[Footnote 49: "The Autobiography of a French Protestant,"
         68.]

And yet, at any moment, a word spoken would have made these Huguenots
free. The Catholic priests frequently visited the galleys and
entreated them to become converted. If "converted," and the Huguenots
would only declare that they believed in the miraculous powers of the
clergy, their chains would fall away from their limbs at once; and
they would have been restored to the world, to their families, and to
liberty! And who would not have declared themselves "converted,"
rather than endure these horrible punishments? Yet by far the greater
number of the Huguenots did not. They could not be hypocrites. They
would not lie to God. Rather than do this, they had the heroism--some
will call it the obstinacy--to remain galley-slaves for life!

Many of the galley-slaves did not survive their torture long. Men of
all ages and conditions, accustomed to indoor life, could not bear the
exposure to the sun, rain, and snow, which the punishment of the
galley-slave involved. The old men and the young soon succumbed and
died. Middle-aged men survived the longest. But there was always a
change going on. When the numbers of a galley became thinned by death,
there were other Huguenots ready to be sent on board--perhaps waiting
in some inland prison until another "Great Chain" could be made up for
the seaports, to go on board the galley-ships, to be manacled,
tortured, and killed off as before.

Such was the treatment of the galley-slaves in time of peace. But the
galleys were also war-ships. They carried large numbers of armed men
on board. Sometimes they scoured the Mediterranean, and protected
French merchant-ships against the Sallee rovers. At other times they
were engaged in the English channel, attacking Dutch and English
ships, sometimes picking up a prize, at other times in actual
sea-fight.

When the service required, they were compelled to row incessantly
night and day, without rest, save in the last extremity; and they were
treated as if, on the first opportunity, in sight of the enemy, they
would revolt and betray the ship; hence they were constantly watched
by the soldiers on board, and if any commotion appeared amongst them,
they were shot down without ceremony, and their bodies thrown into the
sea. Loaded cannons were also placed at the end of the benches of
rowers, so as to shoot them down in case of necessity.

Whenever an enemy's ship came up, the galley-slaves were covered over
with a linen screen, so as to prevent them giving signals to the
enemy. When an action occurred, they were particularly exposed to
danger, for the rowers and their oars were the first to be shot
at--just as the boiler or screw of a war-steamer would be shot at
now--in order to disable the ship. The galley-slaves thus suffered
much more from the enemy's shot than the other armed men of the ship.
The rowers benches were often filled with dead, before the soldiers
and mariners on board had been touched.

Marteilhe, while a galley-slave on board _La Palme_, was engaged in an
adventure which had nearly cost him his life. Four French galleys,
after cruising along the English coast from Dover to the Downs, got
sight of a fleet of thirty-five merchant vessels on their way from the
Texel to the Thames, under the protection of one small English
frigate. The commanders of the galleys, taking counsel together,
determined to attack the frigate (which they thought themselves easily
able to master), and so capture the entire English fleet.

The captain of the frigate, when he saw the galleys approach him,
ordered the merchantmen to crowd sail and make for the Thames, the
mouth of which they had nearly reached. He then sailed down upon the
galleys, determined to sacrifice his ship if necessary for the safety
of his charge. The galleys fired into him, but he returned never a
shot. The captain of the galley in which Marteilhe was, said, "Oh, he
is coming to surrender!" The frigate was so near that the French
musqueteers were already firing full upon her. All of a sudden the
frigate tacked and veered round as if about to fly from the galleys.
The Frenchmen called out that the English were cowards in thus trying
to avoid the battle. If they did not surrender at once, they would
sink the frigate!

The English captain took no notice. The frigate then turned her stern
towards the galley, as if to give the Frenchmen an opportunity of
boarding her. The French commander ordered the galley at once to run
at the enemy's stern, and the crew to board the frigate. The rush was
made; the galley-slaves, urged by blows of the whip, rowing with great
force. The galley was suddenly nearing the stern of the frigate, when
by a clever stroke of the helm the ship moved to one side, and the
galley, missing it, rushed past. All the oars on that side were
suddenly broken off, and the galley was placed immediately under the
broadside of the enemy.

Then began the English part of the game. The French galley was seized
with grappling irons and hooked on to the English broadside. The men
on board the galley were as exposed as if they had been upon a raft or
a bridge. The frigate's guns, which were charged with grapeshot, were
discharged full upon them, and a frightful carnage ensued. The English
also threw hand grenades, which went down amongst the rowers and
killed many. They next boarded the galley, and cut to pieces all the
armed men they could lay hold of, only sparing the convicts, who could
make no attempt at defence.

The English captain then threw off the galley, which he had broadsided
and disarmed, in order to look after the merchantmen, which some of
the other galleys had gone to intercept on their way to the mouth of
the Thames. Some of the ships had already been captured; but the
commanders of the galleys, seeing their fellow-commodores flying
signals of distress, let go their prey, and concentrated their attack
upon the frigate. This they surrounded, and after a very hard struggle
the frigate was captured, but not until the English captain had
ascertained that all the fleet of which he had been in charge had
entered the Thames and were safe.

In the above encounter with the English frigate Marteilhe had nearly
lost his life. The bench on which he was seated, with five other
slaves, was opposite one of the loaded guns of the frigate. He saw
that it must be discharged directly upon them. His fellows tried to
lie down flat, while Marteilhe himself stood up. He saw the gunner
with his lighted match approach the touchhole; then he lifted up his
heart to God; the next moment he was lying stunned and prostrate in
the centre of the galley, as far as the chain would allow him to
reach. He was lying across the body of the lieutenant, who was killed.
A long time passed, during which the fight was still going on, and
then Marteilhe came to himself, towards dark. Most of his
fellow-slaves were killed. He himself was bleeding from a large open
wound on his shoulder, another on his knee, and a third in his
stomach. Of the eighteen men around him he was the only one that
escaped, with his three wounds.

The dead were all thrown into the sea. The men were about to throw
Marteilhe after them, but while attempting to release him from his
chain, they touched the wound upon his knee, and he groaned heavily.
They let him remain where he lay. Shortly after, he was taken down to
the bottom of the hold with the other men, where he long lay amongst
the wounded and dying. At length he recovered from his wounds, and was
again returned to his bench, to re-enter the horrible life of a
galley-slave.

There was another mean and unmanly cruelty, connected with this
galley-slave service, which was practised only upon the Huguenots. If
an assassin or other criminal received a wound in the service of the
state while engaged in battle, he was at once restored to his
liberty; but if a Huguenot was wounded, he was never released. He was
returned to his bench and chained as before; the wounds he had
received being only so many additional tortures to be borne by him in
the course of his punishment.

Marteilhe, as we have already stated, was disembarked when he had
sufficiently recovered, and marched through the entire length of
France, enchained with other malefactors. On his arrival at
Marseilles, he was placed on board the galley _Grand Réale_, where he
remained until peace was declared between England and France by the
Treaty of Utrecht.[50]

         [Footnote 50: "Autobiography of a French Protestant,"
         112-21.]

Queen Anne of England, at the instigation of the Marquis de Rochegade,
then made an effort to obtain the liberation of Protestants serving at
the galleys; and at length, out of seven hundred and forty-two
Huguenots who were then enslaved, a hundred and thirty-six were
liberated, of whom Marteilhe was one. He was thus enabled to get rid
of his inhuman countrymen, and to spend the remainder of his life in
Holland and England, where Protestants were free.




CHAPTER X.

ANTOINE COURT


Almost at the very time that Louis XIV. was lying on his death-bed at
Versailles, a young man conceived the idea of re-establishing
Protestantism in France! Louis XIV. had tried to enter heaven by
superstition and cruelty. On his death-bed he began to doubt whether
he "had not carried his authority too far."[51] But the Jesuits tried
to make death easy for him, covering his body with relics of the true
cross.

         [Footnote 51: Saint-Simon and Dangeau.]

Very different was the position of the young man who tried to undo all
that Louis XIV., under the influence of his mistress De Maintenon, and
his Jesuit confessor, Père la Chase,[52] had been trying all his life
to accomplish. He was an intelligent youth, the son of Huguenot
parents in Viverais, of comparatively poor and humble condition. He
was, however, full of energy, activity, and a zealous disposition for
work. Observing the tendency which Protestantism had, while bereft of
its pastors, to run into gloomy forms of fanaticism, Antoine Court
conceived the idea of reviving the pastorate, and restoring the
proscribed Protestant Church of France. It was a bold idea, but the
result proved that Antoine Court was justified in entertaining it.

         [Footnote 52: Amongst the many satires and epigrams with
         which Louis XIV. was pursued to the grave, the following
         epitaph may be given:--

           "Ci gist le mari de Thérèse
           De la Montespan le Mignon,
           L'esclave de la Maintenon,
           Le valet du père La Chaise."

         At the death of Louis XIV., Voltaire, an _élève_ of the
         Jesuits, was appropriately coming into notice. At the age of
         about twenty he was thrown into the Bastille; for having
         written a satire on Louis XIV., of which the following is an
         extract:--

           "J'ai vu sous l'habit d'une femme
             Un démon nous donner la loi;
           Elle sacrifia son Dieu, sa foi, son âme,
           Pour séduire l'esprit d'un trop crédule roi.

             *       *       *       *       *

             J'ai vu l'hypocrite honoré:
           J'ai vu, c'est dire tout, le jésuite adoré:
             J'ai vu ces maux sous le règne funeste
           D'un prince que jadis la colère céleste
           Accorda, par vengeance, à nos désirs ardens:
             J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans."

         Voltaire denied having written this satire.]

Louis XIV. died in August, 1715. During that very month, Court
summoned together a small number of Huguenots to consider his
suggestions. The meeting was held at daybreak, in an empty quarry near
Nismes, which has already been mentioned in the course of this
history. But it may here be necessary to inform the reader of the
early life of this enthusiastic young man.

Antoine Court was born at Villeneuve de Berg, in Viverais, in the year
1696. Religious persecution was then at its height; assemblies were
vigorously put down; and all pastors taken prisoners were hanged on
the Peyrou at Montpellier. Court was only four years old when his
father died, and his mother resolved, if the boy lived, to train him
up so that he might consecrate himself to the service of God. He was
still very young while the Camisard war was in progress, but he heard
a great deal about it, and vividly remembered all that he heard.

Antoine Court, like many Protestant children, was compelled to attend
a Jesuit school in his neighbourhood. Though but a boy he abhorred the
Mass. With Protestants the Mass was then the symbol of persecution; it
was identified with the Revocation of the Edict--the dragonnades, the
galleys, the prisons, the nunneries, the monkeries, and the Jesuits.
The Mass was not a matter of knowledge, but of fear, of terror, and of
hereditary hatred.

At school, the other boys were most bitter against Court, because he
was the son of a Huguenot. Every sort of mischief was practised upon
him, for little boys are generally among the greatest of persecutors.
Court was stoned, worried, railed at, laughed at, spit at. When
leaving school, the boys called after him "He, he! the eldest son of
Calvin!" They sometimes pursued him with clamour and volleys of stones
to the door of his house, collecting in their riotous procession all
the other Catholic boys of the place. Sometimes they forced him into
church whilst the Mass was being celebrated. In fact, the boy's hatred
of the Mass and of Catholicism grew daily more and more vehement.

All these persecutions, together with reading some of the books which
came under his notice at home, confirmed his aversion to the
Jesuitical school to which he had been sent. At the same time he
became desirous of attending the secret assemblies, which he knew were
being held in the neighbourhood. One day, when his mother set out to
attend one of them, the boy set out to follow her. She discovered him,
and demanded whither he was going. "I follow you, mother," said he,
"and I wish you to permit me to go where you go. I know that you go to
pray to God, and will you refuse me the favour of going to do so with
you?"

She shed tears at his words, told him of the danger of attending the
assembly, and strongly exhorted him to secrecy; but she allowed him to
accompany her. He was at that time too little and weak to walk the
whole way to the meeting; but other worshippers coming up, they took
the boy on their shoulders and carried him along with them.

At the age of seventeen, Court began to read the Bible at the
assemblies. One day, in a moment of sudden excitement, common enough
at secret meetings, he undertook to address the assembly. What he said
was received with much approval, and he was encouraged to go on
preaching. He soon became famous among the mountaineers, and was
regarded as a young man capable of accomplishing great things.

As he grew older, he at length determined to devote his life to
preaching and ministering to the forsaken and afflicted Protestants.
It was a noble, self-denying work, the only earthly reward for which
was labour, difficulty, and danger. His mother was in great trouble,
for Antoine was her only remaining son. She did not, however, press
him to change his resolution. Court quoted to her the text, "Whoever
loves father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me." After
this, she only saw in her son a victim consecrated, like another
Abraham, to the Divine service.

After arriving at his decision, Court proceeded to visit the Huguenots
in Low Languedoc, passing by Uzes to Nismes, and preaching wherever he
could draw assemblies of the people together. His success during this
rapid excursion induced him to visit Dauphiny. There he met Brunel,
another preacher, with knapsack on his back, running from place to
place in order to avoid spies, priests, and soldiers. The two were
equally full of ardour, and they went together preaching in many
places, and duly encouraging each other.

From Dauphiny, Court directed his steps to Marseilles, where the royal
galleys stationed there contained about three hundred Huguenot
galley-slaves. He penetrated these horrible floating prisons, without
being detected, and even contrived to organize amongst them a regular
system of secret worship. Then he returned to Nismes, and from thence
went through the Cevennes and the Viverais, preaching to people who
had never met for Protestant worship since the termination of the wars
of the Camisards. To elude the spies, who began to make hot search for
him, because of the enthusiasm which he excited, Court contrived to be
always on the move, and to appear daily in some fresh locality.

The constant fatigue which he underwent undermined his health, and he
was compelled to remain for a time inactive at the mineral waters of
Euzet. This retirement proved useful. He began to think over what
might be done to revivify the Protestant religion in France. Remember
that he was at that time only nineteen years of age! It might be
thought presumptuous in a youth, comparatively uninstructed, even to
dream of such a subject. The instruments of earthly power--King, Pope,
bishops, priests, soldiers, and spies--were all arrayed against him.
He had nothing to oppose to them but truth, uprightness, conscience,
and indefatigable zeal for labour.

When Court had last met the few Protestant preachers who survived in
Languedoc, they were very undecided about taking up his scheme. They
had met at Nismes to take the sacrament in the house of a friend.
There were Bombonnoux (an old Camisard), Crotte, Corteiz, Brunel, and
Court. Without coming to any decision, they separated, some going to
Switzerland, and others to the South and West of France. It now rested
with Court, during his sickness, to study and endeavour to arrange the
method of reorganization of the Church.

The Huguenots who remained in France were then divided into three
classes--the "new converts," who professed Catholicism while hating
it; the lovers of the ancient Protestant faith, who still clung to it;
and, lastly, the more ignorant, who still clung to prophesying and
inspiration. These last had done the Protestant Church much injury,
for the intelligent classes generally regarded them as but mere
fanatics.

Court found it would be requisite to keep the latter within the
leading-strings of spiritual instruction, and to encourage the "new
converts" to return to the church of their fathers by the
re-establishment of some efficient pastoral service. He therefore
urged that religious assemblies must be continued, and that discipline
must be established by the appointment of elders, presbyteries, and
synods, and also by the training up of a body of young pastors to
preach amongst the people, and discipline them according to the rules
of the Protestant Church. Nearly thirty years had passed since it had
been disorganized by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, so that
synods, presbyteries, and the training of preachers had become almost
forgotten.

The first synod was convened by Court, and held in the abandoned
quarry near Nismes, above referred to, in the very same month in which
Louis XIV. breathed his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or
three laymen and a few preachers[53] were present, the whole meeting
numbering only nine persons. The place in which the meeting was held
had often before been used as a secret place of worship by the
Huguenots. Religious meetings held there had often been dispersed by
the dragoons, and there was scarcely a stone in it that had not been
splashed by Huguenot blood. And now, after Protestantism had been
"finally suppressed," Antoine Court assembled his first synod to
re-establish the proscribed religion!

         [Footnote 53: Edmund Hughes says the preachers were probably
         Rouviere (or Crotte), Jean Huc, Jean Vesson, Etienne Arnaud,
         and Durand.]

The first meeting took place on the 21st of August, 1715, at daybreak.
After prayer, Court, as moderator, explained his method of
reorganization, which was approved. The first elders were appointed
from amongst those present. A series of rules and regulations was
resolved upon and ordered to be spread over the entire province. The
preachers were then charged to go forth, to stir up the people and
endeavour to bring back the "new converts."

They lost no time in carrying out their mission. The first districts
in which they were appointed to work were those of Mende, Alais,
Viviers, Uzes, Nismes, and Montpellier, in Languedoc--districts which,
fifteen years before, had been the scenes of the Camisard war. There,
in unknown valleys, on hillsides, on the mountains, in the midst of
hostile towns and villages, the missionaries sought out the huts, the
farms, and the dwellings of the scattered, concealed, and
half-frightened Huguenots. Amidst the open threats of the magistrates
and others in office, and the fear of the still more hateful priests
and spies, they went from house to house, and prayed, preached,
advised, and endeavoured to awaken the zeal of their old allies of the
"Religion."

The preachers were for the most part poor, and some of them were
labouring men. They were mostly natives of Languedoc. Jean Vesson, a
cooper by trade, had in his youth been "inspired," and prophesied in
his ecstasy. Mazelet, now an elderly man, had formerly been celebrated
among the Camisards, and preached with great success before the
soldiers of Roland. At forty he was not able to read or write; but
having been forced to fly into Switzerland, he picked up some
education at Geneva, and had studied divinity under a fellow-exile.

Bombonnoux had been a brigadier in the troop of Cavalier. After his
chief's defection he resolved to continue the war to the end, by
preaching, if not by fighting. He had been taken prisoner and
imprisoned at Montpellier, in 1705. Two of his Camisard friends were
first put upon the rack, and then, while still living, thrown upon a
pile and burnt to death before his eyes. But the horrible character of
the punishment did not terrify him. He contrived to escape from prison
at Montpellier, and then went about convoking assemblies and preaching
to the people as before.

Besides these, there were Huc, Corteiz, Durand, Arnaud, Brunel, and
Rouviere or Crotte, who all went about from place to place, convoking
assemblies and preaching. There were also some local preachers, as
they might be called--old men who could not move far from home--who
worked at their looms or trades, sometimes tilling the ground by day,
and preaching at night. Amongst these were Monteil, Guillot, and
Bonnard, all more than sixty years of age.

Court, because of his youth and energy, seems to have been among the
most active of the preachers. One day, near St. Hypolite, a chief
centre of the Huguenot population, he convoked an assembly on a
mountain side, the largest that had taken place for many years. The
priests of the parish gave information to the authorities; and the
governor of Alais offered a reward of fifty pistoles to anyone who
would apprehend and deliver up to him the young preacher. Troops were
sent into the district; upon which Court descended from the mountains
towards the towns of Low Languedoc, and shortly after he arrived at
Nismes.

At Nismes, Court first met Jacques Roger, who afterwards proved of
great assistance to him in his work. Roger had long been an exile in
Wurtemburg. He was originally a native of Boissieres, in Languedoc,
and when a young man was compelled to quit France with his parents,
who were Huguenots. His heart, however, continued to draw him towards
his native country, although it had treated himself and his family so
cruelly.

As Roger grew older, he determined to return to France, with the
object of helping his friends of the "Religion." A plan had occurred
to him, like that which Antoine Court was now endeavouring to carry
into effect. The joy with which Roger encountered Court at Nismes, and
learnt his plans, may therefore be conceived. The result was, that
Roger undertook to "awaken" the Protestants of Dauphiny, and to
endeavour to accomplish there what Court was already gradually
effecting in Languedoc. Roger held his first synod in Dauphiny in
August, 1716, at which seven preachers and several elders or _anciens_
assisted.

In the meantime Antoine Court again set out to visit the churches
which had been reconstructed along the banks of the Gardon. He had
been suffering from intermittent fever, and started on his journey
before he was sufficiently recovered. Having no horse, he walked on
foot, mostly by night, along the least known by-paths, stopping here
and there upon his way. At length he became so enfeebled and ill as to
be unable to walk further. He then induced two men to carry him. By
crossing their hands over each other, they took him up between them,
and carried him along on this improvised chair.

Court found a temporary lodging with a friend. But no sooner had he
laid himself down to sleep, than the alarm was raised that he must get
up and fly. A spy had been observed watching the house. Court rose,
put on his clothes, and though suffering great pain, started afresh.
The night was dark and rainy. By turns shivering with cold and in an
access of fever, he wandered alone for hours across the country,
towards the house of another friend, where he at last found shelter.
Such were the common experiences of these wandering, devoted,
proscribed, and heroic ministers of the Gospel.

Their labours were not carried on without encountering other and
greater dangers. Now that the Protestants were becoming organized, it
was not so necessary to incite them to public worship. They even
required to be restrained, so that they might not too suddenly awaken
the suspicion or excite the opposition of the authorities. Thus, at
the beginning of 1717, the preacher Vesson held an open assembly near
Anduze. It was surprised by the troops; and seventy-two persons made
prisoners, of whom the men were sent to the galleys for life, and the
women imprisoned in the Tour de Constance. Vesson was on this occasion
reprimanded by the synod, for having exposed his brethren to
unnecessary danger.

While there was the danger of loss of liberty to the people, there was
the danger of loss of life to the pastors who were bold enough to
minister to their religious necessities. Etienne Arnaud having
preached to an assembly near Alais, was taken prisoner by the
soldiers. They took him to Montpellier, where he was judged,
condemned, and sent back to Alais to be hanged. This brave young man
gave up his life with great courage and resignation. His death caused
much sorrow amongst the Protestants, but it had no effect in
dissuading the preachers and pastors from the work they had taken in
hand. There were many to take the place of Arnaud. Young Bètrine
offered himself to the synod, and was accepted.

Scripture readers were also appointed, to read the Bible at meetings
which preachers were not able to attend. There was, however, a great
want of Bibles amongst the Protestants. One of the first things done
by the young King Louis XV.--the "Well-beloved" of the Jesuits--on his
ascending the throne, was to issue a proclamation ordering the seizure
of Bibles, Testaments, Psalm-books, and other religious works used by
the Protestants. And though so many books had already been seized and
burnt in the reign of Louis XIV., immense piles were again collected
and given to the flames by the executioners.

"Our need of books is very great," wrote Court to a friend abroad; and
the same statement was repeated in many of his letters. His principal
need was of Bibles and Testaments; for every Huguenot knew the greater
part of the Psalms by heart. When a Testament was obtained, it was
lent about, and for the most part learnt off. The labour was divided
in this way. One person, sometimes a boy or girl, of good memory,
would undertake to learn one or more chapters in the Gospels, another
a certain number in the Epistles, until at last a large portion of the
book was committed to memory, and could be recited at the meetings of
the assemblies. And thus also it happened, that the conversation of
the people, as well as the sermons of their preachers, gradually
assumed a strongly biblical form.

Strong appeals were made to foreign Protestants to supply the people
with books. The refugees who had settled in Switzerland, Holland, and
England sent the Huguenots remaining in France considerable help in
this way. They sent many Testaments and Psalm-books, together with
catechisms for the young, and many devotional works written by French
divines residing in Holland and England--by Drelincourt, Saurin,
Claude and others. These were sent safely across the frontier in
bales, put into the hands of colporteurs, and circulated amongst the
Protestants all over the South of France. The printing press of Geneva
was also put in requisition; and Court had many of his sermons printed
there and distributed amongst the people.

Until this time, Court had merely acted as a preacher; and it was now
determined to ordain and consecrate him as a pastor. The ceremony,
though, comparatively unceremonious, was very touching. A large number
of Protestants in the Vaunage assembled on the night of the 21st
November, 1718, and, after prayer, Court rose and spoke for some time
of the responsible duties of the ministry, and of the necessity and
advantages of preaching. He thanked God for having raised up ministers
to serve the Church when so many of her enemies were seeking for her
ruin. He finally asked the whole assembly to pray for grace to enable
him to fulfil with renewed zeal the duties to which, he was about to
be called, together with all the virtues needed for success. At these
touching words the assembled hearers shed tears. Then Corteiz, the old
pastor, drew near to Court, now upon his knees, and placing a Bible
upon his head, in the name of Jesus Christ, and with the authority of
the synod, gave him power to exercise all the functions of the
ministry. Cries of joy were heard on all sides. Then, after further
prayer, the assembly broke up in the darkness of the night.

The plague which broke out in 1720 helped the progress of the new
Church. The Protestants thought the plague had been sent as a
punishment for their backsliding. Piety increased, and assemblies in
the Desert were more largely attended than before. The intendants
ceased to interfere with them, and the soldiers were kept strictly
within their cantonments. More preachers were licensed, and more
elders were elected. Many new churches were set up throughout
Languedoc; and the department of the Lozère, in the Cevennes, became
again almost entirely Protestant. Roger and Villeveyre were almost
equally successful in Dauphiny; and Saintonge, Normandy, and Poitou
were also beginning to maintain a connection with the Protestant
churches of Languedoc.




CHAPTER XI.

REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT.


The organization of the Church in the Desert is one of the most
curious things in history. Secret meetings of the Huguenots had long
been held in France. They were began several years before the Act of
Revocation was proclaimed, when the dragonnades were on foot, and
while the Protestant temples were being demolished by the Government.
The Huguenots then arranged to meet and hold their worship in retired
places.

As the meetings were at first held, for the most part, in Languedoc,
and as much of that province, especially in the district of the
Cevennes, is really waste and desert land, the meetings were at first
called "Assemblies in the Desert," and for nearly a hundred years they
retained that name.

When Court began to reorganize the Protestant Church in France,
shortly after the Camisard war, meetings in the Desert had become
almost unknown. There were occasional prayer-meetings, at which
chapters of the Bible were read or recited by those who remembered
them, and psalms were sung; but there were few or no meetings at which
pastors presided. Court, however, resolved not only to revive the
meetings of the Church in the Desert, but to reconstitute the
congregations, and restore the system of governing them according to
the methods of the Huguenot Church.

The first thing done in reconstituting a congregation, was to appoint
certain well-known religious men, as _anciens_ or elders. These were
very important officers. They formed the church in the first instance;
for where there were no elders, there was no church. They were members
of the _consistoire_ or presbytery. They looked after the flock,
visited them in their families, made collections, named the pastors,
and maintained peace, order, and discipline amongst the people. Though
first nominated by the pastors, they were elected by the congregation;
and the reason for their election was their known ability, zeal, and
piety.

The elder was always present at the assemblies, though the minister
was absent. He prevented the members from succumbing to temptation and
falling away; he censured scandal; he kept up the flame of religious
zeal, and encouraged the failing and helpless; he distributed amongst
the poorest the collections made and intrusted to him by the Church.

We have said that part of the duty of the elders was to censure
scandal amongst the members. If their conduct was not considered
becoming the Christian life, they were not visited by the pastors and
were not allowed to attend the assemblies, until they had declared
their determination to lead a better life. What a punishment for
infraction of discipline! to be debarred attending an assembly, for
being present at which, the pastor, if detected, might be hanged, and
the penitent member sent to the galleys for life![54]

         [Footnote 54: C. Coquerel, "Église du Désert," i. 105.]

The elders summoned the assemblies. They gave the word to a few
friends, and these spread the notice about amongst the rest. The news
soon became known, and in the course of a day or two, the members of
the congregation, though living perhaps in distant villages, would be
duly informed of the time and place of the intended meeting. It was
usually held at night,--in some secret place--in a cave, a hollow in
the woods, a ravine, or an abandoned farmstead.

Men, women, and even children were taken thither, after one, two, or
sometimes three leagues' walking. The meetings were always full of
danger, for spies were lurking about. Catholic priests were constant
informers; and soldiers were never far distant. But besides the
difficulties of spies and soldiers, the meetings were often dispersed
by the rain in summer, or by the snow in winter.

After the Camisard war, and before the appearance of Court, these
meetings rarely numbered more than a hundred persons. But Court and
his fellow-pastors often held meetings at which more than two thousand
people were present. On one occasion, not less than four thousand
persons attended an assembly in Lower Languedoc.

When the meetings were held by day, they were carefully guarded and
watched by sentinels on the look-out, especially in those places near
which garrisons were stationed. The fleetest of the young men were
chosen for this purpose. They watched the garrison exits, and when the
soldiers made a sortie, the sentinels communicated by signal from hill
to hill, thus giving warning to the meeting to disperse. But the
assemblies were mostly held at night; and even then the sentinels were
carefully posted about, but not at so great a distance.

The chief of the whole organization was the pastor. First, there were
the members entitled to church, privileges; next the _anciens_; and
lastly the pastors. As in Presbyterianism, so in Huguenot Calvinism,
its form of government was republican. The organization was based upon
the people who elected their elders; then upon the elders who selected
and recommended the pastors; and lastly upon the whole congregation of
members, elders, and pastors (represented in synods), who maintained
the entire organization of the Church.

There were three grades of service in the rank of pastor--first
students, next preachers, and lastly pastors. Wonderful that there
should have been students of a profession, to follow which was almost
equal to a sentence of death! But there were plenty of young
enthusiasts ready to brave martyrdom in the service of the proscribed
Church. Sometimes it was even necessary to restrain them in their
applications.

Court once wrote to Pierre Durand, at a time when the latter was
restoring order and organization in Viverais: "Sound and examine well
the persons offering themselves for your approval, before permitting
them to enter on this glorious employment. Secure good, virtuous men,
full of zeal for the cause of truth. It is piety only that inspires
nobility and greatness of soul. Piety sustains us under the most
extreme dangers, and triumphs over the severest obstacles. The good
conscience always marches forward with its head erect."

When the character of the young applicants was approved, their studies
then proceeded, like everything else connected with the proscribed
religion, in secret. The students followed the professor and pastor in
his wanderings over the country, passing long nights in marching,
sometimes hiding in caves by day, or sleeping under the stars by
night, passing from meeting to meeting, always with death looming
before them.

"I have often pitched my professor's chair," said Court, "in a torrent
underneath a rock. The sky was our roof, and the leafy branches thrown
out from the crevices in the rock overhead, were our canopy. There I
and my students would remain for about eight days; it was our hall,
our lecture-room, and our study. To make the most of our time, and to
practise the students properly, I gave them a text of Scripture to
discuss before me--say the first eleven verses of the fifth chapter of
Luke. I would afterwards propose to them some point of doctrine, some
passage of Scripture, some moral precept, or sometimes I gave them
some difficult passages to reconcile. After the whole had stated their
views upon the question under discussion, I asked the youngest if he
had anything to state against the arguments advanced; then the others
were asked in turn; and after they had finished, I stated the views
which I considered most just and correct. When the more advanced
students were required to preach, they mounted a particular place,
where a pole had been set across some rocks in the ravine, and which
for the time served for a pulpit. And when they had delivered
themselves, the others were requested by turns to express themselves
freely upon the subject of the sermon which they had heard."

When the _proposant_ or probationer was considered sufficiently able
to preach, he was sent on a mission to visit the churches. Sometimes
he preached the approved sermons of other pastors; sometimes he
preached his own sermons, after they had been examined by persons
appointed by the synod. After a time, if approved by the moderator and
a committee of the synod, the _proposant_ was licensed to preach. His
work then resembled that of a pastor; but he could not yet administer
the sacrament. It was only when he had passed the synod, and been
appointed by the laying on of hands, that he could exercise the higher
pastoral functions.

Then, with respect to the maintenance of the pastors and preachers,
Court recounts, not without pride, that for the ten years between 1713
and 1723 (excepting the years which he spent at Geneva), he served the
Huguenot churches without receiving a farthing. His family and friends
saw to the supply of his private wants. With respect to the others,
they were supported by collections made at the assemblies; and, as the
people were nearly all poor, the amount collected was very small. On
one occasion, three assemblies produced a halfpenny and six
half-farthings.

But a regular system of collecting moneys was framed by the synods
(consisting of a meeting of pastors and elders), and out of the common
fund so raised, emoluments were assigned, first to those preachers who
were married, and afterwards to those who were single. In either case
the pay was very small, scarcely sufficient to keep the wolf from the
door.

The students for the ministry were at first educated by Court and
trained to preach, while he was on his dangerous journeys from one
assembly in the Desert to another. Nor was the supply of preachers
sufficient to visit the congregations already organized. Court had
long determined, so soon as the opportunity offered, of starting a
school for the special education of preachers and pastors, so that the
work he was engaged in might be more efficiently carried on. He at
first corresponded with influential French refugees in England and
Holland with reference to the subject. He wrote to Basnage and Saurin,
but they received his propositions coolly. He wrote to William Wake,
then Archbishop of Canterbury, who promised his assistance. At last
Court resolved to proceed into Switzerland, to stir up the French
refugees disposed to help him in his labours.

Arrived at Geneva, Court sought out M. Pictet, to whom he explained
the state of affairs in France. It had been rumoured amongst the
foreign Protestants that fanaticism and "inspiration" were now in the
ascendant among the Protestants of France. Court showed that this was
entirely a mistake, and that all which the proscribed Huguenots in
France wanted, was a supply of properly educated pastors. The friends
of true religion, and the enemies of fanaticism, ought therefore to
come to their help and supply them with that of which they stood most
in need. If they would find teachers, Court would undertake to supply
them with congregations. And Huguenot congregations were rapidly
increasing, not only in Languedoc and Dauphiny, but in Normandy,
Picardy, Poitou, Saintonge, Bearn, and the other provinces.

At length the subject became matured. It was not found desirable to
establish the proposed school at Geneva, that city being closely
watched by France, and frequently under the censure of its government
for giving shelter to refugee Frenchmen. It was eventually determined
that the college for the education of preachers should begin at
Lausanne. It was accordingly commenced in the year 1726, and
established under the superintendence of M. Duplan.

A committee of refugees called the "Society of Help for the Afflicted
Faithful," was formed at Lausanne to collect subscriptions for the
maintenance of the preachers, the pastors, and the seminary. These
were in the first place received from Huguenots settled in
Switzerland, afterwards increased by subscriptions obtained from
refugees settled in Holland, Germany, and England. The King of England
subscribed five hundred guineas yearly. Duplan was an indefatigable
agent. In fourteen years he collected fourteen thousand pounds. By
these efforts the number of students was gradually increased. They
came from all parts of France, but chiefly from Languedoc. Between
1726 (the year in which it was started) and 1753, ninety students had
passed through the seminary.

When the students had passed the range of study appointed by the
professors, they returned from Switzerland to France to enter upon the
work of their lives. They had passed the school for martyrdom, and
were ready to preach to the assemblies--they had paved their way to
the scaffold!

The preachers always went abroad with their lives in their hands. They
travelled mostly by night, shunning the open highways, and selecting
abandoned routes, often sheep-paths across the hills, to reach the
scene of their next meeting. The trace of their steps is still marked
upon the soil of the Cevennes, the people of the country still
speaking of the solitary routes taken by their instructors when
passing from parish to parish, to preach to their fathers.

They were dressed, for disguise, in various ways; sometimes as
peasants, as workmen, or as shepherds. On one occasion, Court and
Duplan travelled the country disguised as officers! The police heard
of it, and ordered their immediate arrest, pointing out the town and
the very house where they were to be taken. But the preachers escaped,
and assumed a new dress.

When living near Nismes, Court was one day seated under a tree
composing a sermon, when a party of soldiers, hearing that he was in
the neighbourhood, came within sight. Court climbed up into the tree,
where he remained concealed among the branches, and thus contrived to
escape their search.

On another occasion, he was staying with a friend, in whose house he
had slept during the previous night. A detachment of troops suddenly
surrounded the house, and the officer knocked loudly at the door.
Court made his friend go at once to bed pretending to be ill, while he
himself cowered down in the narrow space between the bed and the wall.
His wife slowly answered the door, which the soldiers were threatening
to blow open. They entered, rummaged the house, opened all the chests
and closets, sounded the walls, examined the sick man's room, and
found nothing!

Court himself, as well as the other pastors, worked very hard. On one
occasion, Court made a round of visits in Lower Languedoc and in the
Cevennes, at first alone, and afterwards accompanied by a young
preacher. In the space of two months and a few days he visited
thirty-one churches, holding assemblies, preaching, and administering
the sacrament, during which he travelled over three hundred miles. The
weather did not matter to the pastors--rain nor snow, wind nor storm,
never hindered them. They took the road and braved all. Even sickness
often failed to stay them. Sickness might weaken but did not overthrow
them.

The spies and police so abounded throughout the country, and were so
active, that they knew all the houses in which the preachers might
take refuge. A list of these was prepared and placed in the hands of
the intendant of the province.[55] If preachers were found in them,
both the shelterers and the sheltered knew what they had to expect.
The whole property and goods of the former were confiscated and they
were sent to the galleys for life; and the latter were first tortured
by the rack, and then hanged. The houses in which preachers were found
were almost invariably burnt down.

         [Footnote 55: It has since been published in the "Bulletin de
         la Société du Protestantisme Français."]

Notwithstanding the great secrecy with which the whole organization
proceeded, preachers were frequently apprehended, assemblies were
often surprised, and many persons were imprisoned and sent to the
galleys for life. Each village had its chief spy--the priest; and
beneath the priest there were a number of other spies--spies for
money, spies for cruelty, spies for revenge.

Was an assembly of Huguenots about to be held? A spy, perhaps a
traitor, would make it known. The priest's order was sufficient for
the captain of the nearest troop of soldiers to proceed to disperse
it. They marched and surrounded the assembly. A sound of volley-firing
was heard. The soldiers shot down, hanged, or made prisoners of the
unlawful worshippers. Punishments were sudden, and inquiry was never
made into them, however brutal. There was the fire for Bibles,
Testaments, and psalm-books; galleys for men; prisons and convents for
women; and gibbets for preachers.

In 1720 a large number of prisoners were captured in the famous old
quarry near Nismes, long the seat of secret Protestant worship. But
the troops surrounded the meeting suddenly, and the whole were taken.
The women were sent for life to the Tour de Constance, and the men,
chained in gangs, were sent all through France to La Rochelle, to be
imprisoned in the galleys there. The ambassador of England made
intercession for the prisoners, and their sentence was commuted into
one of perpetual banishment from France. They were accordingly
transported to New Orleans on the Mississippi, to populate the rising
French colony in that quarter of North America.

Thus crimes abounded, and cruelty when practised upon Huguenots was
never investigated. The seizure and violation of women was common.
Fathers knew the probable consequence when their daughters were
seized. The daughter of a Huguenot was seized at Uzes, in 1733, when
the father immediately died of grief. Two sisters were seized at the
same place to be "converted," and their immediate relations were
thrown into gaol in the meantime. This was a common proceeding. The
Tour de Constance was always filling, and kept full.

The dying were tortured. If they refused the viaticum they were
treated as "damned persons." When Jean de Molènes of Cahors died,
making a profession of Protestantism, his body was denounced as
damned, and it was abandoned without sepulture. A woman who addressed
some words of consolation to Joseph Martin when dying was condemned to
pay a fine of six thousand livres, and be imprisoned in the castle of
Beauregard; and as for Martin, his memory was declared to be damned
for ever. Many such outrages to the living and dead were constantly
occurring.[56] Gaolers were accustomed to earn money by exhibiting the
corpses of Huguenot women at fairs, inviting those who paid for
admission, to walk up and "see the corpse of a damned person."[57]

         [Footnote 56: Edmund Hughes, "Histoire de la Restauration du
         Protestantisme en France," ii. 94.]

         [Footnote 57: Bénoît, "Edit de Nantes," v. 987.]

Notwithstanding all these cruelties, Protestantism was making
considerable progress, both in Languedoc and Dauphiny. In reorganizing
the Church, the whole country had been divided into districts, and
preachers and pastors endeavoured to visit the whole of their members
with as much regularity as possible. Thus Languedoc was divided into
seven districts, and to each of those a _proposant_ or probationary
preacher was appointed. The presbyteries and synods met regularly and
secretly in a cave, or the hollow bed of a river, or among the
mountains. They cheered each other up, though their progress was
usually over the bodies of their dead friends.