Chapters 10
More Persecution.
THROUGH the sunny provinces, in which had passed the stirring scenes we have described, the bright days of the early summer of 1720 were again causing smiling valleys and swelling hills to clap their hands in gladness. Then, over the fair country, silently and insidiously arose a cloud; at first as but a man’s hand in size, but gradually spreading in awful blackness, carrying desolation, death, and despair throughout the land. One of those unaccountable epidemics, to which is given the general name of “plague,” burst forth, and no skill of man, or power of earthly potentate, was of any avail to check its onward course.
And now, while the workshops were deserted, and noisy looms stood silent, above the constant rumble of the dead-cart with its ghastly burden, above the wail of sorrow in the emptied homes, the voice of God spoke solemnly to many a soul. Even the most hardened conscience saw in the pestilence; which was stalking through the land, the heavy hand of divine judgment. The banished pastors at La Haye proclaimed boldly that this was the cup of His wrath, poured in vengeance upon the very scenes where the blood of His martyrs had been so abundantly shed, and sought to stir up their co-religionists to greater piety, imploring them to humble themselves before God, and to intercede with Him that this awful visitation might be removed from their suffering country.
While the horror-stricken oppressors checked the ardor of their persecution, and cried out for the mercy which they had ever refused to grant to others, the persecuted ones raised their drooping heads, realizing afresh the blessed truth that “the Lord reigneth.” A revival spread through the churches, the assemblies of the Desert being more numerously attended than they had ever been, favored now by the withdrawal of the troops through fear of infection. The young and frivolous turned from their vain pursuits and pleasures to seek the Lord, while yet He might be found. The rich, who had hitherto feared to identity themselves with the despised Reformed, now, fairly frightened out of their lukewarmness, eagerly associated themselves with those who, when all others trembled, were able in this time of trouble to offer sacrifices of joy, and to raise the song of praise.
Those unhappy Protestants, who, to escape the fury of the Papists, had in past days made abjuration, felt very especially that the chastening hand of the Lord was upon them, and the horrors of their awakened conscience gave them no respite. Whichever way they turned they saw, as it were, the sword of the avenging angel hanging over them, and, with loud cries and bitter tears, they owned their sin in denying the faith. Among these sadly troubled ones were some young girls of the town of Meyrueis. Broken-hearted and terrified, they felt that a public confession of their sin, in abjuring Christ, could alone meet their sense of its heinousness, or expiate their cowardice. Thus, impelled by remorse, they appeared on the 17th of July at an assembly in the Desert. Before the vast concourse of people they fell to the earth, with bitter weeping and loud sobs. All were deeply moved at the sight of their distress, and entreated them to rise.
“Ah! leave us to weep on,” they answered in saddest accents; “our sin has been great, our repentance also should be great; we have not yet shed tears enough.”
Thus, through those days of death and sorrow, were souls led into light and peace and everlasting life; God out of the eater bringing forth meat.
As death continued each day to carry off its hundreds of victims, and it became increasingly impossible for the authorities at Alais to find men enough for the arduous and dangerous work of burying the dead, they condemned their Protestant prisoners to this service. The unhappy captives, weakened by imprisonment in foul dungeons, fell ready victims to the contagion. Sad was it to see the dying burying the dead, and quickly following them to the rudely dug grave. Thus did death’s kindly hand throw open the prison doors, strike off the iron fetters, and loosen the freed spirit to soar above to that land, “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, where the prisoners rest together, and hear not the voice of the oppressor.”
The pastors, for whom death had no terror, having faced it for years in every form, were indefatigable in their labors among the dying and the sorrow-stricken survivors, and for a reward of their self-denying toil, they had the joy of seeing, as Court expresses it, “a spiritual resurrection, as though fresh blood flowed in the veins of the Protestants, and a new spirit animated them―Satan as lightning falling from heaven!” He further writes to his anxious mother, trembling for his safety, “He who believes not in Jesus Christ, who repents not of his sins, and does not apply to his own need the merits of the cross of the Redeemer, must fear death; but as for me, Christ is my gain, whether in life or in death. Let him be alarmed who will in this trying time, let the worldling be full of fear at the approach of death or of the plague, for me I am a stranger to such feelings, save in a salutary manner.”
Towards the close of the year Antoine Court went to Geneva, to plead the cause of the churches “sous la croix” with their Swiss brethren, and to take tidings of the Lord’s work in France to Pictet, from whom he reckoned on receiving the help of wise counsel. The aged pastor welcomed him most lovingly, and thus commenced a very warm attachment and close intercourse, which was cut but too short by the death of the venerable saint in the summer of 1724.
Court had intended restricting his stay in Geneva to a month or six weeks, but his return to France was rendered impossible by the strict quarantine in which the still-infected provinces were held, every road and path being vigilantly guarded. During his compulsory stay in Switzerland, he comforted himself with the thought that he was serving his brethren better, by interesting foreign powers in their favor, than if he had been in their midst; thus he lingered on till the summer of 1722. He writes to his colleague, Roger, “I have been busily engaged trying to root out of the minds of an infinity of people the false idea that they have formed of the Protestants, and have tried to make them see them from a true point of view.” He further sent the cheering news that he had fully succeeded in arousing true sympathy for the Protestants of France in distant lands, and that for the future the Church of the Desert could reckon on friends and defenders. During Court’s long absence Roger felt much the increased burden of that which came upon him daily―the care of all the churches. Many times he performed the perilous journey into Languedoc, to give the weight of his presence to various synods and conferences, and to impart brotherly counsel and support to Corteiz, while deprived of his fellow-pastor.
This year brought important changes to the French government. On the 22nd of January and at the age of thirteen, Louis XV. was declared by parliament to have attained his majority. The death of the Regent, shortly afterward, brought fresh calamities to the Protestants. The Duke of Bourbon came into power, being appointed Prime Minister by the feeble young king, who still reigned but in name. The Duke was in every respect inferior to Philip of Orleans. He is described as having a hideous face, and blind with one eye, his character being as revolting as his appearance, brutal and ferocious, defective in intelligence, and intensely frivolous. In opposition to the house of Orleans he declared his intention of carrying out the exterminating policy of Louis XIV. towards the Huguenots.
His first action was to promote to the rank of marshal all the generals of the dragoonades; thus, Count Medavid, reckoning from the recent massacres in Dauphine, along with other cruel persecutors, stepped into a place of higher power. No doubt should have remained in the minds of the Protestants as to what course the new government would take towards themselves.
The Duke of Bourbon was entirely under the influence of two bigoted prelates, Fleury, bishop of Frejus, and Lavergne de Tressan, bishop of Nantes, whose one ambition was to become cardinals. To obtain favor with the Pope, they determined to vigorously renew the persecutions; the unfortunate Huguenots were ever the victims selected by ambitious French prelates to be sacrificed at the shrine of Rome, the sacerdotal purple, in which they were arrayed, being ever dyed with their blood. The court, as usual, was willing enough to second the bishops; the utter incapacity of the Duke of Bourbon, combined with his natural ferocity, made him their ready tool. The atrocious Baville was deputed to write in one edict the substance of the innumerable decrees of the past reign. No task would have been found more congenial to the cruel nature of the old man, who revived the experiences of his long and frightful career, to fire a parting shot at those whom all his genius had failed to conquer. As he completed the last bloody pages of his awful work, death carried him off to answer for his long catalog of crimes at the judgment seat above.
The young king unquestioningly signed this barbarous edict. We can but give a very brief summary of its eighteen articles. It commenced as follows: ―
“Of all the great designs of the late king, our honored lord and great-grandfather, there is none that we have more at heart to execute than that which he conceived as to the entire extinction of heresy in his dominion, to which he applied himself indefatigably to the last moment of his life. With a view to upholding a work so worthy of his zeal and of his piety, our first care on attaining our majority, has been to have laid before us those edicts the execution of which has been delayed especially in those provinces lately afflicted with the contagion.
“We perceive that the principal abuses, which demand a prompt remedy, concern illicit assemblies, the education of children, the obligation of public functionaries to profess the Catholic religion, the penalties against the relapsed, and the solemnization of marriages. Upon these points we here declare our intentions very distinctly.”
Then is given a detailed statement as to various infringements of the command that the Roman Catholic religion should be the only one professed in the kingdom, and the punishment attached to such infringement. All preachers, who had convoked assemblies, or had performed any pastoral office, to be put to death; all men, who attended such assemblies, to be sent to the galleys for life; the women who did so, to have their heads shaved, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment; the same penalties were awarded to men and women who sheltered the preachers, or who did not denounce them to the authorities, on knowing where they sojourned; the confiscation of all their goods was to follow the execution of such sentences. Parents, who did not have their infants baptized within twenty-four hours of their birth, to be fined to the utmost extent of their means, and to be liable to greater penalties according to the gravity of the case; doctors, midwives, servants, or relatives, who did not announce a birth to the priests, to suffer the same penalty. Those who were found guilty of sending their children abroad for education, to be fined to the same degree, but the sum never to be lower than 6000 francs a year, and this sum to be paid each year that such child remained in a foreign country.
Parents to send their children to the parish school, and to the catechizing; masters and mistresses of schools to take the pupils to mass every day; monthly reports to be given of any absentees, and the parents or guardians to be proceeded against. The sick or dying, who refused the sacraments, if they recovered, to be banished for life; if they died, all their goods confiscated, and their dead bodies to be dragged through the streets on a hurdle. No public office whatever or profession to be occupied without a certificate of catholicity. No marriage to be accounted legal, except that of the Catholic Church, under pain of incurring severe penalties, as already ordained. Parents not to consent to the marriage of their children abroad, under pain of galleys for life to the man, and perpetual banishment to the woman, with confiscation of all goods.
“Given at Versailles, the 14th of May, the year of grace 1724, and the ninth of our reign. Signed, Louis.”
Like a thunderbolt in their midst fell this new edict, just as the Huguenots were rejoicing that the restoration of Protestantism in France was an accomplished fact, and were feeding themselves with the fancy that the young king, in honor of attaining his majority, would certainly issue an act of toleration in their favor. The merry sunshine of the month of May seemed to foster these bright hopes and cheerful anticipations of a time of peace, when, suddenly, this frightful declaration was proclaimed through village, hamlet, and town of the peaceful provinces. In every public place the hateful document was affixed, and around it in consternation gathered groups of Protestants, at first almost stupefied by the heaviness of the blow. Then, as they grasped the full extent of the abyss thus opening at their feet, the terrified women hurried home, clasping their little ones to their breasts, to seek in fervent prayer the protection of God, while the husbands and fathers in hot indignation resolved on revolt. It was evident that their submission and loyalty to their sovereign were in no way appreciated, that all their proved faithfulness only encouraged the Government to take harsher measures against them, nothing therefore remained but to try once more what fire and sword could effect―they would fly to arms.