The Huguenots in France Part 19

After occasional relays the Catholic persecutions again broke out. In 1752 there was a considerable emigration in consequence of a new intendant having been appointed to Languedoc. The Catholics called upon him to put in force the powers of the law. New brooms sweep clean. The Intendant proceeded to carry out the law with such ferocity as to excite great terror throughout the province. Meetings were surrounded; prisoners taken and sent to the galleys; and all the gaols and convents were filled with women and children.

The emigration began again. Many hundred persons went to Holland; and a still larger number went to settle with their compatriots as silk and poplin weavers in Dublin. The Intendant of Languedoc tried to stop their flight. The roads were again watched as before. All the outlets from the kingdom were closed by the royalist troops. Many of the intending emigrants were made prisoners. They were spoiled of everything, robbed of their money, and thrown into gaol. Nevertheless, another large troop started, pa.s.sed through Switzerland, and reached Ireland at the end of the year.

At the same time, emigration was going on from Normandy and Poitou, where persecution was compelling the people to fly from their own sh.o.r.es and take refuge in England. This religious emigration of 1752 was, however, almost the last which took place from France. Though the persecutions were drawing to an end, they had not yet come to a close.

In 1754, the young pastor Tessier (called Laf.a.ge), had just returned from Lausanne, where he had been pursuing his studies for three years.

He had been tracked by a spy to a certain house, where he had spent the night. Next morning the house was surrounded by soldiers. Tessier tried to escape by getting out of a top window and running along the roofs of the adjoining houses. A soldier saw him escaping and shot at him. He was severely wounded in the arm. He was captured, taken before the Intendant of Languedoc, condemned, and hanged in the course of the same day.

Religious meetings also continued to be surrounded, and were treated in the usual brutal manner. For instance, an a.s.sembly was held in Lower Languedoc on the 8th of August, 1756, for the purpose of ordaining to the ministry three young men who had arrived from Lausanne, where they had been educated. A number of pastors were present, and as many as from ten to twelve thousand men, women, and children were there from the surrounding country. The congregation was singing a psalm, when a detachment of soldiers approached. The people saw them; the singing ceased; the pastors urging patience and submission. The soldiers fired; every shot told; and the crowd fled in all directions. The meeting was thus dispersed, leaving the murderers--in other words, the gallant soldiers--masters of the field; a long track of blood remaining to mark the site on which the prayer-meeting had been held.

It is not necessary to recount further cruelties and tortures.

a.s.semblies surrounded and people shot; preachers seized and hanged; men sent to the galleys; women sent to the Tour de Constance; children carried off to the convents--such was the horrible ministry of torture in France. When Court heard of the re-inflictions of some old form of torture--"Alas," said he, "there is nothing new under the sun. In all times, the storm of persecution has cleansed the threshing-floor of the Lord."

And yet, notwithstanding all the bitterness of the persecution, the number of Protestants increased. It is difficult to determine their numbers. Their apologists said they amounted to three millions;[69]

their detractors that they did not amount to four hundred thousand.

The number of itinerant pastors, however, steadily grew. In 1756 there were 48 pastors at work, with 22 probationary preachers and students.

In 1763 there were 62 pastors, 35 preachers, and 15 students.

[Footnote 69: Ripert de Monclar, procureur-general, writing in 1755, says: "According to the jurisprudence of this kingdom, there are no French Protestants, and yet, according to the truth of facts, there are three millions. These imaginary beings fill the towns, provinces, and rural districts, and the capital alone contains sixty thousand of them."]

Then followed the death of Antoine Court himself in Switzerland--after watching over the education and training of preachers at the Lausanne Seminary. Feeling his powers beginning to fail, he had left Lausanne, and resided at Timonex. There, a.s.sisted by his son Court de Gebelin, Professor of Logic at the College, he conducted an immense correspondence with French Protestants at home and abroad.

Court's wife died in 1755, to his irreparable loss. His "Rachel,"

during his many years of peril, had been his constant friend and consoler. Unable, after her death, to live at Timonex, so full of cruel recollections, Court returned to Lausanne. He did not long survive his wife's death. While engaged in writing the history of the Reformed Church of France, he was taken ill. His history of the Camisards was sent to press, and he lived to revise the first proof-sheets. But he did not survive to see the book published. He died on the 15th June, 1760, in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

From the time of Court's death--indeed from the time that Court left France to settle at Lausanne--Paul Rabaut continued to be looked upon as the leader and director of the proscribed Huguenot Church. Rabaut originally belonged to Bedarieux in Languedoc. He was a great friend of Pradel's. Rabaut served the Church at Nismes, and Pradel at Uzes.

Both spent two years at Lausanne in 1744-5. Court entertained the highest affection for Rabaut, and regarded him as his successor. And indeed he n.o.bly continued the work which Court had begun.

Besides being zealous, studious, and pious, Rabaut was firm, active, shrewd, and gentle. He stood strongly upon moral force. Once, when the Huguenots had become more than usually provoked by the persecutions practised on them, they determined to appear armed at the a.s.semblies.

Rabaut peremptorily forbade it. If they persevered, he would forsake their meetings. He prevailed, and they came armed only with their Bibles.

The directness of Rabaut's character, the n.o.bility of his sentiments, the austerity of his life, and his heroic courage, evidently destined him as the head of the work which Court had begun. Antoine Court! Paul Rabaut! The one restored Protestantism in France, the other rooted and established it.

Rabaut's enthusiasm may be gathered from the following extract of a letter which he wrote to a friend at Geneva: "When I fix my attention upon the divine fire with which, I will not say Jesus Christ and the Apostles, but the Reformed and their immediate successors, burned for the salvation of souls, it seems to me that, in comparison with them, we are ice. Their immense works astound me, and at the same time cover me with confusion. What would I not give to resemble them in everything laudable!"

Rabaut had the same privations, perils, and difficulties to undergo as the rest of the pastors in the Desert. He had to a.s.sume all sorts of names and disguises while he travelled through the country, in order to preach at the appointed places. He went by the names of M. Paul, M.

Denis, M. Pastourel, and M. Theophile; and he travelled under the disguises of a common labourer, a trader, a journeyman, and a baker.

He was condemned to death, as a pastor who preached in defiance of the law; but his disguises were so well prepared, and the people for whom he ministered were so faithful to him, that the priests and other spies never succeeded in apprehending him. Singularly enough, he was in all other respects in favour of the recognition of legal authority, and strongly urged his brethren never to adopt any means whatever of forcibly resisting the King's orders.

Many of the military commanders were becoming disgusted with the despicable and cowardly business which the priests called upon them to do. Thus, on one occasion, a number of Protestants had a.s.sembled at the house of Paul Rabaut at Nismes, and, while they were on their knees, the door was suddenly burst open, when a man, m.u.f.fled up, presented himself, and throwing open his cloak, discovered the military commandant of the town. "My friends," he said, "you have Paul Rabaut with you; in a quarter of an hour I shall be here with my soldiers, accompanied by Father ----, who has just laid the information against you." When the soldiers arrived, headed by the commandant and the father, of course no Paul Rabaut was to be found.

"For more than thirty years," says one of Paul Rabaut's biographers, "caverns and huts, whence he was unearthed like a wild animal, were his only habitation. For a long time he dwelt in a safe hiding-place that one of his faithful guides had provided for him, under a pile of stones and thorn-bushes. It was discovered at length by a shepherd, and such was the wretchedness of his condition, that, when he was forced to abandon the place, he still regretted this retreat, which was more fit for savage beasts than men."

Yet this hut of piled stones was for some time the centre of Protestant affairs in France. All the faithful instinctively turned to Rabaut when a.s.sailed by fresh difficulties and persecutions, and acted on his advice. He obtained the respect even of the Catholics themselves, because it was known that he was a friend of peace, and opposed to all risings and rebellions amongst his people.

Once he had the courage to present a pet.i.tion to the Marquis de Paulmy, Minister of War, when changing horses at a post-house between Nismes and Montpellier. Rabaut introduced himself by name, and the Marquis knew that it was the proscribed pastor who stood before him.

He might have arrested and hanged Rabaut on the spot; but, impressed by the n.o.ble bearing of the pastor, he accepted the pet.i.tion, and promised to lay it before the king.

CHAPTER XIII

END OF THE PERSECUTIONS--THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

In the year 1762, the execution of an unknown Protestant at Toulouse made an extraordinary noise in Europe. Protestant pastors had so often been executed, that the punishment had ceased to be a novelty.

Sometimes they were simply hanged; at other times they were racked, and then hanged; and lastly, they were racked, had their larger bones broken, and were then hanged. Yet none of the various tortures practised on the Protestant pastors had up to that time excited any particular sensation in France itself, and still less in Europe.

Cruelty against French Huguenots was so common a thing in those days, that few persons who were of any other religion, or of no religion at all, cured anything about it. The Protestants were altogether outside the law. When a Protestant meeting was discovered and surrounded, and men, women, and children were at once shot down, no one could call the murderers in question, because the meetings were illegal. The persons taken prisoners at the meetings were brought before the magistrates and sentenced to punishments even worse than death. They might be sent to the galleys, to spend the remainder of their lives amongst thieves, murderers, and a.s.sa.s.sins. Women and children found at such meetings might also be sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tour de Constance. There were even cases of boys of twelve years old having been sent to the galleys for life, because of having accompanied their parents to "the Preaching."[70]

[Footnote 70: Athanase Coquerel, "Les Forcats pour la Foi,"

91.]

The same cruelties were at that time practised upon the common people generally, whether they were Huguenots or not. The poor creatures, whose only pleasure consisted in sometimes hunting a Protestant, were so badly off in some districts of France that they even fed upon gra.s.s. The most distressed districts in France were those in which the bishops and clergy were the princ.i.p.al owners of land. They were the last to abandon slavery, which continued upon their estates until after the Revolution.

All these abominations had grown up in France, because the people had begun to lose the sense of individual liberty. Louis XIV. had in his time prohibited the people from being of any religion different from his own. "His Majesty," said his Prime Minister Louvois, "will not suffer any person to remain in his kingdom who shall not be of his religion." And Louis XV. continued the delusion. The whole of the tyrannical edicts and ordinances of Louis XIV. continued to be maintained.

It was not that Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were kings of any virtue or religion. Both were men of exceedingly immoral habits. We have elsewhere described Louis XIV., but Louis XV., the Well-beloved, was perhaps the greatest profligate of the two. Madame de Pompadour, when she ceased to be his mistress, became his procuress. This infamous woman had the command of the state purse, and she contrived to build for the sovereign a harem, called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, in the park of Versailles, which cost the country at least a hundred millions of francs.[71] The number of young girls taken from Paris to this place excited great public discontent; and though morals generally were not very high at that time, the debauchery and intemperance of the King (for he was almost constantly drunk)[72] contributed to alienate the nation, and to foster those feelings of hatred which broke forth without restraint in the ensuing reign.

[Footnote 71: "Madame de Pompadour decouvrit que Louis XV.

pourrait lui-meme s'amuser a faire l'education de ces jeunes malheureuses. De pet.i.tes filles de neuf a douze ans, lorsqu'elles avaient attire les regards de la police par leur beaute, etaient enlevees a leurs meres par plusieurs artifices, conduites a Versailles, et retenues dans les parties les plus elevees et les plus inaccessibles des pet.i.ts appartements du roi.... Le nombre des malheureuses qui pa.s.serent successivement a Parc-aux-Cerfs est immense; a leur sortie elles etaient mariees a des hommes vils ou credules auxquels elles apportaient une bonne dot. Quelques unes conservaient un traitement fort considerable." "Les depenses du Parc-aux-Cerfs, dit Lacratelle, se payaient avec des acquits du comptant. Il est difficile de les evaluer; mais il ne peut y avoir aucune exageration a affirmer qu'elles couterent plus de 100 millions a l'etat. Dans quelques libelles on les porte jusqu'a un milliard."--SISMONDI, _Histoire de Francaise_, Brussels, 1844, xx. 153-4. The account given by Sismondi of the debauches of this persecutor of the Huguenots is very full. It is _not_ given in the "Old Court Life of France," recently written by a lady.]

[Footnote 72: Sismondi, xx. 157.]

In the midst of all this public disregard for virtue, a spirit of ribaldry and disregard for the sanctions of religion had long been making its appearance in the literature of the time. The highest speculations which can occupy the attention of man were touched with a recklessness and power, a brilliancy of touch and a bitterness of satire, which forced the sceptical productions of the day upon the notice of all who studied, read, or delighted in literature;--for those were the days of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the great men of "The Encyclopaedia."

While the King indulged in his vicious pleasures, and went reeking from his debaucheries to obtain absolution from his confessors, the persecution of the Protestants went on as before. Nor was it until public opinion (such as it was) was brought to bear upon the hideous incongruity that religious persecutions were at once brought summarily to an end.

The last executions of Huguenots in France because of their Protestantism occurred in 1762. Francis Rochette, a young pastor, twenty-six years old, was laid up by sickness at Montauban. He recovered sufficiently to proceed to the waters of St. Antonin for the recovery of his health, when he was seized, together with his two guides or bearers, by the burgess guard of the town of Caussade. The three brothers Grenier endeavoured to intercede for them; but the mayor of Caussade, proud of his capture, sent the whole of the prisoners to gaol.

They were tried by the judges of Toulouse on the 18th of February.

Rochette was condemned to be hung in his shirt, his head and feet uncovered, with a paper pinned on his shirt before and behind, with the words written thereon--"_Ministre de la religion pretendue reformee._" The three brothers Grenier, who interfered on behalf of Rochette, were ordered to have their heads taken off for resisting the secular power; and the two guides, who were bearing the sick Rochette to St. Antonin for the benefit of the waters, were sent to the galleys for life.

Barbarous punishments such as these were so common when Protestants were the offenders, that the decision, of the judges did not excite any particular sensation. It was only when Jean Calas was shortly after executed at Toulouse that an extraordinary sensation was produced--and that not because Calas was a Protestant, but because his punishment came under the notice of Voltaire, who exposed the inhuman cruelty to France, Europe, and the world at large.

The reason why Protestant executions terminated with the death of Calas was as follows:--The family of Jean Calas resided at Toulouse, then one of the most bigoted cities in France. Toulouse swarmed with priests and monks, more Spanish than French in their leanings. They were great in relics, processions, and confraternities. While "mealy-mouthed" Catholics in other quarters were becoming somewhat ashamed of the murders perpetrated during the Ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew, and were even disposed to deny them, the more outspoken Catholics of Toulouse were even proud of the feat, and publicly celebrated the great southern Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew which took place in 1572. The procession then held was one of the finest church commemorations in the south; it was followed by bishops, clergy, and the people of the neighbourhood, in immense numbers.

Calas was an old man of sixty-four, and reduced to great weakness by a paralytic complaint. He and his family were all Protestants excepting one son, who had become a Catholic. Another of the sons, however, a man of ill-regulated life, dissolute, and involved in pecuniary difficulties, committed suicide by hanging himself in an outhouse.

On this, the brotherhood of White Penitents stirred up a great fury against the Protestant family in the minds of the populace. The monks alleged that Jean Calas had murdered his son because he wished to become a Catholic. They gave out that it was a practice of the Protestants to keep an executioner to murder their children who wished to abjure the reformed faith, and that one of the objects of the meetings which they held in the Desert, was to elect this executioner.

The White Penitents celebrated ma.s.s for the suicide's soul; they exhibited his figure with a palm branch in his hand, and treated him as a martyr.

The public mind became inflamed. A fanatical judge, called David, took up the case, and ordered Calas and his whole family to be sent to prison. Calas was tried by the court of Toulouse. They tortured the whole family to compel them to confess the murder;[73] but they did not confess. The court wished to burn the mother, but they ended by condemning the paralytic father to be broken alive on the wheel.[74]

The parliament of Toulouse confirmed the atrocious sentence, and the old man perished in torments, declaring to the last his entire innocence. The rest of the family were discharged, although if there had been any truth in the charge for which Jean Calas was racked to death, they must necessarily have been his accomplices, and equally liable to punishment.