conversion, but in the Cevennes the inhabitants were too poor to escape, and all over Lauguedoc began the secret meetings of the Church of the Desert. At last Louvois proposed that this rebellious district should be turned into an actual desert. The iutendant Baville and the Due de Noailles raised an army 40,000 strong, and erected forts at Nimes, St Hippolyte. Alais, and Anduze. The peace of Ryswiek (1697) facilitated these operations. The religious hysteria which now descended on the Cevennes has been traced (De I Inspiration des Camisards, par Hippolyte Blanc, Paris, 1859) to Du Serre, an old Calvinist of Dieu-le-fit, who, in reading Jurieu s well-known book on the Fulfilment of the Prophecies, became suddenly inspired to preach and pray, and who about 1689 communi cated his enthusiasm to the shepherdess La Belle Isabeau,
and 500 or 600 other so-called prophets.In 1700 this sacred fire again broke out in the person of a travelling dressmaker in Ardeche, and spread from the summits of the Lozere to the sea (Peyrat, Histoire des Pasteurs du Desert, i. 261). A woman (Isabel Vincent) was again the most exalted of the prophets. The Abb6 clu Chaila, a veteran Catholic missionary from Siam, had been appointed inspector of missions in the Cevennes. There he introduced the "squeezers" ( which resembled the Scotch "boot"), and his systematic and refined cruelty at last broke the patience of his victims. His murder, on 23d July 1 702, at Pont de Mont Vert, was the first blow in the war. It was planned by Esprit S6guier, the " Danton of the Cjvennes," who at once began to carry out his idea of a general massacre of the Catholic priests. He soon fell, and was succeeded by Laporte, an old soldier, who, as his troop increased, assumed the title of the Colonel of the Children of God, and named his camp the " Camp of the Eternal." He used to lead his followers to the fight, singing Clement Marot s grand version of the 68th Psalm, " Que Dieu se montre seulement," to the music of Goudimal. Besides La Porte, the forest-ranger Castanet, the wool-carders Condarc and Mazel, the soldiers Catinat, Joany, and Ravenel were selected as captains, all men whom the theomanie or prophetic malady had visited. B:it the most important figures are those of Roland, who afterwards issued the following extraordinary despatch to the inhabitants of St Andr6 : " Nous, comte et seigneur lloland, generalissimo des Protestants de France, nous ordonnons que vous ayez a, congedier dans trois jours tons les pretres et missionaires qui sont chez vous, sous peine d etre brulestout vifs, vous et eux " (Court, i. p. 219); and Jean Cavalier, the baker s boy, who, at the age of seven teen, commanded the southern army of the Camisards, and who, after defeating successively Count de Broglie and three French marshals, Montrevel, Berwick, and Villars, made an honourable peace.[1]
Cavalier for nearly three years continued to direct the war. Regular taxes were raised, arsenals were formed in the great limestone caves of the district, the Catholic churches and their decorations were burned, and the clergy driven away Occasionally routed in regular engagements, the Camisards, through their desperate valour, and the rapidity of their movements in a country without good roads, were constantly successful in skirmishes, night attacks, and ambuscades. A force of 60,000 was now in the field against them ; among others, the Irish Brigade which had just returned from the persecutions of the Vaudois. Montrevel adopted a policy of extermination, and 466 villages were burned in the Upper Cevennes alone, the population being for the most part put to the sword. The Pope, Clement XI., assisted in this glorious work by issuing a Bull against the " execrable race of the ancient Albigenses," and promising remission of sins to the holy militia which was now formed among the Catholic population, and was called the Florentines, Cadets of the Cross, or White Camisards. Villars, the victor of Hochstadt and Friedlingen, saw that conciliation was necessary ; he took advantage of the feeling of horror with which the quiet Protestants of Nimes and other towns now regarded the war, and published an amnesty. In May 1704 a formal meeting between Cavalier and Villars took place at Nimes. The result of the interview was that a document entitled Tres humble requete des rcformes du Languedoc, au Roi was despatched to the court. The three leading requests for liberty of conscience and the right of assembly outside walled towns, for the liberation of those sentenced to prison or the galleys under the revocation, and for the restitution to the emigrants of their property and civil rights, were all granted, the first on condition of no churches being built, and the third on condition of an oath of allegiance being taken. The greater part of the Camisard army under Roland, Ravenel, and Joany would not accept the terms which Cavalier had arranged. They insisted that the Edict of Nantes must be restored, "point de paix, que nous n ayons nos temjrfes." They continued the war till January 1705, by which time all their leaders were either killed or dispersed.
In 1709 Mazel and Claris, with the aid of two preaching women, Marie Desubas and Elisabeth Catalon, made a serious effort to rekindle revolt in the Vivarais. In 1711 all opposition and all signs of the Reformed religion had dis appeared. On 8th March 1715, by medals and a proclama tion, Louis XIV. announced the entire extinction of heresy. Fourteen years afterwards, in spite of the strictest surveil lance, aided by military occupation whenever the exigencies of foreign war permitted, the heroic missionary Antoine Court had organized 120 churches in Languedoc, which were attended by 200,000 Protestants, and governed secretly by the old discipline of " pasteur, anciens, con- sistoire, synode ; " the Society of Help for the Afflicted Faithful (to which George I. subscribed 500 guineas a year) had established their training college at Lausanne; and during the next thirty years Paul Rabaut, minister at Nimes, fostered and developed this religion, the child of intolerance. Voltaire s intervention in the affair of Calas stopped further religious persecution of an extreme kind ;[2]but it was not till 1775 that the last galley slaves from Languedoc were liberated,^ and not till 1789 that, on the motion of Rabaut St Etienne, the son of Paul Rabant, the National Assembly repealed the penal laws against Protestants.[3] The sufferings of the Cevenols on the galleys (" Forcats pour la Foi," a:; they were called) have been described in the Memoires de Marteiihe de Uergerac, Rotterdam, 1757 (translated into English by J. Willington, 1758, 2 vols.); in Bion s Relation des tourmcnts que I on fait sou/rir aux Protestants sur les galeres de France, London, ] 708 ; in the JJiscourssur la Providence, by Louis de Marolles, which is translated into English ; and in the Histoire de I Honnete Criminel, the autobiography of Jean Fabre. M. Athanase Coquerel the younger published in 1866 an Historical Study on the subject.
- ↑ Cavalier afterwards entered the British army, fought at the battle of Alnianza, and died governor of Jersey in 1740. He told Voltaire that the discipline of his troops was maintained by a prophetess, La Grande Marie, who condemned to death all insubordinates. Siecle de Louis XIV., c. 36. See also Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes, by Jean Cavalier, London, 1726 ; and the documents in Jean Cavalier, ou les Fanatiques des Ceccnnes, Paris, 1840, 4 vols.
- ↑ Voltaire procured the release of several Huguenot galley slaves, among others Chaumont, the shoemaker. After the treaty of Utrecht Queen Anne persuaded the French Government to free about 146 ; the total number was about 1500.
- ↑ There was an indecisive Edict of Toleration by Louis XVI. in 1787.
