The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

Court himself, as well as the other pastors, worked very hard. On one occasion, Court made a round of visits in Lower Languedoc and in the Cevennes, at first alone, and afterwards accompanied by a young preacher. In the space of two months and a few days he visited thirty-one churches, holding assemblies, preaching, and administering the sacrament, during which he travelled over three hundred miles. The weather did not matter to the pastors—rain nor snow, wind nor storm, never hindered them. They took the road and braved all. Even sickness often failed to stay them. Sickness might weaken but did not overthrow them.

The spies and police so abounded throughout the country, and were so active, that they knew all the houses in which the preachers might take refuge. A list of these was prepared and placed in the hands of the intendant of the province.[55] If preachers were found in them, both the shelterers and the sheltered knew what they had to expect. The whole property and goods of the former were confiscated and they were sent to the galleys for life; and the latter were first tortured by the rack, and then hanged. The houses in which preachers were found were almost invariably burnt down.

Notwithstanding the great secrecy with which the whole organization proceeded, preachers were frequently apprehended, assemblies were often surprised, and many persons were imprisoned and sent to the galleys for life. Each village had its chief spy—the priest; and beneath the priest there were a number of other spies—spies for money, spies for cruelty, spies for revenge.

Was an assembly of Huguenots about to be held? A spy, perhaps a traitor, would make it known. The priest's order was sufficient for the captain of the nearest troop of soldiers to proceed to disperse it. They marched and surrounded the assembly. A sound of volley-firing was heard. The soldiers shot down, hanged, or made prisoners of the unlawful worshippers. Punishments were sudden, and inquiry was never made into them, however brutal. There was the fire for Bibles, Testaments, and psalm-books; galleys for men; prisons and convents for women; and gibbets for preachers.

In 1720 a large number of prisoners were captured in the famous old quarry near Nismes, long the seat of secret Protestant worship. But the troops surrounded the meeting suddenly, and the whole were taken. The women were sent for life to the Tour de Constance, and the men, chained in gangs, were sent all through France to La Rochelle, to be imprisoned in the galleys there. The ambassador of England made intercession for the prisoners, and their sentence was commuted into one of perpetual banishment from France. They were accordingly transported to New Orleans on the Mississippi, to populate the rising French colony in that quarter of North America.

Thus crimes abounded, and cruelty when practised upon Huguenots was never investigated. The seizure and violation of women was common. Fathers knew the probable consequence when their daughters were seized. The daughter of a Huguenot was seized at Uzes, in 1733, when the father immediately died of grief. Two sisters were seized at the same place to be "converted," and their immediate relations were thrown into gaol in the meantime. This was a common proceeding. The Tour de Constance was always filling, and kept full.

The dying were tortured. If they refused the viaticum they were treated as "damned persons." When Jean de Molènes of Cahors died, making a profession of Protestantism, his body was denounced as damned, and it was abandoned without sepulture. A woman who addressed some words of consolation to Joseph Martin when dying was condemned to pay a fine of six thousand livres, and be imprisoned in the castle of Beauregard; and as for Martin, his memory was declared to be damned for ever. Many such outrages to the living and dead were constantly occurring.[56] Gaolers were accustomed to earn money by exhibiting the corpses of Huguenot women at fairs, inviting those who paid for admission, to walk up and "see the corpse of a damned person."[57]

Notwithstanding all these cruelties, Protestantism was making considerable progress, both in Languedoc and Dauphiny. In reorganizing the Church, the whole country had been divided into districts, and preachers and pastors endeavoured to visit the whole of their members with as much regularity as possible. Thus Languedoc was divided into seven districts, and to each of those a proposant or probationary preacher was appointed. The presbyteries and synods met regularly and secretly in a cave, or the hollow bed of a river, or among the mountains. They cheered each other up, though their progress was usually over the bodies of their dead friends.

For any pastor or preacher to be apprehended, was, of course, certain death. Thus, out of thirteen Huguenots who were found worshipping in a private apartment at Montpellier, in 1723, Vesson, the pastor, and Bonicel and Antoine Comte, his assistants, were at once condemned and hanged on the Peyrou, the other ten persons being imprisoned or sent to the galleys for life.

Shortly after, Huc, the aged pastor, was taken prisoner in the Cevennes, brought to Montpellier, and hanged in the same place. A reward of a thousand livres was offered by Bernage, the intendant, for the heads of the remaining preachers, the fatal list comprising the names of Court, Cortez, Durand, Rouviere, Bombonnoux, and others. The names of these "others" were not mentioned, not being yet thought worthy of the gibbet.