The day after my arrival, I had a singular opportunity of becoming acquainted with the spirit of the place. North from Nismes rises a species of chaos of steep hills and deep valleys, or rather ravines, composed almost entirely of shingle and rock, covered over, however, with olive-groves and vines, and dotted with little white summer-houses, to which almost the entire middle and working class population retire upon Sundays to pass the day, partly in cultivating their patches of land—there is hardly a family without an allotment—and partly to amuse themselves after the toils of the week. Rambling among these rugged hills and dales, I chanced to ask my way of a person I met descending towards Nismes. He was a tall, ungainly, raw-boned man—pallid and worn, as if with sedentary labour; but he seemed intelligent, and was very polite—pointing out a number of localities around. Presently, he told me that he had been up to his cabane, or summer-house; that he was a silkweaver in Nismes; that his wages were so poor, that he had a hard struggle to live; but that he still managed to give up an hour's work or so a-day to go and feed his rabbits at the cabane. As we talked, he inquired whether I were not a foreigner—an Englishman—and, with some hesitation, but with great eagerness—a Protestant? My affirmative answer to the last interrogatory produced a magical effect. The man's face actually gleamed. He jumped off the ground, let fall his apronful of melons and fresh figs, while he clutched both of my hands in his, and exclaimed, "A Protestant! Dieu merci! Dieu merci! an English Protestant! Oh, how glad I am to see an English Protestant! Listen, monsieur. We are here. We of the religion (the old phrase—as old as Rosny and Coligni), we are here fifteen thousand strong—fifteen thousand, monsieur. Don't believe those who say only ten. Fifteen thousand, monsieur—good men and true. All ready—all standing by one another—all braves—all on the qui vive—all prepared, if the hour should come. We know each other—we love each other, and we hate"—a pause; then, with a significant grin—"les autres. You will tell that, in England, monsieur, to our brothers. Fifteen thousand, monsieur; and every man, woman, and child, true to the cause and the faith."
The whole tone of the orator did not appear to me to be so much a matter of religious bitterness, as it marked a hatred of race. The two contending parties at Nismes were evidently of different blood: their religious animosities had gradually divided them into two distinct and hostile peoples.
"See!" said the weaver; "this is the Protestant side of the valley,—all Protestants here. Not a Catholic cabane—no, no! they must go elsewhere,—we have nothing to do with them,—we shake off the dust of our feet upon them and theirs. You and I are one, upon our own ground—Protestant ground—staunch and true;" and he stamped with his foot upon the pebbles. "Monsieur must absolutely go with me to my cabane, and drink a glass of wine to the good cause; and see my rabbits—Protestant rabbits."
Who could resist this last attraction? We turned and toiled up the flinty paths together; my acquaintance informing me, with great pride, that M. Guizot was a good Protestant of Nismes, as his father, who had fallen, dans le terreur, was before him. He understood that M. Guizot was then in England, and he was sure that he would be delighted at seeing such a fine Protestant country, and such a staunch Protestant people. Stopping at length at an unpainted door, in the rough, unmortared wall, my friend opened it, and we stepped into a little patch of garden, planted with olives and straggling vine-bushes. "They are much better cultivated, and give better oil and better wine," he said, "than the Catholic grounds;" and I am sure he believed the asseveration. Having duly inspected the "Protestant rabbits," we entered the cabane, a bare, rough, white-washed room, with a table, a few chairs, and unglazed lattices. Unless when the mistral blows, the open air is seldom or never unpleasant; and then wooden shutters are applied to the windward side of the houses. On this occasion, however, there was not a breath stirring amid the silvery grey leaves of the olives. The grasshoppers—fellows of a size which would astound Sir Thomas Gresham—chirped and leaped in the grass at the foot of the wall; scores and scores of lithe, yellow lizards, with the blackest of eyes, flashed up and down over the rough stones, and shot in and out of the crevices; but, excepting these sights and sounds, all around was hushed and motionless; and the sun, wintry though it was, flooded all the still, brown valley with a deluge of pure, hot light.
The weaver filled a very comfortable couple of glasses with a small, but not ill-tasted, wine. "Here's to——;" he uttered a sentiment not complimentary to the Catholic Church, and, indeed, consigning it to the warmest of quarters, and took off his liquor with undeniable unction. I need not say whether I drunk the toast: anyhow, I drunk the wine.
"And now look there," continued my host, pointing with his empty glass through the open window, to the north. The bare, blue hills of the Cevennes lay—a long ridge of mountain scenery, stretching from the valley of the Rhone as far and farther than the eye could follow them—towards that of the Garonne.
"There it was," he said, "that were fought the fiercest battles, in those cruel times, between the people of the religion and the troops of the king. Can you see a valley or a ravine just over the olive there? My eyes are too much worn to see it; but we look at it every Sunday—my wife and my children. That was the valley, monsieur, where my family lived for ages and ages, weaving the rough cloth that they made in those days, and tending their flocks upon the hill. Early in the troubles, their cottage was beset by the dragoons of the king. The mother of the family was suckling her child. They bound her to the bed-post, and put the child just beyond her reach, and told her that not a drop more should pass its lips till she cried Ave Maria and made the sign of the cross. They took the father and hung him by the feet, head downward, from the roof-tree, and he died hanging. The children they ranged round the mother, and tied matches between their fingers; and, when the first match burned down to the flesh, the mother cried Ave Maria and made the sign of the cross. Then they released her, and held an orgie in the cottage all night long, and the widow and the children served them. Next morning, the woman was mad, and she wandered away into the woods with her baby at her breast, and no one heard of her more. The children were scattered over the country; and, whether they lived or died, I know not; but one of them, monsieur, the eldest girl, whose name was Nicole, became a famous prophetess. Yes, monsieur, she was inspired, and taught the people among the rocks and the wild gorges of the hills. First, she had l'avertissement—that is, the warning, or first degree of inspiration; and then the souffle, or the breath of the Lord, came on her, and she spoke; at last, she was endowed with la prophetie, and told what would come to pass. Yes, monsieur; and many of her prophecies are yet preserved, and they came true; for, in times like these, God acts by extraordinary means. The people, monsieur, loved her, and honoured her, and kept her so well, and hid her so closely, that the persecutors could never seize her; and she survived the troubles; and I, monsieur, a poor weaver of Nismes, have the honour to be her descendant."
That night I walked late along the Boulevards. Protestant cafés and Catholic cafés were full and busy, and, no doubt, resounding with the polemics of the warring creeds. Outside all, the by turns straggling and crowded town lay, bathed in the most glorious flood of moonlight, poured down, happily, alike upon Papist and Protestant, lighting up the grey cathedral with its Gothic arches, and the heathen temple with its fluted columns, and surely preaching by the universal-blessing ray that sermon—so continuous in its delivery, yet so little heeded by the congregation of the world—the sermon which enjoins charity and forbearance, and love and peace, among all men.