REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT.
The organization of the Church in the Desert is one of the most
curious things in history. Secret meetings of the Huguenots had long
been held in France. They were began several years before the Act of
Revocation was proclaimed, when the dragonnades were on foot, and
while the Protestant temples were being demolished by the Government.
The Huguenots then arranged to meet and hold their worship in retired
places.
As the meetings were at first held, for the most part, in Languedoc,
and as much of that province, especially in the district of the
Cevennes, is really waste and desert land, the meetings were at first
called "Assemblies in the Desert," and for nearly a hundred years they
retained that name.
When Court began to reorganize the Protestant Church in France,
shortly after the Camisard war, meetings in the Desert had become
almost unknown. There were occasional prayer-meetings, at which
chapters of the Bible were read or recited by those who remembered
them, and psalms were sung; but there were few or no meetings at which
pastors presided. Court, however, resolved not only to revive the
meetings of the Church in the Desert, but to reconstitute the
congregations, and restore the system of governing them according to
the methods of the Huguenot Church.
The first thing done in reconstituting a congregation, was to appoint
certain well-known religious men, as _anciens_ or elders. These were
very important officers. They formed the church in the first instance;
for where there were no elders, there was no church. They were members
of the _consistoire_ or presbytery. They looked after the flock,
visited them in their families, made collections, named the pastors,
and maintained peace, order, and discipline amongst the people. Though
first nominated by the pastors, they were elected by the congregation;
and the reason for their election was their known ability, zeal, and
piety.
The elder was always present at the assemblies, though the minister
was absent. He prevented the members from succumbing to temptation and
falling away; he censured scandal; he kept up the flame of religious
zeal, and encouraged the failing and helpless; he distributed amongst
the poorest the collections made and intrusted to him by the Church.
We have said that part of the duty of the elders was to censure
scandal amongst the members. If their conduct was not considered
becoming the Christian life, they were not visited by the pastors and
were not allowed to attend the assemblies, until they had declared
their determination to lead a better life. What a punishment for
infraction of discipline! to be debarred attending an assembly, for
being present at which, the pastor, if detected, might be hanged, and
the penitent member sent to the galleys for life![54]
[Footnote 54: C. Coquerel, "Eglise du Desert," i. 105.]
The elders summoned the assemblies. They gave the word to a few
friends, and these spread the notice about amongst the rest. The news
soon became known, and in the course of a day or two, the members of
the congregation, though living perhaps in distant villages, would be
duly informed of the time and place of the intended meeting. It was
usually held at night,--in some secret place--in a cave, a hollow in
the woods, a ravine, or an abandoned farmstead.
Men, women, and even children were taken thither, after one, two, or
sometimes three leagues' walking. The meetings were always full of
danger, for spies were lurking about. Catholic priests were constant
informers; and soldiers were never far distant. But besides the
difficulties of spies and soldiers, the meetings were often dispersed
by the rain in summer, or by the snow in winter.
After the Camisard war, and before the appearance of Court, these
meetings rarely numbered more than a hundred persons. But Court and
his fellow-pastors often held meetings at which more than two thousand
people were present. On one occasion, not less than four thousand
persons attended an assembly in Lower Languedoc.
When the meetings were held by day, they were carefully guarded and
watched by sentinels on the look-out, especially in those places near
which garrisons were stationed. The fleetest of the young men were
chosen for this purpose. They watched the garrison exits, and when the
soldiers made a sortie, the sentinels communicated by signal from hill
to hill, thus giving warning to the meeting to disperse. But the
assemblies were mostly held at night; and even then the sentinels were
carefully posted about, but not at so great a distance.
The chief of the whole organization was the pastor. First, there were
the members entitled to church, privileges; next the _anciens_; and
lastly the pastors. As in Presbyterianism, so in Huguenot Calvinism,
its form of government was republican. The organization was based upon
the people who elected their elders; then upon the elders who selected
and recommended the pastors; and lastly upon the whole congregation of
members, elders, and pastors (represented in synods), who maintained
the entire organization of the Church.
There were three grades of service in the rank of pastor--first
students, next preachers, and lastly pastors. Wonderful that there
should have been students of a profession, to follow which was almost
equal to a sentence of death! But there were plenty of young
enthusiasts ready to brave martyrdom in the service of the proscribed
Church. Sometimes it was even necessary to restrain them in their
applications.
Court once wrote to Pierre Durand, at a time when the latter was
restoring order and organization in Viverais: "Sound and examine well
the persons offering themselves for your approval, before permitting
them to enter on this glorious employment. Secure good, virtuous men,
full of zeal for the cause of truth. It is piety only that inspires
nobility and greatness of soul. Piety sustains us under the most
extreme dangers, and triumphs over the severest obstacles. The good
conscience always marches forward with its head erect."
When the character of the young applicants was approved, their studies
then proceeded, like everything else connected with the proscribed
religion, in secret. The students followed the professor and pastor in
his wanderings over the country, passing long nights in marching,
sometimes hiding in caves by day, or sleeping under the stars by
night, passing from meeting to meeting, always with death looming
before them.
"I have often pitched my professor's chair," said Court, "in a torrent
underneath a rock. The sky was our roof, and the leafy branches thrown
out from the crevices in the rock overhead, were our canopy. There I
and my students would remain for about eight days; it was our hall,
our lecture-room, and our study. To make the most of our time, and to
practise the students properly, I gave them a text of Scripture to
discuss before me--say the first eleven verses of the fifth chapter of
Luke. I would afterwards propose to them some point of doctrine, some
passage of Scripture, some moral precept, or sometimes I gave them
some difficult passages to reconcile. After the whole had stated their
views upon the question under discussion, I asked the youngest if he
had anything to state against the arguments advanced; then the others
were asked in turn; and after they had finished, I stated the views
which I considered most just and correct. When the more advanced
students were required to preach, they mounted a particular place,
where a pole had been set across some rocks in the ravine, and which
for the time served for a pulpit. And when they had delivered
themselves, the others were requested by turns to express themselves
freely upon the subject of the sermon which they had heard."
When the _proposant_ or probationer was considered sufficiently able
to preach, he was sent on a mission to visit the churches. Sometimes
he preached the approved sermons of other pastors; sometimes he
preached his own sermons, after they had been examined by persons
appointed by the synod. After a time, if approved by the moderator and
a committee of the synod, the _proposant_ was licensed to preach. His
work then resembled that of a pastor; but he could not yet administer
the sacrament. It was only when he had passed the synod, and been
appointed by the laying on of hands, that he could exercise the higher
pastoral functions.
Then, with respect to the maintenance of the pastors and preachers,
Court recounts, not without pride, that for the ten years between 1713
and 1723 (excepting the years which he spent at Geneva), he served the
Huguenot churches without receiving a farthing. His family and friends
saw to the supply of his private wants. With respect to the others,
they were supported by collections made at the assemblies; and, as the
people were nearly all poor, the amount collected was very small. On
one occasion, three assemblies produced a halfpenny and six
half-farthings.
But a regular system of collecting moneys was framed by the synods
(consisting of a meeting of pastors and elders), and out of the common
fund so raised, emoluments were assigned, first to those preachers who
were married, and afterwards to those who were single. In either case
the pay was very small, scarcely sufficient to keep the wolf from the
door.
The students for the ministry were at first educated by Court and
trained to preach, while he was on his dangerous journeys from one
assembly in the Desert to another. Nor was the supply of preachers
sufficient to visit the congregations already organized. Court had
long determined, so soon as the opportunity offered, of starting a
school for the special education of preachers and pastors, so that the
work he was engaged in might be more efficiently carried on. He at
first corresponded with influential French refugees in England and
Holland with reference to the subject. He wrote to Basnage and Saurin,
but they received his propositions coolly. He wrote to William Wake,
then Archbishop of Canterbury, who promised his assistance. At last
Court resolved to proceed into Switzerland, to stir up the French
refugees disposed to help him in his labours.
Arrived at Geneva, Court sought out M. Pictet, to whom he explained
the state of affairs in France. It had been rumoured amongst the
foreign Protestants that fanaticism and "inspiration" were now in the
ascendant among the Protestants of France. Court showed that this was
entirely a mistake, and that all which the proscribed Huguenots in
France wanted, was a supply of properly educated pastors. The friends
of true religion, and the enemies of fanaticism, ought therefore to
come to their help and supply them with that of which they stood most
in need. If they would find teachers, Court would undertake to supply
them with congregations. And Huguenot congregations were rapidly
increasing, not only in Languedoc and Dauphiny, but in Normandy,
Picardy, Poitou, Saintonge, Bearn, and the other provinces.
At length the subject became matured. It was not found desirable to
establish the proposed school at Geneva, that city being closely
watched by France, and frequently under the censure of its government
for giving shelter to refugee Frenchmen. It was eventually determined
that the college for the education of preachers should begin at
Lausanne. It was accordingly commenced in the year 1726, and
established under the superintendence of M. Duplan.
A committee of refugees called the "Society of Help for the Afflicted
Faithful," was formed at Lausanne to collect subscriptions for the
maintenance of the preachers, the pastors, and the seminary. These
were in the first place received from Huguenots settled in
Switzerland, afterwards increased by subscriptions obtained from
refugees settled in Holland, Germany, and England. The King of England
subscribed five hundred guineas yearly. Duplan was an indefatigable
agent. In fourteen years he collected fourteen thousand pounds. By
these efforts the number of students was gradually increased. They
came from all parts of France, but chiefly from Languedoc. Between
1726 (the year in which it was started) and 1753, ninety students had
passed through the seminary.
When the students had passed the range of study appointed by the
professors, they returned from Switzerland to France to enter upon the
work of their lives. They had passed the school for martyrdom, and
were ready to preach to the assemblies--they had paved their way to
the scaffold!
The preachers always went abroad with their lives in their hands. They
travelled mostly by night, shunning the open highways, and selecting
abandoned routes, often sheep-paths across the hills, to reach the
scene of their next meeting. The trace of their steps is still marked
upon the soil of the Cevennes, the people of the country still
speaking of the solitary routes taken by their instructors when
passing from parish to parish, to preach to their fathers.
They were dressed, for disguise, in various ways; sometimes as
peasants, as workmen, or as shepherds. On one occasion, Court and
Duplan travelled the country disguised as officers! The police heard
of it, and ordered their immediate arrest, pointing out the town and
the very house where they were to be taken. But the preachers escaped,
and assumed a new dress.
When living near Nismes, Court was one day seated under a tree
composing a sermon, when a party of soldiers, hearing that he was in
the neighbourhood, came within sight. Court climbed up into the tree,
where he remained concealed among the branches, and thus contrived to
escape their search.
On another occasion, he was staying with a friend, in whose house he
had slept during the previous night. A detachment of troops suddenly
surrounded the house, and the officer knocked loudly at the door.
Court made his friend go at once to bed pretending to be ill, while he
himself cowered down in the narrow space between the bed and the wall.
His wife slowly answered the door, which the soldiers were threatening
to blow open. They entered, rummaged the house, opened all the chests
and closets, sounded the walls, examined the sick man's room, and
found nothing!
Court himself, as well as the other pastors, worked very hard. On one
occasion, Court made a round of visits in Lower Languedoc and in the
Cevennes, at first alone, and afterwards accompanied by a young
preacher. In the space of two months and a few days he visited
thirty-one churches, holding assemblies, preaching, and administering
the sacrament, during which he travelled over three hundred miles. The
weather did not matter to the pastors--rain nor snow, wind nor storm,
never hindered them. They took the road and braved all. Even sickness
often failed to stay them. Sickness might weaken but did not overthrow
them.
The spies and police so abounded throughout the country, and were so
active, that they knew all the houses in which the preachers might
take refuge. A list of these was prepared and placed in the hands of
the intendant of the province.[55] If preachers were found in them,
both the shelterers and the sheltered knew what they had to expect.
The whole property and goods of the former were confiscated and they
were sent to the galleys for life; and the latter were first tortured
by the rack, and then hanged. The houses in which preachers were found
were almost invariably burnt down.
[Footnote 55: It has since been published in the "Bulletin de
la Societe du Protestantisme Francais."]
Notwithstanding the great secrecy with which the whole organization
proceeded, preachers were frequently apprehended, assemblies were
often surprised, and many persons were imprisoned and sent to the
galleys for life. Each village had its chief spy--the priest; and
beneath the priest there were a number of other spies--spies for
money, spies for cruelty, spies for revenge.
Was an assembly of Huguenots about to be held? A spy, perhaps a
traitor, would make it known. The priest's order was sufficient for
the captain of the nearest troop of soldiers to proceed to disperse
it. They marched and surrounded the assembly. A sound of volley-firing
was heard. The soldiers shot down, hanged, or made prisoners of the
unlawful worshippers. Punishments were sudden, and inquiry was never
made into them, however brutal. There was the fire for Bibles,
Testaments, and psalm-books; galleys for men; prisons and convents for
women; and gibbets for preachers.
In 1720 a large number of prisoners were captured in the famous old
quarry near Nismes, long the seat of secret Protestant worship. But
the troops surrounded the meeting suddenly, and the whole were taken.
The women were sent for life to the Tour de Constance, and the men,
chained in gangs, were sent all through France to La Rochelle, to be
imprisoned in the galleys there. The ambassador of England made
intercession for the prisoners, and their sentence was commuted into
one of perpetual banishment from France. They were accordingly
transported to New Orleans on the Mississippi, to populate the rising
French colony in that quarter of North America.
Thus crimes abounded, and cruelty when practised upon Huguenots was
never investigated. The seizure and violation of women was common.
Fathers knew the probable consequence when their daughters were
seized. The daughter of a Huguenot was seized at Uzes, in 1733, when
the father immediately died of grief. Two sisters were seized at the
same place to be "converted," and their immediate relations were
thrown into gaol in the meantime. This was a common proceeding. The
Tour de Constance was always filling, and kept full.
The dying were tortured. If they refused the viaticum they were
treated as "damned persons." When Jean de Molenes of Cahors died,
making a profession of Protestantism, his body was denounced as
damned, and it was abandoned without sepulture. A woman who addressed
some words of consolation to Joseph Martin when dying was condemned to
pay a fine of six thousand livres, and be imprisoned in the castle of
Beauregard; and as for Martin, his memory was declared to be damned
for ever. Many such outrages to the living and dead were constantly
occurring.[56] Gaolers were accustomed to earn money by exhibiting the
corpses of Huguenot women at fairs, inviting those who paid for
admission, to walk up and "see the corpse of a damned person."[57]
[Footnote 56: Edmund Hughes, "Histoire de la Restauration du
Protestantisme en France," ii. 94.]
[Footnote 57: Benoit, "Edit de Nantes," v. 987.]
Notwithstanding all these cruelties, Protestantism was making
considerable progress, both in Languedoc and Dauphiny. In reorganizing
the Church, the whole country had been divided into districts, and
preachers and pastors endeavoured to visit the whole of their members
with as much regularity as possible. Thus Languedoc was divided into
seven districts, and to each of those a _proposant_ or probationary
preacher was appointed. The presbyteries and synods met regularly and
secretly in a cave, or the hollow bed of a river, or among the
mountains. They cheered each other up, though their progress was
usually over the bodies of their dead friends.
For any pastor or preacher to be apprehended, was, of course, certain
death. Thus, out of thirteen Huguenots who were found worshipping in a
private apartment at Montpellier, in 1723, Vesson, the pastor, and
Bonicel and Antoine Comte, his assistants, were at once condemned and
hanged on the Peyrou, the other ten persons being imprisoned or sent
to the galleys for life.
Shortly after, Huc, the aged pastor, was taken prisoner in the
Cevennes, brought to Montpellier, and hanged in the same place. A
reward of a thousand livres was offered by Bernage, the intendant, for
the heads of the remaining preachers, the fatal list comprising the
names of Court, Cortez, Durand, Rouviere, Bombonnoux, and others. The
names of these "others" were not mentioned, not being yet thought
worthy of the gibbet.
And yet it was at this time that the Bishop of Alais made an appeal to
the government against the toleration shown to the Huguenots! In 1723,
he sent a long memorial to Paris, alleging that Catholicism was
suffering a serious injury; that not only had the "new converts"
withdrawn themselves from the Catholic Church, but that the old
Catholics themselves were resorting to the Huguenot assemblies; that
sometimes their meetings numbered from three to four thousand persons;
that their psalms were sometimes overheard in the surrounding
villages; that the churches were becoming deserted, the cures in some
parishes not being able to find a single Catholic to serve at Mass;
that the Protestants had ceased to send their children to school, and
were baptized and married without the intervention of the Church.
In consequence of these representations, the then Regent, the Duke of
Bourbon, sent down an urgent order to the authorities to carry out the
law--to prevent meetings, under penalty of death to preachers, and
imprisonment at the galleys to all who attended them, ordering that
the people should be _forced_ to go to church and the children to
school, and reviving generally the severe laws against Protestantism
issued by Louis XIV. The result was that many of the assemblies were
shortly after attacked and dispersed, many persons were made prisoners
and sent to the galleys, and many more preachers were apprehended,
racked, and hanged.
Repeated attempts were made to apprehend Antoine Court, as being the
soul of the renewed Protestant organization. A heavy reward was
offered for his head. The spies and police hunted after him in all
directions. Houses where he was supposed to be concealed were
surrounded by soldiers at night, and every hole and corner in them
ransacked. Three houses were searched in one night. Court sometimes
escaped with great difficulty. On one occasion he remained concealed
for more than twenty hours under a heap of manure. His friends
endeavoured to persuade him to leave the country until the activity of
the search for him had passed.
Since the year 1722, Court had undertaken new responsibilities. He had
become married, and was now the father of three children. He had
married a young Huguenot woman of Uzes. He first met her in her
father's house, while he was in hiding from the spies. While he was
engaged in his pastoral work his wife and family continued to live at
Uzes. Court was never seen in her company, but could only visit his
family secretly. The woman was known to be of estimable character, but
it gave rise to suspicions that she had three children without a known
father. The spies were endeavouring to unravel the secret, tempted by
the heavy reward offered for Court's head.
One day the new commandant of the town, passing before the door of the
house where Court's wife lived, stopped, and, pointing to the house,
put some questions to the neighbours. Court was informed of this, and
immediately supposed that his house had become known, that his wife
and family had been discovered and would be apprehended. He at once
made arrangements for having them removed to Geneva. They reached that
city in safety, in the month of April, 1729.
Shortly after, Court, still wandering and preaching about Languedoc,
became seriously ill. He feared for his wife, he feared for his
family, and conceived the design of joining them in Switzerland. A few
months later, exhausted by his labours and continued illness, he left
Languedoc and journeyed by slow stages to Geneva. He was still a young
man, only thirty-three; but he had worked excessively hard during the
last dozen years. Since the age of fourteen, in fact, he had
evangelized Languedoc.
Shortly before Court left France for Switzerland, the preacher,
Alexandre Roussel, was, in the year 1728, added to the number of
martyrs. He was only twenty-six years of age. The occasion on which he
was made prisoner was while attending an assembly near Vigan. The
whole of the people had departed, and Roussel was the last to leave
the meeting. He was taken to Montpellier, and imprisoned in the
citadel, which had before held so many Huguenot pastors. He was asked
to abjure, and offered a handsome bribe if he would become a Catholic.
He refused to deny his faith, and was sentenced to die. When Antoine
Court went to offer consolation to his mother, she replied, "If my son
had given way I should have been greatly distressed; but as he died
with constancy, I thank God for strengthening him to perform this last
work in his service."
Court did not leave his brethren in France without the expostulations
of his friends. They alleged that his affection for his wife and
family had cooled his zeal for God's service. Duplan and Cortez
expostulated with him; and the churches of Languedoc, which he himself
had established, called upon him to return to his duties amongst them.
But Court did not attend to their request. His determination was for
the present unshaken. He had a long arrears of work to do in quiet. He
had money to raise for the support of the suffering Church of France,
and for the proper maintenance of the college for students, preachers,
and pastors. He had to help the refugees, who still continued to leave
France for Switzerland, and to write letters and rouse the Protestant
kingdoms of the north, as Brousson had done before him some thirty
years ago.
The city of Berne was very generous in its treatment of Court and the
Huguenots generally. The Bernish Government allotted Court a pension
of five hundred livres a-year--for he was without the means of
supporting his family--all his own and his wife's property having been
seized and sequestrated in France. Court preached with great success
in the principal towns of Switzerland, more particularly at Berne, and
afterwards at Lausanne, where he spent the rest of his days.
Though he worked there more peacefully, he laboured as continuously as
ever in the service of the Huguenot churches. He composed addresses to
them; he educated preachers and pastors for them; and one of his
principal works, while at Lausanne, was to compose a history of the
Huguenots in France subsequent to the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes.
What he had done for the reorganization of the Huguenot Church in
France may be thus briefly stated. Court had begun his work in 1715,
at which time there was no settled congregation in the South of
France. The Huguenots were only ministered to by occasional wandering
pastors. In 1729, the year in which Court finally left France, there
were in Lower Languedoc 29 organized, though secretly governed,
churches; in Upper Languedoc, 11; in the Cevennes, 18; in the Lozere
12; and in Viverais, 42 churches. There were now over 200,000
recognised Protestants in Languedoc alone. The ancient discipline had
been restored; 120 churches had been organized; a seminary for the
education of preachers and pastors had been established; and
Protestantism was extending in Dauphiny, Bearn, Saintonge,[58] and
other quarters.
[Footnote 58: In 1726, a deputation from Guyenne, Royergue,
and Poitou, appeared before the Languedoc synod, requesting
preachers and pastors to be sent to them. The synod agreed to
send Maroger as preacher. Betrine (the first of the Lausanne
students) and Grail were afterwards sent to join him.
Protestantism was also reawakening in Saintonge and Picardy,
and pastors from Languedoc journeyed there to administer the
sacrament. Preachers were afterwards sent to join them, to
awaken the people, and reorganize the congregations.]
Such were, in a great measure, the results of the labours of Antoine
Court and his assistants during the previous fifteen years.