crime of the confessors in question. Some of them were arrested as fugitives, others for having been in religious assemblies to pray to God in their own way, some for having been in the city of Orange to hear Protestant sermons, others for having served as guides to those who went out of the kingdom, all (in short) upon no other account but their religion, as may be seen by the general List. This truth is still more conspicuous by their perseverance in their sufferings for about twenty-five years past, in dungeons and on the galleys, rather than abjure their religion; though they have been constantly solicited to it, with promises not only of their liberty, but also of pensions and honours, and the king’s powerful protection. Does any government offer such great advantages to profligate villains?
“But here is the height of injustice! As their persecutors find it impossible to corrupt their faith or shake their firmness, either by promises or by torments, they and their emissaries endeavour to sully their good name by representing them as criminals, who disobeyed the king’s orders enjoining all his subjects to go to mass. At this rate there are abundance of criminals. I myself am one whom the king caused for some years to lie a close prisoner in gaols and dungeons,[1] and whom he, at last, set at full liberty, of his own motion, or rather by a superior order of the King of kings, who holds in his hands the hearts of kings, and inclines them as he pleases. He did not grant the same favour to many others.
*******
“Here is the disobedience — the not going, or not suffering one’s children to go to Mass, the not permitting a priest either to baptize or instruct them; in short, the endeavouring to serve God according to the dictates of one’s conscience. These are thought sufficient crimes to confine men either in prison or the galleys. Formerly this was accounted only stubbornness and obstinacy : now, it is downright rebellion, open revolt, and high treason. However, this was the crime of the primitive Christians, and of our Saviour himself, who was accused of being against the king, the laws, and the State; happy conformity. This is also the crime of this people of the Cevennes, that are condemned to the galleys. It is well known that they took up arms (wherein they were approved, encouraged, and supported) only to avoid being forced to go to Mass. . . .”
The martyrs had been sentenced to the galleys, both for the crime of “making profession of the pretended reformed religion,” and also in accordance with the Royal Declaration, dated 31st May 1685, “commuting the penalty of death into that of perpetual confinement, with hard labour in the galleys at Marseilles for the offence of going forth from the realm, and entering into any foreign service, or settling in any foreign country, without the king’s permission.” It had been hoped that the French government would have set them at liberty on the submission of Cavalier. But this hope having proved delusive, the Evangelic French Cantons of Switzerland agreed to give the Marquis de Rochegude the style and credentials of their Envoy to the King of Sweden and the other Protestant courts; this was in 1707. Two of this king’s replies were published, the first being addressed “To the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland.” The other was “To the King of Prussia;” — and the following is an extract from it:—
“We, Charles. Before we had received the letters, wherein your Majesty recommends to us the affair of the Marquis de Rochegude, he himself was arrived in our camp, and had given us a very particular account of the deplorable condition of his countrymen, who have been condemned to the galleys, and confined there so many years, for the sake of religion. Touched with a sense of their wretchedness, and at the prayer of the laudable cantons of Switzerland, we have ordered our Envoy at Paris to represent to the King of France how much we should be obliged to him for the enlargement and deliverance of those poor captives, whose only crime is that they have different sentiments of worship from those of the Church of Rome; and that we are persuaded he is too good and just, were he but thoroughly informed of their case, to suffer so many of his subjects, who are otherwise faithful to him, to groan under so undeserved and cruel afflictions. . . .
“Alt Ranstat,
Dec. 9, 1707.”
The Duke of Marlborough wrote to Rochegude on the 16th January 1708, congratulating him on his success with the King of Sweden, and gave him a letter of introduction to the English court. The letter was dated from “Hague, 6th May 1708,” and addressed to the Prince of Denmark (consort of Queen Anne). It begins thus:— “Sir, The Marquis de Rochegude, who has been with the king of Sweden, to desire his intercession with the Court of France for the release of the Protestants out of the galleys, being desirous of giving the Queen and your Royal Highness a particular account of his negotiations on the subject, I would not omit paying my duty by him.”
Viewed with reference to the prospects of success, Rochegude’s object was three-
- ↑ For some account of Rochegude’s imprisonment and prisons, see Laval’s “History of the Reformed Church of France,” Appendix, p. 52.
