The Huguenots in France

ys been inhabited by a spirited and energetic people, born lovers of liberty. They were among the earliest to call in question the despotic authority over mind and conscience clai

they rejected Rome, and took their stand upon the individual responsibility of man to God. Count de Foix said to the legate of Innocent III.: "As to my religio

d of about sixty years. Armies were concentrated upon Languedoc, and

er parts of France. Languedoc was the principal stronghold of the Huguenots in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and when, in 1685, Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, which interdicted f

wealthy portion of the community. They were the best farmers, vine-dressers, manufacturers, and traders. The valley of Vaunage, lying to the westward of Nismes, was one of the richest and most highly cul

tant merchants of Nismes, of whom the Intendant wrote to the King in 1699, "If they

population. "By an unfortunate fatality," said he, "in nearly every kind of art the most sk

in," said he, "that one of the things which holds the Huguenots to their religion is the amount of information which they receive from their instructors, and which it is not thought necessary t

peaking," he said, "the new converts are much better off, being more laborious and industrious than the old Catholics of the province. The new converts must not be regarded as Catholics; they almost all preserve in their heart their attachment to their former religion. They may conf

g the persecutions which followed the Revocation. Of course nearly all the pastors fled, death being their punishment if they remained in France. Hence many of the most celebrated French preachers in Hol

s from Nismes; the Gaussens from Lunel; and the Bosanquets from Caila;[32] besides the Auriols, Arnauds, Péchels, De Beauvoirs, Durands, Portals, Boileaus, D'Albiacs, D'Olie

powerlessness. It was not believed that the smouldering ashes contained any sparks that might yet be fanned into flames. The Huguenot landed proprietors, the principal manufacturers, the best of the artisans, had left for other c

or to emigrate, and who remained, as it were, rooted to the soil on which they had been born. This was especially the case in the Cevennes, where, in many of the communes, almost the entire inhabita

agues in length, runs from north-east to south-west, and may almost be said to unite the Alps with the Pyrenees. From the centre of France the surface rises with a gradual slope, forming an inclined plane, which reaches its greatest height in th

g to the Jurassic-system; and in many places, especially in Auvergne, the granitic rocks have been burst through by volcanoes, long since extinct, which rise like enormous protuberances from the higher parts of the platform. Tow

tony of their form and their barren and rocky character. The valleys which separate them are rarely of considerable width. Winding, narrow, and all but impassable cliff-like glens predominate, giving to the Cev

he roads leading to the Upper Cevennes, whither they are driven for pasture. There is a comparatively small breadth of arable land in the district. The mountains in many places contain only soil enough to grow juniper-bushes. There is very little verdure to relieve the eye-few turf-clad slopes or earth-covered ledges to repay the tillage of the farmer. Even the mount

live, and the fig-tree, wherever there is soil enough, grow luxuriantly in the open air. Indeed, the country very much resembles in its character the land of Judea, being rocky, parched, and in many places waste, though in others

ys-a French contractor, accompanying a band of Italian miners, whom he was taking into the mountains to search for minerals, pointing to the sterile rocks, exclaimed to us, "Messieurs, b

of Ben MacDhui, was expatiating on its magnificence, and appealed to the native guide for confirmation of his news. "I dinna ken aboot the scenery," replied the man, "but there's plenty o' big rocks and stanes; an' the kintra's awfu' puir." Th

a race of heroes; and the men are as simple and kind as they are brave. Hospitality is a characteristic of the people, wh

nded in winter, during which they are shut up in their cabins for nearly six months by the ice and snow, they occupy themselves in preparing their wool for manufacture into cloth. The women card, the children spin, the men weave; and ea

which characterize the inhabitants of the South of France, they are probably, on the whole, more grave and staid than Frenchmen generally, and are

prominent characteristics of the

y fell upon the people; but they made no signs of resistance to the royal authority. For a time they remained comparatively passive, and it was at first thoug

had been apprehended for venturing to minister to them in "the Desert" had been taken to Nismes and Montpellier and hanged. Then they began to feel excited and indignant. For they could not shake off their own belief and embrace another man's, even though that man was their king. If Loui

science to be one of the principal. They were willing to give unto C?sar the things that were C?sar's; but they could not give him th

still meet and worship God, even though it were in defiance of the law. Having taken counsel together, they resolved "not to forsake the assembling of themselves together;" and they proceeded, in all the Protestant districts in the South of France-in Viverais, Daup

apprehend the ringleaders. These orders were carried out with much barbarity. Amongst various assemblies which were discovered and attacked in the Cevennes, were those of Auduze an

number. Then milder means were tried. Other meetings were attacked in like manner, and the people found attending them taken prisoners. They were then threatened with death unle

death provided they could but worship together. At length they felt themselves driven in their despair to resist force by force-acting, however,

ies, so as to be prepared to come together and give their assistance as occasion required. When meetings in the Desert were held, it became the duty of these enrolled men to post themselves as sentinels on the surrounding heights, and give notice of t

etter,[33] "that last Sunday there was an assembly of nearly four hundred men, many of them armed, at the foot of the mountain of Lozère. I had thought," he added, "that the great lesson taught them at Vigan and Anduze would hav

n 'the Desert;' why not take them at their word, and make the Cevennes really a Desert?" But there were difficulties in the way of executing this plan. In the first place, the Protestants of

it would be better to begin by expelling those who are not engaged in commerce, who inhabit inaccessible mountain districts, where the severity of the climate and the poverty of the soil render them rude and barbarous,

rewards, numerous meetings in the Desert were fallen upon by the troops, and those who were not hanged were transported-some to Italy, s

e raised throughout the province, forming together an army of some forty thousand men. Strong military posts were established in the mountains, and new forts and barracks were erected at Alais, Anduze, St. Hyppolyte, and Nis

til the very ferocity of their persecutors became wearied. The people would not be converted either by the dragoons or the priests who were stationed amongst them. In the dead of the night they would sally forth to their meetings in t

the devotion of these poor people should have run into fanaticism and superstition. Singing the psalms of Marot by night, under the shadow of echoing rocks, they fancied they heard the sounds of heavenly voice

aying itself chiefly in the most persecuted quarters of Dauphiny, Viverais, and the Cevennes. The people had lost their pastors; they had not the guidance of sober and intelligent persons; and they were left merely to pray and to

ts, which followed the attack of the plague in the Middle Ages; the Dancing Mania, which followed upon the Black Death; the Child's Pilgrimages, the Convulsionaires, the Revival epilepsies and swoons, which have

d so far as to be able to speak and "prophesy," like a mesmerised person in a state of clairvoyance. The disease spread rapidly by the influence of morbid sympathy, which, under the peculiar circumstances we have de

she spoke perfectly, and, according to Michelet, with great eloquence. "She chanted," he says, "at first the Commandments, then a psalm, in a low and fascinating voice. She meditated a moment, then began the lamen

e. "You may take my life," she said, "but God will raise up others to speak better things than

, woe" upon their persecutors. They reviled Babylon as the oppressor of the House of Israel. They preached the most violent declamation

arly by heart. It spread from Dauphiny to Viverais, and from thence into the Cevennes. "I have seen," said Marshal Villars, "things that I could never have believed if they had not

owever, equally inspired. There were four degrees of ecstasy: first, the being called; next, the ins

here are even philosophers, men of science, and literati who believe in spiritualists that rise on sofas and float about in the air, who project themselves suddenly out of one window and enter by another, and do many other re

rueys, "was appointed, even before daybreak, from all the hamlets round, the men, women, boys, girls, and even infants, came i

d increasing fascination, and Baville, who had reported to the King the entire pacification and conversion of Languedoc, to his dismay found the whole province bursting with e

ainst the royal authority in the Cevennes. At Cheilaret, in the Vivarais, there had been an encounter between the troop

, on passing through the village of Pont-de-Montvert, to hear the roll of a drum, and shortly after to perceive a column of rustics, some three or four hundred in number, advancing as if to give him battle. Baville at once drew up his troops and charged the column, which broke and fled into an adjoining wood. Some were kil

t or hanged. Two companies of militia were quartered in Pont-de-Montvert at the expense of the inhabitants; and they acted under the direction of the archpriest Du Chayla. This priest, who was a native of the district,

r, is a misnomer; for though seated at the foot of a steep mountain, it is not green, but sterile, rocky, and verdureless. The village is best reached from Florac, from which it is about twenty miles distant. The valley runs east and west, and is traversed by a tolerably good road, which at the lower part follows the windings of the Tarn, and higher up runs in and out along the mountain ledges, at every turn presenting new

uely situated on a height. But the country is too poor by nature-the breadth of land in the bottom of the ravine being too narrow and that on the mountain ledges too stony and sterile-ever to have enab

gly stationed there and at Florac for the purpose of preventing the meetings and overawing the population. Besides soldiers, the authorities also established missions throughout the Cevennes, and the principal inspector of these missions was the archpriest Chayl

all appeals for mercy. With him the penalty of non-belief in the faith of Rome was imprisonment, torture, death. Eight young priests lived with him, whose labours he d

tempt to convert souls, this vehement missionary made it one of his principal studies to find out what amount of agony the bodies of those who differed from him would bear short of actual death. He put hot coals into their hands, which they were then mad

ntain paths towards the east. When they had travelled a few hours, they fell into an ambuscade of militia, and were marched back to the archpriest's quarters at Pont-de-Montvert. The women were sent to Mende to be immured in convents, and the men were imprisoned in the archpriest's du

on the neighbouring mountain of Bougès; and there he declared that the Lord had ordered him to take up arms to deliver the captives and exterminate the archpriest of Moloch. Another an

ers for the evening of the following day. They met punctually in the Altefage Wood, and under the shadow of three gigantic beech tre

e, they sang Marot's version of the seventy-fourth Psalm. The archpriest heard the unwonted sound as they came marching along. Thinking it was a nocturnal assembly, he cried to his soldiers, "Run and see what this means." But t

, in which they succeeded, and called upon the prisoners to come forth. But some of them were so crippled by the tortures to which they had been subjected, that they could not stand. At sight of their sufferings the fury of the assailants increas

leg. The peasants discovered him by the light of the blazing dwelling. He called for mercy. "No

or my father," said the next

said another, "whom y

mother, who d

latives, my friends, in e

hich would probably have been mortal, and the detested C

Country of