office; and I dare not be disobedient to his heavenly call. By the grace of God I will comply with your pious desires; dedicate and devote myself to the work of the ministry, and spend the remainder of my life in unwearied pains and endeavours for promoting God's glory, and the consolation of precious souls."
Brousson received his call to the ministry in the Cevennes amidst the sound of musketry and grapeshot which spread death among the ranks of his brethren. He was continuously tracked by the spies of the Jesuits, who sought his apprehension and death; and he was hunted from place to place by the troops of the King, who followed him in his wanderings into the most wild and inaccessible places.
The perilous character of his new profession was exhibited only a few days after his ordination, by the apprehension of Olivier Souverain at St. Jean de Gardonenque, for preaching the Gospel to the assemblies. He was at once conducted to Montpellier and executed on the 15th of January, 1690.
During the same year, Dumas, another preacher in the Cevennes, was apprehended and fastened by the troopers across a horse in order to be carried to Montpellier. His bowels were so injured and his body so crushed by this horrible method of conveyance, that Dumas died before he was half way to the customary place of martyrdom.
Then followed the execution of David Quoite, a wandering and hunted pastor in the Cevennes for several years. He was broken on the wheel at Montpellier, and then hanged. "The punishment," said Louvreleuil, his tormentor, "which broke his bones, did not break his hardened heart: he died in his heresy." After Quoite, M. Bonnemère, a native of the same city, was also tortured and executed in like manner on the Peyrou.
All these persons were taken, executed, destroyed, or imprisoned, during the first year that Brousson commenced his perilous ministry in the Cevennes.
About the same time three women, who had gone about instructing the families of the destitute Protestants, reading the Scriptures and praying with them, were apprehended by Baville, the King's intendant, and punished. Isabeau Redothière, eighteen years of age, and Marie Lintarde, about a year younger, both the daughters of peasants, were taken before Baville at Nismes.
"What! are you one of the preachers, forsooth?" said he to Redothière. "Sir," she replied, "I have exhorted my brethren to be mindful of their duty towards God, and when occasion offered, I have sought God in prayer for them; and, if your lordship calls that preaching, I have been a preacher." "But," said the Intendant, "you know that the King has forbidden this." "Yes, my lord," she replied, "I know it very well, but the King of kings, the God of heaven and earth, He hath commanded it." "You deserve death," replied Baville.
But the Intendant awarded her a severer fate. She was condemned to be imprisoned for life in the Tower of Constance, a place echoing with the groans of women, most of whom were in chains, perpetually imprisoned there for worshipping God according to conscience.
Lintarde was in like manner condemned to imprisonment for life in the castle of Sommières, and it is believed she died there. Nothing, however, is known of the time when she died. When a woman was taken and imprisoned in one of the King's torture-houses, she was given up by her friends as lost.
A third woman, taken at the same time, was more mercifully dealt with. Anne Montjoye was found assisting at one of the secret assemblies. She was solicited in vain to abjure her faith, and being condemned to death, was publicly executed.
Shortly after his ordination, Brousson descended from the Upper Cevennes, where the hunt for Protestants was becoming very hot, into the adjacent valleys and plains. There it was necessary for him to be exceedingly cautious. The number of dragoons in Languedoc had been increased so as to enable them regularly to patrol the entire province, and a price had been set upon Brousson's head, which was calculated to quicken their search for the flying pastor.
Brousson was usually kept informed by his Huguenot friends of the direction taken by the dragoons in their patrols, and hasty assemblies were summoned in their absence. The meetings were held in some secret place—some cavern or recess in the rocks. Often they were held at night, when a few lanterns were hung on the adjacent trees to give light. Sentinels were set in the neighbourhood, and all the adjoining roads were watched. After the meeting was over the assemblage dispersed in different directions, and Brousson immediately left for another district, travelling mostly by night, so as to avoid detection. In this manner he usually presided at three or four assemblies each week, besides two on the Sabbath day—one early in the morning and another at night.
At one of his meetings, held at Boucoiran on the Gardon, about half way between Nismes and Anduze, a Protestant nobleman—a nouveau convertis, who had abjured his religion to retain his estates—was present, and stood near the preacher during the service. One of the Government spies was present, and gave information. The name of the Protestant nobleman was not known. But the Intendant, to strike terror into others, seized six of the principal landed proprietors in the neighbourhood—though some of them had never attended any of the assemblies since the Revocation—and sent two of them to the galleys, and the four others to imprisonment for life at Lyons, besides confiscating the estates of the whole to the Crown.
Brousson now felt that he was bringing his friends into very great trouble, and, out of consideration for them, he began to think of again leaving France. The dragoons were practising much cruelty on the Protestant population, being quartered in their houses, and at liberty to plunder and extort money to any extent. They were also incessantly on the look out for the assemblies, being often led by mounted priests and spies to places where they had been informed that meetings were about to be held. Their principal object, besides hanging the persons found attending, was to seize the preachers, more especially Brousson and Vivens, believing that the country would be more effectually "converted," provided they could be seized and got out of the way.
Brousson, knowing that he might be seized and taken prisoner at any moment, had long considered whether he ought to resist the attempts made to capture him. He had at first carried a sword, but at length ceased to wear it, being resolved entirely to cast himself on Providence; and he also instructed all who resorted to his meetings to come to them unarmed.
In this respect Brousson differed from Vivens, who thought it right to resist force by force; and in the event of any attempt being made to capture him, he considered it expedient to be constantly provided with arms. Yet he had only once occasion to use them, and it was the first and last time. The reward of ten thousand livres being now offered for the apprehension of Brousson and Vivens, or five thousand for either, an active search was made throughout the province. At length the Government found themselves on the track of Vivens. One of his known followers, Valderon, having been apprehended and put upon the rack, was driven by torture to reveal his place of concealment. A party of soldiers went in pursuit, and found Vivens with three other persons, concealed in a cave in the neighbourhood of Alais.
Vivens was engaged in prayer when the soldiers came upon him. His hand was on his gun in a moment. When asked to surrender he replied with a shot, not knowing the number of his opponents. He followed up with two other shots, killing a man each time, and then exposing himself, he was struck by a volley, and fell dead. The three other persons in the cave being in a position to hold the soldiers at defiance for some time, were promised their lives if they would surrender. They did so, and with the utter want of truth, loyalty, and manliness that characterized the persecutors, the promise was belied, and the three prisoners were hanged, a few days after, at Alais. Vivens' body was taken to the same place. The Intendant sat in judgment upon it, and condemned it to be drawn through the streets upon a hurdle and then burnt to ashes.
Brousson was becoming exhausted by the fatigues and privations he had encountered during his two years' wanderings and preachings in the Cevennes; and he not only desired to give the people a relaxation from their persecution, but to give himself some absolutely necessary rest. He accordingly proceeded to Nismes, his birthplace, where many people knew him; and where, if they betrayed him, they might easily have earned five thousand livres. But so much faith was kept by the Protestants amongst one another, that Brousson felt that his life was quite as safe amongst his townspeople as it had been during the last two years amongst the mountaineers of the Cevennes.
It soon became known to the priests, and then to the Intendant,