The following day a courier announced the return of the king to the capital, and the Reformed population quietly resumed the white cockade. This prompt submission did not satisfy the men who had adopted the white and green colours, attesting by this that they served another cause than that of royalty. Then terror rose and spread itself over the south.
On the 14th of July, a hideous populace, recruited at Nismes, Beaucaire, and the surrounding places, attacked the garrison, which, weakened by the numerous desertions after the news of the emperor’s fall, did not reckon more than two hundred men. These brave soldiers, besieged in their barracks, were aware that any resistance would produce only a useless effusion of blood, and consented to capitulate. The next day, at break of dawn, having laid down their arms in compliance with an express arrangement, they marched out of their quarters, four abreast, with firm though sorrowful demeanour. But the miscreants through whom they had to pass, fired upon them in treacherous violation of the surrender, and trampled underfoot the corpses of the murdered veterans.
All regular authority was at an end in Nismes. Pillage, incendiarism, and assassination, desolated this great city. The details are horrible. “Of crimes upon crimes,” says M. Lauze de Peret, with energetic eloquence, “shall I have to speak; of wretches without fear, of peace without repose, of entire submission without security, of a city without guardianship, of victims without defence, and of chiefs mute without being absent.”[141]
The Count René de Bernis, the royal commissioner, and the Marquis d’Arbaud-Jonques, appointed prefect of the department after the Marquis Jules de Calvières, who was only provisional prefect, have published justificatory memoirs. These have, however, been contradicted upon almost every point by M. Madier de Montjau, in his petition to the Chamber of Deputies, and by other respectable citizens. It is right that persecutors should learn that truth has necessarily its day; it is also right that they should remember that history does not stop to pick from the gore the names of the subordinate cut-throats, but that it casts the blame and odium upon those who ought to have withheld and punished them.
This spirit of savage fanaticism soon spread beyond the precincts of Nismes. The whole surrounding country was abandoned to the fury of some hundreds of brigands, who, while they imposed ruinous contributions, devastated property, sacked houses, maltreated the most inoffensive citizens, insulted women, profaned the sacredness of the burial-grounds, and finally massacred those, whose position or some false rumour marked out for popular vengeance, huzzaed for the Cross! and the King! committing at the same time crimes equally opposed to the holiest interests of religion and royalty.
If the unhappy Protestants assembled anywhere in arms for their common defence, or for the protection of the asylum of the aged and the cradle of the young, they were treated as factious rebels. They were dragged before judges, who would not, or dared not do them justice; and these contemptible tribunals raged against the victims, instead of striking the murderers.
Among other towns, that of Uzès had been invaded by a band of robbers, on which occasion a priest evinced remarkable self-devotion. The authorities were either alarmed or were accomplices, and the national guard remained passive. “One single man, a worthy minister of the law of charity, a priest of the God, who has commanded all mankind to live together as brethren, the abbé Palhien, set a different example. He encountered Graffan (Quatretaillons) near the church of Saint Etienne; he prayed, he insisted, he knelt to him: but he followed him in vain to the fatal place, he pleaded in vain the words of religion to this bandit armed for the defence of the altar and the throne. On this memorable day, Uzès appeared to contain but one single Christian, one single Frenchman.”[142]
Terror lasted for several months. Towards the end of August, four thousand Austrians arrived in the department of Gard. They had been made to believe that the Protestants menaced public tranquillity, and that it was necessary to defend both law and order against their hatred. They advanced with great precaution, sword in hand, as if they had entered an enemy’s country, and were surprised to find a peaceful population, abandoned to the fury of robbers, and decimated by assassination.
It may be asked how such disorders could have happened without exciting universal indignation, at such a period and in a country like France. The answer is, that the whole country was at that time delivered up to a violent reaction. There was no liberty of the press; no right, save that of the conqueror; the spirit of party oppressed and disorganized everything. The official journal of Gard, which was published in the police offices or in those of the prefecture, did not hesitate to contest the most evident facts, nor to deny the most authentic,—to boast of the clemency and the generosity of the enemies of the Protestants, with the corpses of the victims before their eyes. And if any one, even away from this unfortunate province, uttered a free thought respecting these atrocities, he was reputed as a calumniator and a rebel.
M. Voyer-d’Argenson experienced this, when in the session of the 23rd October, 1815, he demanded an inquiry, affirming that his heart bled to hear the reports of the massacres of Protestants in the south. He was violently interrupted with cries of order, and notwithstanding the forms of speech which he employed in his explanations were expressive of doubt, the call to order was agreed to by a large majority. Did the chamber of 1815 think that by stopping M. Voyer-d’Argenson’s mouth, it could smother the terrible cry for blood and the voice of truth?