The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

When Court had last met the few Protestant preachers who survived in Languedoc, they were very undecided about taking up his scheme. They had met at Nismes to take the sacrament in the house of a friend. There were Bombonnoux (an old Camisard), Crotte, Corteiz, Brunel, and Court. Without coming to any decision, they separated, some going to Switzerland, and others to the South and West of France. It now rested with Court, during his sickness, to study and endeavour to arrange the method of reorganization of the Church.

The Huguenots who remained in France were then divided into three classes—the "new converts," who professed Catholicism while hating it; the lovers of the ancient Protestant faith, who still clung to it; and, lastly, the more ignorant, who still clung to prophesying and inspiration. These last had done the Protestant Church much injury, for the intelligent classes generally regarded them as but mere fanatics.

Court found it would be requisite to keep the latter within the leading-strings of spiritual instruction, and to encourage the "new converts" to return to the church of their fathers by the re-establishment of some efficient pastoral service. He therefore urged that religious assemblies must be continued, and that discipline must be established by the appointment of elders, presbyteries, and synods, and also by the training up of a body of young pastors to preach amongst the people, and discipline them according to the rules of the Protestant Church. Nearly thirty years had passed since it had been disorganized by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, so that synods, presbyteries, and the training of preachers had become almost forgotten.

The first synod was convened by Court, and held in the abandoned quarry near Nismes, above referred to, in the very same month in which Louis XIV. breathed his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or three laymen and a few preachers[53] were present, the whole meeting numbering only nine persons. The place in which the meeting was held had often before been used as a secret place of worship by the Huguenots. Religious meetings held there had often been dispersed by the dragoons, and there was scarcely a stone in it that had not been splashed by Huguenot blood. And now, after Protestantism had been "finally suppressed," Antoine Court assembled his first synod to re-establish the proscribed religion!

The first meeting took place on the 21st of August, 1715, at daybreak. After prayer, Court, as moderator, explained his method of reorganization, which was approved. The first elders were appointed from amongst those present. A series of rules and regulations was resolved upon and ordered to be spread over the entire province. The preachers were then charged to go forth, to stir up the people and endeavour to bring back the "new converts."

They lost no time in carrying out their mission. The first districts in which they were appointed to work were those of Mende, Alais, Viviers, Uzes, Nismes, and Montpellier, in Languedoc—districts which, fifteen years before, had been the scenes of the Camisard war. There, in unknown valleys, on hillsides, on the mountains, in the midst of hostile towns and villages, the missionaries sought out the huts, the farms, and the dwellings of the scattered, concealed, and half-frightened Huguenots. Amidst the open threats of the magistrates and others in office, and the fear of the still more hateful priests and spies, they went from house to house, and prayed, preached, advised, and endeavoured to awaken the zeal of their old allies of the "Religion."

The preachers were for the most part poor, and some of them were labouring men. They were mostly natives of Languedoc. Jean Vesson, a cooper by trade, had in his youth been "inspired," and prophesied in his ecstasy. Mazelet, now an elderly man, had formerly been celebrated among the Camisards, and preached with great success before the soldiers of Roland. At forty he was not able to read or write; but having been forced to fly into Switzerland, he picked up some education at Geneva, and had studied divinity under a fellow-exile.

Bombonnoux had been a brigadier in the troop of Cavalier. After his chief's defection he resolved to continue the war to the end, by preaching, if not by fighting. He had been taken prisoner and imprisoned at Montpellier, in 1705. Two of his Camisard friends were first put upon the rack, and then, while still living, thrown upon a pile and burnt to death before his eyes. But the horrible character of the punishment did not terrify him. He contrived to escape from prison at Montpellier, and then went about convoking assemblies and preaching to the people as before.

Besides these, there were Huc, Corteiz, Durand, Arnaud, Brunel, and Rouviere or Crotte, who all went about from place to place, convoking assemblies and preaching. There were also some local preachers, as they might be called—old men who could not move far from home—who worked at their looms or trades, sometimes tilling the ground by day, and preaching at night. Amongst these were Monteil, Guillot, and Bonnard, all more than sixty years of age.

Court, because of his youth and energy, seems to have been among the most active of the preachers. One day, near St. Hypolite, a chief centre of the Huguenot population, he convoked an assembly on a mountain side, the largest that had taken place for many years. The priests of the parish gave information to the authorities; and the governor of Alais offered a reward of fifty pistoles to anyone who would apprehend and deliver up to him the young preacher. Troops were sent into the district; upon which Court descended from the mountains towards the towns of Low Languedoc, and shortly after he arrived at Nismes.