of his fellow-labourers, Pierre Corteis, to undertake a journey to
Switzerland in order to be consecrated. On his return to Languedoc,
Corteis laid hands on Antoine Court in the presence of a synod. The
chain of time was thus continued, and the sacraments were no longer
administered by any but ministers ordained according to the rules of
discipline.
In 1718, a synod, consisting of forty-five members, ministers and
elders, decided that young men should be intrusted with pastoral
functions after a serious examination of their doctrine and morals.
Two years later, the remuneration of the pastors was fixed at seventy
livres, for their clothing and entire provision. They were lodged
and maintained, from house to house, by the faithful. Their salary
was afterwards increased to six hundred livres, and towards the end
of the century to nine hundred livres. It was not more than the pay
of a workman; but it was not the appetite for money that attracted
men who, by accepting the pastoral charge, devoted themselves to an
almost certain martyrdom.
The churches were invited to establish consistories, in default of
which they were not to be visited by the ministers, nor to receive
notice of the convocation of the assemblies—a spiritual punishment
for a spiritual offence. This was a return to true ecclesiastical
order.
The assemblies of the wilderness, as they were called, were held
in open day, when the danger was not excessive, at night when
persecution was rigorous, in some wild retreat, or in rocky nooks and
quarries during adverse weather. The summonses were issued only a few
hours before the meeting, and by emissaries of the most trustworthy
character. Sentinels were placed about the heights, but unarmed, so
that they might give the signal of the approach of soldiers.
The most intelligent and courageous acted as guides to the pastors,
and after the service, conducted them to a secure shelter. Rarely did
a pastor remain several days following in the same asylum. Wandering
from place to place, forced to assume a thousand disguises, and
bearing a borrowed name, he was compelled to hide himself like a
malefactor, in order to proclaim the God of the Gospel. Such also was
the life of the (Roman) Catholic priest under the _régime_ of 1793;
the names of the persecutors change, but not the characters, nor the
excesses of the persecution.
The worship in the desert was the same as in the times of liberty;
liturgic prayers, singing of psalms, preaching, administration of
the holy supper on feast-days; a simple worship, easily practicable
everywhere, and which required no more preparation than that of
the “upper room furnished,” in which the apostles and primitive
Christians assembled at Jerusalem.
This simplicity, however, possessed a charm of nobility and grandeur,
the calm of solitude suddenly broken by the voice of prayer; the
songs of the faithful mounting to the invisible Being, in the
presence of the magnificence of nature; the minister of Jesus Christ
invoking his God, like the faithful of the primitive church, for
the oppressors who raged because they had not yet led Him to the
scaffold; poor peasants and humble artificers, who, laying aside
their tools of labour for a day, felt anxiety for naught but the
sublime interests of the faith of the life to come; the common
sentiment of danger which placed their souls continually in presence
of their sovereign Judge, endued all the assemblies of the wilderness
with that serious majesty, which allies itself so well with the
teaching of Christianity.
But whilst the French Reformation rose slowly from its ruins, a fresh
blow was silently preparing to strike it anew.
VII.
This was the last great law against the Reformed, which was published
on the 14th of May, 1724, in the form of a royal declaration. If it
was never thoroughly executed to the letter, [although] it was often
applied; and as it remained officially in force during sixty-three
years, until the Edict of Toleration of Louis XVI., it is important
that its origin, spirit, and principal articles should be made known.
The chief author of this law was Lavergne de Tressan, bishop of
Nantes, almoner to the duke of Orleans, and a worthy acolyte of
Cardinal Dubois, whom he had consecrated. Irreligious and immoral,
and so avaricious as to have accumulated sixty-three benefices,
he coveted the Roman purple, and thought that he could not prove
his title to it better than by completing the extermination of
the heretics. Lavergne de Tressan presented his project to Dubois
and to the regent, each of whom refused to entertain it. He was
more successful with the Duke de Bourbon, who had been appointed
minister by Louis XV. This Duke de Bourbon was a severe and haughty
man, of ignoble aspect, deficient at once both in convictions and
intelligence, governed by shameless female favourites, and innocent
of having ever passed any other than barbarous laws. He ordained,
among other things, that all beggars should be branded with a hot
iron.
Some magistrates, it is said, also had a hand in the declaration of
1724; they introduced certain modifications which were unfavourable
to the domination of the clergy, as afterwards appeared.
The edict contained eighteen articles. It was a compilation of the
most severe ordinances issued against the Reformed under the reign
of Louis XIV., with, in general, aggravated penalties. The odious
fiction was relied upon, that there were no longer any Protestants in
France; and Louis XV., then fourteen years of age, was made to say in
the preamble, that he had nothing so much at heart as to pursue the
lofty designs of his right honoured lord and great-grandfather, and
that he was desirous of enunciating his intentions explicitly.
For these reasons, he declared as follows—the punishment of perpetual
imprisonment at the galleys for men, and seclusion during life for
women, with confiscation of their property, if they attended any
other worship than that of the (Roman) Catholic religion; punishment
of death against all the preachers; of the galleys or imprisonment
against those who sheltered or assisted them in any way whatever,
and against those who omitted to denounce them; an order to parents
to have their children baptized within twenty-four hours by the
curate of the parish, to send them to the (Roman) Catholic schools
and catechisms until the age of fourteen, and to the Sunday and
feast-day teachings until the age of twenty; an order to midwives
to report all births to the priests, and to physicians, surgeons,
and apothecaries to give notice of every serious illness of the new
converts, and authority for the priests to have interviews with the
sick by themselves. If any one refused the sacraments or directed a
member of his family to refuse it, he incurred the penalty of having
relapsed. There was to be no legitimate marriage, except such as were
celebrated according to the canons of the Church. Parents were not
allowed to send their children out of the kingdom to be educated,
nor to marry them there; but on the other hand, the minors of those
parents who were abroad, might marry without the consent of their
relations. The certificates of Catholicity were declared obligatory
for all offices, all academic degrees, all admissions to trading
corporations. Finally, the mulcts and confiscated property were to be
appropriated for the relief of the re-united subjects who might be in
want.
Never since the origin of human society, had the legislator more
insolently disregarded the law of nature, the civil law, family,
property, the liberty and sacredness of individual faith. This
afforded another proof to what monstrous acts one is driven when, by
confounding spiritual and temporal matters, the laws of the state are
made subordinate to the maxims of the (Roman) Catholic church.
Historians unite in a common expression of horror at the Edict of
1724. Sismondi says, “It is with astonishment that we behold, in this
infidel age, when the reins of power were held by a prince without
belief or probity, and by a female courtier without modesty, the
renewal of a persecution which the rigid faith of Louis XIV. could
scarcely explain.... The clergy, who had not dared to ask for this
inopportune law, accepted it with transport.”[114]
M. Charles Lecretelle also observes, “The first act of the government
was as absurd as it was odious. It was even a more cruel edict
against the Protestants than the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The most secret exercise of the Reformed religion was prohibited.
Children were torn from their parents to be reared in the (Roman)
Catholic religion.... In short, every kind of oppression that had
been conceived by the ministers of Louis XIV., and that public horror
had begun to render obsolete, was renewed. The Marchioness de Prie,
whose impiety equalled that of Cardinal Dubois, persuaded her lover
(the Duke de Bourbon) that he was acting upon the great principles
of a statesman, by recommencing a new persecution. Everybody was
disgusted by these efforts, which vice made to assume the appearance
of zeal, and in this barbarous folly, regretted the regent’s
toleration.”[115]
Rulhières and the Baron de Breteuil affirm that the council were
surprised into sanctioning this edict. They prove that laws, inspired
by two very opposite tendencies, had been strangely confounded
in its compilation. The Molinist or Jesuitical spirit sought to
employ universal outward constraint, consenting at the same time
to a relaxation of all the interior conditions of Catholicity. The
Jansenist spirit had, on the contrary, exacted rigorous conditions
of Catholicity, but desired no constraint. Thus there was one of
two things—either the employment of physical force, with a simple
appearance of union with (Roman) Catholicism, or real union, without
the employment of material force. But on the declaration of 1724, it
was required, at one and the same time, that all people should be
(Roman) Catholics under pain of the galleys and death, and that they
should perform acts of Catholicity, which only good (Roman) Catholics
could do. This was impracticable and absurdly impossible.
We should here observe the great change, which had begun to display
itself in the conduct of the priests. On the eve and on the day of
the Revocation, they widely extended their arms, as we have remarked
before. They seemed to say to the Protestants, “Come, all of you,
just as you are. We will be satisfied with the most vague and general
abjuration. We will not interfere with you at the domestic hearth.
It is enough if you only call yourselves Catholics and observe the
principal forms of the Church.”
But subsequently, their language and their conduct sensibly changed,
and their exactions increased from year to year, particularly when
the law had declared that there were Protestants in the kingdom
no longer. “Take heed,” the priests said; “we cannot administer
the sacraments to false brethren; this would be an abominable
profanation. We must have long and severe proofs, instructions of
six months, a year’s, two years’ duration, solemn oaths; in short,
a complete certainty that you are true and faithful Catholics.
Otherwise, we will not celebrate your marriages, nor give you
certificates of Catholicity, and you may maintain your civil rights
as best you can.”
This alteration, continually more marked, is naturally explained by
the disastrous defeats the priests had suffered since the Revocation.
They imagined that the demolition of the places of worship,
the banishment of the pastors, the deprivation of all regular
instruction, the want of a religion, the legal duty of performing
acts of Catholicity, would restore true believers to the Church,
at least in the second generation. But their expectation had been
deceived, particularly with regard to the country people and the
industrial classes. Children and grandchildren hated the (Roman)
Catholic church as much as their fathers; and they regarded the
curates with no less detestation and contempt.
Tired of acting so miserable a part, they resolved to administer
the sacraments to none but the most undoubted (Roman) Catholics, and
they were perfectly right; but they should then have disavowed and
rejected the intervention of physical constraint, which they did
not. They persisted in calling for rigour, as if they were satisfied
with appearances, and to exact positive proofs of religion, as if
they employed rigour no longer! A more enormous and detestable
contradiction has never been witnessed![116]
Then, having arrived at this degree of inconsequence, the clergy came
into collision with the magistracy, and this is a new phase of the
question, which it is important to understand; for all the remainder
of this history until 1787 is involved in it.
If the councillors of the Parliaments, and the magistrates generally,
exhibited severity against the Reformed, they always implied that
the priests should administer the sacraments without exacting
excessive proofs. From the reign of Louis XIV., their decrees might
be interpreted in the following manner:—“We are absolutely determined
that your marriages shall be blessed by a priest, and that your
children shall be presented for Catholic baptism; otherwise, you
shall have no civil status; your unions shall be illegal, and your
children shall be attainted with illegitimacy; in certain cases,
even, you shall forfeit your property and be condemned to the
galleys. But reassure yourselves, we will require nothing but simple
formalities. It is agreed that the clergy shall impose nothing else,
and we will abide by it.”
Relying upon these maxims, the Protestants conceived that they were
authorized in conceding to the priests as little as possible; but
the latter replied,—“The opinion of the judges is nothing to us.
The clergy alone have the light of deciding in sacramental matters.
No human power can compel us to give them to those whom we think
unworthy. Attend the mass and our instructions for years; confess
yourselves regularly; show yourselves, in a word, to be faithful
Catholics, and you shall participate in the favours of the Church;
otherwise you shall not.”
Strange spectacle! The judge insisted upon the execution of the laws,
because he interpreted them in one sense, and the priest applied
them in another. The first was only solicitous for civil unity; the
latter was anxious above all things for spiritual unity. One only
obliged the Protestants to be (Roman) Catholics outwardly; the other
used the sentence to force them to be so internally. To such an
anomalous state of things had these edicts given birth, which had
ceased to correspond with the general conscience of the epoch. Even
the (Roman) Catholics themselves, it is well known, had analogous
conflicts in respect of the refusal of the sacraments to the Jesuits,
and the certificates of confession. The only solution of the problem
lay in the mutual independence, that is now proclaimed in all the
constitutions, of the civil and the religious state.
The Baron de Breteuil shows, in a memorial addressed to Louis XVI.,
the inextricable embarrassment that had arisen with regard to the
Protestants. He says: “On one side, there is the absolute necessity
of the certificate of Catholicity; on the other, a scrupulous
and arbitrary examination before granting this certificate. What
else than laws of impossible execution could result from all
these confused ideas, from all these incoherent and contradictory
dispositions?... These unfortunate people, alike rejected by our
tribunals under one name, and repulsed by our churches under another
name, unrecognised at the same time as Calvinists, and unrecognised
as converts, wholly unable to obey laws which oppose each other, and
thereby destitute of every means of proving, either before a priest
or before a judge, the evidence of their births, their marriages,
and their burials, are cut off, as it were, from the family of
mankind.”[117]
The illustrious Chancellor d’Aguesseau has stated the dilemma in a
very perfect manner. “Either the Church must relax its rigour by some
modification, or if the Church does not think it ought to do so,
it must cease to importune the king to use his authority to reduce
his subjects to an impossibility, by commanding them to fulfil a
religious duty, which the Church will not permit them to discharge.”
And, indeed, the declaration of 1724, while it repeatedly engendered
frightful consequences, was never fully executed. It contained,
moreover, dispositions revolting against the most sacred feelings
of human nature, justice, and society. To punish with the galleys
and confiscation of wealth a son, or a daughter, who addressed pious
exhortations to a dying father; to inflict a similar punishment upon
whoever should fail to denounce his pastor, or should open to him
the door of his house; to load with a fine the physician who should
refuse to discharge the infamous office of informer—all this, as M.
de Sismondi remarks, bore the stamp of so barbarous and savage a
fanaticism, that it may be doubted if the code of any other nation
has approached it. Were it possible, again, in the eighteenth
century, to write similar atrocities in the laws, it would be
impossible to find judges and administrators to carry them out.
As it always happens, atrocity engendered ridicule. Some of the
priests instituted a roll-call of children in the Church, after the
example of serjeants at a military review, and noted those who were
absent that their parents might be fined. But the children frequently
refused to answer, mocked the curate, and disturbed his mass. What
could be done? Where were the means of punishment, when it might be
required to send a whole population, fathers, mothers, and children,
to the galleys?
Cardinal Fleury, who governed the kingdom after the Duke de Bourbon,
seems to have comprehended this difficulty. Having been engaged in
his youth on a mission with Fénélon in Saintonge, and passed many
years in Provence, he was acquainted with the invincible firmness of
the Protestants. This, conjoined with the alliance of this priest
with Great Britain and Holland, the mildness of his character, and
his desire of sparing Louis XV. the anxieties of government, will
explain his conduct towards the Protestants. He did not destroy the
sword of intolerance, but he willingly let it remain in the scabbard.
The curates of Cevennes addressed several urgent remonstrances to
him upon this subject. They bitterly complained of the increasing
desertion of the Huguenots. The aged cardinal gave little heed to
them; he was engrossed with other affairs, and feared disturbance
more than heresy.
The persecution, therefore, was only local and momentary, according
to the humour of the intendants. Some meetings were surprised
and dispersed by the soldiery; some families were ruined, and
other unfortunates were condemned to the galleys. The pastors,
particularly, were tracked with implacable cruelty, in the hope that
the terror of death would induce them to quit the kingdom.
Many of them were capitally executed. We will cite [the case of]
the minister Alexander Roussel, who was hanged at Montpellier, on
the 30th of November, 1728, respecting whose martyrdom a popular
complaint has come down to us. He was sold for a bribe, and confessed
without hesitation that he had preached in Cevennes. When he was
asked where he lodged, he replied: “The heaven is my covering.” The
Jesuits vainly solicited him to change his religion; his answer was:
“I will ever keep the law of Jesus Christ: if I die for His sake, I
shall dwell with angels.” He was dragged to the gallows with the rope
about his neck, bareheaded and barefoot, singing the 51st psalm, and
died uttering prayers to God for his judges and the executioner.
Another pastor, Pierre Durand, who, with Antoine Court, had signed
the first deliberations of the synods of the wilderness, was also
executed at Montpellier, on the 22nd of April, 1782. He was a man
full of years, and noted for his faith and zeal. Five priests
accompanied him to the scaffold, and endeavoured to wrench from him
an abjuration at any price. Durand remained firm to the last.
These executions afflicted the Protestants of the wilderness, but
did not cast them down. The very exactions of the clergy themselves
conspired to drive them from the Church of Rome; for seeing that they
would not be satisfied with simple forms of (Roman) Catholicism,
they resolved upon renouncing the Church in their turn, and that
completely. From this time the number of baptisms and marriages of
the wilderness multiplied, in spite of the civil disabilities which
attainted them.
Antoine Court strengthened and encouraged the faithful by his
exhortations and his example. In 1728 he undertook a tour of nearly
a hundred leagues, convoked thirty-two religious meetings in two
months, and counted as many as three thousand hearers at the foot of
his pulpit; even the most timid began to be emboldened.
The synods rapidly increased, and became more rigid against the
parents, who allowed their children to be baptized in the (Roman)
Catholic church, or to be married there. They also insisted upon the
duty of taking part in the religious services. The synod of 1730
says: “Write to the Protestants under the Cross, that they may know
the indispensable obligation they are under to attend the meetings of
piety, whenever Providence shall furnish the opportunity. If after
being sufficiently instructed in this duty, they refuse to fulfil it,
it shall be declared that they are cut off from the Church of the
Lord, and are no longer His children.”
It is interesting to observe that these men, who were denied all
the rights of citizens, were so bent upon discharging all its
duties, that they employed their authority in repressing contraband
trade. They thus decided in 1730: “The members of our churches who,
to escape paying the king’s dues, shall carry on or countenance
smuggling, shall be first censured, and then, if they relapse,
exposed to final excommunication. The assembly does not in this
article comprise the contraband commerce in religious books, which do
not anywise prejudice the king or the state.”
The re-awakening of Languedoc and Dauphiny excited a pious rivalry
in other provinces. Rouergue, Guienne, Quercy, Saintonge, Aunis, and
Poitou, held meetings again and demanded pastors. There were but few.
Antoine Court sought the young men who appeared fitted for this holy
vocation at the plough, in the trader’s warehouse, in the workman’s
shop; but the instruction they derived from a wandering life was
insufficient.
The restorer of French Protestantism began to reflect upon the
necessity of a theological school. To open it in France was not to be
dreamed of. The universities of England and Germany were too distant
from the southern provinces, and did not speak their language.
Geneva was too near, and its academy too severely watched. Antoine
Court decided upon Lausanne. His long and urgent solicitations, his
indefatigable endeavours, the liberality of Switzerland, England,
and the other Protestant powers, contributed to found there a French
theological seminary. Court went to establish it himself, in 1730,
with the title of deputy-general of the churches, and directed this
school during the thirty concluding years of his life. It was this
college that sent forth all the Protestant pastors until the reign of
Napoleon.
VIII.
Before we proceed to relate the events, which will conduct us beyond
the year 1750, it is but a duty of justice which we owe to the
refugee pastors, to follow them in their exile; they had all ceased
to live in the former half of the eighteenth century. Although they
died upon a foreign soil, the French Reformation has a right to
claim them: they belong to it by their birth, their education, the
first years of their ministry, by the language they used, and by the
constancy of their sympathy for their oppressed brethren.
We shall not speak of the lay refugees, whose names are illustrious
in literature, science, and industry, such as Rapin Thoyras, the
learned Bayle, Denis Papin, the constructor of machines, the chemist
Lémery, the traveller Chardin, and many others. We must confine
ourselves to those fugitives, who exercised a direct influence upon
the state of the Reformed churches of France.
It is universally acknowledged, that the majority of the fugitive
pastors was composed of pious and intelligent men of irreproachable
character. No Protestant clergy in Europe were superior to them. We
will only mention the principal among them, arranging them according
to the date of their death.
Pierre Jurieu (1637-1713) was a laborious and vehement
controversialist. He has had numerous opponents among the (Roman)
Catholics and the sceptics, and his memory has suffered in
consequence. It must be confessed that he gave occasion to certain
attacks by his venturous predictions, his assertions concerning
suspected miracles, and the sharpness of his polemics. But these
defects were redeemed by a host of estimable qualities; a firm
attachment to his religious persuasions, an incomparable activity, a
solid erudition in every branch of theological science, and a clear
and ready wit. He never lacked penetration to discover error, or
courage to combat it.
He did not long exercise the functions of a pastor. Nominated in
1674 professor of theology at Sédan, he made his appearance with
much _éclat_. Bayle, who pursued him at a later period with so
many invectives, at that time wrote: “He is one of the first men
of his age, and if the delicacy of his constitution does not offer
resistance to his ardour for study, and to his application to the
functions of his office, everything may be expected of him. I tell
you, and I repeat it, he is the first man of our communion, whether
it be for sound judgment or for the nicety of his wit.”
It is not sufficiently known, that during his retreat in Holland,
some years before the Revocation, he was almost the _only opponent_
(_le seul tenant_, as they called it), of Arnauld, Bossuet, Nicole,
and Maimbourg. The others, being still in France, dared not speak
out. But in his pulpit at Rotterdam, he recoiled before no truth, and
his strong and unfettered voice often inflicted the most severe and
just chastisements upon the persecutors.
Nor is it sufficiently known that he became, after the fatal edict,
the protector of a crowd of refugees, that he solicited and procured
for them the assistance of several sovereigns, and that at the
same time he gave them the shelter of hospitality, he consoled and
encouraged their brethren, who languished at home, by his _Pastoral
Letters_.
The list of Jurieu’s works is very extensive. While yet with his
flock at Vitry-le-Français, he composed a _Treatise on Devotion_,
which was reprinted seventeen times within a few years, and
twenty-six times in an English translation. This work has induced the
regret that the author, absorbed by controversy, did not employ more
of his time in writing books of simple edification.
His reply to Father Maimbourg, _Le Calvinisme et le Papisme mis en
parallèle_ (“Calvinism and Popery Compared”), less pointed than
the answer of Bayle, and less venomous, nevertheless obtained
considerable applause, and was greatly read. Claude wrote to him:
“Your last work against Maimbourg has at length reached me, and I
have not read, but devoured it, without the possibility of quitting
it. Everybody here (at Paris) of any note, with any courage or zeal
left, is charmed with the book.”
He answered the attacks of Nicole by the _Vrai Système de l’Eglise_
(“The True System of the Church”), which competent judges declare
to be his master-piece. In it Jurieu develops the doctrine of the
invisible church, in opposition to the visible communion of Rome.
He also produced _Histoire Critique des Dogmes et des Cultes_ (“A
Critical History of Dogmas and Forms of Worship”), where humanity is
considered in its religious development. The illustrious defender of
the Reformed faith did not cease to wield his pen until the eve of
the day of his death.
Pierre Allix (1641-1717) withdrew to England after the Revocation.
He was only thirty years of age when he was summoned to succeed to
the Drelincourts and Daillés. His discourses were full, solid, and
distinguished for a sobriety and a clearness of style that made them
equally pleasing to the educated and the ignorant. He had prepared
his last sermon upon the farewell of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, to
be preached at Charenton; but the place of worship was closed by the
kings order eight days sooner than was expected.
“Doctor Allix,” says one of his biographers, “was loved and esteemed
by all the learned men of his time. Extremely zealous for the
Protestant religion, he was always ready to undertake its defence
against the partisans of the Romish church. He passionately desired
to unite the Protestants, particularly the Lutherans, with the
Reformed, and he frequently consulted the ministers of Geneva,
Holland, and Berlin, on this subject. He had a profound acquaintance
with all the sciences. He was well versed in the Hebrew, Syriac, and
Chaldean languages; and as his erudition was vast, and his memory
excellent, he was a kind of living library.” Some writers of great
weight have considered him to be the most learned of the ministers of
Charenton.
Pierre Allix received at London the title of Honorary Doctor, from
the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The Anglican clergy had so
high an opinion of his ability that they confided to him the task
of writing _The History of the Councils_, and even the Parliament
bestowed upon him particular marks of consideration.
Jean La Placette (1639-1718) was surnamed the Nicole of the Reformed,
on account of his numerous and judicious moral writings. He equalled
the Jansenist doctor in knowledge of the human heart, and surpassed
him in that of the Scriptures. His style was simple and chaste, and
he was, above all, sincere in the highest sense of the word.
La Placette was a pastor of the French church at Copenhagen for the
space of twenty-six years (1685-1711). He dedicated his _Nouveaux
Essais de Morale_ (“New Moral Essays”) to the queen of Denmark.
“Our people,” he says in the preface, “are far from comprehending
the extent of purity which the Gospel requires of us. They are even
influenced by a great number of false maxims, more pernicious than
errors of pure speculation. Besides, our writers—at least those of
our nation—have been forced by the importunity of their adversaries,
to give up all their leisure to the defence of the truth, so that
they have been able to compose but a very few works of morality,
and these only treat of some particular matters. Thus, that part of
religion, which is, if I may venture to say so, the soul and essence
of it, and which it is so necessary should be well explained and
understood, has been in some sort neglected.”
David Martin (1639-1721) has acquired a popular name in the Reformed
communion of France by his corrections of the old versions of
the Bible. His translation, without being free from defects, is
nevertheless that which most faithfully reproduces the simplicity and
the vigour of the original text. He was invited in 1694, by the synod
of the Walloon churches, to undertake this book and to accompany it
with critical reflections. Thirteen years after, he published his new
edition of the Bible, in two folio volumes.
This pastor had made the French language his particular study. “So
well had he mastered all the rules and niceties,” says Nicéron,
“that he was able to furnish remarks and observations to the French
Academy. He sent many to them when the academy was about to print the
second edition of its dictionary; and the letter of thanks which he
received in return, shows the importance the Academy attached to his
criticisms.”
David Martin twice refused the professorial chair; but he took
pleasure in giving lectures at his house on theology, to the young
students of Utrecht. At the age of upwards of eighty years he still
preserved considerable mental vigour. On the 7th of September, 1721,
he preached upon Providence, with a force which astonished all his
auditory; at the conclusion of the sermon he was unable to descend
from the pulpit but with the assistance of his friends, and two days
after drew his last breath. This pious divine had always desired that
he might die when leaving the house of God.
Jacques Basnage (1653-1723), grandson of Benjamin Basnage, of whom
we have already spoken, surpassed all the members of his family in
the variety of his acquirements, the extent of his labours, and the
grandeur of the part he was summoned to play. “He was more fitted for
a minister of state than of a parish,” says Voltaire.
Basnage, in fact, participated in several important negotiations.
He took part in the conferences preceding the peace of Utrecht,
and demanded, but uselessly, the re-establishment of religious
freedom in France. Shortly afterwards, Cardinal de Bouillon, who had
retired to Holland, confided to him the affairs he had to settle
with the States-General. In 1716 the Abbé Dubois had recourse to
the intermission of Basnage to conclude a treaty with the United
Provinces and England. Singular spectacle! that of a poor exiled
pastor influencing the alliances of his native country!
The regent also addressed him to prevent the Spanish Cardinal
Alberoni from exciting insurrections among the Protestants of the
southern provinces. Basnage advised the French government to put
itself in communication with Antoine Court, and this humble minister
of the desert, condemned to death by the laws [of his country],
promised that Languedoc should not be disturbed. On this occasion,
and at the express request of the Duke d’Orléans, Basnage wrote a
pastoral instruction for the Reformed of France, which spread with
rapidity. In it the author maintains the principles of Christianity
respecting the obedience due to the sovereign; but, perhaps, after
exhorting the oppressed to submission, he might have said something
more to the oppressors.
Placed at the head of the French church of the Hague, appointed
historiographer to the States-General of Holland, and surrounded
by the esteem of the public, he was as happy as an exile from his
native land could be. “He was true,” says a biographer, “even to the
minutest things. The custom of the highest society had imbued him
with a politeness rarely found in the learned. Affable and popular,
his greatest pleasure was to serve others, and to employ his credit
in favour of the unfortunate.”
It is surprising that he was able, in the midst of his political
occupations and the labours of his pastoral office, to compose so
many works on theology and ecclesiastical history. Some of them are
very voluminous, among others, _L’Histoire de la religion des Eglises
réformées_ (“The History of the Religion of the Reformed Churches”);
_L’Histoire des Juifs_ (“The History of the Jews”); and that of the
Church from the time of the Christian era to the eighteenth century.
The erudition of Basnage is vast, his thought penetrating, and his
style firm; he raised controversy to a height that has only been
attained by Bossuet.
Jacques Abbadie (1654-1724) was the best apologist of Christianity,
and one of the most able writers of the Reformed communion. After
completing his studies at the academies of Sédan and Saumur, he
entered into the service of the French church of Berlin. “The only
thing that vexes me,” the Duke de Montausier said one day to the
ambassador of the elector of Brandenburg, when speaking of a work of
Abbadie, “is, that the author of this book should be at liberty.” If
France had lost one of her glories, who was chargeable with the fault?
Abbadie afterwards withdrew to England, and died dean of the parish
of Killaloe in Ireland. We read in a notice of his life: “His
manners, polished by intercourse with good society, were mild and
easy, and a more even and obliging temper never existed. As his
mind was full of gaiety, and he expressed himself upon all kinds
of subjects with as much elegance, correctness, and fire as in his
meditated works, his conversation was as agreeable as useful, and one
never quitted his company without regret.”
His treatise on _L’Art de se connaître soi-même_ (“The Art of Knowing
Oneself”) is full of judicious observations, and shows that the
author had profoundly meditated upon the relations of the human
conscience to the duties of the Gospel. But the most celebrated of
his works is the treatise on _La Verité de la religion Chrétienne_
(“The Truth of the Christian Religion”). It obtained the suffrage
of (Roman) Catholics as well as Protestants. “This admirable work,”
said the Abbé Desfontaines, forty years afterwards, “eclipses
everything that has ever been published before it for the defence
of Christianity. How many conversions has it not effected! How many
strong minds has it not subjected!”
Madame de Sévigné wrote to the Comte de Bussi-Rabutin, “It is the
most divine of books; this esteem is general. I do not believe any
one has spoken of religion like this man. I shall re-peruse it every
three months for the remainder of my life.” And the count answered
with the same enthusiasm: “Until now I have never been touched by
other books, which tell me of God, and now I see well the reason;
it is that the source appeared doubtful; but seeing it clear and
transparent in Abbadie, I value what I did not before esteem. I
repeat it, this is an admirable book. He pourtrays to me everything
he says, and compels my reason not to doubt that which once appeared
to it incredible.”
The author combats the Atheists in the first part of his work, the
Deists in the second, and the Socinians in the third. He starts with
this proposition, “There is a God,” to arrive at this: “Jesus is the
promised Messiah.” Then he ascends from this last proposition to the
first. The book has been translated into several languages, and it
has appeared in a great variety of editions.
Elie Bénoît (1640-1728) was a learned and industrious theologian.
We discharge a debt of gratitude in consecrating a few lines to the
author of _L’Histoire de l’Edit de Nantes_ (“The History of the Edict
of Nantes”), of which we have made great use in our own.
He was pastor of the church of Alençon, and had the pain of seeing
his place of worship closed, under the futile pretext that the
faithful had assumed a defensive attitude on some occasion of their
worship being interrupted by the populace. He went to Paris in
support of their cause; but instead of obtaining the redress of his
complaints, he was answered by threats.
Bénoît took refuge in Holland, and published there a letter addressed
to his former parishioners. As we read in his memoirs, they emigrated
_en masse_; for there remained in France scarcely an eighth, which
will serve to explain why the town of Alençon ceases to figure in the
catalogue of the Reformed churches.
The chief work of Bénoît is the history we have so often quoted.
It should be read by all who are desirous of studying one of the
most important periods of the French Reformation. More brevity and
precision might perhaps be desired in this book, but assuredly not
greater exactness. The author displays a correct judgment, and a
moderation which proves him to have been swayed by no other passion
than that of truth.
Jacques Saurin (1677-1730) was the greatest preacher of the French
Protestants. He was born at Nismes, where his father practised as an
advocate, and received his early education at Geneva. He was tempted,
at the age of seventeen, by the profession of arms, and became an
ensign in the Savoyard service. On the re-establishment of peace, he
resumed his academical studies under the learned teachers Tronchin,
Turretin, and Pictet.
In 1701 he was appointed pastor of a French church in London; and
some years subsequently, having visited Holland and preached at the
Hague, he received so much applause that a new place was created for
him, under the title of “_minister of the nobles_:” he held it until
his death.
From 1708 to 1725 he published five volumes of sermons; seven others,
inferior to the first, appeared posthumously. He possessed all the
great qualities of a Christian orator: a profound knowledge of the
Bible, a healthy and vigorous theology, the art of devising learned
and original plans, a masculine logic, judicious and always serious
ornaments, and a style which was eminently subservient to thought;
though sometimes it might be desired that there had been more unction
in his speech and more correctness in his language. The misfortunes
of the faithful, to whom Saurin preached the Gospel, enhanced his
oratorical powers, by surrounding it with a tragic poignancy. Some of
his sermons have thrown weight into the scales of the destinies of
Europe.
The action, with which Saurin delivered his discourses, is not so
well known as their substance. The journalists of his time speak
of him in the following manner: “He has a natural exterior which
prepossesses the congregation in his favour, whilst his voice is
powerful and sonorous. Those, who remember the magnificent prayer
which he pronounced before the sermon, will not have forgotten how
the ear was filled with the most harmonious sounds. It could have
been wished that his voice preserved the same _éclat_ until the end
of the action; but as we are not drawing a panegyric, we may confess
that he did not so well manage it. A little less impetuosity would
have freed him from this defect. The expectation raised by the prayer
was not disappointed by the sermon; [that it was not so] we [may]
confidently appeal to his auditors. All, without any exception, were
charmed; and he who came with the intention to criticise, gradually
forgot his purpose, as he attentively sought to discover something
susceptible of criticism.”[118]
Saurin published letters upon the state of Christianity in France. He
reproached the Reformed with not having quitted a country where they
could not freely celebrate their worship, and applied to them the
name of temporisers. The reproach was too severe, and it is not to be
regretted that his advice to emigrate _en masse_ was not followed.
He was accused before the Walloon synods of having justified
officious lying in his discourses upon the Bible. This became
the subject of a long and laborious polemical contest. Saurin
addressed this declaration to the synods: “I have not pretended
in my dissertation upon lying to do anything else than to report
_historically_ the sentiments of those who believe that lying is
always criminal, and of those who believe it to be innocent in
certain cases. As for the holiness and veracity of God, as well as
the obligation which binds men to speak the truth, I hold by the
doctrine contained in my catechism, which I will ever teach.”
It is related that Saurin, who in the pulpit was so skilful in
unravelling the passions of men and their secret motives of action,
was unable to discover them in society. He was altogether wanting
in experience of the world; and was so full of confidence and
candour, that it was as easy to deceive him as a child. His life was
frequently troubled in consequence.
Jaques Lenfant (1661-1728) and Isaac de Beausobre (1659-1738), are
two names which ought to remain united in the pages of history, since
they have figured in joint works. They were both pastors at Berlin,
and had the same turn of mind, the same taste for historical and
critical studies, the same belief, [and lived] the same religious
life; whilst contemporary memoirs attribute to both the same amiable
character.
Lenfant has written the history of the councils of Constance, Pisa,
and Basle—books dictated by science and conscience. Voltaire says
of him, that he contributed more than any one to spread the grace
and strength of the French language to the furthermost parts of
Germany. Beausobre, for his part, has made for himself a name justly
celebrated by his history of Manichæism.
The two authors were associated in the publication of a new edition
of the New Testament, with critical notes. To Beausobre were allotted
the Epistles of Saint Paul, and to Lenfant all the other books of the
New Testament. The task of the former was more difficult, that of
the other of greater extent. The biographer of Beausobre says: “This
distribution of the work did not prevent their working in concert.
When one was of a different opinion to the other, they discussed and
criticised, but each cheerfully submitted to the strongest evidence.”
The successors of this illustrious generation of refugee pastors and
theologians belong to us no more. Born and educated out of France,
their glory is the property of the countries that sustained them on
their hospitable soil.
IX.
We left the Reformed zealously labouring for the re-organization of
their churches. They restored vigorous action to many of the articles
of ancient discipline. The newly-established consistories watched
over the maintenance of good order among the flocks. The meetings
approached the great centres of the Protestant population, and were
held more frequently by day. In a word, the period from 1730 to 1744
was a time of calm when compared with the horrible tempest, which had
dispersed and scattered everything but a few years before.
The religious movement extended. A young pastor, who joined great
prudence to ardent faith, Michel Viala, traversed Upper Languedoc,
and held assemblies in the neighbourhoods of Castres and Montauban.
The county of Foix received Pierre Corteis; Béarn, Etienne Deffère;
and Poitou and Normandy, Jean Loire and André Migault. We see that
the pastors, whose number was always limited, were compelled to
discharge the duties of missionaries; their fields of labour were far
more extensive than dioceses.
With a view to the introduction of greater regularity into their
teaching and their maxims of conduct, they resolved to convoke a
general or national synod, and this assembly was opened, on the
18th of August, 1744, in a secluded spot in Lower Languedoc, under
the presidency of Michel Viala. The majority of the old Protestant
provinces, from Cevennes to Normandy, were represented at this
meeting; but there was no delegate from the Isle of France or Paris.
The moment was well chosen in one respect, and badly in another. The
Protestants could collect with greater facility, because the war
engaged all the attention of the government and all the forces of the
country abroad. But this very war was certain to inspire the council
with greater displeasure at such an assembly.
The first step of the synod was to declare its inviolable fidelity
to the king. It ordered the celebration, before the end of the year,
of a solemn fast in all the Reformed flocks of the kingdom, “for the
preservation of the sacred person of his majesty, for the success of
his arms, for the cessation of war, and for the deliverance of the
Church.” The pastors were exhorted to preach at least once a year
upon the submission due to “the powers that be.”
This meeting took wise measures for the observation of discipline and
the correction of manners. It invited the pastors to abstain from
treating of points of controversy in the pulpit, and not to speak
without circumspection of the sufferings of the Reformed people.
It recommended to the flocks to celebrate their worship as much as
possible in open day. The tenth article of the resolutions stated,
“As there are many provinces, where the religious services are still
performed during the night, the synod, in order to manifest still
more the purity of our intentions as well as to preserve uniformity,
has directed the pastors and elders of the different provinces to
conform, as far as prudence will permit, to the churches, which
perform their service in daylight.”
Antoine Court came from Lausanne to be present at this great meeting,
and after appeasing a difference which had arisen with regard to a
pastor who had been falsely accused, he had the joy of preaching to
an audience of ten thousand persons.
This assembly of so many of the faithful, this general synod, of
which the members came from the extremities of the realm, this
semi-publicity given to acts that the law considered as criminal and
rebellious, disturbed and irritated the council, who began to fear
that the Protestants maintained a secret intelligence with foreigners.
Nothing was more false. From the sixteenth century, in the very times
of the most bloody persecutions, the mass of the Reformed had never
once forgotten their duty to their sovereign and their country. If
in the wars of the Camisards, some of the Cévenoles had looked to
England or Holland for assistance, it was only a local and partial
affair. But the apprehensions of the court, which continually broke
out afresh after the Edict of Revocation, prove the great truth, that
it is not possible to persecute with impunity. When public authority
ignores every condition of justice, morality, and order, it is the
first victim of its attempt; and in default of the remorse, from
which fanaticism or corruption may relieve it, it expiates its crime
by unceasing and invincible terrors.
Calumny played its part in these deplorable circumstances; and
opinion, ignorant of the true sentiments of a proscribed population,
easily adopted the grossest falsehoods. It was pretended that the
pastor Jacques Roger had read a false Edict of Toleration at the
religious meetings, in order to drive the Protestants to rebellion;
that those who were present were armed; that they had sung a
hymn imploring God to bless the English with victory; that their
collections for the poor were military taxes; that twenty-five
thousand Camisards held themselves in readiness to join the enemy,
who blockaded the ports of Provence; that the convents were to be
pillaged, the priests and the monks massacred, and the whole south of
France put to fire and sword.
These popular rumours were still more extravagant than odious, and
had not even a shadow of truth. Yet they were believed at court,
and the Baron Lenain d’Asfeld, intendant of Languedoc, was directed
to ascertain indirectly from the consistories and pastors of the
desert, if it were true that the religionists had understandings
with the enemy. He wished, moreover, to know if, in case of an
invasion, the government might count upon a rising of Protestant
volunteers. This was a new example of the effects of intolerance;
they thought themselves obliged to treat with Frenchmen as if they
were foreigners; and because they would not consider them citizens,
they were no longer trusted in their country’s day of misfortune.
The Protestants answered, that not one of their co-religionists would
join the English armies, that they were all ready to perform their
duty for the service of the king; that the pastors never ceased
to recommend obedience, and that if they contravened the laws in
matters of religion, it was under an obligation superior to all human
authority.
The intendant Lenain, who had had many occasions of studying the
[character of the] Protestants, did not distrust their assurances
of fidelity. But it was not so at Versailles, where objects were
distorted by fear and distance. The news of the national synod of
1744 produced those acts, which seemed allied to madness.
Louis XV. was made to sign, in February, 1745, two ordinances still
more cruel, if that were possible, than any that had preceded them.
In addition to the penalty of death against the pastors, and of
perpetual imprisonment at the galleys against those who harboured
them, a fine of three thousand livres was pronounced against all the
Protestants of the place where a pastor should be arrested. As for
the meetings, it was no longer necessary to have been present at them
in order to be doomed to the galleys and [to suffer] forfeiture of
property; it was sufficient not to have denounced them. Everything
was a crime according to these laws; and out of fifteen hundred
thousand Reformed, one-half might have been condemned, at the end
of six months, to row in convict vessels, and the other half to beg
their bread.
Although it was impossible to execute these ordinances literally, and
although the very men, who had drawn them up, would not have suffered
it, they were followed by cruel disasters. The Protestants might
send petitions upon petitions to the king, to the ministers, to the
intendants, to every one who had power to help them; these requests,
wherein they stated in the humblest language their sufferings and
their unalterable sentiments of fidelity, did not reach their
address, and if they did arrive there, were never read. Some were
burned or fixed to the pillory by the hand of the executioner, as
if their complaints were less just because they were stamped with
ignominy.
Antoine Court has written an historical memoir upon the persecutions
that recommenced after the synod of 1744. His integrity is as free
from suspicion as his perfect acquaintance with the events, and we
therefore borrow from him the facts we are about to relate.
The abduction of children multiplied in the provinces, and
particularly in Normandy. Court gives a list, and it is very lengthy,
name by name. This kidnapping was usually carried on at night, like
a brigand’s descent, by companies of archers headed by the parish
curates. When there was a delay in opening the doors of the houses,
they were burst in, and then the soldiers, sabre in hand, with
oaths upon their lips, overthrowing everything in the search after
their prey, insulting the despair no less than the shrieks of the
mothers, and beating the fathers who dared to complain, carried off
the children, the young girls in preference, and dragged them away
to the convents. The parents were obliged to furnish a pension for
their maintenance, and if one of the victims escaped, they were made
responsible for it. These horrors provoked a fresh emigration. Six
hundred families of Normandy profited by their proximity to the sea
to fly from the kingdom with everything they could take with them.
_Lettres de cachet_ were again used against the people of importance.
The religionists of less consideration underwent the sentences of the
judiciary or administrative sentences. The Parliaments of Grenoble,
Bordeaux, Toulouse, and the intendants of Saintonge, Guienne,
Dauphiny, Quercy, and Languedoc, relentlessly pursued the Reformed,
who had had their children baptized, or their marriages blessed in
the desert.
The religious meetings were spied, and attacked most unmercilessly.
On the 17th of March, 1745, two troops of dragoons fell upon an
assembly in the neighbourhood of Mazamet, killed several persons,
wounded a greater number, and carried off many prisoners. Scenes of
the same kind were enacted near Montauban, Uzès, Saint Hippolyte,
Saint Ambroix, and in other places. It was again necessary to have
recourse to night meetings.
From 1744 to 1746 we count three hundred persons who were condemned
to be flogged, to be degraded from the nobility, to be imprisoned
for life, to the galleys, or to death, by the single Parliament
of Grenoble, which showed a most pitiless spirit, because it
administered justice in a border province, and at only a few steps
from the enemy’s camp upon the Alps. The fines were enormous. In a
petition addressed to the king in 1750, the Protestants of Dauphiny
stated that they had been obliged to pay more than two hundred
thousand livres, and that from the depth of their prisons, they heard
their goods and their inheritances sold by auction.
The same things happened in the provinces of the south, though to
a less extent. Nismes paid upwards of sixty thousand livres. The
intendants coined money out of heresy, as was afterwards done in 1793
out of the aristocracy.
“I could produce here,” says Antoine Court, “first a list of more
than six hundred prisoners arrested since 1744 (he wrote in 1753),
in the provinces of Languedoc, the Upper and Lower Alps, Vivarais,
Dauphiny, Provence, the county of Foix, Saintonge, and Poitou;
among whom were many gentlemen, advocates, physicians, substantial
burghers, and rich tradesmen, who have suffered long and cruel
imprisonment, out of which they have escaped by arbitrary and ruinous
fines alone. I could produce another catalogue of more than eight
hundred prisoners who have been condemned to divers punishments,
among whom more than eighty were gentlemen.”
Some of the condemned obtained their pardon through the intervention
of powerful protectors, or by means of pecuniary sacrifices, after
having passed a certain time in confinement; and this explains how it
was that, in 1753, there remained at Toulouse more than forty-eight
convicts on account of religion. Allowances must also be made for the
mortality which struck a great number of these unfortunate persons,
[who had been] suddenly degraded from a position of competency to a
condition so abject.
The glass-makers of the county of Foix were condemned by the
intendant of Auch, to perpetual imprisonment at the galleys, and
forfeiture of all their property. One of them, Grenier de Lastermes,
was a venerable old man of seventy-six years. He underwent his
sentence at the hulks of Toulon: his two sons died, one near him,
the other upon the galleys of Marseilles. We have read a letter of
this once opulent old man, in which he thanks the consistory of
Marseilles for having allowed him two sous a day to alleviate his
misery! He wrote: “We are engaged upon the labours marked out for
us, having only bread and water for our nourishment, without the
opportunity of exemption, but by payment of a _sol_ every morning to
the under-gaolers; otherwise we are exposed to remain fastened to a
beam with a great chain, night and day.”
The _dragonnades_ were renewed at Milhau, Saint Affrique, and at
other places in Rouergue, Languedoc, and Dauphiny. This was the
punishment of the lower ranks of the people for being present at the
assemblies.
These sentences, if they had been less barbarous, would have been
laughable. Not only were the religionists persecuted for having
introduced Bibles and pious books into the realm, but a poor man,
named Etienne Arnaud, of Dieu-le-Fit, was sentenced, in 1744, to
imprisonment for life and the pillory. For what? Because he had
taught some young folks to sing psalms. His psalter and a copy of the
New Testament were nailed to the pillory beside him.
X.
The pastors, however, continued to be the object of the most
implacable persecutions. If the government had reflected, it would
have seen, on one side, that the Reformed were invincibly attached
to their creeds, whether with their pastors or without them; on the
other, that their ministers of religion did more good than harm, even
in a political point of view, since they restrained the explosion of
the popular resentment, and always recommended order, patience, and
respect for the law. But neither the intendants nor the Parliaments
were able to comprehend that these men were among the number of the
most useful citizens, and three pastors were put to death in 1745 and
1746.
The first, Louis Rang, or Ranc, was twenty-six years of age. He was
arrested at an inn of Levron, condemned to capital punishment by the
Parliament of Grenoble, and executed at Die, in March, 1745.
A contemporary historian says: “At Crest, the minister asked
permission to be shaved, and to have his hair arranged. This neatness
appeared to him requisite the better to show the serenity which
reigned in his soul, and the contempt with which he treated the
unjust death he was about to suffer. He met his end like a hero,
and never did Christian exhibit a more elevated calmness at such a
moment. On his way to execution, he chanted the verse of the 118th
psalm: ‘_This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice
and be glad in it_,’ which he repeated several times. The speech he
attempted to make could not be heard, on account of the noise of the
drums, which were beaten purposely to smother his voice. He would
not hearken to the Jesuits who accompanied him, but kept his eyes
continually raised to heaven, and gave signs of feelings of the most
lively and earnest piety. When he arrived at the foot of the ladder,
he knelt, prayed, and then mounted the scaffold courageously.”[119]
His corpse was insulted by the populace; but a (Roman) Catholic lady,
who must have blushed for her faith, provided a sepulchre for his
wretched remains.
After this youthful servant of the Gospel, died the veteran of the
assemblies of the wilderness, Jacques Roger—who had restored the
churches with Antoine Court—an aged minister, seventy years old. He
was taken in the neighbourhood of Crest. “Who are you?” demanded the
officer of the patrol. “I am,” he answered, “he whom you have long
sought for, and it is time that you should find me.” Like Ignatius of
Antioch, Jacques Roger sighed for the crown of martyrdom.
Confined with other Protestant prisoners, he exhorted them to remain
firm in the faith. When the executioner came to summon him, he
exclaimed: “This is the blessed day, this is the glad moment I have
so long yearned for. Let us rejoice, my soul, for this is the happy
day when thou shalt enter into the joy of thy Lord.”
He beseeched the Jesuits, who importuned him, to cease from troubling
his mind in its repose, and walked to the scaffold in the midst
of the crash of the drums that were continually beaten. “There was
no one,” says Armand de la Chapelle, “who did not read upon the
countenance of this holy confessor, the profound calmness, the
sincere piety, and the ardent zeal of his soul. Even the Jesuits
spoke of him with praise, and many persons of the Romish communion
could not refrain from showing how much they were touched. When he
had prayed on his knees at the foot of the ladder, he mounted the
steps with the same air of modest confidence, which he had all along
displayed.” His body was thrown into the Isère, after it had been
suspended twenty-four hours on the gibbet.
The third victim, who excited the warmest sympathy, was executed
on the 2nd of February, 1746. His name was Matthieu Majal, and he
bore, according to the custom of the desert pastors, the surname of
Désubas. His age also was twenty-six.
Having been surprised at Saint Agrève, in Vivarais, he was taken
to Vernoux. The news of his arrest spread universal grief. When
he passed through a village on the way, some unarmed peasants
supplicated the commanding officer to release their pastor; and
one of them, throwing himself upon Désubas, closely embraced him,
imploring his liberty. The only reply was an order to fire upon the
peasants, and six were slain.
The next day—one of religious service—a more numerous gathering, but
similarly unarmed, penetrated into the town of Vernoux. The officer,
who dreaded a rising, ordered his soldiers to fire from the houses
against this crowd, whose wailings and prayers were their only
weapons. Thirty of these unfortunates fell dead, and two or three
hundred were wounded.
Then the mountaineers of Vivarais flew to arms, and prepared to
avenge the murder of their brethren. Fortunately the pastors hastened
to intercede, and to beseech them, in the name of their faith, their
families, their country, in the name of their common salvation, to
refrain. “It is only on this condition,” said the most revered of
these pastors to them, “that I will continue my ministry among you.”
Désubas himself wrote this note from his prison. “I implore you,
gentlemen, to retire. The king’s people are here in strong numbers;
and too much blood has been spilled already. I am calm, and entirely
resigned to the Divine will.”
The peasants yielded, and threw their arms away. But along the
road by which the pastor passed, from Vernoux to Montpellier, they
stood grief-stricken and indignant, with difficulty repressing the
promptings of their desire to rescue him. All their ministers were
there, hidden in the multitude, and striving to appease it with the
sacred words of the Evangelist.
Désubas reached Montpellier at the time of holding the States. The
whole body of the clergy hastened around him, soliciting but one
word, one single word of abjuration. Vain efforts! The pastor of the
desert was more firm before the seductions of his persecutors than
before the tears of his people: he had long devoted himself to death.
The intendant Lenain asked him, not for his own information, but to
acquit himself of the forms of his duty, if the Protestants had not
a common treasury, if they were not collecting arms, and if they
were not in correspondence with England. “There is not a word of
truth in it,” answered the prisoner, “the ministers preach nothing
but patience and fidelity to the king.” “I know it, sir,” said the
intendant, deeply moved.
When sentence of death was pronounced against Désubas, both the
judges and the intendant wept. “It is,” he said, “with sorrow that we
condemn you, but such are the orders of the king.” “I know it, sir,”
replied the pastor of the desert, in his turn.
The scaffold was erected upon the esplanade of Montpellier, whither
Désubas was conducted, bareheaded and barefoot, in the midst of an
innumerable concourse of spectators. The papers and books which had
been found upon him, were burnt before his face; and when he sought
to address the multitude, the din of fourteen drums drowned his
words. He preserved a placid countenance, repulsed the Jesuits, who
held a crucifix to him, pronounced a short prayer, and ascending the
fatal ladder, gave up his soul to God.
We may here recognise the profound opposition that existed between
the laws and the manners of the period. The magistrates, while they
sentenced [Désubas], revolted against the legal text, whilst their
hearts acknowledged him to be innocent whom they were compelled
to condemn as guilty. All the (Roman) Catholics of any moral or
intellectual education, were thunderstruck at the execution of
Désubas. The Protestants, on the contrary, thanked God for having
given them so heroic a martyr, and his name is still heard in the
popular legends, beneath the cottage roof of the peasantry of
Vivarais and Languedoc.
Yet this renewal of the persecutions had exhausted the patience of
many of the Reformed. Seeing that they were absolutely denied any
approximation to religious liberty, they demanded permission to sell
their property and quit the kingdom. They wrote to Louis XV.: “We
cannot live without following our religion, and we are compelled,
however unwillingly, to supplicate your majesty, with the most
profound humility and respect, that you may please to allow us to
leave the realm with our wives, our children, and our effects, to
retire into foreign countries, where we may freely worship God in the
form we believe to be indispensable, and on which depends our eternal
happiness or misery.”
Instead of granting this authority, the council replied by
an aggravation of severity, particularly after the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748. The troops required employment; the court
had leisure; it remembered the uneasiness which the heretics had
caused it during the war, and it resolved to attempt a decisive blow
that should, if possible, put an end once for all to this proscribed
people.
It is painful continually to discover the hand of the (Roman)
Catholic clergy in these scenes of violence, spoliation, and death.
The venerable Malesherbes, the Baron de Breteuil, Rulhières, Joly
de Fleury, Gilbert de Voisins, Rippert de Monclar, the gravest
statesmen, the most eminent magistrates, who have written upon the
religious affairs of this epoch, all proclaim this with unanimous
voice. They agree in characterizing the conduct of the priests as
obstinate, unrelenting, sometimes haughty, sometimes supple and
humble, but ever exacting the use of extreme measures of compulsion
and severity for the re-establishment of religious unity.
What is still more intolerable is, that at the very time when the
clergy demanded the strict execution of the horrible ordinances
of 1724 and 1745, they never ceased to declare that the Church was
always adverse to all means that were not charitable and paternal. Is
it possible to conceive, imagine, or dream of the possibility of so
flagrant a contradiction?
What! knock at every door, besiege the offices of all the ministers,
address the sovereign, threaten, solicit, pray, even offer money; and
for what purpose? To oppress the conscience of more than a million
of Protestants; to persecute them even in the sanctuary of domestic
worship; to constrain them to have their children baptized by a
priest under pain of bastardy; to compel married people to ask for
the (Roman) Catholic benediction under pain of being denied any civil
condition; to send soldiers, in a word, against the meetings, gaolers
and hangmen against the pastors; and all this as only a labour of
charity, goodness, and fraternal love!
There was a bishop of Castres, who applied for a regiment of dragoons
in order to dissolve the meetings, taking care at the same time
to add that the soldiers should not injure his flock, among whom
he counted the re-united brethren. The bishop of Aire forwarded
complaints that the custom of establishing the refusal of the
sacraments at the death-bed of heretics had fallen into desuetude,
and he wanted to renew the suits for the ignominious treatment of
their corpses. The Count de Saint Florentin, secretary of state for
religious affairs, who was not without complaisance for the clergy,
was obliged to address a very severe admonition to this prelate.
The notion of religious freedom, or even of simple toleration, seems
to have been absolutely unknown to the Romish ecclesiastics of the
time: they did not understand it; and if they beheld an inkling of it
in others, they combatted it as an act of impiety. We have a proof of
this in a letter which made considerable noise in 1751. It bore the
signature of Chabannes, bishop of Agen.
There had fallen into his possession a paper containing the following
matter: “It is the intention of the comptroller-general to grant
every kind of protection to the Sieur Frontin, a Huguenot trader, and
that he should be treated with such consideration as may induce the
merchants of his sect to return to the kingdom.” In fact, the object
was to afford the opportunity to some of the industrious refugees of
again peacefully residing in France.
The bishop immediately took pen in hand to express his _astonishment_
and _grief_ to the comptroller-general, Machault. His letter is
lengthy, and skilfully written. He avoided all mention of dogma,
well aware that this kind of argument would be of no avail with
unbelievers; but he developed in his own way the political side of
the question. According to him the Calvinists were the enemies of the
king, rebels on principle, republicans by system; they had on many
occasions brought the country within an inch of its ruin, and would
do so again if they were recalled. Louis XIV. had the wisdom to free
the body politic of the state from these vicious and peccant humours,
which had caused so many disorders in it (we follow the text); Louis
XV. will pursue the same course. As for the thought of permitting
the Huguenot pastors to carry on their ministry in France, it was
an enormity to which the bishop would on no account agree. “Heaven,
which has ever protected the monarchy,” he says in conclusion,
“heaven, which has until now united religion with it by a bond that
has not been broken, inspired him with this confidence. We will not
witness the free exercise of Calvinism. No, the son, the heir, the
imitator of Louis the Great, will not re-establish the Huguenots.”
The comptroller-general, who had no affection for the priests, but
who feared their intrigues and denunciations, hastened to disavow the
more or less apochryphal paper, which had stirred up the bile of the
bishop of Agen, and the matter dropped. The difference of opinions
and times was here again apparent. In our days, a prelate who should
utter the sentiments of Chabannes, would be accused of insanity; in
the middle of the eighteenth century, the Bishop Chabannes was taxed
with excessive indulgence by his brethren; he was considered much too
moderate a man!
Monclus, bishop of Alais, indeed carried his exactions a great deal
farther. Although he confessed that persecution does not change the
heart, and that conversion is only a work of grace, he, at the same
time, in 1751, publicly solicited a new declaration against the
Protestants. He required the entire abolition of judicial forms. The
Huguenots, who should refuse to perform the acts of Catholicity,
ought to be, according to this prelate’s notions, summarily tried
by the commandant of the province, or by the intendant. He accused
the magistrates of having relaxed the severity of the ordinances,
which was an act of unfaithfulness, which had been the cause of all
the misfortunes of the realm. He demanded that the intervention of
the Parliaments should cease; that the military or administrative
power should be wholly uncontrolled; and that the judgments should be
arbitrary and absolute.
The procurator-general, at the Parliament of Aix, Rippert de Monclar,
defended religion, justice, morality, and humanity, which had been
so greatly outraged by this priest. He replied, in a _Political and
Theological Memoir_, published in 1755, that the sentiments of the
prelate were as irreligious as they were inhuman, and tended to the
total destruction of society. “If the bishops have any reason to
complain,” he adds, “of the profanation of the sacraments by the
Protestants, and of the uselessness of the proofs they have exacted
for seventy years past, why are they bent upon continuing the same
acts of Catholicism, by soliciting against them a continuous and
rigorous execution of royal ordinances? Why force them in this
manner to repeat this horrible impiety which is complained of? Is it
imagined that it is preferable to tread our holy religion underfoot,
than not to profess it at all? Who believes that it is possible
to force a person, against his inclination and belief, to receive
mysteries so dread that faith alone with love and ardour ought to
lead us to approach them, and which should be avoided by Catholics
themselves, who feel the slightest coldness or indifference? The
profanations that have happened have appalled both heaven and earth,
and yet it is sought to renew the hideous sight.”[120]
Rippert de Monclar says that these heretics were, after all, not
worse than the Jews, who were allowed not only liberty of marriage,
independently of the Church, but also the free exercise of their
religion. He asks if it were right to embrace in one condemnation,
with the hundred and fifty thousand fathers and mothers who had
contracted clandestine marriages, the whole multitude of children
born or to be born? “What wrong have they done,” he exclaimed, “that
they were made the opprobrium of the land?”
He proves, moreover, that the persecutions sought by the bishop of
Alais, would not be more efficacious than those which had already
taken place. “If this prelate,” he says, “were to have a correct
list of all the Protestant ministers, who have been put to death;
of all the persons of every age and degree, who have been sent to
the galleys; of all the taxes, fines, and other contributions, which
have been exacted; of all the children, who have been torn from their
parents; of all the marriages, which have been annulled and declared
public concubinages; of all the property, which has been thereupon
awarded to collateral relations; of all the individuals, who have
been imprisoned and kept in long captivity; of all the decrees, that
have been passed against an infinity of others; even of all the
excesses, and of all the frightful massacres committed by the king’s
troops, and in opposition to the intention of his majesty; alas! this
list would fill volumes. Every corner of France re-echoes with the
cries of these miserable people; they attract the very compassion of
those who glory, I will not say in being Christians, but in being
men; and yet a bishop is insensible to all this, and would fain
redouble them! Would it not better become him, to plant and nourish
[measures] in their behalf, and to weep between the porch and the
altar for them?”[121]
This lesson of morality and public reproof, given by the magistracy
to the clergy, was as deserved as it was severe; it was not the only
one, as we shall have occasion to show.
XI.
The government did not accede on all points to the demands of the
bishops; it neither dared nor wished [to do so]. Nevertheless it
complied with a great deal, and all the more in that it required
to recruit its finances, [which had been] exhausted by the war.
The prelates consented to increase their voluntary donations, but
under the express condition that the extirpation of heresy should be
prosecuted with more rigour.
The Protestants, for their part, did not cease by every peaceable
means to petition for the redress of their grievances. Seven pastors
of the desert addressed to Louis XV., on the 21st December, 1750, a
new and respectful petition, in which, after having stated that they
regarded the aggregate worship, baptisms, marriages, and sacraments
of their communion as a matter of conscience, they said: “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.”
Louis XV. and his council gave no heed to this petition any more than
they had done to the others. The Protestants were in the depth of
the provinces; they had neither voluntary donations to offer to the
government, nor powerful protectors to invoke. They were regarded
with suspicion from the very fact of their being proscribed, and the
injury, which had been inflicted, was the best reason for inflicting
greater severity upon them.
These details of the sentiments of the court, and the incessant
provocations of the clergy, serve to explain the renewal of the
persecutions, which the Protestants endured from 1750 to 1755. The
intendant Lenain, who was naturally a rigid man, but had treated the
Protestants more mildly, as he had become better acquainted with
them, was replaced in Languedoc by the Viscount Guignard de Saint
Priest, who, without being either fanatically or cruelly disposed,
unhesitatingly executed the most violent measures. The meetings
near Cayla, Vigan, and Anduze, were again attacked. In the last of
these encounters, three men were killed, others wounded, and many
led to prison; whilst the pursuit was carried on with such bitter
determination, that it became necessary to renounce religious service
on the Sabbath.
The intendant received orders to proceed to a general _re-baptism_ of
children, and to a _re-benediction_ of marriages throughout the whole
Reformed population. The words [of this order] were as barbarous as
the thing itself. With this view, he convoked the notables at Nismes
and elsewhere, in 1751, and commanded them to take their children to
the parochial churches within a fortnight’s time; in default of which
they would be punished with the utmost rigour of the ordinances;
and the curates and (Roman) Catholic consuls were directed to
prepare lists of the recusants. Guignard de Saint Priest took the
trouble, ridiculous under the circumstances, to start a chapter of
controversy, like a doctor of the Sorbonne, and to establish that
(Roman) Catholic baptism being recognised by the religionists as
effective, their rejection of it would be a _senseless obstinacy_.
The Protestants replied to this military controversialist, that the
curates interpreted the question quite differently; that they exacted
the promise to rear the children in the Romish faith, that they
treated and punished those of the baptized as having relapsed, who
did not remain (Roman) Catholics, and that the clergy had made use of
the following maxim: “The Church has power over those, who receive
baptism, just as the king, neither more nor less, has full right over
the coin which he issues from his mint.”
Finding his reasons fail, the Viscount de Saint Priest resumed a
part better suited to his character, and pronounced the most fearful
threats against the obstinate. The oppressed were terrified. They
abandoned their houses, fields, workshops, and factories, and fled
for safety to the woods and mountain caverns.
The intendants anger increased; and on the 1st of September, 1751,
he wrote to one of his subordinates: “They are mistaken if they
hope that the king’s mind will change, or that I shall omit to
execute the precise orders which his majesty has given me on the
subject. I am willing, however, to grant them a short delay.” But the
desertion went on increasing, and Saint Priest had recommenced the
_dragonnades_ with billets conceived in these terms: “The Sieur N.,
cavalier of the _maréchaussée_, will remain in garrison at the house
of * * *, until he has taken his children to the church to undergo
the ceremony of baptism by the curate of the place; and he will
exact, for his pay, four livres a day, until perfect obedience has
been shown, at the same time informing him that the garrison will be
reinforced.”
A commandant of the name of Pontuan, or Pontual, shouted in the
streets of Cayla: “Let nobody deceive himself; all the Huguenots
shall obey or perish, if I die myself!” The soldiers, aided by some
of the [Roman] Catholics, and frequently accompanied by the local
priests, tracked the children about the country, seized them as if
they were malefactors, and dragged them to the church.
“Some,” says Antoine Court, “ten, twelve, and fourteen years old,
absolutely refused to be led to the church, and it was necessary to
drag them there by main force; some uttered piercing shrieks that
went to the heart; others threw themselves like young lions upon
those who tried to seize them; others, again, who had no other means
of showing their despite, turned the ceremony into ridicule which
they were forced to undergo: when they were covered with a white
cloth, and the water was about to be sprinkled upon their heads, they
exclaimed: ‘Are they going to shave us?’ The curate and the garrison
of Lussan so greatly tortured the children of the village in dragging
them to the church, where they shut them up under lock and key, that
some of them told the curate they seemed to see the devil whenever
they looked upon him, and others, still more desperate, spat in his
face.”[122]