History of the Protestants of France, from the commencement of the Reformation to the present time

by G. de Félice

The religious movement extended. A young pastor, who joined great prudence to ardent faith, Michel Viala, traversed Upper Languedoc, and held assemblies in the neighbourhoods of Castres and Montauban. The county of Foix received Pierre Corteis; Béarn, Etienne Deffère; and Poitou and Normandy, Jean Loire and André Migault. We see that the pastors, whose number was always limited, were compelled to discharge the duties of missionaries; their fields of labour were far more extensive than dioceses.

With a view to the introduction of greater regularity into their teaching and their maxims of conduct, they resolved to convoke a general or national synod, and this assembly was opened, on the 18th of August, 1744, in a secluded spot in Lower Languedoc, under the presidency of Michel Viala. The majority of the old Protestant provinces, from Cevennes to Normandy, were represented at this meeting; but there was no delegate from the Isle of France or Paris.

The moment was well chosen in one respect, and badly in another. The Protestants could collect with greater facility, because the war engaged all the attention of the government and all the forces of the country abroad. But this very war was certain to inspire the council with greater displeasure at such an assembly.

The first step of the synod was to declare its inviolable fidelity to the king. It ordered the celebration, before the end of the year, of a solemn fast in all the Reformed flocks of the kingdom, “for the preservation of the sacred person of his majesty, for the success of his arms, for the cessation of war, and for the deliverance of the Church.” The pastors were exhorted to preach at least once a year upon the submission due to “the powers that be.”

This meeting took wise measures for the observation of discipline and the correction of manners. It invited the pastors to abstain from treating of points of controversy in the pulpit, and not to speak without circumspection of the sufferings of the Reformed people. It recommended to the flocks to celebrate their worship as much as possible in open day. The tenth article of the resolutions stated, “As there are many provinces, where the religious services are still performed during the night, the synod, in order to manifest still more the purity of our intentions as well as to preserve uniformity, has directed the pastors and elders of the different provinces to conform, as far as prudence will permit, to the churches, which perform their service in daylight.”

Antoine Court came from Lausanne to be present at this great meeting, and after appeasing a difference which had arisen with regard to a pastor who had been falsely accused, he had the joy of preaching to an audience of ten thousand persons.

This assembly of so many of the faithful, this general synod, of which the members came from the extremities of the realm, this semi-publicity given to acts that the law considered as criminal and rebellious, disturbed and irritated the council, who began to fear that the Protestants maintained a secret intelligence with foreigners.

Nothing was more false. From the sixteenth century, in the very times of the most bloody persecutions, the mass of the Reformed had never once forgotten their duty to their sovereign and their country. If in the wars of the Camisards, some of the Cévenoles had looked to England or Holland for assistance, it was only a local and partial affair. But the apprehensions of the court, which continually broke out afresh after the Edict of Revocation, prove the great truth, that it is not possible to persecute with impunity. When public authority ignores every condition of justice, morality, and order, it is the first victim of its attempt; and in default of the remorse, from which fanaticism or corruption may relieve it, it expiates its crime by unceasing and invincible terrors.

Calumny played its part in these deplorable circumstances; and opinion, ignorant of the true sentiments of a proscribed population, easily adopted the grossest falsehoods. It was pretended that the pastor Jacques Roger had read a false Edict of Toleration at the religious meetings, in order to drive the Protestants to rebellion; that those who were present were armed; that they had sung a hymn imploring God to bless the English with victory; that their collections for the poor were military taxes; that twenty-five thousand Camisards held themselves in readiness to join the enemy, who blockaded the ports of Provence; that the convents were to be pillaged, the priests and the monks massacred, and the whole south of France put to fire and sword.

These popular rumours were still more extravagant than odious, and had not even a shadow of truth. Yet they were believed at court, and the Baron Lenain d’Asfeld, intendant of Languedoc, was directed to ascertain indirectly from the consistories and pastors of the desert, if it were true that the religionists had understandings with the enemy. He wished, moreover, to know if, in case of an invasion, the government might count upon a rising of Protestant volunteers. This was a new example of the effects of intolerance; they thought themselves obliged to treat with Frenchmen as if they were foreigners; and because they would not consider them citizens, they were no longer trusted in their country’s day of misfortune.