Steps were, however, taken by the King to stop the emigration. He issued a decree ordering that the property and goods of all those Protestants who had already escaped should be confiscated to the Crown, unless they returned within three months from the date of the Revocation. Then, with respect to the Protestants who remained in France, he decreed that all Frenchmen found attempting to escape were to be sent to the galleys for life; and that all Frenchwomen found attempting to escape were to be imprisoned for life. The spies who denounced the fugitive Protestants were rewarded by the apportionment of half their goods.
This decree was not, however, considered sufficiently severe, and it was shortly after followed by another, proclaiming that any captured fugitives, as well as any person found acting as their guide, should be condemned to death. Another royal decree was issued respecting those fugitives who attempted to escape by sea. It was to the effect, that before any ship was allowed to set sail for a foreign port, the hold should be fumigated with a deadly gas, so that any hidden Huguenot who could not otherwise be detected, might be suffocated to death.
These measures, however, did not seem to have the effect of "converting" the French Protestants. The Dragonnades were next resorted to. Louis XIV. was pleased to call the dragoons his Booted Missionaries, ses missionnaires bottés. The dragonnades are said to have been the invention of Michel de Marillac, whose name will doubtless descend to infamous notoriety, like those of Catherine de Médicis, the Guises, and the authors of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Yet there was not much genius displayed in the invention of the Dragonnades. It merely consisted in this: whenever it was found that a town abounded with Huguenots, the dragoons, hussars, and troops of various kinds were poured into it, and quartered on the inhabitants. Twenty, thirty, or forty were quartered together, according to the size of the house. They occupied every room; they beat their drums and blew their trumpets; they smoked, drank, and swore, without any regard to the infirm, the sick, or the dying, until the inmates were "converted."
The whole army of France was let loose upon the Huguenots. They had been beaten out of Holland by the Dutch Calvinists; and they could now fearlessly take their revenge out of their unarmed Huguenot fellow-countrymen. Whenever they quartered themselves in a dwelling, it was, for the time being, their own. They rummaged the cellars, drank the wines, ordered the best of everything, pillaged the house, and treated everybody who belonged to it as a slave. The Huguenots were not only compelled to provide for the entertainment of their guests, but to pay them their wages. The superior officers were paid fifteen francs a day, the lieutenants nine francs, and the common soldiers three francs. If the money was not paid, the household furniture, the horses and cows, and all the other articles that could be seized, were publicly sold.
No wonder that so many Huguenots were "converted" by the dragoons. Forty thousand persons were converted in Poitou. The regiment of Asfeld was the instrument of their conversion. A company and a half of dragoons occupied the house of a single lady at Poitiers until she was converted to the Roman Catholic faith. What bravery!
The Huguenots of Languedoc were amongst the most obstinate of all. They refused to be converted by the priests; and then Louis XIV. determined to dragonnade them. About sixty thousand troops were concentrated on the province. Noailles, the governor, shortly after wrote to the King that he had converted the city of Nismes in twenty-four hours. Twenty thousand converts had been made in Montauban; and he promised that by the end of the month there would be no more Huguenots left in Languedoc.
Many persons were doubtless converted by force, or by the fear of being dragonnaded; but there were also many more who were ready to run all risks rather than abjure their faith. Of those who abjured, the greater number took the first opportunity of flying from France, by land or by sea, and taking refuge in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, or England. Many instances might be given of the heroic fortitude with which the Huguenots bore the brutality of their enemies; but, for the present, it may be sufficient to mention the case of the De Péchels of Montauban.
The citizens of Montauban had been terribly treated before and after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The town had been one of the principal Huguenot places of refuge in France. Hence its population was principally Protestant. Its university had been shut up. Its churches had been levelled to the ground. Its professors and pastors had been banished from France. And now it was to be dragonnaded.
The town was filled with troops, who were quartered on the Protestants. One of the burgesses called upon the Intendant, threw himself at his feet, and prayed to be delivered from the dragoons. "On one condition only!" replied Dubois, "that you become a Catholic." "I cannot," said the townsman, "because, if the Sultan quartered twenty janissaries on me, I might, for the same reason, be forced to become a Turk."