and had the effect of driving from France about a million of the best, most vigorous, and industrious of Frenchmen. In the single province of Languedoc, not less than a hundred thousand persons (according to Boulainvilliers) were destroyed by premature death, one-tenth of whom perished by fire, strangulation, or the wheel.
It could not be said that Louis XIV. and the priests were destroying France and tearing its flesh, and that Frenchmen did not know it. The proclamations, edicts and laws published against the Huguenots were known to all Frenchmen. Bénoît[17] gives a list of three hundred and thirty-three issued by Louis XIV. during the ten years subsequent to the Revocation, and they were continued, as we shall find, during the succeeding reign.
"We have," says M. Charles Coquerel, "a horror of St. Bartholomew! Will foreigners believe it, that France observed a code of laws framed in the same infernal spirit, which maintained a perpetual St. Bartholomew's day in this country for about sixty years! If they cannot call us the most barbarous of people, their judgment will be well founded in pronouncing us the most inconsistent."[18]
M. De Félice, however, will not believe that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was popular in France. He takes a much more patriotic view of the French people. He cannot believe them to have been wilfully guilty of the barbarities which the French Government committed upon the Huguenots. It was the King, the priests, and the courtiers only! But he forgets that these upper barbarians were supported by the soldiers and the people everywhere. He adds, however, that if the Revocation were popular, "it would be the most overwhelming accusation against the Church of Rome, that it had thus educated and fashioned France."[19] There is, however, no doubt whatever that the Jesuits, during the long period that they had the exclusive education of the country in their hands, did thus fashion France; for, in 1793, the people educated by them treated King, Jesuits, priests, and aristocracy, in precisely the same manner that they had treated the Huguenots about a century before.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER III.
CLAUDE BROUSSON, THE HUGUENOT ADVOCATE.
To give an account in detail of the varieties of cruelty inflicted on the Huguenots, and of the agonies to which they were subjected for many years before and after the passing of the Act of Revocation, would occupy too much space, besides being tedious through the mere repetition of like horrors. But in order to condense such an account, we think it will be more interesting if we endeavour to give a brief history of the state of France at that time, in connection with the biography of one of the most celebrated Huguenots of his period, both in his life, his piety, his trials, and his endurance—that of Claude Brousson, the advocate, the pastor, and the martyr of Languedoc.
Claude Brousson was born at Nismes in 1647. He was designed by his parents for the profession of the law, and prosecuted his studies at the college of his native town, where he graduated as Doctor of Laws.
He commenced his professional career about the time when Louis XIV. began to issue his oppressive edicts against the Huguenots. Protestant advocates were not yet forbidden to practise, but they already laboured under many disabilities. He continued, however, for some time to exercise his profession, with much ability, at Castres, Castelnaudry, and Toulouse. He was frequently employed in defending Protestant pastors, and in contesting the measures for suppressing their congregations and levelling their churches under existing edicts, some time before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had been finally resolved upon.
Thus, in 1682, he was engaged in disputing the process instituted against the ministers and elders of the church at Nismes, with the view of obtaining an order for the demolition of the remaining Protestant temple of that city.[20] The pretext for suppressing this church was, that a servant girl from the country, being a Catholic, had attended worship and received the sacrament from the hands of M. Peyrol, one of the ministers.
Brousson defended the case, observing, at the conclusion of his speech, that the number of Protestants was very great at Nismes; that the ministers could not be personally acquainted with all the people, and especially with occasional visitors and strangers; that the ministers were quite unacquainted with the girl, or that she professed the Roman Catholic religion: "facts which rendered it probable that she was sent to the temple for the purpose of furnishing an occasion for the prosecution." Sentence was for the present suspended.
Another process was instituted during the same year for the suppression of the Protestant church at Uzes, and another for the demolition of the large Protestant temple at Montpellier. The pretext for destroying the latter was of a singular character.
A Protestant pastor, M. Paulet, had been bribed into embracing the Roman Catholic religion, in reward for which he was appointed counsellor to the Presidial Court of Montpellier. But his wife and one of his daughters refused to apostatize with him. The daughter, though only between ten and eleven years old, was sent to a convent at Teirargues, where, after enduring considerable persecution, she persisted in her steadfastness, and was released after a twelvemonth's confinement. Five years later she was again seized and sent to another convent; but, continuing immovable against the entreaties and threats of the abbess and confessor, she was again set at liberty.
An apostate priest, however, who had many years before renounced the Protestant faith, and become director and confessor of the nuns at Teirargues, forged two documents; the one to show that while at the convent, Mdlle. Paulet had consented to embrace the Catholic religion, and the other containing her formal abjuration. It was alleged that her abjuration had been signified to Isaac Dubourdieu, of Montpellier, one of the most distinguished pastors of the French Church; but that, nevertheless, he had admitted her to the sacrament. This, if true, was contrary to law; upon which the Catholic clergy laid information against the pastor and the young lady before the Parliament of Toulouse, when they obtained sentence of imprisonment against the former, and the penance of amende honorable against the latter.
The demolition of temples was the usual consequence of convictions like these. The Duc de Noailles, lieutenant-general of the province, entered the city on the 16th of October, 1682, accompanied by a strong military force; and at a sitting of the Assembly of the States which shortly followed, the question of demolishing the Protestant temple at Montpellier was brought under consideration. Four of the Protestant pastors and several of the elders had before waited upon De Noailles to claim a respite until they should have submitted their cause to the King in Council.
The request having been refused, one of the deputation protested against the illegality of the proceedings, and had the temerity to ask his excellency whether he was aware that there were eighteen hundred thousand Protestant families in France? Upon which the Duke, turning to the officer of his guard, said, "Whilst we wait to see what will become of these eighteen hundred thousand Protestant families, will you please conduct these gentlemen to the citadel?"[21]
The great temple of Montpellier was destroyed immediately on receipt of the King's royal mandate. It required the destruction of the place within twenty-four hours; "but you will give me pleasure," added the King, in a letter to De Noailles, "if you accomplish it in two."
It was, perhaps, scarcely necessary, after the temple had been destroyed, to make any effort to justify these high-handed proceedings. But Mdlle. Paulet, on whose pretended conversion to Catholicism the proceedings had been instituted, was now requested to admit the authenticity of the documents. She was still imprisoned in Toulouse; and although entreated and threatened by turns to admit their truth, she steadfastly denied their genuineness, and asking for a pen, she wrote under each of them, "I affirm that the above signature was not written by my hand.—Isabeau de Paulet."
Of course the documents were forged; but they had answered their purpose. The Protestant temple of Montpellier lay in ruins, and Isabeau de Paulet was recommitted to prison. On hearing of this incident, Brousson remarked, "This is what is called instituting a process against persons after they have been condemned"—a sort of "Jedwood justice."
The repetition of these cases of persecution—the demolition of their churches, and the suppression of their worship—led the Protestants