At length, urged by the person who was about to give her a refuge in his house, she consented to follow him. The man was a weaver by trade, and all day long he carried on his work in the only room which he possessed. Madame de Péchels passed the day in a recess, concealed by the bed of her entertainers, and in the evening she came out, and the good people supplied her with what was necessary. She passed six months in this retreat, without any one knowing what had become of her. It was thought that she had taken refuge in some foreign country.
Numbers of ladies had already been able to make their escape. The frontier was strictly guarded by troops, police, and armed peasantry. The high-roads as well as the byways were patrolled day and night, and all the bridges were strongly guarded. But the fugitives avoided the frequented routes. They travelled at night, and hid themselves during the day. There were Protestant guides who knew every pathway leading out of France, through forests, wastes, or mountain paths, where no patrols were on the watch; and they thus succeeded in leading thousands of refugee Protestants across the frontier. And thus it was that Madame de Péchels was at length enabled, with the help of a guide, to reach Geneva, one of the great refuges of the Huguenots.
On arrival there she felt the loss of her children more than ever. She offered to the guide who had conducted her all the money that she possessed to bring her one or other of her children. The eldest girl, then nine or ten years old, was communicated with, but having already tasted the pleasure of being her own mistress, she refused the proposal to fly into Switzerland to join her mother. Her son Jacob was next communicated with. He was seven years old. He was greatly moved at the name of his mother, and he earnestly entreated to be taken to where she was. The guide at once proceeded to fulfil his engagement. The boy fled with him from France, passing for his son. The way was long—some five hundred miles. The journey occupied them about three weeks. They rested during the day, and travelled at night. They avoided every danger, and at length the faithful guide was able to place the loving son in the arms of his noble and affectionate mother.
Samuel de Péchels was condemned to banishment without the shadow of a trial. He could not be dragooned into denying his faith, and he was therefore imprisoned, preparatory to his expulsion from France. "I was told," he said, "by the Sieur Raoul, Roqueton (or chief archer) to the Intendant of Montauban, that if I would not change my religion, he had orders from the King and the Intendant to convey me to the citadel of Montpellier, from thence to be immediately shipped for America. My reply was, that I was ready to go forthwith whithersoever it was God's pleasure to lead me, and that assuredly, by God's help, I would make no change in my religion."
After five months' imprisonment at Cahors, he was taken out and marched, as already related, to the citadel of Montpellier. The citadel adjoins the Peyrou, a lofty platform of rock, which commands a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding country. It is now laid out as a pleasure-ground, though it was then the principal hanging-place of the Languedoc Protestants. Brousson, and many other faithful pastors of the "Church in the Desert," laid down their lives there. Half-a-dozen decaying corpses might sometimes be seen swinging from the gibbets on which the ministers had been hung.
A more bitter fate was, however, reserved for De Péchels. After about a month's imprisonment in the citadel, he was removed to Aiguesmortes, under the charge of several mounted archers and foot soldiers. He was accompanied by fourteen Protestant ladies and gentlemen, on their way to perpetual imprisonment, to the galleys, or to banishment. Aiguesmortes was the principal fortified dungeon in the south of France, used for the imprisonment of Huguenots who refused to be converted. It is situated close to the Mediterranean, and is surrounded by lagunes and salt marshes. It is a most unhealthy place; and imprisonment at Aiguesmortes was considered a slower but not a less certain death than hanging. Sixteen Huguenot women were confined there in 1686, and the whole of them died within five months. When the prisoners died off, the place was at once filled again. The castle of Aiguesmortes was thus used as a prison for nearly a hundred years.
De Péchels gives the following account of his journey from Montpellier to Aiguesmortes:—"Mounted on asses, harnessed in the meanest manner, without stirrups, and with wretched ropes for halters, we entered Aiguesmortes, and were there locked up in the Tower of Constance, with thirty other male prisoners and twenty women and girls, who had also been brought hither, tied two and two. The men were placed in an upper apartment of the tower, and the women and girls below, so that we could hear each other pray to God and sing His praises with a loud voice."
De Péchels did not long remain a prisoner at Aiguesmortes. He was shortly after put on board a king's ship bound for Marseilles. He was very ill during the voyage, suffering from seasickness and continual fainting fits. On reaching Marseilles he was confined in the hospital prison used for common felons and galley-slaves. It was called the Chamber of Darkness, because of its want of light. The single apartment contained two hundred and thirty prisoners. Some of them were chained together, two and two; others, three and three. The miserable palliasses on which they slept had been much worn by the galley-slaves, who had used them during their illnesses. The women were separated from the men by a linen cloth attached to the ceiling, which was drawn across every evening, and formed the only partition between them.
As may easily be supposed, the condition of the prisoners was frightful. The swearing of the common felons was mixed with the prayers of the Huguenots. The guards walked about all night to keep watch and ward over them. They fell upon any who assembled and knelt together, separating them and swearing at them, and mercilessly ill-treating them, men and women alike. "But all their strictness and rage," says De Péchels, "could not prevent one from seeing always, in different parts of the dungeon, little groups upon their knees, imploring the mercy of God and singing His praises, whilst others kept near the guards so as to hinder them from interfering with the little bands of worshippers."
At length the time arrived for the embarkation of the Huguenots for America. On the 18th of September, 1687, De Péchels, with fifty-eight men and twenty-one women, was put on board a flûte called the Mary—the French flûte consisting of a heavy narrow-sterned vessel, called in England a "pink." De Péchels was carefully separated from all with whom he had formed habits of intimacy, and whose presence near him would doubtless have helped him to bear the bitterness of his fate. On the same day, ninety prisoners of both sexes were embarked in another ship, named the Concord, bound for the same destination. The two vessels set sail in the first place for Toulon, in order to obtain an escort of two ships-of-war.