Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

religion. The veteran, now eighty years of age, pointed to his hoary hairs, and replied, "For sixty years I have rendered unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; let me still render to God the things which are God's." As a special favour he was allowed to remain without molestation.

Whilst many succeeded in making their escape from the kingdom, many less fortunate were seized and sent to the galleys. Amongst these were David de Caumont, -connected with the Duke de la Force, whose name appears in the following narrative, and Louis de Marolles, one of the king's council. The former was sixty-five years of age at the time of his arrest; the latter, after an imprisonment of some months in the Chateau de la Tournelle,* was marched to Marseilles, with the great chain of galley slaves, where he died in 1692. Within a year after the Revocation of the Edict, there were more than six hundred Protestants in the galleys at Marseilles, as many at Toulon, and a proportionate number at the other ports. "On all the roads of the kingdom," says Benoît, "these miserable wretches might be seen, marching in large gangs, burdened by heavy chains, often weighing more than fifty pounds, and so fixed as to give the greatest amount of discomfort. Sometimes the prisoners were conveyed in waggons, in which case these fetters were riveted to the cart. When they sank down from exhaustion on their long marches, the guards compelled them to rise and resume their journey by blows. Their food was coarse and unwholesome, and insufficient in quantity, for the guards put into their own pockets half the amount allowed for the expenses of the escort. When they halted they were

* For a description of this horrible dungeon and the great chain of galley slaves, see p. 202 et seq.

lodged in foul dungeons, or in barns where they lay upon the bare earth, without covering, and weighed down by their chains."

But it would only weary the reader to narrate in detail the cruelties of the persecutors, and the sufferings of the oppressed. Abundant illustrations will be found in the histories of the period.*

There is little need to point the moral of the following narrative. Its lessons are obvious. If this life were all, these martyrs for the faith might seem to be " of all men most miserable." But " after this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. . . . These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Special reference may be made to the History of the French Protestant Refugees from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. By CHARLES WEISS. Blackwood and Sons. 1854.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF A

FRENCH PROTESTANT

CONDEMNED TO THE GALLEYS.

HERE are few of my fellow-countrymen, refugees in these happy Provinces,* who could not bear witness to the calamities which persecution has inflicted upon them in every part of France. If each of them had written memoirs of all that they had suffered, as well in their common country as after they had been forced to leave it, and then a collection of all these memoirs had been made, such a work would be not only very curious, on account of the different events which would be related therein, but at the same time very instructive for a large number of good Protestants, who are quite ignorant of a great deal which has taken place since the year 1684 in this bloody and cruel persecution. Divers authors have written about it in a general way; but not one of them (at least to my knowledge) has particularised the different kinds of hardship and torture which each of my dear companions in suffering has experienced.

0

*The Netherlands.

B

It is far from my design to undertake such a work, only knowing imperfectly and by tradition. an almost infinite number of facts which many of my dear fellow-countrymen daily relate to their children. I shall therefore only impart to the public, in these memoirs, that which befell myself, from the year 1700 to 1713, when I was happily delivered from the galleys of France by God's mercy, and by the intercession of Queen Anne of England of glorious memory.

I was born at Bergerac, a small town in the province of Perigord, in the year 1684. My parents were in trade. By the grace of God they had always maintained, even unto death, the doctrines of the true reformed religion; their conduct was such as never to draw down any reproach upon these doctrines. They brought up their children in the fear of God, continually instructing them in the principles of true religion, and in aversion to the errors of popery.

I will not weary my reader by relating the events of my childhood up to the year 1700, when persecution tore me from the bosom of my family, forced me to fly from my country, and to expose myself, notwithstanding my tender age, to the perils of a journey of two hundred leagues, which I made in order to seek a refuge in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. I shall only relate, briefly and in simple truth, what has happened to me since my sorrowful separation from my parents, whom I left enduring the most cruel persecution.

Before detailing the story of my flight from my dear country, it is necessary to speak of what occasioned it, and kindled the most inhuman persecution in my native province.

During the war which was terminated by the peace of Ryswick, the Jesuits and priests had not been able to indulge in the pleasure of dragooning the Reformed in France, because the king had all his troops upon the frontiers of his kingdom; but no sooner was peace concluded, than they wished to indemnify themselves for the repose they had been obliged to give us during the war. These pitiless and inveterate persecutors then made their rage felt in all the provinces of France, wherever there were any of the reformed faith. I shall confine myself to detailing some of the best authenticated facts which took place in Perigord.

In the year 1699, the Duke de la Force, who proved that he by no means shared the sentiments of his illustrious ancestors with regard to the reformed religion, at the instigation of the Jesuits, requested permission to go to his estates in Perigord, in order (as he expressed it) to convert the Huguenots. In doing this he flattered the views and principles of the court too well not to obtain such an honourable and worthy employment. So he set out from Paris, accompanied by four Jesuits, a few guards, and his servants. Arrived at his castle of La Force, about a league distant from Bergerac, he began, in order to give an idea of the gentleness of his mission, and the spirit of his counsellors, to exercise unheard-of cruelties against those of his

« VorigeDoorgaan »