The Duke de Noailles advised that it would be necessary to proceed with some caution in the matter. "If his Majesty," he wrote to Baville, "thinks there is no other remedy than changing the whole people of the Cevennes, it would be better to begin by expelling those who are not engaged in commerce, who inhabit inaccessible mountain districts, where the severity of the climate and the poverty of the soil render them rude and barbarous, as in the case of those people who recently met at the foot of the Lozère. Should the King consent to this course, it will be necessary to send here at least four additional battalions of foot to execute his orders."[34]
An attempt was made to carry out this measure of deportation of the people, but totally failed. With the aid of spies, stimulated by high rewards, numerous meetings in the Desert were fallen upon by the troops, and those who were not hanged were transported—some to Italy, some to Switzerland, and some to America. But transportation had no terrors for the people, and the meetings continued to be held as before.
Baville then determined to occupy the entire province with troops, and to carry out a general disarmament of the population. Eight regiments of regular infantry were sent into the Cevennes, and fifty regiments of militia were raised throughout the province, forming together an army of some forty thousand men. Strong military posts were established in the mountains, and new forts and barracks were erected at Alais, Anduze, St. Hyppolyte, and Nismes. The mountain-roads being almost impassable, many of them mere mule paths, Baville had more than a hundred new high-roads and branch-roads constructed and made practicable for the passage of troops and transport of cannon.
By these means the whole country became strongly occupied, but still the meetings in the Desert went on. The peasantry continued to brave all risks—of exile, the galleys, the rack, and the gibbet—and persevered in their assemblies, until the very ferocity of their persecutors became wearied. The people would not be converted either by the dragoons or the priests who were stationed amongst them. In the dead of the night they would sally forth to their meetings in the hills; though their mountains were not too steep, their valleys not too secluded, their denies not too impenetrable to protect them from pursuit and attack, for they were liable at any moment to be fallen upon and put to the sword.
The darkness, the dangers, the awe and mystery attending these midnight meetings invested them with an extraordinary degree of interest and even fascination. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the devotion of these poor people should have run into fanaticism and superstition. Singing the psalms of Marot by night, under the shadow of echoing rocks, they fancied they heard the sounds of heavenly voices filling the air. At other times they would meet amidst the ruins of their fallen sanctuaries, and mysterious sounds of sobbing and wailing and groaning would seem as if to rise from the tombs of their fathers.
Under these distressing circumstances—in the midst of poverty, suffering, and terror—a sort of religious hysteria suddenly developed itself amongst the people, breaking out and spreading like many other forms of disease, and displaying itself chiefly in the most persecuted quarters of Dauphiny, Viverais, and the Cevennes. The people had lost their pastors; they had not the guidance of sober and intelligent persons; and they were left merely to pray and to suffer. The terrible raid of the priests against the Protestant books had even deprived most of the Huguenots of their Bibles and psalm-books, so that they were in a great measure left to profit by their own light, such as it was.
The disease to which we refer, had often before been experienced, under different forms, amongst uneducated people when afflicted by terror and excitement; such, for instance, as the Brotherhood of the Flagellants, which followed the attack of the plague in the Middle Ages; the Dancing Mania, which followed upon the Black Death; the Child's Pilgrimages, the Convulsionaires, the Revival epilepsies and swoons, which have so often accompanied fits of religious devotion worked up into frenzy; these diseases being merely the result of excitement of the senses, which convulse the mind and powerfully affect the whole nervous system.
The "prophetic malady," as we may call it, which suddenly broke out amongst the poor Huguenots, began with epileptic convulsions. They fell to the ground senseless, foamed at the mouth, sobbed, and eventually revived so far as to be able to speak and "prophesy," like a mesmerised person in a state of clairvoyance. The disease spread rapidly by the influence of morbid sympathy, which, under the peculiar circumstances we have described, exercises an amazing power over human minds. Those who spoke with power were considered "inspired." They prayed and preached ecstatically, the most inspired of the whole being women, boys, and even children.
One of the first "prophets" who appeared was Isabel Vincent, a young shepherdess of Crest, in Dauphiny, who could neither read nor write. Her usual speech was the patois of her country, but when she became inspired she spoke perfectly, and, according to Michelet, with great eloquence. "She chanted," he says, "at first the Commandments, then a psalm, in a low and fascinating voice. She meditated a moment, then began the lamentation of the Church, tortured, exiled, at the galleys, in the dungeons: for all those evils she blamed our sins only, and called all to penitence. Then, starting anew, she spoke angelically of the Divine goodness."