The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

Persecution also destroyed some of them. When it became known that assemblies for religious observances were again on foot, an increased force of soldiers was sent into the district, and a high price was set on the heads of all the preachers that could be apprehended. The soldiers scoured the country, and, helped by the paid spies, they shortly succeeded in apprehending Boisson and Dombres, at St. Paul's, north of Anduze, in the Cevennes. They were both executed at Nismes, being first subjected to torture on the rack, by which their limbs were entirely dislocated. They were then conveyed to the place of execution, praying and singing psalms on the way, and finished their course with courage and joy.

When Brousson first went into the Cevennes, he did not undertake to preach to the people. He was too modest to assume the position of a pastor; he merely undertook, as occasion required, to read the Scriptures in Protestant families and in small companies, making his remarks and exhortations thereupon. He also transcribed portions of his own meditations on the Scriptures, and gave them away for distribution from hand to hand amongst the people.

When it was found that his instructions were much appreciated, and that numbers of people assembled to hear him read and exhort, he was strongly urged to undertake the office of public instructor amongst them, especially as their ministers were being constantly diminished by execution.

He had been about five months in the Cevennes, and was detained by a fall of snow on one of the mountains, where his abode was a sheepcote, when the proposal that he should become a preacher was first made to him. Vivens was one of those who most strongly supported the appeal made to Brousson. He spent many hours in private prayer, seeking the approval of God for the course he was about to undertake. Vivens also prayed in the several assemblies that Brousson might be confirmed, and that God would be pleased to pour upon him his Holy Spirit, and strengthen him so that he might become a faithful and successful labourer in this great calling.

Brousson at length consented, believing that duty and conscience alike called upon him to give the best of his help to the oppressed and persecuted Protestants of the mountains. "Brethren," he said to them, when they called upon him to administer to them the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist—"Brethren, I look above you, and hear the most High God calling me through your mouths to this most responsible and sacred office; and I dare not be disobedient to his heavenly call. By the grace of God I will comply with your pious desires; dedicate and devote myself to the work of the ministry, and spend the remainder of my life in unwearied pains and endeavours for promoting God's glory, and the consolation of precious souls."

Brousson received his call to the ministry in the Cevennes amidst the sound of musketry and grapeshot which spread death among the ranks of his brethren. He was continuously tracked by the spies of the Jesuits, who sought his apprehension and death; and he was hunted from place to place by the troops of the King, who followed him in his wanderings into the most wild and inaccessible places.

The perilous character of his new profession was exhibited only a few days after his ordination, by the apprehension of Olivier Souverain at St. Jean de Gardonenque, for preaching the Gospel to the assemblies. He was at once conducted to Montpellier and executed on the 15th of January, 1690.

During the same year, Dumas, another preacher in the Cevennes, was apprehended and fastened by the troopers across a horse in order to be carried to Montpellier. His bowels were so injured and his body so crushed by this horrible method of conveyance, that Dumas died before he was half way to the customary place of martyrdom.

Then followed the execution of David Quoite, a wandering and hunted pastor in the Cevennes for several years. He was broken on the wheel at Montpellier, and then hanged. "The punishment," said Louvreleuil, his tormentor, "which broke his bones, did not break his hardened heart: he died in his heresy." After Quoite, M. Bonnemère, a native of the same city, was also tortured and executed in like manner on the Peyrou.

All these persons were taken, executed, destroyed, or imprisoned, during the first year that Brousson commenced his perilous ministry in the Cevennes.