ANTOINE COURT
Almost at the very time that Louis XIV. was lying on his death-bed at
Versailles, a young man conceived the idea of re-establishing
Protestantism in France! Louis XIV. had tried to enter heaven by
superstition and cruelty. On his death-bed he began to doubt whether
he "had not carried his authority too far."[51] But the Jesuits tried
to make death easy for him, covering his body with relics of the true
cross.
[Footnote 51: Saint-Simon and Dangeau.]
Very different was the position of the young man who tried to undo all
that Louis XIV., under the influence of his mistress De Maintenon, and
his Jesuit confessor, Pere la Chase,[52] had been trying all his life
to accomplish. He was an intelligent youth, the son of Huguenot
parents in Viverais, of comparatively poor and humble condition. He
was, however, full of energy, activity, and a zealous disposition for
work. Observing the tendency which Protestantism had, while bereft of
its pastors, to run into gloomy forms of fanaticism, Antoine Court
conceived the idea of reviving the pastorate, and restoring the
proscribed Protestant Church of France. It was a bold idea, but the
result proved that Antoine Court was justified in entertaining it.
[Footnote 52: Amongst the many satires and epigrams with
which Louis XIV. was pursued to the grave, the following
epitaph may be given:--
"Ci gist le mari de Therese
De la Montespan le Mignon,
L'esclave de la Maintenon,
Le valet du pere La Chaise."
At the death of Louis XIV., Voltaire, an _eleve_ of the
Jesuits, was appropriately coming into notice. At the age of
about twenty he was thrown into the Bastille; for having
written a satire on Louis XIV., of which the following is an
extract:--
"J'ai vu sous l'habit d'une femme
Un demon nous donner la loi;
Elle sacrifia son Dieu, sa foi, son ame,
Pour seduire l'esprit d'un trop credule roi.
* * * * *
J'ai vu l'hypocrite honore:
J'ai vu, c'est dire tout, le jesuite adore:
J'ai vu ces maux sous le regne funeste
D'un prince que jadis la colere celeste
Accorda, par vengeance, a nos desirs ardens:
J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans."
Voltaire denied having written this satire.]
Louis XIV. died in August, 1715. During that very month, Court
summoned together a small number of Huguenots to consider his
suggestions. The meeting was held at daybreak, in an empty quarry near
Nismes, which has already been mentioned in the course of this
history. But it may here be necessary to inform the reader of the
early life of this enthusiastic young man.
Antoine Court was born at Villeneuve de Berg, in Viverais, in the year
1696. Religious persecution was then at its height; assemblies were
vigorously put down; and all pastors taken prisoners were hanged on
the Peyrou at Montpellier. Court was only four years old when his
father died, and his mother resolved, if the boy lived, to train him
up so that he might consecrate himself to the service of God. He was
still very young while the Camisard war was in progress, but he heard
a great deal about it, and vividly remembered all that he heard.
Antoine Court, like many Protestant children, was compelled to attend
a Jesuit school in his neighbourhood. Though but a boy he abhorred the
Mass. With Protestants the Mass was then the symbol of persecution; it
was identified with the Revocation of the Edict--the dragonnades, the
galleys, the prisons, the nunneries, the monkeries, and the Jesuits.
The Mass was not a matter of knowledge, but of fear, of terror, and of
hereditary hatred.
At school, the other boys were most bitter against Court, because he
was the son of a Huguenot. Every sort of mischief was practised upon
him, for little boys are generally among the greatest of persecutors.
Court was stoned, worried, railed at, laughed at, spit at. When
leaving school, the boys called after him "He, he! the eldest son of
Calvin!" They sometimes pursued him with clamour and volleys of stones
to the door of his house, collecting in their riotous procession all
the other Catholic boys of the place. Sometimes they forced him into
church whilst the Mass was being celebrated. In fact, the boy's hatred
of the Mass and of Catholicism grew daily more and more vehement.
All these persecutions, together with reading some of the books which
came under his notice at home, confirmed his aversion to the
Jesuitical school to which he had been sent. At the same time he
became desirous of attending the secret assemblies, which he knew were
being held in the neighbourhood. One day, when his mother set out to
attend one of them, the boy set out to follow her. She discovered him,
and demanded whither he was going. "I follow you, mother," said he,
"and I wish you to permit me to go where you go. I know that you go to
pray to God, and will you refuse me the favour of going to do so with
you?"
She shed tears at his words, told him of the danger of attending the
assembly, and strongly exhorted him to secrecy; but she allowed him to
accompany her. He was at that time too little and weak to walk the
whole way to the meeting; but other worshippers coming up, they took
the boy on their shoulders and carried him along with them.
At the age of seventeen, Court began to read the Bible at the
assemblies. One day, in a moment of sudden excitement, common enough
at secret meetings, he undertook to address the assembly. What he said
was received with much approval, and he was encouraged to go on
preaching. He soon became famous among the mountaineers, and was
regarded as a young man capable of accomplishing great things.
As he grew older, he at length determined to devote his life to
preaching and ministering to the forsaken and afflicted Protestants.
It was a noble, self-denying work, the only earthly reward for which
was labour, difficulty, and danger. His mother was in great trouble,
for Antoine was her only remaining son. She did not, however, press
him to change his resolution. Court quoted to her the text, "Whoever
loves father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me." After
this, she only saw in her son a victim consecrated, like another
Abraham, to the Divine service.
After arriving at his decision, Court proceeded to visit the Huguenots
in Low Languedoc, passing by Uzes to Nismes, and preaching wherever he
could draw assemblies of the people together. His success during this
rapid excursion induced him to visit Dauphiny. There he met Brunel,
another preacher, with knapsack on his back, running from place to
place in order to avoid spies, priests, and soldiers. The two were
equally full of ardour, and they went together preaching in many
places, and duly encouraging each other.
From Dauphiny, Court directed his steps to Marseilles, where the royal
galleys stationed there contained about three hundred Huguenot
galley-slaves. He penetrated these horrible floating prisons, without
being detected, and even contrived to organize amongst them a regular
system of secret worship. Then he returned to Nismes, and from thence
went through the Cevennes and the Viverais, preaching to people who
had never met for Protestant worship since the termination of the wars
of the Camisards. To elude the spies, who began to make hot search for
him, because of the enthusiasm which he excited, Court contrived to be
always on the move, and to appear daily in some fresh locality.
The constant fatigue which he underwent undermined his health, and he
was compelled to remain for a time inactive at the mineral waters of
Euzet. This retirement proved useful. He began to think over what
might be done to revivify the Protestant religion in France. Remember
that he was at that time only nineteen years of age! It might be
thought presumptuous in a youth, comparatively uninstructed, even to
dream of such a subject. The instruments of earthly power--King, Pope,
bishops, priests, soldiers, and spies--were all arrayed against him.
He had nothing to oppose to them but truth, uprightness, conscience,
and indefatigable zeal for labour.
When Court had last met the few Protestant preachers who survived in
Languedoc, they were very undecided about taking up his scheme. They
had met at Nismes to take the sacrament in the house of a friend.
There were Bombonnoux (an old Camisard), Crotte, Corteiz, Brunel, and
Court. Without coming to any decision, they separated, some going to
Switzerland, and others to the South and West of France. It now rested
with Court, during his sickness, to study and endeavour to arrange the
method of reorganization of the Church.
The Huguenots who remained in France were then divided into three
classes--the "new converts," who professed Catholicism while hating
it; the lovers of the ancient Protestant faith, who still clung to it;
and, lastly, the more ignorant, who still clung to prophesying and
inspiration. These last had done the Protestant Church much injury,
for the intelligent classes generally regarded them as but mere
fanatics.
Court found it would be requisite to keep the latter within the
leading-strings of spiritual instruction, and to encourage the "new
converts" to return to the church of their fathers by the
re-establishment of some efficient pastoral service. He therefore
urged that religious assemblies must be continued, and that discipline
must be established by the appointment of elders, presbyteries, and
synods, and also by the training up of a body of young pastors to
preach amongst the people, and discipline them according to the rules
of the Protestant Church. Nearly thirty years had passed since it had
been disorganized by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, so that
synods, presbyteries, and the training of preachers had become almost
forgotten.
The first synod was convened by Court, and held in the abandoned
quarry near Nismes, above referred to, in the very same month in which
Louis XIV. breathed his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or
three laymen and a few preachers[53] were present, the whole meeting
numbering only nine persons. The place in which the meeting was held
had often before been used as a secret place of worship by the
Huguenots. Religious meetings held there had often been dispersed by
the dragoons, and there was scarcely a stone in it that had not been
splashed by Huguenot blood. And now, after Protestantism had been
"finally suppressed," Antoine Court assembled his first synod to
re-establish the proscribed religion!
[Footnote 53: Edmund Hughes says the preachers were probably
Rouviere (or Crotte), Jean Huc, Jean Vesson, Etienne Arnaud,
and Durand.]
The first meeting took place on the 21st of August, 1715, at daybreak.
After prayer, Court, as moderator, explained his method of
reorganization, which was approved. The first elders were appointed
from amongst those present. A series of rules and regulations was
resolved upon and ordered to be spread over the entire province. The
preachers were then charged to go forth, to stir up the people and
endeavour to bring back the "new converts."
They lost no time in carrying out their mission. The first districts
in which they were appointed to work were those of Mende, Alais,
Viviers, Uzes, Nismes, and Montpellier, in Languedoc--districts which,
fifteen years before, had been the scenes of the Camisard war. There,
in unknown valleys, on hillsides, on the mountains, in the midst of
hostile towns and villages, the missionaries sought out the huts, the
farms, and the dwellings of the scattered, concealed, and
half-frightened Huguenots. Amidst the open threats of the magistrates
and others in office, and the fear of the still more hateful priests
and spies, they went from house to house, and prayed, preached,
advised, and endeavoured to awaken the zeal of their old allies of the
"Religion."
The preachers were for the most part poor, and some of them were
labouring men. They were mostly natives of Languedoc. Jean Vesson, a
cooper by trade, had in his youth been "inspired," and prophesied in
his ecstasy. Mazelet, now an elderly man, had formerly been celebrated
among the Camisards, and preached with great success before the
soldiers of Roland. At forty he was not able to read or write; but
having been forced to fly into Switzerland, he picked up some
education at Geneva, and had studied divinity under a fellow-exile.
Bombonnoux had been a brigadier in the troop of Cavalier. After his
chief's defection he resolved to continue the war to the end, by
preaching, if not by fighting. He had been taken prisoner and
imprisoned at Montpellier, in 1705. Two of his Camisard friends were
first put upon the rack, and then, while still living, thrown upon a
pile and burnt to death before his eyes. But the horrible character of
the punishment did not terrify him. He contrived to escape from prison
at Montpellier, and then went about convoking assemblies and preaching
to the people as before.
Besides these, there were Huc, Corteiz, Durand, Arnaud, Brunel, and
Rouviere or Crotte, who all went about from place to place, convoking
assemblies and preaching. There were also some local preachers, as
they might be called--old men who could not move far from home--who
worked at their looms or trades, sometimes tilling the ground by day,
and preaching at night. Amongst these were Monteil, Guillot, and
Bonnard, all more than sixty years of age.
Court, because of his youth and energy, seems to have been among the
most active of the preachers. One day, near St. Hypolite, a chief
centre of the Huguenot population, he convoked an assembly on a
mountain side, the largest that had taken place for many years. The
priests of the parish gave information to the authorities; and the
governor of Alais offered a reward of fifty pistoles to anyone who
would apprehend and deliver up to him the young preacher. Troops were
sent into the district; upon which Court descended from the mountains
towards the towns of Low Languedoc, and shortly after he arrived at
Nismes.
At Nismes, Court first met Jacques Roger, who afterwards proved of
great assistance to him in his work. Roger had long been an exile in
Wurtemburg. He was originally a native of Boissieres, in Languedoc,
and when a young man was compelled to quit France with his parents,
who were Huguenots. His heart, however, continued to draw him towards
his native country, although it had treated himself and his family so
cruelly.
As Roger grew older, he determined to return to France, with the
object of helping his friends of the "Religion." A plan had occurred
to him, like that which Antoine Court was now endeavouring to carry
into effect. The joy with which Roger encountered Court at Nismes, and
learnt his plans, may therefore be conceived. The result was, that
Roger undertook to "awaken" the Protestants of Dauphiny, and to
endeavour to accomplish there what Court was already gradually
effecting in Languedoc. Roger held his first synod in Dauphiny in
August, 1716, at which seven preachers and several elders or _anciens_
assisted.
In the meantime Antoine Court again set out to visit the churches
which had been reconstructed along the banks of the Gardon. He had
been suffering from intermittent fever, and started on his journey
before he was sufficiently recovered. Having no horse, he walked on
foot, mostly by night, along the least known by-paths, stopping here
and there upon his way. At length he became so enfeebled and ill as to
be unable to walk further. He then induced two men to carry him. By
crossing their hands over each other, they took him up between them,
and carried him along on this improvised chair.
Court found a temporary lodging with a friend. But no sooner had he
laid himself down to sleep, than the alarm was raised that he must get
up and fly. A spy had been observed watching the house. Court rose,
put on his clothes, and though suffering great pain, started afresh.
The night was dark and rainy. By turns shivering with cold and in an
access of fever, he wandered alone for hours across the country,
towards the house of another friend, where he at last found shelter.
Such were the common experiences of these wandering, devoted,
proscribed, and heroic ministers of the Gospel.
Their labours were not carried on without encountering other and
greater dangers. Now that the Protestants were becoming organized, it
was not so necessary to incite them to public worship. They even
required to be restrained, so that they might not too suddenly awaken
the suspicion or excite the opposition of the authorities. Thus, at
the beginning of 1717, the preacher Vesson held an open assembly near
Anduze. It was surprised by the troops; and seventy-two persons made
prisoners, of whom the men were sent to the galleys for life, and the
women imprisoned in the Tour de Constance. Vesson was on this occasion
reprimanded by the synod, for having exposed his brethren to
unnecessary danger.
While there was the danger of loss of liberty to the people, there was
the danger of loss of life to the pastors who were bold enough to
minister to their religious necessities. Etienne Arnaud having
preached to an assembly near Alais, was taken prisoner by the
soldiers. They took him to Montpellier, where he was judged,
condemned, and sent back to Alais to be hanged. This brave young man
gave up his life with great courage and resignation. His death caused
much sorrow amongst the Protestants, but it had no effect in
dissuading the preachers and pastors from the work they had taken in
hand. There were many to take the place of Arnaud. Young Betrine
offered himself to the synod, and was accepted.
Scripture readers were also appointed, to read the Bible at meetings
which preachers were not able to attend. There was, however, a great
want of Bibles amongst the Protestants. One of the first things done
by the young King Louis XV.--the "Well-beloved" of the Jesuits--on his
ascending the throne, was to issue a proclamation ordering the seizure
of Bibles, Testaments, Psalm-books, and other religious works used by
the Protestants. And though so many books had already been seized and
burnt in the reign of Louis XIV., immense piles were again collected
and given to the flames by the executioners.
"Our need of books is very great," wrote Court to a friend abroad; and
the same statement was repeated in many of his letters. His principal
need was of Bibles and Testaments; for every Huguenot knew the greater
part of the Psalms by heart. When a Testament was obtained, it was
lent about, and for the most part learnt off. The labour was divided
in this way. One person, sometimes a boy or girl, of good memory,
would undertake to learn one or more chapters in the Gospels, another
a certain number in the Epistles, until at last a large portion of the
book was committed to memory, and could be recited at the meetings of
the assemblies. And thus also it happened, that the conversation of
the people, as well as the sermons of their preachers, gradually
assumed a strongly biblical form.
Strong appeals were made to foreign Protestants to supply the people
with books. The refugees who had settled in Switzerland, Holland, and
England sent the Huguenots remaining in France considerable help in
this way. They sent many Testaments and Psalm-books, together with
catechisms for the young, and many devotional works written by French
divines residing in Holland and England--by Drelincourt, Saurin,
Claude and others. These were sent safely across the frontier in
bales, put into the hands of colporteurs, and circulated amongst the
Protestants all over the South of France. The printing press of Geneva
was also put in requisition; and Court had many of his sermons printed
there and distributed amongst the people.
Until this time, Court had merely acted as a preacher; and it was now
determined to ordain and consecrate him as a pastor. The ceremony,
though, comparatively unceremonious, was very touching. A large number
of Protestants in the Vaunage assembled on the night of the 21st
November, 1718, and, after prayer, Court rose and spoke for some time
of the responsible duties of the ministry, and of the necessity and
advantages of preaching. He thanked God for having raised up ministers
to serve the Church when so many of her enemies were seeking for her
ruin. He finally asked the whole assembly to pray for grace to enable
him to fulfil with renewed zeal the duties to which, he was about to
be called, together with all the virtues needed for success. At these
touching words the assembled hearers shed tears. Then Corteiz, the old
pastor, drew near to Court, now upon his knees, and placing a Bible
upon his head, in the name of Jesus Christ, and with the authority of
the synod, gave him power to exercise all the functions of the
ministry. Cries of joy were heard on all sides. Then, after further
prayer, the assembly broke up in the darkness of the night.
The plague which broke out in 1720 helped the progress of the new
Church. The Protestants thought the plague had been sent as a
punishment for their backsliding. Piety increased, and assemblies in
the Desert were more largely attended than before. The intendants
ceased to interfere with them, and the soldiers were kept strictly
within their cantonments. More preachers were licensed, and more
elders were elected. Many new churches were set up throughout
Languedoc; and the department of the Lozere, in the Cevennes, became
again almost entirely Protestant. Roger and Villeveyre were almost
equally successful in Dauphiny; and Saintonge, Normandy, and Poitou
were also beginning to maintain a connection with the Protestant
churches of Languedoc.