M. and Mde. Clément returned home the day after Eugène and Louise had left. How dreary the house seemed! In place of the merry play of the children was heard the loud laughter and coarse shouting of the soldiers. It is true they were very much better than many of the soldiers at that time, but it was very uncomfortable to have them there.
M. Clément had hoped to leave with the rest of his family, and go and live in Holland or England, but he was prevented by a law passed in 1685.
This law declared all ministers of the Protestant religion were to leave the country; if they stayed, they would be put in prison, or put to death. It is also said, that all other people were forbidden to leave the country on pain of imprisonment; this was done to separate the teachers from the people.
They thought if the Huguenot churches were shut up, and the ministers sent away, that the people would forget all about the simple story of salvation by just believing in Jesus, and that they would return to the old form of worship, praying to saints, and going on long pilgrimages; for that is what the priests told them must be done if they wanted their sins forgiven.
M. Clément determined to try and get away with his wife and Claude, Marguerite and baby. They had to wait many long weary months before they could do this, but one morning the following spring they left their home. Claude and his father dressed like peasants. Marguerite was dressed like a boy, her long hair was cut short, and her face stained brown. They looked like a party of gipsies searching for a place to sell some wooden toys which they took with them.
They had to sleep in the woods and often beg for bread to eat. Many people were very kind to them, and the farmers and servants in some of the large houses would give them food, and sometimes money, without taking the toys in return.
One night in a dreadful thunder-storm, a poor widow woman who lived in a cottage in a lonely little village, took them all in, dried their clothes, and let them stay all night. Perhaps she had heard that verse, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these my brethren ye have done it unto me."
The trials through which they passed were only equaled by the wonderful deliverances they experienced. More than once they had to retrace miles of their journey in order to escape the soldiers who were constantly on the watch for fugitives. Their friend Dr. Bion had left some weeks before and had escaped to Geneva. He afterward became a minister in a small town in England.
The Cléments had one great sorrow in their wanderings, and yet they could but acknowledge it to be a proof of the mercy and wisdom of Him who is over all. Good, faithful old Jeanne who had bravely clung to her master and mistress, had been called home to her longed-for rest.
She had refused to leave her friends when they left their home, and had cast in her lot with them, sharing their troubles and trials, but after a few weeks, her strength suddenly failed her, and she quietly passed away to be “forever with the Lord." She was buried in an obscure little village, and left in a nameless grave. Faithful over the many or few things committed to her tare, she had now entered into the joy of her Lord.