The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

And yet it was at this time that the Bishop of Alais made an appeal to the government against the toleration shown to the Huguenots! In 1723, he sent a long memorial to Paris, alleging that Catholicism was suffering a serious injury; that not only had the "new converts" withdrawn themselves from the Catholic Church, but that the old Catholics themselves were resorting to the Huguenot assemblies; that sometimes their meetings numbered from three to four thousand persons; that their psalms were sometimes overheard in the surrounding villages; that the churches were becoming deserted, the curés in some parishes not being able to find a single Catholic to serve at Mass; that the Protestants had ceased to send their children to school, and were baptized and married without the intervention of the Church.

In consequence of these representations, the then Regent, the Duke of Bourbon, sent down an urgent order to the authorities to carry out the law—to prevent meetings, under penalty of death to preachers, and imprisonment at the galleys to all who attended them, ordering that the people should be forced to go to church and the children to school, and reviving generally the severe laws against Protestantism issued by Louis XIV. The result was that many of the assemblies were shortly after attacked and dispersed, many persons were made prisoners and sent to the galleys, and many more preachers were apprehended, racked, and hanged.

Repeated attempts were made to apprehend Antoine Court, as being the soul of the renewed Protestant organization. A heavy reward was offered for his head. The spies and police hunted after him in all directions. Houses where he was supposed to be concealed were surrounded by soldiers at night, and every hole and corner in them ransacked. Three houses were searched in one night. Court sometimes escaped with great difficulty. On one occasion he remained concealed for more than twenty hours under a heap of manure. His friends endeavoured to persuade him to leave the country until the activity of the search for him had passed.

Since the year 1722, Court had undertaken new responsibilities. He had become married, and was now the father of three children. He had married a young Huguenot woman of Uzes. He first met her in her father's house, while he was in hiding from the spies. While he was engaged in his pastoral work his wife and family continued to live at Uzes. Court was never seen in her company, but could only visit his family secretly. The woman was known to be of estimable character, but it gave rise to suspicions that she had three children without a known father. The spies were endeavouring to unravel the secret, tempted by the heavy reward offered for Court's head.

One day the new commandant of the town, passing before the door of the house where Court's wife lived, stopped, and, pointing to the house, put some questions to the neighbours. Court was informed of this, and immediately supposed that his house had become known, that his wife and family had been discovered and would be apprehended. He at once made arrangements for having them removed to Geneva. They reached that city in safety, in the month of April, 1729.

Shortly after, Court, still wandering and preaching about Languedoc, became seriously ill. He feared for his wife, he feared for his family, and conceived the design of joining them in Switzerland. A few months later, exhausted by his labours and continued illness, he left Languedoc and journeyed by slow stages to Geneva. He was still a young man, only thirty-three; but he had worked excessively hard during the last dozen years. Since the age of fourteen, in fact, he had evangelized Languedoc.

Shortly before Court left France for Switzerland, the preacher, Alexandre Roussel, was, in the year 1728, added to the number of martyrs. He was only twenty-six years of age. The occasion on which he was made prisoner was while attending an assembly near Vigan. The whole of the people had departed, and Roussel was the last to leave the meeting. He was taken to Montpellier, and imprisoned in the citadel, which had before held so many Huguenot pastors. He was asked to abjure, and offered a handsome bribe if he would become a Catholic. He refused to deny his faith, and was sentenced to die. When Antoine Court went to offer consolation to his mother, she replied, "If my son had given way I should have been greatly distressed; but as he died with constancy, I thank God for strengthening him to perform this last work in his service."

Court did not leave his brethren in France without the expostulations of his friends. They alleged that his affection for his wife and family had cooled his zeal for God's service. Duplan and Cortez expostulated with him; and the churches of Languedoc, which he himself had established, called upon him to return to his duties amongst them.

But Court did not attend to their request. His determination was for the present unshaken. He had a long arrears of work to do in quiet. He had money to raise for the support of the suffering Church of France, and for the proper maintenance of the college for students, preachers, and pastors. He had to help the refugees, who still continued to leave France for Switzerland, and to write letters and rouse the Protestant kingdoms of the north, as Brousson had done before him some thirty years ago.

The city of Berne was very generous in its treatment of Court and the Huguenots generally. The Bernish Government allotted Court a pension of five hundred livres a-year—for he was without the means of supporting his family—all his own and his wife's property having been seized and sequestrated in France. Court preached with great success in the principal towns of Switzerland, more particularly at Berne, and afterwards at Lausanne, where he spent the rest of his days.