in receipt
of a handsome income; which he certainly did not deserve, as he had
shown himself atrociously cruel, not to priests only, but to harmless
peasant men and women, whose only crime consisted in adherence to the
faith of their fathers.