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

by G. de Félice

The government was better instructed than it cared to make known. Louis XVIII. was an enlightened prince, who was aware of the true position of affairs, and he was not a little anxious respecting the impression which the crimes of the south would produce upon the opinion of France and of Europe. England and Prussia, the two countries whose armies had restored his crown on the battle-field of Waterloo, began to show signs of disquietude; and the cabinet of London, interrogated in the House of Commons, appealed to the guarantees of the charter in favour of the French Protestants.

The Duke d’Angoulême was sent, in the month of November, to the southern provinces. He found the places of worship of Nismes closed,—all public exercise of religion had been suspended from the middle of July,—that a part of the Protestant population had been driven from their homes by the dread of massacres,—that others were hidden in their houses as if they were a proscribed race, whilst assassins stalked boldly abroad, the magistrates powerless, and the laws inoperative.

Some delegates of the consistory, confounded by the crowd of civil functionaries, in order that they might avoid the ill-treatment of the populace, went to pay their respects to the duke, and met with a most favourable reception. He gave them an order to reopen their places of worship from the following Thursday, the 9th of November. But none were opened until Sunday, and then but one. The result proved that too much reliance had been placed upon the good disposition of the people and their leaders. Tumultuous assemblages collected round the religious edifice, shouting: “Down with the Protestants! Death to the Protestants! Let us have back our churches! Scourge them back to the desert!” The doors were broken open, and a band of wretches burst into the place of meeting. The General Lagarde, who was endeavouring, with some fellow-officers, to repress the assailants, was shot through the heart; and perhaps this disaster prevented the commission of still greater crime; for the populace, struck with dismay, hastily fled, thinking only of their own safety.

This assassination of a soldier of high rank, committed before the whole town, obeying the orders of a prince of the blood, left the government no longer the opportunity of denying the excesses of the reaction or of temporizing. On the 21st of November, Louis XVIII. published an ordinance with the following preamble: “An atrocious crime has stained our town of Nismes. Despite the constitutional charter, which recognises the Catholic religion as the religion of the State, but which guarantees to other creeds protection and liberty (the minister thought of this very tardily), seditious crowds have dared to oppose the opening of a Protestant place of worship. Our military commandant, whilst striving to disperse them by persuasion before using force, has been assassinated, and his murderer has fled from the officers of justice. If such a crime were to remain unpunished, public order and government would be at an end, and our ministers guilty of not executing the laws.”

Notwithstanding the more than usual solemnity of this ordinance, which commanded the arrest not only of the assassin of General Lagarde, but also of the authors, fautors, and accomplices of the disturbance of the 12th of November, the judges punished no one. Even the murderer of the general was acquitted; and the other bandits, who had devastated half the province with incendiarism and assassination, were allowed to display an insolent and odious impunity upon the very scene of their misdeeds. Witnesses were afraid to come forward to give testimony against them, and mysterious protectors gained their absolution.

The Protestant worship was at length re-established in Nismes, after an interruption of six months, on the 17th of December, 1815. Yet the apprehensions of the Reformed were not calmed, and security did not fully return until the issue of the ordinance of the 5th of September, 1816, which again raised the hopes and the strength of the liberal party.

We will not terminate the narrative of the troubles of Gard, without paying a just tribute of respect to the pastors of this province. Some threw themselves before their armed parishioners, conjuring them in the name of the Gospel, not to return evil for evil. One particularly, M. Juillerat Chasseur, now president of the consistory of Paris, who was called to officiate on the fatal day of the 12th November, continued his prayers with a serene countenance and unfaltering voice, in the midst of the shouts of death from an enraged populace, and compelled the respect of these madmen, who had cast aside all reverence for the majesty of the sanctuary. He felt that the least sign of weakness on his part might have led to a frightful catastrophe. Such courage is both more grand and rare than that of the soldier on the battle-field.

In the other departments, saving two or three exceptions of little importance, the Protestants were neither molested in their worship, nor assailed in their persons or their property. Public opinion came to the assistance of the law, and deprived intolerance of its hope of again renewing the persecutions of the olden times.