The country of the Camisards—Revocation of the Edict of Nantes—Shepherdess and angel—Corbière—Gabriel Astier—Excitement in the Boutières—Expectations of help from England—Prophecies—Murder of Tirbon—Prophetic gifts at Porchères—Attack of Cheilaret—What the prophetic gift really was—Isabeau Charras—Vivens—Battle of Florac—Assassinations—Correspondence with Schomberg—Capture of Vivens—Peace of Ryswick—Second outbreak of prophetic ecstasies—Children prophets—Cruelties—Break-up of meetings—Massacre of Creux de Vaie—Durand Fage—The Abbé du Chayla—Séguier—Pont de Montvert—Fresh murders—Séguier taken and burnt—Catinat—Murder of Saint C?mes—Laporte—Roland—Additional murders—Battle of Ste. Croix—Four degrees of inspiration—The prophet Clary passes through fire—Fight at Mas de Gaffard—Death of Captain Poul—Moussac—Jean Cavalier—Defeat of Du Roure—Rout of Camisards—Flight of Cavalier—Massacre of Chamborigaud—La Tour de Belot—Battle of Ste. Chatte—Marshal Villars—Change of tactics—Submission of Cavalier—Cessation of prophecy—What produced the prophetic exaltation.
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WE are now drawing near to the country of the Camisards, and I must give a brief sketch of the rise of the movement due to prophets and prophetesses, its culmination in revolt, and its suppression.

The Edict of Nantes had been revoked; shoals of Huguenots had left France, where the exercise of their religion was no longer tolerated; the temples had been levelled with the dust, the pastors arrested, imprisoned, and executed. Those who escaped to Geneva or Holland exhorted such of their flock as remained to [Pg 178] continue steadfast to their convictions and to their prejudices. In the spring of 1668, near Castres, a shepherdess, aged ten, had a vision of an angel, who forbade her to attend Mass. The news spread everywhere, and crowds went to see the girl and hear her narrative from her own lips. This was the first manifestation, but it was not till twenty years had elapsed that such became common. A preacher, Corbière, from the same district, by some trickery caused two angels armed with sticks to enter the assembly where he was haranguing and to well thrash and expel such as had attended Mass. The intendant of the province sent his agents to take him. Corbière was surprised whilst holding a meeting in a wood. He drew a circle about him with a stick, and thundered, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" The dragoons hesitated, but the commandant shot him through the head.

Now appeared in Dauphiné la belle Isabeau, a shepherdess of about seventeen, who went into trances and preached and prophesied when in them. When she emerged from one of these ecstasies she remembered nothing about what she had said and done when in it. Usually to prophesy she lay on a bed, and this was the position almost always adopted by the prophets and prophetesses who succeeded her.

She was arrested and imprisoned, but treated with the utmost kindness, well fed, and visited daily by good charitable ladies. Under this influence, and when well nourished, her fits became fewer, and finally totally left her. Then she married a lusty young peasant, and ceased to be of consequence in the movement.

Meanwhile a pastor, Jurieu, from the place of his exile, Rotterdam, had proclaimed himself to be inspired. [Pg 179] He had a medal struck with "Jurius Propheta" on it, and largely circulated in the Cévennes. Moreover, he printed his prophecies in 1686, and they passed from hand to hand. In them he announced that the Papacy would fall in the year 1690, and that the Reformation would be established throughout France.

But the spirit was not quenched when la belle Isabeau gave up prophesying. It broke out in a peasant of twenty-two named Gabriel Astier, of Clieu. His first solicitude was to communicate the spirit to his father, his mother, and his sisters; then he inoculated his neighbours and all the inhabitants of his village. Finding himself an object of pursuit by the police, he escaped over the Rh?ne into the Vivarais, and, followed by a troup of prophets and prophetesses, he went through the Boutières. His words propagated the agitation; men, women, and children went into fits and preached and announced the future. The epidemic passed through the country with the rapidity of a fire driven by the wind. No preacher, even at the time when the inspiration was at its height, possessed the power over crowds that Astier exercised.

Vast multitudes attended his assemblies in the mountains, and the meetings were always held in places which commanded a view of the country round, so that they might be dispersed in the event of the dragoons being seen to approach. Often the wandering multitude remained for many days away from their homes, feeding on apples and chestnuts. Nothing like it had been seen since John the Baptist drew crowds to the banks of the Jordan, or the Son of Man had preached in the wilderness of Judea.

The theme of the preacher was always the same: [Pg 180] "Repent; do penance for having attended Mass." And the thrilled congregation fell on the ground, screaming out, "Pardon, Lord, O pardon!"

At this very time it was that the Revolution occurred in England, when James II. fled and the nation summoned William of Orange to the throne. William, it must be remembered, drew his title from the Principality of Orange, which he held, and this adjoined Dauphiné, where the prophetic afflatus had first been felt. It was concluded as certain that William would come to the aid of his afflicted co-religionists. Astier was so confident, that he ventured to predict the day on which William would arrive at the head of an army of a hundred thousand men, led by an exterminating angel. Then all the levelled temples would sprout up, built without hands, and the Catholic churches which had replaced them would go off in a puff of smoke. A star would fall from heaven on Babylon and consume the papal chair. He assured his hearers that God had made them invulnerable, so that neither sword nor ball could hurt them. Another prophet, named Palette, made the same assurances to the Calvinists, and as he and his congregation came upon a Captain Tirbon with his soldiers, they rushed on them, flinging stones, and killed the captain and nine of his soldiers, but not till some of the elect had fallen.

This event alarmed Colonel Folleville, in command of the troops in the province.

M. de Broglie, brother-in-law of Baville, intendant of Languedoc, went to Porchères where he heard that a religious assembly was to be held. In this hamlet lived a poor old man named Paul Béraut, who had for long resisted the Spirit; but one day he heard his children [Pg 181] tell of the marvels that took place in the assemblies, and all at once a convulsion shook him; he jumped up in bed, pulled down the canopy of the four-poster and flung it into the middle of the room, uttering incoherent words. This sublime victory of the Spirit over their father filled his children with joy. They ran through the village, entering every house, saying, "Come and see our father who has received the Spirit, and is prophesying!" The old man was in wild excitement when M. de Broglie arrived in the village. Béraut and his eldest daughter Sarah, at the head of all those who had been listening to his prophetic utterances, rushed on de Broglie and his troop, throwing stones. The soldiers retaliated, the new-made prophet and a dozen others were killed, and Sarah was taken prisoner.

Folleville, learning that Gabriel Astier was holding an assembly on the height of Cheilaret, surrounded the mountain. As soon as the dragoons were seen, Astier harangued the faithful: "Children of God, be without fear. I promise you that your bodies will be as adamant against ball and sabre. The angels of the Lord will fight for us."

Before attacking, Folleville sent the provost of his regiment to urge the fanatics to disperse and return to their duty. He was met with shouts of "Tartara! Get thee behind me, Satan!" The cry of Tartara was supposed to have the power to paralyse the enemy. Then one of the Calvinists rushed upon the provost and pelted him with stones, so that he was forced to fly. Folleville, reluctant to proceed to extremities, sent another parliamentary to the crowd; he was received with a volley of stones. The fanatics could be seen breathing on one another to communicate the gift of [Pg 182] the Spirit to all. Then they marched in a solid body against the soldiers, shouting Tartara! Some were armed with guns, most carried large stones. They fought valiantly, but their ranks were broken; three hundred were left dead on the field, fifty who were wounded were taken to Privas, and those who recovered were hung.

The prophetic inspiration was really nothing more than an epidemic malady, such as is found among the North American Indians, the tribes in Siberia, and such as broke out among the early Quakers and Wesleyans. It is a nervous disorder, as natural as chicken-pox, though not so common. Roman Catholic nuns have it, so had the pagan prophetesses of old.

Some Calvinist women professed to have received the gift of shedding tears of blood, and showed the crimson streaks washing their cheeks. This was by no means necessarily a fraud. Roman Catholic ecstatics have had the same, and the stigmata as well.

Fléchier, a contemporary, thus describes the ecstasy of Isabeau Charras, one of the principal prophetesses, and not to be confounded with la belle Isabeau. He gives it from the relation of an ecclesiastic who with some friends entered her cottage to see what really took place.

"Ils furent surpris du spectacle qui s'offrit à leurs yeux. La prophétesse était couchée à la renverse dans une cuisine, les jambes nues et l'estomac tout à fait découvert. Tous les assistants, à genoux autour d'elle, étaient attentifs à ces pieuses nudités. Le prêtre voulut faire quelque remontrance à la fille, mais la mère indignée lui dit: 'Quoi! malheureux que tu êtes, vous ne respectez pas ma fille qui a le Saint Esprit dans l'estomac!'"

[Pg 183]

Gabriel Astier was finally taken and broken on the wheel in 1690.

Fran?ois Vivens was a wool-comber of Valleraux, a small man and lame, but with a robust and indefatigable body. He had gone to Holland, but, on the accession of William to the English throne, felt so confident that the Prince of Orange would bring all the power of his kingdom to assist the Calvinists of Languedoc, that he returned thither. When he arrived in the Cévennes he found the people agitated by the spirit of prophecy. He was the first to organise rebellion. He exhorted to it, and collected arms, manufactured powder, and cast bullets. He soon had four hundred men under arms, and he met Baville and de Broglie near Florac at the head of a considerable body. A fight ensued. Vivens was obliged to fly and hide in a wood; he lost three men killed, and some prisoners, who were hung next day.

Baville executed several persons charged with having given him shelter. To revenge this Vivens, with his own hand, killed the curé of Conguérac, and had the priest of S. Marcel and the vicaire stabbed and four officers assassinated, either in their houses or on the roads. "This Cevenol," says Peyrat in his Histoire des Pasteurs du Desert, "had in his soul something of the Tishbite who had four hundred and fifty of the prophets of Baal slain by the brook of Carmel."

Whilst Vivens was ordering these bloody reprisals he was carrying on a correspondence with Schomberg, late Marshal of France, who was at this time in Savoy in command of a regiment of refugee Protestants. He proposed to Schomberg a plan. He was to raise an army of several thousands, make a sudden descent on Aigues [Pg 184]-Mortes, march across the plain, and join hands with the Cevenols. The correspondence was intercepted, and Baville, seeing he had to do with a dangerous man, put a price on his head.

A preacher named Languedoc, a companion of Vivens, was arrested, and made revelations—amongst others that Vivens had converted four dragoons, who kept him informed of every movement of the royal troops. These men were taken, and one betrayed where Vivens hid, in a cave. The commandant of Alais with a body of soldiers went to the place, which was not far off. The cavern was in a rock that had to be surmounted, and descent to the cave was by a narrow path. Vivens, who was there with two of his lieutenants, was only aware of his danger when the enemy were close at hand. His first assailant, a sergeant, he shot as he descended. Vivens had several guns loaded that were passed out to him by his companions. He killed two more soldiers and wounded the lieutenant, but was himself shot by a man who had succeeded in creeping down in his rear. All but one of the pastors in the Cévennes, Pierre Roman, had been captured and hung. The death of Vivens and the peace of Ryswick deprived the Calvinists there of hope of assistance from the Protestant powers, and resistance ceased. However, although all seemed quiet, the authorities redoubled their measures of severity. Everywhere new excesses of cruelty were committed by the governors of the provinces, the judges and the provosts of the mounted police, against poor creatures who desired only to be let alone to serve God according to their dim lights.

"In 1700," says Court, the historian of the Camisards, "the country groaned with the crowds languishing in prison [Pg 185] and in irons. In April a chain of sixty-three were sent to the galleys, whose only crime was fidelity to and zeal for their religion, and among them were several fathers of families with grey heads."

The death of Charles II., King of Spain, at the close of 1700, roused expectations of a new foreign war, into which England and Holland would be drawn to take part with Austria against France. The news of the War of Succession breaking out, spread through the provinces, and revived the hopes of the Reformed; the spirit of prophecy that had languished since the execution of Gabriel Astier burst forth again. At the end of that year, 1700, an old maid who earned her livelihood by tailoring in the villages on the Ardèche brought the prophetic gift into the Cévennes. She communicated it to a number of young boys and girls, and they in turn transmitted it to the population of the mountains. This was done by wild gesticulation, loud invocation of the Spirit, and by breathing into the mouths of those who were to be inspired. The winter had not passed before the epidemic had spread with astounding rapidity, and prophets prophesied by the thousands. Women and children were especially liable to take the contagion. It was calculated that as many as eight thousand children in the Cévennes preached and prophesied. The Governor of Languedoc had a number of them arrested and put in prison, and required the faculty of medicine at Montpellier to examine into the nature of the phenomenon. The doctors observed, discussed, wrangled, and produced an opinion that these children were fanatics. That was the sum of what they had to say.

Baville released the youngest of the children, but [Pg 186] sent the rest either to the galleys or to serve in the army. He announced that he would hold the parents responsible for their offspring who prophesied, and that they should be fined. Dragoons were quartered upon those who could not cure their children or prevent them from taking this epidemic. Things went so far that some parents denounced their own children so as to shelter themselves from these violent measures. They handed them over to the magistrates, and said, "There, take them, and do with them what you will; cure them if you can."

But the spirit of prophecy did not remain with the children, it communicated itself to their elders. Baville had such arrested as he could lay hold on and hung or sent them to the galleys.

But in spite of these cruelties, or rather in consequence of them, the prophets multiplied more and more. The prospect of the gallows, the wheel, or the galleys only served to fire their zeal to madness.

The number and importance of the assemblies increased, and the Governor of Languedoc began to deal with hearers as he had with prophets. In October, 1701, he sent a company to disperse one of these meetings near Alais. Three of the audience, unable to escape in time, were broken on the wheel. But the most atrocious of these executions was that of Creux de Vaie, in the Vivarais. The massacre was so great that, beside the bodies left on the field, a boat and two wagons were laden with the wounded who were taken captive, and these were conveyed to Montpellier. Among them was a prophet with his four sons. The prophet was hung, one son died of his wounds in prison, three were sent to the galleys; and his house was torn [Pg 187] down. Thus, in one day, the wife was deprived of husband, children, home, and substance.

Throughout the Cévennes spirits were stirred with expectation of a great deliverance. A prophetess announced that the millennium was at hand. A prophet declared that a ladder was about to be let down from heaven.

In February, 1702, Durand Fage was at an assembly, carrying arms. The prophetess Marguerite Bolle, aged twenty-three, fell into an ecstasy, and announced that the sword of Durand would smite the enemies of the truth hip and thigh. Later on the great prophets of the mountains, Abraham Mazel, Solomon Couderc, and Pierre Séguier, received similar revelations.

The Abbé du Chayla, arch-priest and inspector of missions in the Cévennes, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt at Pont-de-Montvert. He had been a missionary in China, and had there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and brought back to life by the charity of a poor Chinese. One Massys, a muleteer, was guiding a party of fugitives who were escaping to Geneva, and on him, with his convoy, consisting mostly of women dressed as men, Du Chayla laid his hands. He was a cruel man; he plucked out the beards and eyebrows with pincers, he put live coals into the hands of his victims and then forced them to clench their fists. Sometimes he surrounded their fingers with cotton steeped in oil and set fire to it.

On the Sunday following the capture of the convoy there was a gathering of the Protestants in the woods of Altefage, on Mount Bougès, when Séguier fell into ecstasy and prophesied. He was a wool-carder, tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of energy [Pg 188] and self-confidence. He declared that the Spirit announced that arms must be taken, the prisoners at Pont-de-Montvert delivered, and the priest of Moloch destroyed.

On July 24th, 1702, at half-past ten at night, were heard at Pont-de-Montvert strains of distant psalmody drawing nearer and nearer; it was Esprit Séguier, the terrible prophet, who was on his way with fifty-three of his men, and as they marched they sang Marot's psalm—
"Nous as-tu rejeté, Seigneur, sans espérance
De ton sein paternel?
N'apaiseras-tu pas, après tant de soufferances,
Ton courroux éternel?
Sion, qui dut avoir l'éclat et la durée
Du céleste flambeau,
Regarde, hélas! Seigneur, ta Sion adorée
N'est qu'un vaste tombeau!"

Du Chayla heard the chant, and did not trouble himself much about it. He went to the window and saw the assembled crowd. "Get away with you!" he shouted; "dogs of Huguenots!"

But the door was burst in by a beam of wood driven against it, and the house was invaded. The fanatics occupied the ground floor. Du Chayla and his men held the staircase. "Children of God!" shouted the prophet, "let us set fire to the house of Baal and burn it and its priest." The flames spread. Du Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets; some escaped across the river under the fire of the insurgents, but the Inspector of Missions fell and broke his thigh, and could only crawl among some bushes. The Calvinists went through the house shouting for his blood. Finding on the staircase a [Pg 189] priest who had not escaped, they murdered him. They hunted for their arch-enemy, and at last, by the light of the flames, found him. To the last he maintained his composure. "If I be damned," said he, "will you damn yourselves also?" Séguier gave the order, and he was despatched, in the place of the little town to which they dragged him. According to Brueys, Séguier fell into an ecstasy, and offered Du Chayla his life if he would apostatise. The priest peremptorily refused. "Then die," said the prophet, and stabbed him. Then began a horrible scene. All the insurgents one after another approached, and driving their weapons into the bleeding body, reproached Du Chayla for some of the barbarities he had committed. "This thrust," said one, "is for my father, whom you caused to be executed on the wheel." "And this for my brother," said another, "whom you sent to the galleys." "And this for my mother," exclaimed a third, as he ran his sword through the body, "who died of grief." The body of the Abbé du Chayla received fifty-three stabs, every one of which he had richly deserved. But the astounding thing in the whole story is that he, a man who ............