A Book of the Cevennes

by S. Baring-Gould

Séguier and his companions employed the remainder of the night in prayer, kneeling around the corpses. They had murdered all found in the house, except the prisoners whom they had released, one soldier and a servant. When dawn broke they retired in good order, still singing, and ascended the Tarn to Frugères. When the last notes of their psalmody died away, two Capuchins who had managed to conceal themselves in a cellar of one of the houses in the town, crept from their retreat and carried off the body of Du Chayla to the church of S. Germain de Colberte, for burial.

But during the funeral a cry was heard outside, "The insurgents are coming! Frugères, S. Maurice, S. André de Lancize, have been given up to fire and massacre!" At once all the assembled clergy fled for their lives, and some did not stay their feet till they had found refuge behind the walls of Alais.

However, the storm that threatened to break over S. Germain rolled away to the west.

Séguier, whose name in the patois signifies The Mower, had assumed the appellation of Esprit, as he deemed himself a channel through whom the Holy Spirit spoke. He was subject to frequent ecstasies, and he had no doubt but that it was due to direct inspiration that he was prompted to the deeds of blood of which he was guilty. It is deserving of note that when he or any of the prophets and prophetesses gave forth their oracles it was never in their own names. They always spoke as if the Holy Spirit were uttering commands through their mouths, as, "I, the Spirit of God, command."

Whilst the funeral of Du Chayla was in progress, actually Séguier, followed by a band of thirty men singing psalms, had entered Frugères and shot the parish priest. They went on to S. Marcel, but thence the vicaire had escaped. At S. André the curé, hearing of the approach of the band, rang the alarm bell. Séguier's men pursued him, flung him out of a belfry window, and then hacked him to death. The school-master was also murdered and his body mutilated. Wherever he went Séguier destroyed the crosses and every emblem of Catholicism. On the night of the 29th July the band surrounded the Castle of Ladevèse, where was a store of arms taken from the Protestants. When summoned to deliver them up, the seigneur replied by a volley which killed two men. The insurgents, furious at their loss, broke in and massacred all the inhabitants of the château, not sparing even a mother aged eighty, or a young girl who on her knees prayed for her life.

The authorities, in serious alarm, took immediate measures to repress the insurrection, and gave the command of the troops to a Captain Poul, who managed to capture Esprit Séguier, and The Mower was tried at Florac and sentenced to have his hand cut off and then to be burnt alive. On August 12th, 1702, Séguier underwent his sentence at Pont-de-Montvert. Neither the blow of the axe nor the violence of the flames could draw from him a cry or a groan. He shouted from his pyre, "Brethren, await and hope in the Eternal One! Carmel that is desolate will flourish; Lebanon that is left barren will blossom as a rose."

The command of the insurgents, who now were given the name of Camisards by their enemies, but called themselves the Children of God, was assumed by Laporte, an ironmonger. He was joined by Castanet, a forester of the Aigoual, by Jean Cavalier, a baker's boy, and by Abdias Morel, an old soldier, who went by the name of Catinat, on account of his admiration for the general of that name; also by the two arch-prophets, Abraham Mazel and Solomon Couderc. Many other prophets and prophetesses joined the band, and excited it to undertake the most daring enterprises.

The execution of Séguier was avenged on the following day. The band, knowing that the Baron de Saint-Cômes, who was especially obnoxious to them as a convert to the Church from Calvinism, was going in his carriage to Calvisson, Catinat and six of his men laid an ambush for him, stopped the carriage, blew out the brains of the baron, and murdered his valet.

The insurrection spread rapidly. Laporte declared: "The God of Hosts is with us! We will thunder forth the psalm of battle, and from the Lozère to the sea all Israel will rise." His prediction was fulfilled; the revolt extended from the mountains to the plain, even to the shores of the Mediterranean. Laporte had sent his nephew Roland into lower Languedoc to collect recruits. Circumstances favoured his project. Executions had multiplied of persons merely suspected of having attended the religious assemblies, so that the Calvinists alarmed fled their homes and in great numbers joined the bands of insurgents. The Camisards next caught and killed the secretary of Du Chayla, the prior of S. Martin, and Jourdan, a militia captain who had shot Vivens. Panic fell on the Catholics; fifteen churches were in flames, and great numbers of the curés had fled.

On October 22nd, 1702, being a Sunday, Captain Poul and his corps, led by a traitor, surprised Laporte on a hill at Ste. Croix with a body of the faithful. Laporte had barely time to marshal his men for defence. Unfortunately for him a heavy rain came on that disabled their guns; only three could be fired. Poul, who saw the disadvantage, charged with impetuosity. Laporte fell shot through the heart, but the Children of God effected their retreat without disorder, having left nine of their comrades dead on the field.