CHAPTER XIII

END OF THE PERSECUTIONS--THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

In the year 1762, the execution of an unknown Protestant at Toulouse

made an extraordinary noise in Europe. Protestant pastors had so often

been executed, that the punishment had ceased to be a novelty.

Sometimes they were simply hanged; at other times they were racked,

and then hanged; and lastly, they were racked, had their larger bones

broken, and were then hanged. Yet none of the various tortures

practised on the Protestant pastors had up to that time excited any

particular sensation in France itself, and still less in Europe.

Cruelty against French Huguenots was so common a thing in those days,

that few persons who were of any other religion, or of no religion at

all, cured anything about it. The Protestants were altogether outside

the law. When a Protestant meeting was discovered and surrounded, and

men, women, and children were at once shot down, no one could call the

murderers in question, because the meetings were illegal. The persons

taken prisoners at the meetings were brought before the magistrates

and sentenced to punishments even worse than death. They might be sent

to the galleys, to spend the remainder of their lives amongst

thieves, murderers, and assassins. Women and children found at such

meetings might also be sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tour de

Constance. There were even cases of boys of twelve years old having

been sent to the galleys for life, because of having accompanied their

parents to "the Preaching."[70]

[Footnote 70: Athanase Coquerel, "Les Forcats pour la Foi,"

91.]

The same cruelties were at that time practised upon the common people

generally, whether they were Huguenots or not. The poor creatures,

whose only pleasure consisted in sometimes hunting a Protestant, were

so badly off in some districts of France that they even fed upon

grass. The most distressed districts in France were those in which the

bishops and clergy were the principal owners of land. They were the

last to abandon slavery, which continued upon their estates until

after the Revolution.

All these abominations had grown up in France, because the people had

begun to lose the sense of individual liberty. Louis XIV. had in his

time prohibited the people from being of any religion different from

his own. "His Majesty," said his Prime Minister Louvois, "will not

suffer any person to remain in his kingdom who shall not be of his

religion." And Louis XV. continued the delusion. The whole of the

tyrannical edicts and ordinances of Louis XIV. continued to be

maintained.

It was not that Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were kings of any virtue or

religion. Both were men of exceedingly immoral habits. We have

elsewhere described Louis XIV., but Louis XV., the Well-beloved, was

perhaps the greatest profligate of the two. Madame de Pompadour, when

she ceased to be his mistress, became his procuress. This infamous

woman had the command of the state purse, and she contrived to build

for the sovereign a harem, called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, in the park of

Versailles, which cost the country at least a hundred millions of

francs.[71] The number of young girls taken from Paris to this place

excited great public discontent; and though morals generally were not

very high at that time, the debauchery and intemperance of the King

(for he was almost constantly drunk)[72] contributed to alienate the

nation, and to foster those feelings of hatred which broke forth

without restraint in the ensuing reign.

[Footnote 71: "Madame de Pompadour decouvrit que Louis XV.

pourrait lui-meme s'amuser a faire l'education de ces jeunes

malheureuses. De petites filles de neuf a douze ans,

lorsqu'elles avaient attire les regards de la police par leur

beaute, etaient enlevees a leurs meres par plusieurs

artifices, conduites a Versailles, et retenues dans les

parties les plus elevees et les plus inaccessibles des petits

appartements du roi.... Le nombre des malheureuses qui

passerent successivement a Parc-aux-Cerfs est immense; a leur

sortie elles etaient mariees a des hommes vils ou credules

auxquels elles apportaient une bonne dot. Quelques unes

conservaient un traitement fort considerable." "Les depenses

du Parc-aux-Cerfs, dit Lacratelle, se payaient avec des

acquits du comptant. Il est difficile de les evaluer; mais il

ne peut y avoir aucune exageration a affirmer qu'elles

couterent plus de 100 millions a l'Etat. Dans quelques

libelles on les porte jusqu'a un milliard."--SISMONDI,

_Histoire de Francaise_, Brussels, 1844, xx. 153-4. The

account given by Sismondi of the debauches of this persecutor

of the Huguenots is very full. It is _not_ given in the "Old

Court Life of France," recently written by a lady.]

[Footnote 72: Sismondi, xx. 157.]

In the midst of all this public disregard for virtue, a spirit of

ribaldry and disregard for the sanctions of religion had long been

making its appearance in the literature of the time. The highest

speculations which can occupy the attention of man were touched with a

recklessness and power, a brilliancy of touch and a bitterness of

satire, which forced the sceptical productions of the day upon the

notice of all who studied, read, or delighted in literature;--for

those were the days of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the great

men of "The Encyclopaedia."

While the King indulged in his vicious pleasures, and went reeking

from his debaucheries to obtain absolution from his confessors, the

persecution of the Protestants went on as before. Nor was it until

public opinion (such as it was) was brought to bear upon the hideous

incongruity that religious persecutions were at once brought summarily

to an end.

The last executions of Huguenots in France because of their

Protestantism occurred in 1762. Francis Rochette, a young pastor,

twenty-six years old, was laid up by sickness at Montauban. He

recovered sufficiently to proceed to the waters of St. Antonin for the

recovery of his health, when he was seized, together with his two

guides or bearers, by the burgess guard of the town of Caussade. The

three brothers Grenier endeavoured to intercede for them; but the

mayor of Caussade, proud of his capture, sent the whole of the

prisoners to gaol.

They were tried by the judges of Toulouse on the 18th of February.

Rochette was condemned to be hung in his shirt, his head and feet

uncovered, with a paper pinned on his shirt before and behind, with

the words written thereon--"_Ministre de la religion pretendue

reformee._" The three brothers Grenier, who interfered on behalf of

Rochette, were ordered to have their heads taken off for resisting the

secular power; and the two guides, who were bearing the sick Rochette

to St. Antonin for the benefit of the waters, were sent to the galleys

for life.

Barbarous punishments such as these were so common when Protestants

were the offenders, that the decision, of the judges did not excite

any particular sensation. It was only when Jean Calas was shortly

after executed at Toulouse that an extraordinary sensation was

produced--and that not because Calas was a Protestant, but because his

punishment came under the notice of Voltaire, who exposed the inhuman

cruelty to France, Europe, and the world at large.

The reason why Protestant executions terminated with the death of

Calas was as follows:--The family of Jean Calas resided at Toulouse,

then one of the most bigoted cities in France. Toulouse swarmed with

priests and monks, more Spanish than French in their leanings. They

were great in relics, processions, and confraternities. While

"mealy-mouthed" Catholics in other quarters were becoming somewhat

ashamed of the murders perpetrated during the Massacre of St.

Bartholomew, and were even disposed to deny them, the more outspoken

Catholics of Toulouse were even proud of the feat, and publicly

celebrated the great southern Massacre of St. Bartholomew which took

place in 1572. The procession then held was one of the finest church

commemorations in the south; it was followed by bishops, clergy, and

the people of the neighbourhood, in immense numbers.

Calas was an old man of sixty-four, and reduced to great weakness by a

paralytic complaint. He and his family were all Protestants excepting

one son, who had become a Catholic. Another of the sons, however, a

man of ill-regulated life, dissolute, and involved in pecuniary

difficulties, committed suicide by hanging himself in an outhouse.

On this, the brotherhood of White Penitents stirred up a great fury

against the Protestant family in the minds of the populace. The monks

alleged that Jean Calas had murdered his son because he wished to

become a Catholic. They gave out that it was a practice of the

Protestants to keep an executioner to murder their children who wished

to abjure the reformed faith, and that one of the objects of the

meetings which they held in the Desert, was to elect this executioner.

The White Penitents celebrated mass for the suicide's soul; they

exhibited his figure with a palm branch in his hand, and treated him

as a martyr.

The public mind became inflamed. A fanatical judge, called David, took

up the case, and ordered Calas and his whole family to be sent to

prison. Calas was tried by the court of Toulouse. They tortured the

whole family to compel them to confess the murder;[73] but they did

not confess. The court wished to burn the mother, but they ended by

condemning the paralytic father to be broken alive on the wheel.[74]

The parliament of Toulouse confirmed the atrocious sentence, and the

old man perished in torments, declaring to the last his entire

innocence. The rest of the family were discharged, although if there

had been any truth in the charge for which Jean Calas was racked to

death, they must necessarily have been his accomplices, and equally

liable to punishment.

[Footnote 73: Sismondi, xx. 328.]

[Footnote 74: To be broken alive on the wheel was one of the

most horrible of tortures, a bequest from ages of violence

and barbarism. It was preserved in France mainly for the

punishment of Protestants. The prisoner was extended on a St.

Andrew's cross, with eight notches cut on it--one below each

arm between the elbow and wrist, another between each elbow

and the shoulders, one under each thigh, and one under each

leg. The executioner, armed with a heavy triangular bar of

iron, gave a heavy blow on each of these eight places, and

broke the bone. Another blow was given in the pit of the

stomach. The mangled victim was lifted from the cross and

stretched on a small wheel placed vertically at one of the

ends of the cross, his back on the upper part of the wheel,

his head and feet hanging down. There the tortured creature

hung until he died. Some lingered five or six hours, others

much longer. This horrible method of torture was only

abolished at the French Revolution in 1790.]

The ruined family left Toulouse and made for Geneva, then the

head-quarters of Protestants from the South of France. And here it was

that the murder of Jean Calas and the misfortunes of the Calas family

came under the notice of Voltaire, then living at Ferney, near Geneva.

In the midst of the persecutions of the Protestants a great many

changes had been going on in France. Although the clergy had for more

than a century the sole control of the religious education of the

people, the people had not become religious. They had become very

ignorant and very fanatical. The upper classes were anything but

religious; they were given up for the most part to frivolity and

libertinage. The examples of their kings had been freely followed.

Though ready to do honour to the court religion, the higher classes

did not believe in it. The press was very free for the publication of

licentious and immoral books, but not for Protestant Bibles. A great

work was, however, in course of publication, under the editorship of

D'Alembert and Diderot, to which Voltaire, Rousseau, and others

contributed, entitled "The Encyclopaedia." It was a description of the

entire circle of human knowledge; but the dominant idea which pervaded

it was the utter subversion of religion.

The abuses of the Church, its tyranny and cruelty, the ignorance and

helplessness in which it kept the people, the frivolity and unbelief

of the clergy themselves, had already condemned it in the minds of the

nation. The writers in "The Encyclopaedia" merely gave expression to

their views, and the publication of its successive numbers was

received with rapture. In the midst of the free publication of

obscene books, there had also appeared, before the execution of Calas,

the Marquis de Mirabeau's "Ami des Hommes," Rousseau's "Emile," the

"Contrat Social," with other works, denying religion of all kinds, and

pointing to the general downfall, which was now fast approaching.

When the Calas family took refuge in Geneva, Voltaire soon heard of

their story. It was communicated to him by M. de Vegobre, a French

refugee. After he had related it, Voltaire said, "This is a horrible

story. What has become of the family?" "They arrived in Geneva only

three days ago." "In Geneva!" said Voltaire; "then let me see them at

once." Madame Calas soon arrived, told him the whole facts of the

case, and convinced Voltaire of the entire innocence of the family.

Voltaire was no friend of the Huguenots. He believed the Huguenot

spirit to be a republican spirit. In his "Siecle de Louis XIV.," when

treating of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he affirmed that

the Reformed were the enemies of the State; and though he depicted

feelingly the cruelties they had suffered, he also stated clearly that

he thought they had deserved them. Voltaire probably owed his hatred

of the Protestants to the Jesuits, by whom he was educated. He was

brought up at the Jesuit College of Louis le Grand, the chief

persecutor of the Huguenots. Voltaire also owed much of the looseness

of his principles to his godfather, the Abbe Chateauneuf, grand-prior

of Vendome, the Abbe de Chalieu, and others, who educated him in an

utter contempt for the doctrines they were appointed and paid to

teach. It was when but a mere youth that Father Lejay, one of

Voltaire's instructors, predicted that he would yet be the Coryphaeus

of Deism in France.

Nor was Voltaire better pleased with the Swiss Calvinists. He

encountered some of the most pedantic of them while residing at

Lausanne and Geneva.[75] At the latter place, he covered with sarcasm

the "twenty-four periwigs"--the Protestant council of the city. They

would not allow him to set up a theatre in Geneva, so he determined to

set up one himself at La Chatelaine, about a mile off, but beyond the

Genevese frontier. His object, he professed, was "to corrupt the

pedantic city." The theatre is still standing, though it is now used

only as a hayloft. The box is preserved from which Voltaire cheered

the performance of his own and other plays.

[Footnote 75: While Voltaire lived at Lausanne, one of the

baillies (the chief magistrates of the city) said to him:

"Monsieur de Voltaire, they say that you have written against

the good God: it is very wrong, but I hope He will pardon

you.... But, Monsieur de Voltaire, take very good care not to

write against their excellencies of Berne, our sovereign

lords, for be assured that they will _never_ forgive you."]

But though Voltaire hated Protestantism like every other religion, he

also hated injustice. It was because of this that he took up the case

of the Calas family, so soon as he had become satisfied of their

innocence. But what a difficulty he had to encounter in endeavouring

to upset the decision of the judges, and the condemnation of Calas by

the parliament of Toulouse. Moreover, he had to reverse their decision

against a dead man, and that man a detested Huguenot.

Nevertheless Voltaire took up the case. He wrote letters to his

friends in all parts of France. He wrote to the sovereigns of Europe.

He published letters in the newspapers. He addressed the Duke de

Choiseul, the King's Secretary of State. He appealed to philosophers,

to men of letters, to ladies of the court, and even to priests and

bishops, denouncing the sentence pronounced against Calas,--the most

iniquitous, he said, that any court professing to act in the name of

justice had ever pronounced. Ferney was visited by many foreigners,

from Germany, America, England, and Russia; as well as by numerous

persons of influence in France. To all these he spoke vehemently of

Calas and his sentence. He gave himself no rest until he had inflamed

the minds of all men against the horrible injustice.

At length, the case of Calas became known all over France, and in fact

all over Europe. The press of Paris rang with it. In the boudoirs and

salons, Calas was the subject of conversation. In the streets, men

meeting each other would ask, "Have you heard of Calas?" The dead man

had already become a hero and a martyr!

An important point was next reached. It was decided that the case of

Calas should be remitted to a special court of judges appointed to

consider the whole matter. Voltaire himself proceeded to get up the

case. He prepared and revised the memorials, he revised all the

pleadings of the advocates, transforming them into brief, conclusive

arguments, sparkling with wit, reason, and eloquence. The revision of

the process commenced. The people held their breaths while it

proceeded.

At length, in the spring of 1766--four years after Calas had been

broken to death on the wheel--four years after Voltaire had undertaken

to have the unjust decision of the Toulouse magistrates and parliament

reversed, the court of judges, after going completely over the

evidence, pronounced the judgment to have been entirely unfounded!

The decree was accordingly reversed. Jean Calas was declared to have

been innocent. The man was, however, dead. But in order to compensate

his family, the ministry granted 36,000 francs to Calas's widow, on

the express recommendation of the court which reversed the abominable

sentence.[76]

[Footnote 76: It may be added that, after the reversal of the

sentence, David, the judge who had first condemned Calas,

went insane, and died in a madhouse.]

The French people never forgot Voltaire's efforts in this cause.

Notwithstanding all his offences against morals and religion, Voltaire

on this occasion acted on his best impulses. Many years after, in

1778, he visited Paris, where he was received with immense enthusiasm.

He was followed in the streets wherever he went. One day when passing

along the Pont Royal, some person asked, "Who is that man the crowd is

following?" "Ne savez vous pas," answered a common woman, "que c'est

le sauveur de Calas!" Voltaire was more touched with this simple

tribute to his fame than with all the adoration of the Parisians.

It was soon found, however, that there were many persons still

suffering in France from the cruelty of priests and judges; and one of

these occurred shortly after the death of Calas. One of the ordinary

practices of the Catholics was to seize the children of Protestants

and carry them off to some nunnery to be educated at the expense of

their parents. The priests of Toulouse had obtained a _lettre de

cachet_ to take away the daughter of a Protestant named Sirven, to

compel her to change her religion. She was accordingly seized and

carried off to a nunnery. She manifested such reluctance to embrace

Catholicism, and she was treated with such cruelty, that she fled from

the convent in the night, and fell into a well, where she was found

drowned.

The prejudices of the Catholic bigots being very much excited about

this time by the case of Calas, blamed the family of Sirven (in the

same manner as they had done that of Calas) with murdering their

daughter. Foreseeing that they would be apprehended if they remained,

the whole family left the city, and set out for Geneva. After they

left, Sirven was in fact sentenced to death _par contumace_. It was

about the middle of winter when they set out, and Sirven's wife died

of cold on the way, amidst the snows of the Jura.

On his arrival at Geneva, Sirven stated his case to Voltaire, who took

it up as he had done that of Calas. He exerted himself as before.

Advocates of the highest rank offered to conduct Sirven's case; for

public opinion had already made considerable progress. Sirven was

advised to return to Toulouse, and offer himself as a prisoner. He did

so. The case was tried with the same results as before; the advocates,

acting under Voltaire's instructions and with his help, succeeded in

obtaining the judges' unanimous decision that Sirven was innocent of

the crime for which he had already been sentenced to death.

After this, there were no further executions of Protestants in France.

But what became of the Huguenots at the galleys, who still continued

to endure a punishment from day to day, even worse than death

itself?[77] Although, they were often cut off by fever, starvation,

and exposure, many of them contrived to live on to a considerable age.

After the trials of Calas and Sirven, the punishment of the galleys

was evidently drawing to an end. Only two persons were sent to the

galleys during the year in which Pastor Rochette was hanged. But a

circumstance came to light respecting one of the galley-slaves who had

been liberated in that very year (1762), which had the effect of

eventually putting an end to the cruelty.

[Footnote 77: The Huguenots sometimes owed their release from

the galleys to money payments made by Protestants (but this

was done secretly), the price of a galley-slave being about a

thousand crowns; sometimes they owed it to the influence of

Protestant princes; but never to the voluntary mercy of the

Catholics. In 1742, while France was at war with England, and

Prussia was quietly looking on, Antoine Court made an appeal

to Frederick the Great, and at his intervention with Louis

XV. thirty galley-slaves were liberated. The Margrave of

Bayreuth, Culmbach and his wife, the sister of the Great

Frederick, afterwards visited the galleys at Toulon, and

succeeded in obtaining the liberation of several

galley-slaves.]

The punishment was not, however, abolished by Christian feeling, or by

greater humanity on the part of the Catholics; nor was it abolished

through the ministers of justice, and still less by the order of the

King. It was put an end to by the Stage! As Voltaire, the Deist,

terminated the hanging of Protestants, so did Fenouillot, the player,

put an end to their serving as galley-slaves. The termination of this

latter punishment has a curious history attached to it.

It happened that a Huguenot meeting for worship was held in the

neighbourhood of Nismes, on the first day of January, 1756. The place

of meeting was called the Lecque,[78] situated immediately north of

the Tour Magne, from which the greater part of the city has been

built. It was a favourable place for holding meetings; but it was not

so favourable for those who wished to escape. The assembly had

scarcely been constituted by prayer, when the alarm was given that the

soldiers were upon them! The people fled on all sides. The youngest

and most agile made their escape by climbing the surrounding rocks.

[Footnote 78: This secret meeting-place of the Huguenots is

well known from the engraved picture of Boze.]

Amongst these, Jean Fabre, a young silk merchant of Nismes, was

already beyond reach of danger, when he heard that his father had been

made a prisoner. The old man, who was seventy-eight, could not climb

as the others had done, and the soldiers had taken him and were

leading him away. The son, who knew that his father would be sentenced

to the galleys for life, immediately determined, if possible, to

rescue him from this horrible fate. He returned to the group of

soldiers who had his father in charge, and asked them to take him

prisoner in his place. On their refusal, he seized his father and drew

him from their grasp, insisting upon them taking himself instead. The

sergeant in command at first refused to adopt this strange

substitution; but, conquered at last by the tears and prayers of the

son, he liberated the aged man and accepted Jean Fabre as his

prisoner.

Jean Fabre was first imprisoned at Nismes, where he was prevented

seeing any of his friends, including a certain young lady to whom he

was about shortly to be married. He was then transferred to

Montpellier to be judged; where, of course, he was condemned, as he

expected, to be sent to the galleys for life. With this dreadful

prospect before him, of separation from all that he loved--from his

father, for whom he was about to suffer so much; from his betrothed,

who gave up all hope of ever seeing him again--and having no prospect

of being relieved from his horrible destiny, his spirits failed, and

he became seriously ill. But his youth and Christian resignation came

to his aid, and he finally recovered.

The Protestants of Nismes, and indeed of all Languedoc, were greatly

moved by the fate of Jean Fabre. The heroism of his devotion to his

parent soon became known, and the name of the volunteer convict was

in every mouth. The Duc de Mirepoix, then governor of the province,

endeavoured to turn the popular feeling to some account. He offered

pardon to Fabre and Turgis (who had been taken prisoner with him)

provided Paul Rabaut, the chief pastor of the Desert, a hard-working

and indefatigable man, would leave France and reside abroad. But

neither Fabre, nor Rabaut, nor the Huguenots generally, had any

confidence in the mercy of the Catholics, and the proposal was coldly

declined.

Fabre was next sent to Toulon under a strong escort of cavalry. He was

there registered in the class of convicts; his hair was cut close; he

was clothed in the ignominious dress of the galley-slave, and placed

in a galley among murderers and criminals, where he was chained to one

of the worst. The dinner consisted of a porridge of cooked beans and

black bread. At first he could not touch it, and preferred to suffer

hunger. A friend of Fabre, who was informed of his starvation, sent

him some food more savoury and digestible; but his stomach was in such

a state that he could not eat even that. At length he became

accustomed to the situation, though the place was a sort of hell, in

which he was surrounded by criminals in rags, dirt, and vermin, and,

worst of all, distinguished for their abominable vileness of speech.

He was shortly after seized with a serious illness, when he was sent

to the hospital, where he found many Huguenot convicts imprisoned,

like himself, because of their religion.[79]

[Footnote 79: Letter of Jean Fabre, in Athanase Coquerel's

"Forcats pour la Foi," 201-3.]

Repeated applications were made to Saint-Florentin, the Secretary of

State, by Fabre's relatives, friends, and fellow Protestants for his

liberation, but without result. After he had been imprisoned for some

years, a circumstance happened which more than anything else

exasperated his sufferings. The young lady to whom he was engaged had

an offer of marriage made to her by a desirable person, which her

friends were anxious that she should accept. Her father had been

struck by paralysis, and was poor and unable to maintain himself as

well as his daughter. He urged that she should give up Fabre, now

hopelessly imprisoned for life, and accept her new lover.

Fabre himself was consulted on the subject; his conscience was

appealed to, and how did he decide? It was only after the bitterest

struggle, that he determined on liberating his betrothed. He saw no

prospect of his release, and why should he sacrifice her? Let her no

longer be bound up with his fearful fate, but be happy with another if

she could.

The young lady yielded, though not without great misgivings. The day

for her marriage with her new lover was fixed; but, at the last

moment, she relented. Her faithfulness and love for the heroic

galley-slave had never been shaken, and she resolved to remain

constant to him, to remain unmarried if need be, or to wait for his

liberation until death!

It is probable that her noble decision determined Fabre and Fabre's

friends to make a renewed effort for his liberation. At last, after

having been more than six years a galley-slave, he bethought him of a

method of obtaining at least a temporary liberty. He proposed--without

appealing to Saint-Florentin, who was the bitter enemy of the

Protestants--to get his case made known to the Duc de Choiseul,

Minister of Marine. This nobleman was a just man, and it had been in a

great measure through his influence that the judgment of Calas had

been reconsidered and reversed.

Fabre, while on the rowers' bench, had often met with a M. Johannot, a

French Protestant, settled at Frankfort-on-Maine, to whom he stated

his case. It may be mentioned that Huguenot refugees, on their visits

to France, often visited the Protestant prisoners at the galleys,

relieved their wants, and made intercession for them with the outside

world. It may also be incidentally mentioned that this M. Johannot was

the ancestor of two well-known painters and designers, Alfred and

Tony, who have been the illustrators of some of our finest artistic

works.

Johannot made the case of Fabre known to some French officers whom he

met at Frankfort, interested them greatly in his noble character and

self-sacrifice, and the result was that before long Fabre obtained,

directly from the Duc de Choiseul, leave of absence from the position

of galley-slave. The annoyance of Saint-Florentin, Minister of State,

was so well-known, that Fabre, on his liberation, was induced to

conceal himself. Nor could he yet marry his promised wife, as he had

not been discharged, but was only on leave of absence; and

Saint-Florentin obstinately refused to reverse the sentence that had

been pronounced against him.

In the meantime, Fabre's name was becoming celebrated. He had no idea,

while privately settled at Ganges as a silk stocking maker, that great

people in France were interesting themselves about his fate. The

Duchesse de Grammont, sister of the Duc de Choiseul, had heard about

him from her brother; and the Prince de Beauvau, governor of

Languedoc, the Duchesse de Villeroy, and many other distinguished

personages, were celebrating his heroism.

Inquiry was made of the sergeant who had originally apprehended Fabre,

upon his offering himself in exchange for his father (long since

dead), and the sergeant confirmed the truth of the noble and generous

act. At the same time, M. Alison, first consul at Nismes, confirmed

the statement by three witnesses, in presence of the secretary of the

Prince de Beauvau. The result was, that Jean Fabre was completely

exonerated from the charge on account of which he had been sent to the

galleys. He was now a free man, and at last married the young lady who

had loved him so long and so devotedly.

One day, to his extreme surprise, Fabre received from the Duc de

Choiseul a packet containing a drama, in which he found his own

history related in verse, by Fenouillot de Falbaire. It was entitled

"The Honest Criminal." Fabre had never been a criminal, except in

worshipping God according to his conscience, though that had for

nearly a hundred years been pronounced a crime by the law of France.

The piece, which was of no great merit as a tragedy, was at first

played before the Duchesse de Villeroy and her friends, with great

applause, Mdlle. Clairon playing the principal female part.

Saint-Florentin prohibited the playing of the piece in public,

protesting to the last against the work and the author. Voltaire

played it at Ferney, and Queen Marie Antoinette had it played in her

presence at Versailles. It was not until 1789 that the piece was

played in the theatres of Paris, when it had a considerable success.

We do not find that any Protestants were sent to be galley-slaves

after 1762, the year that Calas was executed. A reaction against this

barbarous method of treating men for differences of opinion seems to

have set in; or, perhaps, it was because most men were ceasing to

believe in the miraculous powers of the priests, for which the

Protestants had so long been hanged and made galley-slaves.

After the liberation of Fabre in 1762, other galley-slaves were

liberated from time to time. Thus, in the same year, Jean Albiges and

Jean Barran were liberated after eight years of convict life. They had

been condemned for assisting at Protestant assemblies. Next year,

Maurice was liberated; he had been condemned for life for the same

reason.

While Voltaire had been engaged in the case of Calas he asked the Duc

de Choiseul for the liberation of a galley-slave. The man for whom he

interceded, had been a convict twenty years for attending a Protestant

meeting. Of course, Voltaire cared nothing for his religion, believing

Catholicism and Protestantism to be only two forms of the same

superstition. The name of this galley-slave was Claude Chaumont. Like

nearly all the other convicts he was a working man--a little

dark-faced shoemaker. Some Protestant friends he had at Geneva

interceded with Voltaire for his liberation.

On Chaumont's release in 1764, he waited upon his deliverer to thank

him. "What!" said Voltaire, on first seeing him, "my poor little bit

of a man, have they put _you_ in the galleys? What could they have

done with you? The idea of sending a little creature to the

galley-chain, for no other crime than that of praying to God in bad

French!"[80] Voltaire ended by handing the impoverished fellow a sum

of money to set him up in the world again, when he left the house the

happiest of men.

[Footnote 80: "Voltaire et les Genevois," par J. Gaberel,

74-5.]

We may briefly mention a few of the last of the galley-slaves. Daniel

Bic and Jean Cabdie, liberated in 1764, for attending religious

meetings. Both were condemned for life, and had been at the

galley-chain for ten years.

Jean Pierre Espinas, an attorney, of St. Felix de Chateauneuf, in

Viverais, who had been condemned for life for having given shelter to

a pastor, was released in 1765, at the age of sixty-seven, after being

chained at the galleys for twenty-five years.

Jean Raymond, of Fangeres, the father of six children, who had been a

galley-slave for thirteen years, was liberated in 1767. Alexandre

Chambon, a labourer, more than eighty years old, condemned for life in

1741, for attending a religious meeting, was released in 1769, on the

entreaty of Voltaire, after being a galley-slave for twenty-eight

years. His friends had forgotten him, and on his release he was

utterly destitute and miserable.[81]

[Footnote 81: "Lettres inedites des Voltaire," publiees par

Athanase Coquerel fils, 247.]

In 1772, three galley-slaves were liberated from their chains. Andre

Guisard, a labourer, aged eighty-two, Jean Roque, and Louis Tregon, of

the same class, all condemned for life for attending religious

meetings. They had all been confined at the chain for twenty years.

The two last galley-slaves were liberated in 1775, during the first

year of the reign of Louis XVI., and close upon the outbreak of the

French Revolution. They had been quite forgotten, until Court de

Gebelin, son of Antoine Court, discovered them. When he applied for

their release to M. de Boyne, Minister of Marine, he answered that

there were no more Protestant convicts at the galleys; at least, he

believed so. Shortly after, Turgot succeeded Boyne, and application

was made to him. He answered that there was no need to recommend such

objects to him for liberation, as they were liberated already.

On the two old men being told they were released, they burst into

tears; but were almost afraid of returning to the world which no

longer knew them. One of them was Antoine Rialle, a tailor of Aoste,

in Dauphiny, who had been condemned by the parliament of Grenoble to

the galleys for life "for contravening the edicts of the King

concerning religion." He was seventy-eight years old, and had been a

galley-slave for thirty years.

The other, Paul Achard, had been a shoemaker of Chatillon, also in

Dauphiny. He was condemned to be a galley-slave for life by the

parliament of Grenoble, for having given shelter to a pastor. Achard

had also been confined at the galleys for thirty years.

It is not known when the last Huguenot women were liberated from the

Tour de Constance, at Aiguesmortes. It would probably be about the

time when the last Huguenots were liberated from the galleys. An

affecting picture has been left by an officer who visited the prison

at the release of the last prisoners. "I accompanied," he says, "the

Prince de Beauvau (the intendant of Languedoc under Louis XVI.) in a

survey which he made of the coast. Arriving at Aiguesmortes, at the

gate of the Tour de Constance, we found at the entrance the principal

keeper, who conducted us by dark steps through a great gate, which

opened with an ominous noise, and over which was inscribed a motto

from Dante--'Lasciate ogni speranza voi che'ntrate.'

"Words fail me to describe the horror with which we regarded a scene

to which we were so unaccustomed--a frightful and affecting picture,

in which the interest was heightened by disgust. We beheld a large

circular apartment, deprived of air and of light, in which fourteen

females still languished in misery. It was with difficulty that the

Prince smothered his emotion; and doubtless it was the first time that

these unfortunate creatures had there witnessed compassion depicted

upon a human countenance; I still seem to behold the affecting

apparition. They fell at our feet, bathed in tears, and speechless,

until, emboldened by our expressions of sympathy, they recounted to us

their sufferings. Alas! all their crime consisted in having been

attached to the same religion as Henry IV. The youngest of these

martyrs was more than fifty years old. She was but _eight_ when first

imprisoned for having accompanied her mother to hear a religious

service, and her punishment had continued until now!"[82]

[Footnote 82: Froissard, "Nismes et ses Environs," ii. 217.]

After the liberation of the last of the galley-slaves there were no

further apprehensions nor punishments of Protestants. The priests had

lost their power; and the secular authority no longer obeyed their

behests. The nation had ceased to believe in them; in some places they

were laughed at; in others they were detested. They owed this partly

to their cruelty and intolerance, partly to their luxury and

self-indulgence amidst the poverty of the people, and partly to the

sarcasms of the philosophers, who had become more powerful in France

than themselves. "It is not enough," said Voltaire, "that we prove

intolerance to be horrible; we must also prove to the French that it

is ridiculous."

In looking back at the sufferings of the Huguenots remaining in France

since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; at the purity,

self-denial, honesty, and industry of their lives; at the devotion

with which they adhered to religious duty and the worship of God; we

cannot fail to regard them--labourers and peasants though they

were--as amongst the truest, greatest, and worthiest heroes of their

age. When society in France was falling to pieces; when its men and

women were ceasing to believe in themselves and in each other; when

the religion of the State had become a mass of abuse, consistent only

in its cruelty; when the debauchery of its kings[83] had descended

through the aristocracy to the people, until the whole mass was

becoming thoroughly corrupt; these poor Huguenots seem to have been

the only constant and true men, the only men holding to a great idea,

for which they were willing to die--for they were always ready for

martyrdom by the rack, the gibbet, or the galleys, rather than forsake

the worship of God freely and according to conscience.

[Footnote 83: Such was the dissoluteness of the manners of

the court, that no less than 500,000,000 francs of the public

debt, or L20,000,000 sterling, had been incurred for expenses

too ignominious to bear the light, or even to be named in the

public accounts. It appears from an authentic document,

quoted in Soulavie's history, that in the sixteen months

immediately preceding the death of Louis XV., Madame du Barry

(originally a courtesan,) had drawn from the royal treasury

no less than 2,450,000 francs, or equal to about L200,000 of

our present money. ["Histoire de la Decadence de la Monarchie

Francaise," par Soulavie l'Aine, iii. 330.] "La corruption,"

says Lacretelle, "entrait dans les plus paisibles menages,

dans les familles les plus obscures. Elle [Madame du Barri]

etait savamment et longtemps combinee par ceux qui servaient

les debauches de Louis. Des emissaires etaient employees a

seduire des filles qui n'etaient point encore nubiles, a

combattre dans de jeunes femmes des principes de pudeur et de

fidelite. Amant de grade, il livrait a la prostitution

publique celles de ses sujettes qu'il avait prematurement

corrompues. Il souffrait que les enfans de ses infames

plaisirs partageassent la destinee obscure et dangereuse de

ceux qu'un pere n'avoue point." LACRETELLE, _Histoire de

France pendant le xviii Siecle_, iii. 171-173.]

But their persecution was now in a great measure at an end. It is

true the Protestants were not recognised, but they nevertheless held

their worship openly, and were not interfered with. When Louis XVI.

succeeded to the throne in 1774, on the administration of the oath for

the extermination of heretics denounced by the Church, the Archbishop

of Toulouse said to him: "It is reserved for you to strike the final

blow against Calvinism in your dominions. Command the dispersion of

the schismatic assemblies of the Protestants, exclude the sectarians,

without distinction, from all offices of the public administration,

and you will insure among your subjects the unity of the true

Christian religion."

No attention was paid to this and similar appeals for the restoration

of intolerance. On the contrary, an Edict of Toleration was issued by

Louis XVI. in 1787, which, though granting a legal existence to the

Protestants, nevertheless set forth that "The Catholic, Apostolic, and

Roman religion alone shall continue to enjoy the right of public

worship in our realm."

Opinion, however, moved very fast in those days. The Declaration of

Rights of 1789 overthrew the barriers which debarred the admission of

Protestants to public offices. On the question of tolerance, Rabaut

Saint-Etienne, son of Paul Rabaut, who sat in the National Assembly

for Nismes, insisted on the freedom of the Protestants to worship God

after their accustomed forms. He said he represented a constituency of

360,000, of whom 120,000 were Protestants. The penal laws against the

worship of the Reformed, he said, had never been formally abolished.

He claimed the rights of Frenchmen for two millions of useful

citizens. It was not toleration he asked for, _it was liberty_.

"Toleration!" he exclaimed; "sufferance! pardon! clemency! ideas

supremely unjust towards the Protestants, so long as it is true that

difference of religion, that difference of opinion, is not a crime!

Toleration! I demand that toleration should be proscribed in its turn,

and deemed an iniquitous word, dealing with us as citizens worthy of

pity, as criminals to whom pardon is to be granted!"[84]

[Footnote 84: "History of the Protestants of France," by G.

de Felice, book v. sect. i.]

The motion before the House was adopted with a modification, and all

Frenchmen, without distinction of religious opinions, were declared

admissible to all offices and employments. Four months later, on the

15th March, 1790, Rabaut Saint-Etienne himself, son of the long

proscribed pastor of the Desert, was nominated President of the

Constituent Assembly, succeeding to the chair of the Abbe Montesquieu.

He did not, however, occupy the position long. In the struggles of the

Convention he took part with the Girondists, and refused to vote for

the death of Louis XVI. He maintained an obstinate struggle against

the violence of the Mountain. His arrest was decreed; he was dragged

before the revolutionary tribunal, and condemned to be executed within

twenty-four hours.

The horrors of the French Revolution hide the doings of Protestantism

and Catholicism alike for several years, until Buonaparte came into

power. He recognised Catholicism as the established religion, and paid

for the maintenance of the bishops and priests. He also protected

Protestantism, the members of which were entitled to all the benefits

secured to the other Christian communions, "with the exception of

pecuniary subvention."

The comparative liberty which the Protestants of France had enjoyed

under the Republic and the Empire seemed to be in some peril at the

restoration of the Bourbons. The more bigoted Roman Catholics of the

South hailed their return as the precursors of renewed persecution:

and they raised the cry of "Un Dieu, un Roi, une Foi."

The Protestant mayor of Nismes was publicly insulted, and compelled to

resign his office. The mob assembled in the streets and sang ferocious

songs, threatening to "make black puddings of the blood of the

Calvinists' children."[85] Another St. Bartholomew was even

threatened; the Protestants began to conceal themselves, and many fled

for refuge to the Upper Cevennes. Houses were sacked, their inmates

outraged, and in many cases murdered.

[Footnote 85: See the Rev. Mark Wilks's "History of the

Persecutions endured by the Protestants of the South of

France, 1814, 1815, 1816." Longmans, 1821.]

The same scenes occurred in most of the towns and villages of the

department of Gard; and the authorities seemed to be powerless to

prevent them. The Protestants at length began to take up arms for

their defence; the peasantry of the Cevennes brought from their secret

places the rusty arms which their fathers had wielded more than a

century before; and another Camisard war seemed imminent.

In the meantime, the subject of the renewed Protestant persecutions in

the South of France was, in May, 1816, brought under the notice of the

British House of Commons by Sir Samuel Romilly--himself the descendant

of a Languedoc Huguenot--in a powerful speech; and although the

motion was opposed by the Government, there can be little doubt that

the discussion produced its due effect; for the Bourbon Government,

itself becoming alarmed, shortly after adopted vigorous measures, and

the persecution was brought to an end.

Since that time the Protestants of France have remained comparatively

unmolested. Evidences have not been wanting to show that the

persecuting spirit of the priest-party has not become extinct. While

the author was in France in 1870, to visit the scenes of the wars of

the Camisards, he observed from the papers that a French deputy had

recently brought a case before the Assembly, in which a Catholic cure

of Ville-d'Avray refused burial in the public cemetery to the corpse

of a young English lady, because she was a Protestant, and remitted it

to the place allotted for criminals and suicides. The body accordingly

lay for eighteen days in the cabin of the gravedigger, until it could

be transported to the cemetery of Sevres, where it was finally

interred.

But the people of France, as well as the government, have become too

indifferent about religion generally, to persecute any one on its

account. The nation is probably even now suffering for its

indifference, and the spectacle is a sad one. It is only the old, old

story. The sins of the fathers are being visited on the children.

Louis XIV. and the French nation of his time sowed the wind, and their

descendants at the Revolution reaped the whirlwind. And who knows how

much of the sufferings of France during the last few years may have

been due to the ferocious intolerance, the abandonment to vicious

pleasures, the thirst for dominion, and the hunger for "glory," which

above all others characterized the reign of that monarch who is in

history miscalled "the Great?"

It will have been noted that the chief scenes of the revival of

Protestantism described in the preceding pages occurred in Languedoc

and the South of France, where the chief strength of the Huguenots

always lay. The Camisard civil war which happened there, was not

without its influence. The resolute spirit which it had evoked

survived. The people were purified by suffering, and though they did

not conquer civil liberty, they continued to live strong, hardy,

virtuous lives. When Protestantism was at length able to lift up its

head after so long a period of persecution, it was found that, during

its long submergence, it had lost neither in numbers, in moral or

intellectual vigour, nor in industrial power.

To this day the Protestants of Languedoc cherish the memory of their

wanderings and worshippings in the Desert; and they still occasionally

hold their meetings in the old frequented places. Not far from Nismes

are several of these ancient meeting-places of the persecuted, to

which we have above referred. One of them is about two miles from the

city, in the bed of a mountain torrent. The worshippers arranged

themselves along the slopes of the narrow valley, the pastor preaching

to them from the grassy level in the hollow, while sentinels posted

on the adjoining heights gave warning of the approach of the enemy.

Another favourite place of meeting was the hollow of an ancient quarry

called the Echo, from which the Romans had excavated much of the stone

used in the building of the city. The congregation seated themselves

around the craggy sides, the preacher's pulpit being placed in the

narrow pass leading into the quarry. Notwithstanding all the

vigilance of the sentinels, many persons of both sexes and various

ages were often dragged from the Echo to imprisonment or death. Even

after the persecutions had ceased, these meeting-places continued to

be frequented by the Protestants of Nismes, and they were sometimes

attended by five or six thousand persons, and on sacrament days by

even double that number.

Although the Protestants of Languedoc for the most part belong to the

National Reformed Church, the independent character of the people has

led them to embrace Protestantism in other forms. Thus, the

Evangelical Church is especially strong in the South, whilst the

Evangelical Methodists number more congregations and worshippers in

Languedoc than in all the rest of France. There are also in the

Cevennes several congregations of Moravian Brethren. But perhaps one

of the most curious and interesting issues of the Camisard war is the

branch of the Society of Friends still existing in Languedoc--the only

representatives of that body in France, or indeed on the European

continent.

When the Protestant peasants of the Cevennes took up arms and

determined to resist force by force, there were several influential

men amongst them who kept back and refused to join them. They held

that the Gospel they professed did not warrant them in taking up arms

and fighting, even against the enemies who plundered and persecuted

them. And when they saw the excesses into which the Camisards were led

by the war of retaliation on which they had entered, they were the

more confirmed in their view that the attitude which the rebels had

assumed, was inconsistent with the Christian religion.

After the war had ceased, these people continued to associate

together, maintaining a faithful testimony against war, refusing to

take oaths, and recognising silent worship, without dependence on

human acquirements. They were not aware of the existence of a similar

body in England and America until the period of the French Revolution,

when some intercourse began to take place between them.

In 1807, Stephen Grellet, an American Friend, of French origin,

visited Languedoc, and held many religious meetings in the towns and

villages of the Lower Cevennes, which were not only attended by the

Friends of Congenies, St. Hypolite, Granges, St. Grilles, Fontane's,

Vauvert, Quissac, and other places in the neighbourhood of Nismes, but

by the inhabitants at large, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants.

At that time, as now, Congenies was regarded as the centre of the

district principally inhabited by the Friends, and there they possess

a large and commodious meeting-house, built for the purpose of

worship.

At the time of Stephen Grellet's visit, he especially mentioned Louis

Majolier as "a father and a pillar" amongst the little flock.[86] And

it may not be unworthy to note that the daughter of the same Louis

Majolier is at the present time one of the most acceptable female

preachers of the Society of Friends in England.

[Footnote 86: "Life of Stephen Grellet," third edition.

London, 1870.]

It may also be mentioned, in passing, that there still exist amongst

the Vosges mountains the remnants of an ancient sect--the Anabaptists

of Munster--who hold views in many respects similar to those of the

Friends. Amongst other things, they testify against war as

unchristian, and refuse under any circumstances to carry arms. Rather

than do so, they have at different times suffered imprisonment,

persecution, and even death. The republic of 1793 respected their

scruples, and did not require the Anabaptists to fight in the ranks,

but employed them as pioneers and drivers, while Napoleon made them

look after the wounded on the field of battle, and attend to the

waggon train and ambulances.[87] And we understand that they continue

to be similarly employed down to the present time.

[Footnote 87: Michel, "Les Anabaptistes des Vosges." Paris,

1862.]

* * * * *

It forms no part of our subject to discuss the present state of the

French Protestant Church. It has lost no part of its activity during

the recent political changes. Although its clergy had for some time

been supported by the State, they had not met in public synod until

June, 1872, after an interval of more than two hundred years. During

that period many things had become changed. Rationalism had invaded

Evangelicalism. Without a synod, or a settled faith, the Protestant

churches were only so many separate congregations, often representing

merely individual interests. In fact, the old Huguenot Church required

reorganization; and great results are expected from the proceedings

adopted at the recently held synod of the French Protestant

Church.[88]

[Footnote 88: The best account of the proceedings at this

synod is given in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for January, 1873.]

With respect to the French Catholic Church, its relative position to

the Protestants remains the same as before. But it has no longer the

power to persecute. The Gallican Church has been replaced by the

Ultramontane Church, but its impulses are no kindlier, though it has

become "Infallible."

The principal movement of the Catholic priests of late years has been

to get up appearances of the Virgin. The Virgin appears, usually, to

a child or two, and pilgrimages are immediately got up to the scene of

her visit. By getting up religious movements of this kind, the priests

and their followers believe that France will yet be helped towards the

_Revanche_, which she is said to long for.

But pilgrimages will not make men; and if France wishes to be free,

she will have to adopt some other methods. Bismarck will never be put

down by pilgrimages. It was a sad saying of Father Hyacinthe at

Geneva, that "France is bound to two influences--Superstition and

Irreligion."

MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED HUGUENOT REFUGEES.

I.

STORY OF SAMUEL DE PECHELS.

When Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, he issued a number of

decrees or edicts for the purpose of stamping out Protestantism in

France. Each decree had the effect of an Act of Parliament. Louis

combined in himself the entire powers of the State. The King's word

was law. "_L'etat c'est Moi_" was his maxim.

The Decrees which Louis issued were tyrannical, brutal, and cowardly.

Some were even ludicrous in their inhumanity. Thus Protestant grooms

were forbidden to give riding-lessons; Protestant barbers were

forbidden to cut hair; Protestant washerwomen were forbidden to wash

clothes; Protestant servants were forbidden to serve either Roman

Catholic or Protestant mistresses. They must all be "converted." A

profession of the Roman Catholic faith was required from simple

artisans--from shoemakers, tailors, masons, carpenters, and

such-like--before they were permitted to labour at their respective

callings.

The cruelty went further. Protestants were forbidden to be employed as

librarians and printers. They could not even be employed as labourers

upon the King's highway. They could not serve in any public office

whatever. They were excluded from the collection of the taxes, and

from all government departments. Protestant apothecaries must shut up

their shops. Protestant advocates were forbidden to plead before the

courts. Protestant doctors were forbidden to practise medicine and

surgery. The _sages-femmes_ must necessarily be of the Roman Catholic

religion.

The cruelty was extended to the family. Protestant parents were

forbidden to instruct their children in their own faith. They were

enjoined, under a heavy penalty, to have their children baptized by

the Roman Catholic priest, and brought up in the Roman Catholic

religion. When the law was disobeyed, the priests were empowered to

seize and carry off the children, and educate them, at the expense of

the parents, in monasteries and nunneries.

Then, as regards the profession of the Protestant religion:--It was

decreed by the King, that all the Protestant temples in France should

be demolished, or converted to other uses. Protestant pastors were

ordered to quit the country within fifteen days after the date of the

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. If found in the country after that

period, they were condemned to death. A reward of five thousand five

hundred livres was offered for the apprehension of any Protestant

pastor. When apprehended he was hung. Protestant worship was

altogether prohibited. If any Protestants were found singing psalms,

or engaged in prayer, in their own houses, they were liable to have

their entire property confiscated, and to be sent to the galleys for

life.

These monstrous decrees were carried into effect--at a time when

France reigned supreme in the domain of intellect, poetry, and the

arts--in the days of Racine, Corneille, Moliere--of Bossuet,

Bourdaloue, and Fenelon. Louis XIV. had the soldier, the hangman, and

the priest at his command; but they all failed him. They could

imprison, they could torture, they could kill, they could make the

Protestants galley-slaves; they could burn their Bibles, and deprive

them of everything that they valued; but the impregnable rights of

conscience defied them.

The only thing left for the Protestants was to fly from France in all

directions. They took refuge in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and

England. The flight from France had begun before the Revocation of the

Edict of Nantes, but after that act the flight rapidly increased. Not

less than a million of persons are supposed to have escaped from

France in consequence of the Revocation.

Steps were, however, taken by the King to stop the emigration. He

issued a decree ordering that the property and goods of all those

Protestants who had already escaped should be confiscated to the

Crown, unless they returned within three months from the date of the

Revocation. Then, with respect to the Protestants who remained in

France, he decreed that all French_men_ found attempting to escape

were to be sent to the galleys for life; and that all French_women_

found attempting to escape were to be imprisoned for life. The spies

who denounced the fugitive Protestants were rewarded by the

apportionment of half their goods.

This decree was not, however, considered sufficiently severe, and it

was shortly after followed by another, proclaiming that any captured

fugitives, as well as any person found acting as their guide, should

be condemned to death. Another royal decree was issued respecting

those fugitives who attempted to escape by sea. It was to the effect,

that before any ship was allowed to set sail for a foreign port, the

hold should be fumigated with a deadly gas, so that any hidden

Huguenot who could not otherwise be detected, might be suffocated to

death.

These measures, however, did not seem to have the effect of

"converting" the French Protestants. The Dragonnades were next

resorted to. Louis XIV. was pleased to call the dragoons his Booted

Missionaries, _ses missionnaires bottes_. The dragonnades are said to

have been the invention of Michel de Marillac, whose name will

doubtless descend to infamous notoriety, like those of Catherine de

Medicis, the Guises, and the authors of the Massacre of St.

Bartholomew.

Yet there was not much genius displayed in the invention of the

Dragonnades. It merely consisted in this: whenever it was found that a

town abounded with Huguenots, the dragoons, hussars, and troops of

various kinds were poured into it, and quartered on the inhabitants.

Twenty, thirty, or forty were quartered together, according to the

size of the house. They occupied every room; they beat their drums and

blew their trumpets; they smoked, drank, and swore, without any regard

to the infirm, the sick, or the dying, until the inmates were

"converted."

The whole army of France was let loose upon the Huguenots. They had

been beaten out of Holland by the Dutch Calvinists; and they could now

fearlessly take their revenge out of their unarmed Huguenot

fellow-countrymen. Whenever they quartered themselves in a dwelling,

it was, for the time being, their own. They rummaged the cellars,

drank the wines, ordered the best of everything, pillaged the house,

and treated everybody who belonged to it as a slave. The Huguenots

were not only compelled to provide for the entertainment of their

guests, but to pay them their wages. The superior officers were paid

fifteen francs a day, the lieutenants nine francs, and the common

soldiers three francs. If the money was not paid, the household

furniture, the horses and cows, and all the other articles that could

be seized, were publicly sold.

No wonder that so many Huguenots were "converted" by the dragoons.

Forty thousand persons were converted in Poitou. The regiment of

Asfeld was the instrument of their conversion. A company and a half of

dragoons occupied the house of a single lady at Poitiers until she was

converted to the Roman Catholic faith. What bravery!

The Huguenots of Languedoc were amongst the most obstinate of all.

They refused to be converted by the priests; and then Louis XIV.

determined to dragonnade them. About sixty thousand troops were

concentrated on the province. Noailles, the governor, shortly after

wrote to the King that he had converted the city of Nismes in

twenty-four hours. Twenty thousand converts had been made in

Montauban; and he promised that by the end of the month there would be

no more Huguenots left in Languedoc.

Many persons were doubtless converted by force, or by the fear of

being dragonnaded; but there were also many more who were ready to run

all risks rather than abjure their faith. Of those who abjured, the

greater number took the first opportunity of flying from France, by

land or by sea, and taking refuge in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, or

England. Many instances might be given of the heroic fortitude with

which the Huguenots bore the brutality of their enemies; but, for the

present, it may be sufficient to mention the case of the De Pechels of

Montauban.

The citizens of Montauban had been terribly treated before and after

the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The town had been one of the

principal Huguenot places of refuge in France. Hence its population

was principally Protestant. Its university had been shut up. Its

churches had been levelled to the ground. Its professors and pastors

had been banished from France. And now it was to be dragonnaded.

The town was filled with troops, who were quartered on the

Protestants. One of the burgesses called upon the Intendant, threw

himself at his feet, and prayed to be delivered from the dragoons. "On

one condition only!" replied Dubois, "that you become a Catholic." "I

cannot," said the townsman, "because, if the Sultan quartered twenty

janissaries on me, I might, for the same reason, be forced to become a

Turk."

Although many of the townsmen pretended to be converted, the

Protestant chiefs held firm to their convictions, and resisted all

persuasions, promises, and threats, to induce them to abjure their

religion. Amongst them were Samuel de Pechels de la Boissonade and the

Marquise de Sabonnieres, his wife, who, in the midst of many trials

and sorrows, preferred to do their duty to every other consideration.

The family of De Pechels had long been settled at Montauban. Being

regarded as among the heads of the Protestant party in Montauban, they

were marked out by the King's ministers for the most vigorous

treatment. When the troops entered the town on the 20th of August,

1685, they treated the inhabitants as if the town had been taken by

assault. The officers and soldiers vied with each other in committing

acts of violence. They were sanctioned by the magistrate, who

authorised their excesses, in conformity with the King's will. Tumult

and disorder prevailed everywhere. Houses were broken into. Persons of

the reformed religion, without regard to age, sex, or condition, were

treated with indignity. They were sworn at, threatened, and beaten.

Their families were turned out of doors. Every room in the house was

entered and ransacked of its plate, silk, linen, and clothes. When the

furniture was too heavy to be carried away, it was demolished. The

mirrors were slashed with swords, or shot at with pistols. In short,

so far as regarded their household possessions, the greater number of

the Protestants were completely ruined.

Samuel de Pechels de la Boissonade had no fewer than thirty-eight

dragoons and fusiliers quartered upon him. It was intended at first to

quarter these troopers on Roupeiroux, the King's adjutant; but having

promptly changed his religion to avoid the horrors of the dragonnade,

they were removed to the house of De Pechels, and he was ordered by

Chevalier Duc, their commander, to pay down the money which he had

failed to get from Roupeiroux, during the days that the troopers

should have occupied his house. De Pechels has himself told the story

of his sufferings, and we proceed to quote his own words:--

"Soon after," he says, "my house was filled with officers, troopers,

and their horses, who took possession of every room with such

unfeeling harshness that I could not reserve a single one for the use

of my family; nor could I make these unfeeling wretches listen to my

declaration that I was ready to give up all that I possessed without

resistance. Doors were broken open, boxes and cupboards forced. They

liked better to carry off what belonged to me in this violent manner

than to take the keys which my wife and I, standing on either side,

continued to offer. The granaries served for the reception of their

horses among the grain and meal, which the wretches, with the greatest

barbarity, made them trample underfoot. The very bread destined for my

little children, like the rest, was contemptuously trodden down by the

horses.

"Nothing could stop the brutality of these madmen. I was thrust out

into the street with my wife, now very near her confinement, and four

very young children, taking nothing with me but a little cradle and a

small supply of linen, for the babe whose birth was almost momentarily

expected. The street being full of people, diverted at seeing us thus

exposed, we were delayed some moments near the door, during which we

were pitilessly drenched by the troopers, who amused themselves at the

windows with emptying upon our heads pitchers of water, to add to

their enjoyment of our sad condition.

"From this moment I gave up both house and goods to be plundered,

without having in view any place of refuge but the street, ill suited,

it must be owned, for such a purpose, and especially so to a woman

expecting her confinement hourly, and to little children of too tender

an age to make their own way--some of them, indeed, being unable to

walk or speak--and having no hope but in the mercy of God and His

gracious protection."

De Pechels proceeded to the house of Marshal Boufflers, commander of

the district, thinking it probable that a man of honour, such as he

was supposed to be, would discourage such barbarities, and place the

dragoons under some sort of military control. But no! The Marshal

could not be found. He carefully kept out of the way of all Protestant

complainants. De Pechels, however, met Chevalier Duc, who commanded

the soldiers that had turned him out of his house. In answer to the

expostulations of De Pechels, the Chevalier gave him to understand

that the same treatment would be continued unless he "changed his

religion." "Then," answered De Pechels, "by God's help I never will."

At length, when De Pechels' house had been thoroughly stripped, and

the dragoons had decamped elsewhere, he received an order to return,

in order to entertain another detachment of soldiers. The criminal

judge, who had possession of the keys, entered the house, and found it

in extreme disorder. "I was obliged to remain in it," says De Pechels,

"amidst dirt and vermin, in obedience to the Intendant's orders,

reiterated in the strictest manner by the criminal judge, that I

should await the arrival of a fresh party of lodgers, who accordingly

came on the day following."

The new party consisted of six soldiers of the regiment of fusiliers,

who called themselves simply "missionaries," as distinct from the

"booted missionaries" who had just left. They were savage at not

finding anything to plunder, their predecessors having removed

everything in the shape of booty. The fusiliers were shortly followed

by six soldiers of Dampier's regiment, who were still more ferocious.

They gave De Pechels and his wife no peace day or night; they kept the

house in a constant uproar; swore and sang obscene songs, and carried

their insolence to the utmost pitch. At length De Pechels was forced

to quit the house, on account of his wife, who was near the time of

her confinement. These are his own words:--

"For a long time we were wandering through the streets, no one daring

to offer us an asylum, as the ordinance of the Intendant imposed a

fine of four or five hundred livres[89] upon any one who should

receive Protestants into their houses. My mother's house had long been

filled with soldiers, as well as that of my sister De Darassus; and

not knowing where to go, I suffered great agony of mind for fear my

poor wife should give birth to her infant in the street. In this

lamentable plight, the good providence of God led us to the house of

Mdlle. de Guarrison, my wife's sister, from whence, most fortunately,

a large number of soldiers, with their officers, were issuing. They

had occupied it for some time, and had allowed the family no rest. Now

they were changing their quarters, to continue their lawless mission

in some country town. The stillness of the house after their departure

induced us to enter it at once, and hardly had my wife accepted the

bed Mdlle. de Guarrison offered her, than she was happily delivered of

a daughter, blessed be God, who never leaves Himself without a witness

to those who fear His name.

[Footnote 89: The French livre was worth three francs, or

about two shillings and sixpence English money.]

"That same evening a great number of soldiers arrived, and took up

their quarters in M. de Guarrison's house, and two days after, this

burden was augmented by the addition of a colonel, a captain, and two

lieutenants, with a large company of soldiers and several servants,

all of whom conducted themselves with a degree of violence scarcely to

be described. They had no regard for the owners of the house, but

robbed them with impunity. They had no pity for my poor wife, weak and

ill as she was; nor for the helpless children, who suffered much under

these miserable conditions.

"Officers, soldiers, and servants pillaged the house with odious

rivalry, took possession of all the rooms, drove out the owners, and

obliged the poor sick woman (by their continual threats and abominable

conduct) to get up and try to retire to some other place. She crept

into the courtyard, where, with her infant, she was detained in the

cold for a long time by the soldiers, who would not allow her to quit

the premises. At length, however, my poor wife got into the street,

still, however, guarded by soldiers, who would not allow her to go out

of their sight, or to speak with any one. She complained to the

Intendant of their cruel ways, but instead of procuring her any

relief, he aggravated her affliction, ordering the soldiers to keep

strict watch over her, never to leave her, and to inform him with what

persons she found a refuge, that he might make them pay the penalty."

De Pechels' wife was thus under the necessity of sleeping, with her

babe and her children, in the street. After all was quiet, they sought

for a door-step, and lay down for the night under the stars.

Madame de Pechels at length found temporary shelter. Mademoiselle de

Delada, a friend of the Intendant, touched by the poor woman's sad

condition, implored the magistrate's permission to give her refuge;

and being a well-known Roman Catholic, she was at length permitted to

take Madame de Pechels and her babe into her house, but on condition

that four soldiers should still keep her in view. She remained there

for a short time, until she was able to leave her bed, when she was

privily removed to a country house belonging to Mademoiselle de

Delada, not far from the town of Montauban.

To return to Samuel de Pechels. His house was still overflowing with

soldiers. They proceeded to wreck what was left of his household

effects; they carried off and sold his papers and his library, which

was considerable. Some of the soldiers of Dampier's regiment carried

off in a sack a pair of brass chimney dogs, the shovel and tongs, a

grate, and some iron spits, the wretched remains of his household

furniture. They proceeded to lay waste his farms and carry off his

cattle, selling the latter by public auction in the square. They next

pulled down his house, and sold the materials. After this, ten

soldiers were quartered in a neighbouring tavern, at De Pechels'

expense. Not being able to pay the expenses, the Intendant sent some

archers to him to say that he would be carried off to prison unless

he changed his religion. To that proposal he answered, as before, that

"by the help of God he would never make that change, and that he was

quite prepared to go to any place to which his merciful Saviour might

lead him."

He was accordingly taken, into custody, and placed, for a time, in the

Royal Chateau. On the same day, his sister De Darassus was committed

to prison. Still holding steadfast by his faith, De Pechels was, after

a month's imprisonment at Montauban, removed to the prison of Cahors,

where he was put into the lowest dungeon. "By the grace of my

Saviour," said he, "I strengthened myself more in my determination to

die rather than renounce the truth."

After lying for more than three months in the dampest mould of the

lowest dungeon in the prison of Cahors, and being still found

immovable in his faith, De Pechels was ordered to be taken to the

citadel of Montpellier, to wait there until he could be transported to

America. His wife, the Marquise de Sabonnieres, having heard of his

condemnation (though he was never tried), determined to see him before

he left France for ever. The road from Cahors to Montpellier did not

pass through Montauban, but a few miles to the east of it. Having

spent the night in prayer to God, that He might endow her with

firmness to sustain the trials of a scene, which was as heroic in her

as it was touching to those who witnessed it, she went forth in the

morning to wait along the roadside for the arrival of the illustrious

body of prisoners, who were on their way, some to the galleys, some to

banishment, some to imprisonment, and some to death.

At length the glorious band arrived. They were chained two and two.

They were for the most part ladies and gentlemen who had refused to

abjure their religion. Among them were M. Desparves, a gentleman from

the neighbourhood of Laitoure, old and blind, led by his wife; M. de

la Resseguerie, of Montauban, and many more. Madame de Pechels

implored leave of the guard who conducted the prisoners to have an

interview with her husband. It was granted. She had been supplied with

the fortitude for which she had so ardently and piously prayed to God

during the whole of the past night. It seemed as if some supernatural

power had prompted the discourse with her husband, which softened the

hearts of those who, up to that time, had appeared inaccessible to the

sentiments of humanity. The superintendent allowed the noble couple to

pray together; after which they were separated without the least

weakness betraying itself on the part of Madame de Pechels, who

remained unmoved, whilst all the bystanders were melted into tears.

The procession of guards and prisoners then went on its way.

The trials of Madame de Pechels were not yet ended. Though she had

parted with her husband, who was now on his way to banishment, she had

still the children with her; and, cruellest torture of all! these were

now to be torn from her. One evening a devoted friend came to inform

her that a body of men were to arrive next morning and take her

children, even the baby from her breast, and immure them in a convent.

She was also informed that she herself was to be seized and

imprisoned.

The intelligence fell like a thunderbolt upon the tender mother. What

was she to do? Was she to abjure her religion? She prayed for help

from God. Part of the night was thus spent before she could make up

her mind to part from her innocent children, who were to be brought up

in a religion at variance with her own. In any case, a separation was

necessary. Could she not fly, like so many other Protestant women, and

live in hopes of better days to come? It was better to fly from France

than encounter the horrors of a French prison. Before she parted with

her children she embraced them while they slept; she withdrew a few

steps to tear herself from them, and again she came back to bid them a

last farewell!

At length, urged by the person who was about to give her a refuge in

his house, she consented to follow him. The man was a weaver by trade,

and all day long he carried on his work in the only room which he

possessed. Madame de Pechels passed the day in a recess, concealed by

the bed of her entertainers, and in the evening she came out, and the

good people supplied her with what was necessary. She passed six

months in this retreat, without any one knowing what had become of

her. It was thought that she had taken refuge in some foreign country.

Numbers of ladies had already been able to make their escape. The

frontier was strictly guarded by troops, police, and armed peasantry.

The high-roads as well as the byways were patrolled day and night, and

all the bridges were strongly guarded. But the fugitives avoided the

frequented routes. They travelled at night, and hid themselves during

the day. There were Protestant guides who knew every pathway leading

out of France, through forests, wastes, or mountain paths, where no

patrols were on the watch; and they thus succeeded in leading

thousands of refugee Protestants across the frontier. And thus it was

that Madame de Pechels was at length enabled, with the help of a

guide, to reach Geneva, one of the great refuges of the Huguenots.

On arrival there she felt the loss of her children more than ever.

She offered to the guide who had conducted her all the money that she

possessed to bring her one or other of her children. The eldest girl,

then nine or ten years old, was communicated with, but having already

tasted the pleasure of being her own mistress, she refused the

proposal to fly into Switzerland to join her mother. Her son Jacob was

next communicated with. He was seven years old. He was greatly moved

at the name of his mother, and he earnestly entreated to be taken to

where she was. The guide at once proceeded to fulfil his engagement.

The boy fled with him from France, passing for his son. The way was

long--some five hundred miles. The journey occupied them about three

weeks. They rested during the day, and travelled at night. They

avoided every danger, and at length the faithful guide was able to

place the loving son in the arms of his noble and affectionate mother.

Samuel de Pechels was condemned to banishment without the shadow of a

trial. He could not be dragooned into denying his faith, and he was

therefore imprisoned, preparatory to his expulsion from France. "I was

told," he said, "by the Sieur Raoul, Roqueton (or chief archer) to the

Intendant of Montauban, that if I would not change my religion, he had

orders from the King and the Intendant to convey me to the citadel of

Montpellier, from thence to be immediately shipped for America. My

reply was, that I was ready to go forthwith whithersoever it was God's

pleasure to lead me, and that assuredly, by God's help, I would make

no change in my religion."

After five months' imprisonment at Cahors, he was taken out and

marched, as already related, to the citadel of Montpellier. The

citadel adjoins the Peyrou, a lofty platform of rock, which commands

a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding country. It is now laid

out as a pleasure-ground, though it was then the principal

hanging-place of the Languedoc Protestants. Brousson, and many other

faithful pastors of the "Church in the Desert," laid down their lives

there. Half-a-dozen decaying corpses might sometimes be seen swinging

from the gibbets on which the ministers had been hung.

A more bitter fate was, however, reserved for De Pechels. After about

a month's imprisonment in the citadel, he was removed to Aiguesmortes,

under the charge of several mounted archers and foot soldiers. He was

accompanied by fourteen Protestant ladies and gentlemen, on their way

to perpetual imprisonment, to the galleys, or to banishment.

Aiguesmortes was the principal fortified dungeon in the south of

France, used for the imprisonment of Huguenots who refused to be

converted. It is situated close to the Mediterranean, and is

surrounded by lagunes and salt marshes. It is a most unhealthy place;

and imprisonment at Aiguesmortes was considered a slower but not a

less certain death than hanging. Sixteen Huguenot women were confined

there in 1686, and the whole of them died within five months. When the

prisoners died off, the place was at once filled again. The castle of

Aiguesmortes was thus used as a prison for nearly a hundred years.

De Pechels gives the following account of his journey from Montpellier

to Aiguesmortes:--"Mounted on asses, harnessed in the meanest manner,

without stirrups, and with wretched ropes for halters, we entered

Aiguesmortes, and were there locked up in the Tower of Constance, with

thirty other male prisoners and twenty women and girls, who had also

been brought hither, tied two and two. The men were placed in an

upper apartment of the tower, and the women and girls below, so that

we could hear each other pray to God and sing His praises with a loud

voice."

De Pechels did not long remain a prisoner at Aiguesmortes. He was

shortly after put on board a king's ship bound for Marseilles. He was

very ill during the voyage, suffering from seasickness and continual

fainting fits. On reaching Marseilles he was confined in the hospital

prison used for common felons and galley-slaves. It was called the

Chamber of Darkness, because of its want of light. The single

apartment contained two hundred and thirty prisoners. Some of them

were chained together, two and two; others, three and three. The

miserable palliasses on which they slept had been much worn by the

galley-slaves, who had used them during their illnesses. The women

were separated from the men by a linen cloth attached to the ceiling,

which was drawn across every evening, and formed the only partition

between them.

As may easily be supposed, the condition of the prisoners was

frightful. The swearing of the common felons was mixed with the

prayers of the Huguenots. The guards walked about all night to keep

watch and ward over them. They fell upon any who assembled and knelt

together, separating them and swearing at them, and mercilessly

ill-treating them, men and women alike. "But all their strictness and

rage," says De Pechels, "could not prevent one from seeing always, in

different parts of the dungeon, little groups upon their knees,

imploring the mercy of God and singing His praises, whilst others kept

near the guards so as to hinder them from interfering with the little

bands of worshippers."

At length the time arrived for the embarkation of the Huguenots for

America. On the 18th of September, 1687, De Pechels, with fifty-eight

men and twenty-one women, was put on board a _flute_ called the

_Mary_--the French _flute_ consisting of a heavy narrow-sterned

vessel, called in England a "pink." De Pechels was carefully separated

from all with whom he had formed habits of intimacy, and whose

presence near him would doubtless have helped him to bear the

bitterness of his fate. On the same day, ninety prisoners of both

sexes were embarked in another ship, named the _Concord_, bound for

the same destination. The two vessels set sail in the first place for

Toulon, in order to obtain an escort of two ships-of-war.

The voyage was very disastrous. Three hours after the squadron had

left Toulon, the _Mary_ was nearly dashed against a rock, owing to the

roughness of the weather. Three days after, a frightful storm arose,

and dashed the prisoners against each other. All were sick; indeed, De

Pechels' malady lasted during the entire voyage. The squadron first

cast anchor amongst the Formentera Islands, off the coast of Spain,

where they took in water. On the next day they anchored in the Straits

of Gibraltar for the same purpose. They next sailed for Cadiz, but a

strong west wind having set in, the ship was forced back to the road

of Gibraltar. After waiting there for three days they again started,

under the shelter of a Dutch fleet of eighteen sail, "which," says De

Pechels, "providentially saved us from falling into the hands of the

Algerine corsairs, some of whom had appeared in sight, and from whose

hands God, in His great mercy, delivered us." As if the Algerine

corsairs would have treated the Huguenots worse than their own king

was now treating them. The Algerine corsairs would have sold them into

slavery; whilst the French king was transporting them to America for

the same purpose.

At length the squadron reached Cadiz roads. Many ships were

there--English as well as Dutch. When the foreigners heard of the

state and misfortunes of the Huguenots on board the French ships, they

came to visit them in their anchoring ground, and were profuse in

their charity to the prisoners for conscience' sake confined in the

two French vessels. "God, who never leaves Himself without witness,

brought us consolation and relief from this town, where superstition

and bigotry reign in their fullest force." As it was in De Pechels'

day, so it is now.

At length the French squadron set sail for America. The voyage was

tedious and miserable. There were about a hundred and thirty prisoners

on board. Seventy of them were sick felons, chained with heavy irons.

Being useless for the French galleys, they were now being transported

to America, to be sold as slaves. The imprisoned Huguenots--men and

women--were fifty-nine in number. They were crammed into a part of the

ship that could scarcely hold them. They could not stand upright; nor

could they lie down. They had to lie upon each other. The den was

moreover very dark, the only light that entered it being through the

narrow hatchway; and even this was often closed. The wonder is that

they were not suffocated outright.

The burning heat of the sun shining on the deck above them, the

never-ceasing fire of the kitchen, which was situated alongside their

place of confinement, created such a stifling heat, that the prisoners

had to take off their shirts to relieve their agony. The horrid stench

arising from so many persons being crowded together, and the entire

want of the means of cleanliness, caused the inmates to become covered

with vermin. They were also tormented by the intolerable thirst which

no means were taken to allay. Their feeding was horrible; for they

must be kept alive in some way, in order that the intentions of their

gracious sovereign might be carried into effect. One day they had

stinking salt beef; the next, cod fish half boiled; then peas as hard

as when they were put into the pot; and at other times, dried cod

fish, or rank cheese. These things, together with the violent motion

of the sea, occasioned severe sickness, from which many of the

sufferers were relieved by death. This deplorable voyage extended over

five months. Here is De Pechels' account of the sufferings of the

prisoners, written in his own words:--

"The intense and suffocating heat, the horrible odour, the maddening

swarm of vermin that devoured us, the incessant thirst and wretched

fare, sufficed not to satisfy our overseers. They sometimes struck us

rudely, and very often threw down sea-water upon us, when they saw us

engaged in prayer and praise to God. The common talk of these enemies

of the truth was how they would hang, when they came to America, every

man who would not go to mass, and how they would deliver the women to

the natives. But far from being frightened at these threats, or even

moved by all the barbarities of which we were the victims, many of us

felt a secret joy that we were chosen to suffer for the holy name of

Jesus, who strengthened us with a willingness to die for His sake. For

myself, these menaces had been so often repeated during my

imprisonments, that they had become familiar; insomuch that, far from

being shaken by them any more than by the sufferings to which it had

pleased my Saviour to call me, I considered them as transient things,

not worthy to be weighed against the glory to come, and such as would

procure me a weight of glory supremely excellent. 'Blessed are they

who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom

of heaven.'"

On the 2nd of January, 1688, the island of San Domingo came in sight.

It was for the most part inhabited by savages. The French had a

settlement on the west coast of the island, and the Spaniards occupied

the eastern part. Dense forests separated the two settlements. The

_Mary_ coasted along the island, and afterwards made sail for

Guadaloupe, another colony belonging to the French. The ship seemed as

yet to have had no proper destination, for, four days later, the

_Mary_ weighed her anchor, and sailed to St. Christopher, another

island partly belonging to the French. "It was well situated," says De

Pechels, "as may readily be believed, when I add that it possessed a

colony of Jesuits--an order which never selects a bad situation. The

Jesuits here are very rich and in high repute. Two of the fraternity,

having come on board, were received by the crew with every

demonstration of respect; and on their retirement, three guns were

fired as a mark of honour to the distinguished visitors."

The Huguenots were still under hatches,--weary, longing, wretched, and

miserable. They were most anxious to be put on shore--anywhere, even

among savages. But the _Mary_ had not yet arrived at her destination.

She again set sail, and passed St. Kitts, St. Eustace, St. Croix,

Porto Rico, and at length again reached San Domingo. The ship dropped

anchor before Port au Prince, the residence of the governor. The

galley-slaves were disembarked and sold. Some of the Huguenots were

also sold for slaves, though De Pechels was not among them. The rest

were transferred to the _Maria_, a king's ship, commanded by M. de

Beauguay, who treated the prisoners with much humanity. The ship then

set sail for Leogane, another part of the colony, where the remaining

Huguenots were disembarked. They were quartered on the inhabitants at

the pleasure of the governor.

De Pechels says that he passed his time at this place in tranquillity,

waiting till it might please God to afford him an opportunity of

escaping from his troubles. He visited the inhabitants, especially

those of his own religious persuasion--a circumstance which gave much

umbrage to the Dominican monks. They ordered some of the bigots among

their parishioners to lodge a complaint against him with the governor,

to the effect that he was hindering his fellow-prisoners from becoming

Roman Catholics, and preventing those who had become so from going to

mass. He accordingly received a verbal command from M. Dumas, the

King's lieutenant, to repair immediately to Avache (probably La

Vache), an island about a hundred leagues distant from Leogane. He was

accordingly despatched by ship to Avache, which he reached on the 8th

of June. He was put in charge of Captain Laurans, a renowned

freebooter, and was specially lodged under his roof. The captain was

ordered never to lose sight of his prisoner.

De Pechels suffered much at this place in consequence of the intense

heat, and the insects, mosquitoes, and horrible flies by which he was

surrounded. "And yet," he says, "God in His great mercy willed that in

this very place I should find the means of escaping from my exile, and

making my way to the English island of Jamaica. On the 13th of August

a little shallop of that generous nation, in its course from the

island of St. Thomas to Jamaica, stopped at Avache to water and take

provisions. Two months already had I watched for such an opportunity,

and now that God had presented me with this, I thought it should not

be neglected. So fully was I persuaded of this, that without

reflecting upon the smallness of the shallop, I put myself on board

with victuals for four days, although assured that the passage would

only occupy three. But instead of performing the passage in three

days, as we had thought, it was ten days before we made the island,

during the whole of which time I was constantly unwell from bad

weather and consequent seasickness. During the last three days I

suffered also from hunger, my provisions being spent, with the

exception of some little wretched food, salt and smoky, which the

sailors eat to keep themselves from starving. God, in His great

compassion, preserved me from all dangers, and brought me happily to

Jamaica, where, however, I thought to leave my bones."

The voyage was followed by a serious illness. De Pechels was obliged

to take to his bed, where he lay for fifteen days prostrated by fever,

accompanied by incessant pains in his head. After the fever had left

him, he could neither walk nor stand. By slow degrees his strength

returned. He was at length able to walk; and he then began to make

arrangements for setting out for England. On the 1st of October he

embarked on board an English vessel bound for London. During his

voyage north he suffered from cold, as much as he had before suffered

from heat. At length the coast of England was sighted. Two days after,

the ship reached the Downs; and on the 22nd of December it was borne

up the Thames by the tide, to within about seven miles from London

Bridge. There the ship stopped to discharge part of her cargo; and De

Pechels, having taken his place on board a small sloop for the great

city, arrived there at ten o'clock the same night.

On arrival in London, De Pechels proceeded to make inquiry amongst his

Huguenot friends--who had by that time reached England in great

numbers--for his wife, his children, his mother, and his sisters.

Alas! what disappointment! He found no wife, no child, nor any

relation ready to welcome him. His wife, however, was living at

Geneva, with their only son; for the youngest had died at Montauban

during De Pechels' exile. His daughters were still at Montauban--the

eldest in a convent. His mother and youngest sister were both in

prison--the one at Moissac, the other at Auvillard. A message was,

however, sent to Madame de Pechels, that her husband was now in

England, and longing to meet her.

It was long before the message reached Madame de Pechels; and still

longer before she could join her husband in London. While at Geneva,

she had maintained herself and her son by the work of her hands. On

receiving the message she immediately set out, but her voyage could

not fail to be one of hardship to a person in her reduced

circumstances. We are not informed how she and her son contrived to

travel the long distance of eight hundred miles (by way of the Rhine

and Holland) from Geneva to London; but at length she reached the

English capital, when she had the mortification to find that her

husband was not there, but had left London for Ireland only four days

before. During the absence of her husband, Madame de Pechels, whose

courage never abandoned her, chose rather to stoop to the most

toilsome labours than to have recourse to the charity of the

government, of which many, less self-helping, or perhaps more

necessitous, did not scruple to take advantage.

We must now revert to the circumstances under which De Pechels left

London for Ireland. At the time when he arrived in England, the

country was in the throes of a Revolution. Only a month before,

William of Orange had landed at Torbay, with a large body of troops,

a considerable proportion of which consisted of Huguenot officers and

soldiers. There were three strong regiments of Huguenot infantry, and

a complete squadron of Huguenot cavalry. Marshal Schomberg, next in

command to William of Orange, was a banished Huguenot; and many of his

principal officers were French.

James II. had so distinctly shown his disposition to carry back the

nation to the Roman Catholic religion, that the Prince of Orange, on

his landing at Torbay, was hailed as the deliverer of England. His

troops advanced direct upon London. He was daily joined by fresh

adherents; by the gentry, officers, and soldiers. There was scarcely a

show of resistance; and when he entered London, James was getting on

board a smack in the Thames, and slinking ignominiously out of his

kingdom. Towards the end of June, 1689, William and Mary were

proclaimed King and Queen of Great Britain; and they were solemnly

crowned at Westminster about three months after.

But James II. had not yet been got rid of. In the spring of 1689 he

landed at Kinsale, in Ireland, with substantial help obtained from the

French king. Before many weeks had elapsed, forty thousand Irish stood

in arms to support his cause. It was clear that William III. must

fight for his throne, and that Ireland was to be the battle-field. He

accordingly called his forces together again--for the greater part had

been disbanded--when he prepared to take the field in person. Four

Huguenot regiments were at once raised, three infantry regiments, and

one cavalry regiment. The cavalry regiment was raised by Marshal

Schomberg, its colonel. It was composed of French gentlemen, privates

as well as officers. De Pechels was offered a commission in the

regiment, which he cheerfully accepted. He assumed the name of his

barony, La Boissonade, as was common in those days; and he acted as

lieutenant in the company of La Fontain.

The regiment, when completed, was at once despatched to the north of

Ireland to join the little army of about ten thousand Protestants, who

had already laid siege to and taken the fortified town of

Carrickfergus. Schomberg's regiment embarked from Chester, on Monday,

the 25th of August, 1689; and on the following Saturday the squadron

arrived in Belfast Lough. The troopers were landed a little to the

west of Carrickfergus, and marched along the road towards Belfast,

which is still known as "Troopers' Lane." Next day the Duke moved on

in pursuit of the enemy. The regiment passed through Belfast, which

was then a very small place. It consisted of a few streets of thatched

cottages, grouped around what is now known as the High Street of

Belfast. Schomberg's regiment joined the infantry and the

Enniskilleners, who were encamped in a wood on the west of the town.

Next morning the little army started in pursuit of the enemy, who,

though in much greater numbers, fled before them, laying waste the

country. At night Schomberg's troops encamped at Lisburn; on the

following day at Dromore; on the third at Brickclay (this must be

Loughbrickland); and then on to Newry. All the villages they passed

were either burnt or burning. At length they heard that James's Irish

army was at Newry, and that the Duke of Berwick (James's natural son)

was in possession of the town with a strong body of horse. But before

Schomberg could reach the place the Duke of Berwick had evacuated it,

leaving the town in flames. The Duke had fled with such haste that he

had left some of his baggage behind him, and thrown his cannon into

the river. Schomberg ordered his cavalry to advance rapidly upon

Dundalk, in order to prevent the town from sharing the same fate as

Newry. This forced march took the enemy by surprise. They suddenly

abandoned Dundalk, without burning it, and never paused until they had

reached the entrenched camp of King James.

The weather had now become cold, dreary, and rainy. Provisions were

scarcely to be had. The people of Dundalk were themselves starving.

Strong bodies of cavalry foraged the country, but were able to find

next to nothing in the shape of food for themselves, or corn for their

horses. The ships from England, laden with provisions which ought to

have arrived at Belfast, were forced back by contrary winds. Thus the

army was becoming rapidly famished. Disease soon made its appearance,

and carried off the men by hundreds. Schomberg's camp, outside

Dundalk, was situated by the side of a marsh--a most unwholesome

position; but the marsh protected him from the enemy, who were not far

off. The rain and snow continued; the men and the horses were

perpetually drenched; and scouring winds blew across the camp. Ague,

dysentery, and fever everywhere prevailed. Dalrymple has recorded that

of fifteen thousand men who belonged to Schomberg's army, not less

than eight thousand perished. Under these circumstances, the greatly

reduced force broke up from their cantonments and went into winter

quarters. Schomberg's cavalry regiment was stationed at Lurgan, then a

small village, which happily had not been burnt. De Pechels was one of

those who had been sick in camp, and was disabled from pursuing the

campaign further. After remaining for some weeks at Lurgan, he

obtained leave from the Duke of Schomberg to return to London. And

there, after the lapse of four years, he found and embraced his

beloved and noble wife.

De Pechels continued invalided, and was unable to rejoin the army of

King William. "After some stay in London," he says, in the memoir from

which the above extracts are made, "it was the King's pleasure to

exempt from further service certain officers specified by name, and to

assign them a pension. Through a kind Providence I was included in the

number. When I had lived in London on the pension which it had pleased

the king to allow those officers who were no longer in a position to

serve him, until the 1st of August, 1692, I then left that city, in

company with my wife and son, to remove into Ireland, whither my

pension was transferred."

De Pechels accordingly arrived in Dublin, where he spent the rest of

his days in peace and quiet. He lived to experience the truth of the

promise "that every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or

sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my

name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit

everlasting life." De Pechels died in 1732, at a ripe old age, in his

eighty-seventh year, and was interred in the Huguenot cemetery in the

neighbourhood of Dublin.

And what of the children left by De Pechels at Montauban? The two

daughters who were torn from their mother's care, and immured in a

convent, were brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. The little boy,

who was also taken from her, died shortly after. The daughters

accordingly secured the possession of the family estates. The eldest

married M. de Cahuzac, and the youngest, who was taken as a babe from

her mother's breast, married M. de St. Sardos; and the descendants of

the latter still possess La Boissonade, which exists as an old chateau

near Montauban.

It was left for Jacob de Pechels, the only son of Samuel de Pechels

and his wife, the Marquise de Sabonnieres, to build up the family

fortunes in England. Following the military instincts of the French,

he entered the English army at an early age. His name was entered

"Pechell" in his War Office commission. Probably this change of name

originated in the disposition of the naturalised Huguenots to adopt

names of an English sound rather than to retain their French names.

Numerous instances of this have already been given.[90] Jacob Pechell

was a gallant officer. He rose in the army, step by step. He fought

through the wars in the Low Countries, under Marlborough and Ligonier,

the latter being a Huguenot like himself. He rose through the various

grades of ensign, lieutenant, captain, and major, until he attained

the rank of colonel of the 16th regiment. Colonel Pechell married an

Irish heiress, Jane Elizabeth Boyd, descended from the Earls of

Kilmarnock. By her he had three sons and a daughter. Samuel, the

eldest, studied law, and became a Master in Chancery. George and Paul

obedient to their military instincts, entered the army, and became

distinguished officers. George was killed at Carthagena, and it was

left for Paul to maintain the fortunes of the family.

[Footnote 90: In "The Huguenots in England and Ireland," 319,

323, last edition.]

In those days the exiled Huguenots and their descendants lived very

much together. They married into each other's families. The richer

helped the poorer. There were distinguished French social circles,

where, though their country was forbidden them, they delighted to

speak in their own language. Like many others, the Pechells

intermarried with Huguenot families. Thus Samuel Pechell married the

daughter of Francois Gaultier, Esq., and his sister Mary married

Brigadier-General Cailland, of Aston Rowant.

Among the distinguished French nobles in London was the Marquis de

Montandre, descended from the De la Rochefoucaulds, one of the

greatest families in France. De Montandre was a field-marshal in the

English army, having rendered important services in the Spanish war.

His wife was daughter of Baron de Spanheim, Ambassador Extraordinary

for the King of Prussia, and descended from another Protestant

refugee. The field-marshal left his fortune to his wife, and when she

died, she left Samuel Pechell, Master in Chancery, her sole executor

and residuary legatee. The sum of money to which he became entitled on

her decease amounted to upwards of L40,000. But Mr. Pechell, from a

highly sensitive conscience--such as is rarely equalled--did not feel

himself perfectly justified in acquiring so large a fortune until he

knew that there were no relations of the testatrix in existence, whose

claim to inherit the property might be greater than his own. He

therefore collected all her effects, and put them into Chancery, in

order that those who could make good their claims by kindred to the

Marchioness might do so before the Chancellor. Accordingly, one family

from Berlin and another from Geneva appeared, and claimed, and

obtained the inheritance. These relations, in acknowledgment of the

kindness and honesty of Mr. Pechell, resolved on presenting him with a

set of Sevres china, which was at that time beyond all price in value.

It could only be had as a great favour from the manufactory at Sevres,

and was only purchased by, or presented to, crowned heads.[91]

[Footnote 91: This china is now at Castle Goring, and, with

the whole of the family documents, is in the possession of

the Dowager Lady Burrell.]

Paul Pechell, who had entered the army, became a distinguished

officer, and rose to the rank of general. In 1797 he was created a

baronet, and married Mary, the only daughter and heiress of Thomas

Brooke, Esq., of Pagglesham, Essex. His eldest son, Sir Thomas, was a

major-general in the army, and was for some time M.P. for Downton. The

second son, Augustus, was appointed Receiver-General of the Post

Office in 1785, and of the Customs in 1790. Many of his descendants

still survive, and the baronetcy reverted to his second son. He was

succeeded by his two sons, one of whom became rear-admiral, and the

other vice-admiral. The latter, Sir George Richard Brooke Pechell,

entered the Royal Navy in 1803, and served with distinction in several

engagements. After the peace, he represented the important borough of

Brighton in Parliament for twenty-four years. He married the daughter

and coheir of Cecil, Lord Zouche, and added Castle Goring to part of

the ancient possessions of the Bisshopp family, which she inherited at

her father's death.

William Cecil Pechell, the only son of Sir George, again following the

military instincts of his race, entered the army, and became captain

of the 77th regiment, with which he served during the Crimean war. He

fell leading on his men to repel an attack made by the Russians on the

advanced trenches before Sebastopol, on the 3rd of September, 1855. He

was beloved and deeply lamented by all who knew him; and sorrow at his

loss was expressed by the Queen, by the Commander-in-Chief, by the

whole of the light division, and by the mayor and principal

inhabitants of Brighton. A statue of Captain Pechell, by Noble, was

erected by public subscription, and now stands in the Pavilion at

Brighton.

II.

CAPTAIN RAPIN,

AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF ENGLAND."

When Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, he expelled from France

nearly all his subjects who would not conform to the Roman Catholic

religion. He drove out the manufacturers, who were for the most part

Protestants, and thus destroyed the manufacturing supremacy of France.

He expelled Protestants of every class--advocates, judges, doctors,

artists, scientists, teachers, and professors. And, last of all, he

expelled the Protestant soldiers and sailors.

According to Vauban, 12,000 tried soldiers, 9,000 sailors, and 600

officers left France, and entered into foreign service. Some went to

England, some to Holland, and some to Prussia. Those who took refuge

in Holland entered the service of William, Prince of Orange. Most of

them accompanied him to Torbay in 1688. They fought against the armies

of Louis XIV. at the Boyne, at Athlone, and at Aughrim, and finally

drove the French out of Ireland.

The sailors also did good service under the flags of England and

Holland. They distinguished themselves at the sea-fight off La Hogue,

where the English and Dutch fleets annihilated the expedition

prepared by Louis XIV. for a descent upon England.

The expatriated French soldiers occasionally revisited the country of

their birth, not as friends, but as enemies. They encountered the

armies of Louis XIV. in all the battles of the Low Countries. They

fought at Ramilies, Blenheim, and Malplacquet. A Huguenot engineer

directed the operations at the siege of Namur, which ended in the

capture of the fortress. Another Huguenot engineer conducted the

operations at Lisle, which was also taken by the allied forces. While

there, a flying party, consisting chiefly of French Huguenots,

penetrated as far as the neighbourhood of Paris, when they nearly

succeeded in carrying off the Dauphin.

The Huguenot officers who took refuge in Prussia entered the service

of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. Some were raised to the

highest offices in his army. Marshal Schomberg was one of the number.

But when he found that William of Orange was assembling a large force

in Holland for the purpose of making a descent upon England, he

requested leave to join him; and his friend Prince Frederick William,

though with great regret, at length granted him permission to leave

the Prussian service.

The subject of the following narrative was a French refugee, who

entered the service of William of Orange. To find the beginning of his

ancestry, we must reach far back into history. The Rapins were

supposed to have been driven from the Campagna of Rome during the

persecutions of Nero. They took refuge in one of the wildest and most

picturesque valleys of the Alps. In 1250 we find the Rapins

established near Saint-Jean de la Maurienne, in Savoy, close upon the

French frontier. Saint-Jean de la Maurienne was so called because of

the supposed relic of the bones of St. John the Baptist, which had

been deposited there by a female pilgrim, Sainte Thecle, who was, it

is supposed, a Rapin by birth. The fief of Chaudane en Valloires was

the patrimony of the Rapins, which they long continued to hold. In

1692 the descendants of the family endeavoured to prove, from the

numerous titles which they possessed, that they had been nobles for

eight or nine hundred years.

The home of the Rapins was situated in the country of the Vaudois. In

1375 the Vaudois descended from their mountains and preached the

gospel in the valleys of Savoy. The Pope appealed to the King of

France, who sent an army into the district. The Vaudois were crushed.

Those who remained fled back to the mountains. Nevertheless the

Reformed religion spread in the district. An Italian priest, Raphael

Bordeille, even preached the gospel in the cathedral of Saint-Jean de

Maurienne. But he was suddenly arrested. He was seized, tried for the

crime of heresy, and burnt in front of the cathedral on Holy Thursday,

in Passion Week, 1550.

Though the Rapin family held many high offices in Church and State,

several of them attached themselves to the Reformed religion. Three

brothers at length left their home in Savoy, and established

themselves in France during the reign of Francis I. Without entering

into their history during the long-continued religious wars which

devastated the south of France, it may be sufficient to state that two

of the brothers took an active part under Conde. Antoine de Rapin held

important commands at Toulouse, at Montauban, at Castres and

Montpellier. Philibert de Rapin, his younger brother, was one of the

most valiant and trusted officers of the Reformed party. He was

selected by the Prince of Conde to carry into Languedoc the treaty of

peace signed at Longjumeaux on the 20th March, 1568.

Feeling safe under the royal commission, he presented to the

Parliament at Toulouse the edict with which he was intrusted. He then

retired to his country house at Grenade, on the outskirts of Toulouse.

He was there seized like a criminal, brought before the judges, and

sentenced to be beheaded in three days. The treaty was thus annulled.

War went on as before. Two years after, the army of Coligny appeared

before Toulouse. The houses and chateaux of the councillors of

Parliament were burnt, and on their smoking ruins were affixed the

significant words, "_Vengeance de Rapin_."

Philibert de Rapin's son Pierre embraced the career of arms almost

from his boyhood. He served under the Prince of Navarre. He was almost

as poor as the Prince. One day he asked him for some pistoles to

replace a horse which had been killed under him in action. The Prince

replied, "I should like to give you them, but do you see I have only

three shirts!" Pierre at length became Seigneur and Baron of Manvers,

though his chateau was destroyed and burnt during his absence with the

army. Destructions of the same kind were constantly taking place

throughout the whole of France. But, to the honour of humanity, it

must be told that when his chateau was last destroyed, the Catholic

gentlemen of the neighbourhood brought their labourers to the place,

and tilled and sowed his abandoned fields. When Rapin arrived eight

months later, he was surprised and gratified to find his estate in

perfect order. This was a touching proof of the esteem with which this

Protestant gentleman was held by his Catholic neighbours.

Pierre de Rapin died in 1647 at the age of eighty-nine. He left

twenty-two children by his second wife. His eldest son Jean succeeded

to the estate of Manvers and to the title of baron. Like his father,

he was a soldier. He first served under the Prince of Orange, who was

then a French prince, head of the principality of Orange. He served

under the King of France in the war with Spain. He was a frank and

loyal soldier, yet firmly attached to the faith of his fathers. He

belonged to the old Huguenot phalanx, who, as the Duke de Mayenne

said, "were always ready for death, from father to son." After the

wars were over, he gave up the sword for the plough. His chateau was

in ruins, and he had to live in a very humble way until his fortunes

were restored. He used to say that his riches consisted in his four

sons, who were all worthy of the name they bore.

Jacques de Rapin, Seigneur de Thoyras, was the second son of Pierre de

Rapin. Thoyras was a little hamlet near Grenade, adjacent to the

baronial estate of Manvers. Jacques studied the law. He became an

advocate, and practised with success, for about fifty years, at

Castres and other cities and towns in the south of France. When the

Edict of Nantes was revoked, the Protestants were no longer permitted

to practise the law, and he was compelled to resign his profession. He

died shortly after, but the authorities would not even allow his

corpse to be buried in the family vault. They demolished his place of

interment, and threw his body into a ditch by the side of the road.

In the meantime Paul de Rapin, son of Jean, Baron de Manvers, had

married the eldest daughter of Jacques, Seigneur de Thoyras. Paul,

like many of his ancestors, entered the army. He served with

distinction under the Duke of Luxembourg in Holland, Flanders, and

Italy, yet he never rose above the rank of captain. On his death in

1685, his widow and two daughters (being Protestants) were apprehended

in their chateau at Manvers, and incarcerated in convents at

Montpellier and Toulouse. Her sons were also taken away, and placed in

other convents. They were only liberated after five years'

confinement.

Madame de Rapin then resolved to quit France entirely. She contrived

to reach Holland, and established her family at Utrecht. Her

brother-in-law, Daniel de Rapin, had already escaped from France, and

achieved the position of colonel in the Dutch service.

Raoul de Cazenove, the author of "Rapin-Thoyras, sa Famille, sa Vie,

et ses OEuvres," says, "The women of the house of Rapin distinguished

themselves more than once by like courage. Strengthened and fortified

by persecutions, the Reformed were willing to die in exile, far from

their beloved children who had been violently snatched from them, but

leaving with them a holy heritage of example and of firmness in their

faith. The pious lessons of their mothers, profoundly engraved on the

hearts of their daughters, sufficed more than once to save them from

apostasy, which was rendered all the more easy by the feebleness of

their youth and the perfidious suggestions by which they were

surrounded."

We return to Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, second son of Madame de Rapin. He

was born at Castres in 1661. He received his first lessons at home. He

learnt the Latin rudiments, but his progress was not such as to

please his father. He was then sent to the academy at Puylaurens,

where the Protestant noblesse of the south of France were still

permitted to send their sons. The celebrated Bayle was educated there.

But in 1685 the academy of Puylaurens was suppressed, as that of

Montauban had been a few years before; and then young Rapin was sent

to Saumur, one of the few remaining schools in France where

Protestants were allowed to be educated.

Rapin finished his studies and returned home. He wished to enter the

army, but his father was so much opposed to it, that he at length

acceded to his desires and commenced the study of the law. He was

already prepared for being received to the office of advocate, when

the royal edict was passed which prevented Protestants from practising

before the courts; and, indeed, prevented them from following any

profession whatever. Immediately after the death of his father, Paul

de Rapin, accompanied by his younger brother Solomon, emigrated from

France and proceeded into England.