A Book of the Cevennes

by S. Baring-Gould

Si tu m'attends, confesse toi!"

Both Jacques and his son died on the same day, August 21st, 1653, of wounds received at the taking of Tortosa. With them died out the male branch of the barons of Alais.

On November 15th, 1323, died a citizen of Alais, named Guy de Corbian. A week after his burial his widow came in great agitation to the Dominican convent to say that her husband walked and made unpleasant noises in the house, and she begged that the prior would lay his spirit. Jean Gobi was prior at the time. He took three brethren with him and went to the house. As soon as darkness settled in, all at once the widow screamed out, "There he is! There is my husband!" All present were dreadfully frightened, but the prior recovered first, and bade the woman question the ghost. She asked, "Are you a good or a bad spirit?" Answer: "Good."—"Where are you now?" Ans.: "In purgatory."—"Why do you trouble the house?" Ans.: "A sin was committed in it by my mother."—"What did she commit?" Ans.: "That is a delicate question, which I decline to answer."—"Can you make the sign of the cross?" Ans.: "Do not ask silly questions. How can I when I have no hands?"—"How then is it that you can hear, having no ears?" was the shrewd repartee. The ghost hesitated a moment and then replied, "By a special privilege of God." Now it so happened that at this very period a furious controversy was going on between the Dominicans and the Franciscans as to whether the disembodied spirits of the just had the sight of the Face of God. The Franciscans said they had not, the Dominicans asserted that they had. The strife became so hot and acrimonious that Pope John XXII. on November 12th, 1323, issued a decision condemning the opinion of the Friars Minor. They refused to surrender their tenet. The General of the Order appealed from an ill-informed Pope to a General Council. Such an appeal is absurd, argued their adversaries. A council derives all its authority from the Pope. Philip of Valois threatened that unless John withdrew his judgment he would have him burned as a heretic. But he had not the power to carry his threat into execution. Now this ghost story occurred a week or fortnight after John XXII. had issued his homily, in which he asserted that the dead did enjoy the beatific vision. Jean Gobi saw his opportunity. He published at once an account of his interview with a good spirit, and related how that he had catechised the ghost on the very point under dispute, and that the departed Guy de Corbian had affirmed precisely the doctrine for which the Dominicans contended, and which the Pope had ratified. What better evidence could be desired:

The Franciscans might have replied that they had no better evidence than the word of Gobi, and that they doubted his veracity. But they said nothing, they saw that every sensible man would judge that Jean Gobi told fibs.

"The tenet," says Milman, "had become a passion with the Pope; benefices and preferments were showered on those who inclined to his opinions—the rest were regarded with coldness and neglect."

Jean Gobi doubtless had hopes of reaping some solid advantages by his opportune revelation. But he was disappointed. John XXII. died, and his successor, Benedict XII., published his judgment on the question, determining that the holy dead did not immediately behold the Godhead, thus at least implying the heresy of his predecessor.

In 1567 the Huguenots occupied Alais, and massacred six of the canons in the church whilst they were singing Matins, as also two cordeliers and several other ecclesiastics. But Alais was retaken. In 1575 they again surrounded Alais, under their captains Guidau and Broise, the latter of whom managed to escalade the walls by means of a vine-trellis. One part of the population was massacred; those who could fled into the castle. Damville came to the aid of the besiegers, and on Easter Eve, after nine weeks of gallant defence, the castle surrendered. The see of Alais was constituted in 1694. The cathedral was consecrated in 1780, and is a heavy and hideous building. Only the west tower remains of the old church. At the Revolution it was turned into a place for clubs to assemble; but as the church was inconveniently large for the purpose, it was decided to pull it down. No one in Alais, however, could be found to set his hand to its destruction.

The last bishop, De Bausset, escaped into Switzerland at the time of the outbreak; but unable to endure exile from France he incautiously returned, was arrested, and thrown into prison. It was only due to his having been forgotten that he escaped the guillotine. In 1801, by order of Pius VII., he resigned the see to facilitate the reorganisaton of the dioceses under the Concordat, and he died in Paris in 1824. The great esplanade above the Gardon before the Place de la République, planted with plane trees, commands an extensive view over the plain green with mulberries and chestnut, and with here and there the silver-grey of the olive rising from among the darker leaves like a puff of smoke.

Alais is one of the principal centres of silkworm culture in Languedoc, and it has raised a statue to Pasteur, representing him holding a twig of mulberry in his hand, in gratitude for his discovery of the fibrine, the malady which threatened the industry, and for indicating the means of arresting the plague.

Neither the white mulberry nor the bombyx—the silkworm that feeds on its leaves—is a native of Europe. Both come from China. The history of the origin of the silkworm culture and the introduction of both the mulberry and the worm into Europe is sufficiently curious, and may be summed up in a few lines.