“I could produce here,” says Antoine Court, “first a list of more than six hundred prisoners arrested since 1744 (he wrote in 1753), in the provinces of Languedoc, the Upper and Lower Alps, Vivarais, Dauphiny, Provence, the county of Foix, Saintonge, and Poitou; among whom were many gentlemen, advocates, physicians, substantial burghers, and rich tradesmen, who have suffered long and cruel imprisonment, out of which they have escaped by arbitrary and ruinous fines alone. I could produce another catalogue of more than eight hundred prisoners who have been condemned to divers punishments, among whom more than eighty were gentlemen.”
Some of the condemned obtained their pardon through the intervention of powerful protectors, or by means of pecuniary sacrifices, after having passed a certain time in confinement; and this explains how it was that, in 1753, there remained at Toulouse more than forty-eight convicts on account of religion. Allowances must also be made for the mortality which struck a great number of these unfortunate persons, [who had been] suddenly degraded from a position of competency to a condition so abject.
The glass-makers of the county of Foix were condemned by the intendant of Auch, to perpetual imprisonment at the galleys, and forfeiture of all their property. One of them, Grenier de Lastermes, was a venerable old man of seventy-six years. He underwent his sentence at the hulks of Toulon: his two sons died, one near him, the other upon the galleys of Marseilles. We have read a letter of this once opulent old man, in which he thanks the consistory of Marseilles for having allowed him two sous a day to alleviate his misery! He wrote: “We are engaged upon the labours marked out for us, having only bread and water for our nourishment, without the opportunity of exemption, but by payment of a sol every morning to the under-gaolers; otherwise we are exposed to remain fastened to a beam with a great chain, night and day.”
The dragonnades were renewed at Milhau, Saint Affrique, and at other places in Rouergue, Languedoc, and Dauphiny. This was the punishment of the lower ranks of the people for being present at the assemblies.
These sentences, if they had been less barbarous, would have been laughable. Not only were the religionists persecuted for having introduced Bibles and pious books into the realm, but a poor man, named Etienne Arnaud, of Dieu-le-Fit, was sentenced, in 1744, to imprisonment for life and the pillory. For what? Because he had taught some young folks to sing psalms. His psalter and a copy of the New Testament were nailed to the pillory beside him.
X.
The pastors, however, continued to be the object of the most implacable persecutions. If the government had reflected, it would have seen, on one side, that the Reformed were invincibly attached to their creeds, whether with their pastors or without them; on the other, that their ministers of religion did more good than harm, even in a political point of view, since they restrained the explosion of the popular resentment, and always recommended order, patience, and respect for the law. But neither the intendants nor the Parliaments were able to comprehend that these men were among the number of the most useful citizens, and three pastors were put to death in 1745 and 1746.
The first, Louis Rang, or Ranc, was twenty-six years of age. He was arrested at an inn of Levron, condemned to capital punishment by the Parliament of Grenoble, and executed at Die, in March, 1745.
A contemporary historian says: “At Crest, the minister asked permission to be shaved, and to have his hair arranged. This neatness appeared to him requisite the better to show the serenity which reigned in his soul, and the contempt with which he treated the unjust death he was about to suffer. He met his end like a hero, and never did Christian exhibit a more elevated calmness at such a moment. On his way to execution, he chanted the verse of the 118th psalm: ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it,’ which he repeated several times. The speech he attempted to make could not be heard, on account of the noise of the drums, which were beaten purposely to smother his voice. He would not hearken to the Jesuits who accompanied him, but kept his eyes continually raised to heaven, and gave signs of feelings of the most lively and earnest piety. When he arrived at the foot of the ladder, he knelt, prayed, and then mounted the scaffold courageously.”[119]
His corpse was insulted by the populace; but a (Roman) Catholic lady, who must have blushed for her faith, provided a sepulchre for his wretched remains.