The Camisards

The Camisards were French Protestants who inhabited the Cevennes, a mountainous district in the south of France.

The word Camisard is thought to have been derived from "camise," a species of blouse or frock-shirt worn by these people over their other garments, to enable them to recognize one another in nocturnal battles.

They were exposed to severe persecution after the "Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," in 1685 (see Vol. I.), and being driven to desperation, at length broke into a general insurrection, which was finally suppressed by military force.

To understand the nature of the "War of the Camisards," we must go back not only to the "Revocation," but to the original edict. A decree had been made by Henry IV. (April 30th, 1598), which secured perfect freedom to the Protestants of France in matters of religion. This decree, published at Nantes, is known in history as the "Edict of Nantes." During the reign of Henry IV. its provisions were carefully guarded by a board, called "The Chamber of the Edict," whose business it was to see that the edict was faithfully observed. The Protestants came to regard it as the great charter of their liberties, never to be repealed, and their rights under it never to be infringed.

The successors of Henry IV., "paltering with them in a double sense," while they maintained the letter of the law, broke the spirit of it by placing restrictions, political and religious, upon the Protestants, until, in 1669, by order of Louis XIV., the "Chamber of the Edict" was abolished. The Protestants, foreseeing the impending persecution, began to leave France in such numbers that the king passed a law punishing attempts to emigrate, with death. The breaking out of a war with Holland, in 1672, delayed for a time the crushing of the Protestants; but, peace being concluded in 1678, Louis XIV. again turned his attention to his own kingdom, and determined to root out Protestantism from France.

Persecution was commenced with vigor; two millions of people were virtually put beyond the pale of the law, denied liberty of conscience at home, and yet prohibited, on pain of death, from going into exile. But the crowning act was the employment of dragonades, or troops of dragoons, dispatched to invade the Protestant provinces and enforce the conversion of the inhabitants to the Roman Catholic faith. Though the peasantry were obliged to support the dragoons, they were at the same time subjected to every species of cruelty at their hands. Only one measure remained to be adopted--namely, the "Revocation of the Edict of Nantes;" this final stroke came in the form of a royal ordinance, in October, 1685. By this ordinance, all assemblies for the exercise of Protestant worship were prohibited, and all the Protestant clergy who should continue obstinate in their opinions were ordered to quit France within fifteen days, under penalty of being sent to the galleys.

The only province of France to which these severe regulations did not apply, was Alsace, which was under the protection of a special treaty.

Fifteen hundred clergymen left the country during the fifteen days; and within twenty-five years after the revocation, 500,000 Protestants had quitted France, adopting all manner of disguises and running innumerable risks to reach the frontier.

Wherever they went, they were welcomed, subscriptions were raised for them, and lands appropriated to them; so that by the end of the seventeenth century many little French colonies were established in all parts of the world.

The exiles soon established manifold branches of manufacture--stocking-making, silk-dyeing, glass-blowing, etc., arts which France had hitherto monopolized; while the mother-country was crippled in her industries by the loss of her skilled workmen. Among the expelled clergy, too, there were men of ability and learning, who founded academies and advanced the cause of science in the countries where they took refuge. Besides, France was by no means cleared of Protestantism; the half million was but a fraction of the Protestant population. This fact brings us to the "War of the Camisards." To understand the persecution of the French Camisards or the Scottish Covenanters, we must examine that abnormal or diseased state of the mind called ecstasy. Ecstasy means out of the body. St. Paul refers to this condition when he says he was caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words--"whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell" (2 Cor. XII., 2, 4). St. John also says he was "in the spirit" when he saw the apocalyptic vision.

The belief that the soul left the body at times, was very general in former ages, and the Ecstatici were a class of divines among the ancient Greeks, who used to lie in a state of trance, and when they came to themselves would give strange accounts of what they had seen while "out of the body," or in ecstasy.

Be this as it may, we have to deal with the subject only historically.

During the dragonnade oppressions in Languedoc, many of the Protestants fled to the Cevennes, an irregular tract of mountainous country, extending about three hundred miles from the Pyrenees to the Alps. The country, from its nature, afforded a safe refuge for the persecuted, and they gathered there from all the neighboring provinces.

In the year 1689 the fanatical spirit, or "spirit of ecstasy," seemed to take possession of these "children of God," as they styled themselves. An extract from M. Peyrat, on the singular phenomena of the times, says: "The spirit descended rarely on old persons, and never on those who were rich and well educated. It visited youth, indigence, misfortune, simple hearts, shepherds, laborers, grown-up girls, and even children."

The Cevenols reckoned four degrees of ecstasy: the first was called l' avertissement (warning); the second le souffle (breath); the third la prophetie (prophecy), and the fourth and highest le don (the gift).

Among the many thousands of those who were supposed to have received the gift of preaching, was a female servant named Jeanne. M. de Caladon, of Aulas, speaks thus of her: "She, a poor, silly peasant, aged forty years, was assuredly the most simple and ignorant creature known in our mountains. When I heard that she was preaching, and preaching wonderfully, I could not believe a word of it; it never entered into my conception that she could join four words of French together, or that she could have the boldness to speak in an assembly. Yet I have several times heard her acquit herself miraculously. When the heavenly intelligence made her speak she had truly a mouth of gold. Never did an orator make himself heard as she did, and never was auditor more attentive or more affected than those who listened to her."

In the "Histoire des Pasteurs du Desert," by M. Peyrat, the most interesting account of this wonderful period may be read.

The contagion spread as if carried by the atmosphere; the whole province was filled with rumors of prophecies, apparitions, angel visits, etc. M. Peyrat says: "The number of prophets increased so rapidly that eight thousand were counted in Languedoc the first year, and that every day eight thousand assemblies were held, large or small, between the Lozere and the sea."

This state of things continued for about a year before any positive uprising took place. Louis XIV. was engaged in a war with Spain and Italy, and Baville, the governor of the province, had not troops enough to arrest this fresh outburst of fanaticism, as it was called, among the Cevenols.

The priests complained of the bad effects produced by the ecstasies, and Baville made an attempt to extirpate the evil. To this end he made parents responsible for the ecstasy of their children, and boys, as many as three hundred at a time, were put in prison, the girls in convents. Many of the conspicuous preachers perished on the wheel or the gibbet, and scores of others were sent to the galleys; even women were hanged for the crime of preaching. Can one imagine a more horrible state of things,--a whole province roused to a paroxysm of frantic emotion, in which rational religion was strangely mingled with extreme nervous excitement, and the governor of the province trying to restore order by hanging the poor people in scores! These Cevenols, or Camisards, were probably not more given to extravagance than their countrymen, and had their own preachers been left among them, they would probably have remained a hard-working, pious, peasant population.

A general insurrection, known as "The War of the Camisards," broke out in July, 1702. A large party of Protestants, in trying to escape from France, had been seized by the soldiers and cast into prison. On the following Sunday, at the various assemblies, mention was made of their unfortunate brethren, and some of the preachers declared that they had been warned in visions to exterminate the arch-priest and deliver their captive brethren.

The next day, July 24th, about fifty of the peasants armed themselves and marched to the residence of the arch-priest, to inflict vengeance. They accomplished their object,--but it brought on a war which lasted, with great severity, until May 17th, 1704, when a treaty of peace was signed at Nismes. Strictly speaking, a history of the persecutions of the Protestants in France under their respective titles--Camisards, Albigenses and Huguenots--should extend to the year 1787, or within one year of the great French Revolution.

The Protestants of France, as well as those of Holland, Scotland, and many in England, were believers in the doctrines of John Calvin, the great Reformer. The followers of Calvin were in Scotland called Presbyterians, and those in England, Puritans.

An elaborate history of French Protestants who took refuge in the United States has been written by Rev. Dr. Baird. They settled two hundred years ago, mainly in Massachusetts, New York and South Carolina. Their descendants are now found in every State and Territory. Intermarrying with Puritan and cavalier, they are a great element in our composite nationality.