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

by G. de Félice

At Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Marseilles, where the Protestants were of too small numbers to afford the opportunity of throwing more importance into the religious than into the political question, there was no stir. The attitude of these places preserved the south from civil war, and the conspirators were driven to seek the aid from foreign powers, which their own country refused them.

When quiet was restored at Nismes, the Reformed opened a place of worship there, according to the right which had been guaranteed to them by the Constitution. They placed this inscription upon the front: “An edifice consecrated to religious worship by a private society: peace and liberty.” The venerable Paul Rabaut pronounced the inaugurative prayer, with a faltering voice and tearful countenance.

In the other provinces of France, the Protestants also applied themselves to their new organization, paying the pastors from their own purses, as they had long been accustomed to do, and no longer seeking from the civil power anything else than the preservation of their liberty under the safeguard of the common laws.

The Revolution, however, daily exhibited a more hostile feeling towards the (Roman) Catholic clergy. After having deprived them of their property, it was determined to impose upon them a constitution and an oath. This was the work of the Jansenists, and particularly of the representative Camus. They were irritated by the remembrance of the long injuries inflicted upon them by the majority of the priests, and they were unfortunately powerful enough to draw into their quarrel the party of the Left in the Constituent Assembly, which had a presentiment it was about to commit a serious mistake. The Protestants took no part in this debate.

The Civil Constitution imposed upon the (Roman) Catholic church, precipitated the Revolution out of the limits, which it ought to have respected. A great part of the clergy resisted. The priests, who were refractory or had not sworn, fled to the woods and caves, pursued by the insults of that same people, who had so many times outraged the pastors of the Reformation. France had not been taught by her spiritual leaders to bow before the independence of the human conscience, and the ministers of Rome were now the victims of the lessons of persecution they had themselves taught. Woe to them, who take the sword of intolerance; sooner or later it recoils upon themselves!

These sad conflicts do not belong to our subject. The (Roman) Catholic clergy, we say freely, did their duty then, and the politicians failed in theirs. They outstepped the boundaries of civil authority by pretending to regulate ecclesiastical points in which doctrine was necessarily implicated; and having been guilty of this first error, they committed a second—that of attacking, and of proscribing religion itself, in order to take revenge for the lawful resistance with which they had been met.

It is true that no express law was ever passed against religious liberty. The Constitution of 1793 still contained an article (22), which professed to guarantee to the whole French people the free exercise of their worship. But the Convention by the arbitrary acts of its agents, overthrew the rights it had inscribed in its legislation, and itself passed decrees which assailed every religious communion. Thus, on the 22nd September, 1793, it replaced the ancient division of the week by that of the Decade, and attempted to compel all the French people to work on the Sabbath, whatever might be their scruples of faith.

This unjustifiable tyranny was not exercised without opposition, in spite of the terror which weighed upon France. The younger Rabaut relates, in his Ecclesiastical Repertory, a circumstance connected with the Protestant communion, which happened in the commune of La Salle (Gard): “A country labourer, called Alègre, about sixty years of age, was arrested and thrown into prison for not having worked on a Sunday. A week after, this man, dressed in his best clothes, presented himself before the committee. Being asked what he wanted, he replied that he was now an old man, that he had worked the whole week long, that he absolutely required rest; that if he went to work on the Sabbath he would be only robbing his employer, and that he preferred to be put in prison. The committee, who expected that he was about to denounce some one, were surprised by his answer and sent him home.”

On the 7th of November, 1793, Gobel, the constitutional bishop of Paris, abjured the (Roman) Catholic faith at the bar of the Convention, accompanied by some priests, who were well worthy to follow in his rear. He laid down the insignia of his office upon the table, declaring that there was no necessity for any other worship than that of liberty, equality, and morality. Certain members of the Assembly, (Roman) Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastics, followed his example. The Bishop Gregory alone had the courage to ascend the tribune and disavow this apostasy. Rabaut Saint Etienne was then absent and proscribed.

The abjuration of Gobel was the signal for the invasion of the churches and the abolition of all religious worship. No one spoke any longer, according to the language of the period, but of invoking reason, of listening to the voice of nature, of lighting the lamp of truth upon the altar, and of rendering mankind happy by stifling the monster of superstition.