An Account of the Persecution of Friends, Commonly Called Quakers, in the United
States About the middle of the seventeenth century, much persecution and suffering
were inflicted on a sect of Protestant dissenters, commonly called Quakers,
a people which arose at that time in England, some of whom sealed their
testimony with their blood.
For an account of the above people sees Sewell's or Goff's history of them.
The principal points upon which their conscientious nonconformity rendered them
obnoxious to the penalties of the law were 1.
The Christian resolution of assembling publicly for the worship of God in a
manner most agreeable to their consciences.
2.
Their refusal to pay tithes, which they esteemed a Jewish ceremony, abrogated by
the coming of Christ.
3.
Their testimony against wars and fighting, the practice of which they judged
inconsistent with the command of Christ.
4.
Their constant obedience to the command of Christ swear not at all.
5.
Their refusal to pay rates or assessments for building and repairing houses for a
worship which they did not approve.
6.
Their use of the proper and scriptural language thou and thee to a single person,
and their disuse of the custom of uncovering their heads or pulling off
their hats by way of homage to man.
And 7.
The necessity many found themselves under of publishing what they believed to be the
doctrine of truth, sometimes even in the places appointed for the public national
worship.
Their conscientious noncompliance in the preceding particulars exposed them to much
persecution and suffering, which consisted in prosecutions, fines, cruel beatings,
whippings, and other corporal punishments, imprisonment, banishment, and even death.
To relate a particular account of their persecutions and sufferings would extend
beyond the limits of this work.
We shall therefore refer for that information to the histories already
mentioned, and more particularly to Bess's collection of their sufferings,
and shall confine our account here mostly to those who sacrificed their lives,
and evince by their disposition of mind, constancy, patience, and faithful
perseverance, that they were influenced by a sense of religious duty.
Numerous and repeated were the persecutions against them, and sometimes
for transgressions or offences which the law did not contemplate or embrace.
Many of the fines and penalties exacted of them were not only unreasonable and
exorbitant, but as they could not consistently pay them, were sometimes
distrained to several times the value of the demand, whereby many poor families
were greatly distressed, and obliged to depend on the assistance of their friends.
Numbers were not only cruelly beaten and whipped in a public manner like criminals,
but some were branded, and others had their ears cut off.
Great numbers were long confined in loathsome prisons, in which some ended
their days in consequence thereof.
Many were sentenced to banishment, and a considerable number were
transported.
Some were banished on pain of death, and four were actually executed by the
hands of the hangman, as we shall here relate, after inserting copies of some of
the laws of the country where they suffered.
This is a quote from a general court held at Boston, the 14th of October,
1656.
Whereas there is a cursed sect of heretics, lately risen up in the world,
which are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them to be immediately sent
from God, and infallibly assisted by the Spirit, to speak and write blasphemous
opinions, despising government and the order of God in the church and
commonwealth, speaking evil of dignities, reproaching and reviling magistrates and
ministers, seeking to turn the people from the faith, and gain proselytes to their
pernicious ways, this court, taking into consideration the premises, and to prevent
the like mischief, as by their means is wrought in our land, doth hereby order,
and by authority of this court, be it ordered and enacted, that what
master or commander of any ship, barque, pink, or ketch, shall henceforth
bring into any harbour, creek, or cove within this jurisdiction,
any Quaker, or Quakers, or other blasphemous heretics, shall pay,
or cause to be paid, the fine of one hundred pounds to the treasurer of the
country, except it appear he want true knowledge or information of their being
such, and in that case he hath liberty to clear himself by his oath, when sufficient
proof to the contrary is wanting, and for default of good payment,
or good security for it, shall be cast into prison, and there to continue until
the said sum be satisfied to the treasurer as foresaid.
And the commander of any ketch, ship, or vessel being legally convicted,
shall give in sufficient security to the governor, or any one or more of the
magistrates, who have power to determine the same, to carry them back to the place
whence he brought them, and on his refusal to do so, the governor, or one or more of
the magistrates, are hereby empowered to issue out his or their warrants to commit
such master or commander to prison, there to continue until he give in
sufficient security to the content of the governor, or any of the magistrates as a
foresaid.
And it is hereby further ordered and enacted, that what Quaker soever shall
arrive in this country from foreign parts, or shall come into this jurisdiction from
any parts adjacent, shall be forthwith committed to the house of correction,
and at their entrance to be severely whipped, and by the master thereof be kept
constantly to work, and none suffer to converse or speak with them during the
time of their imprisonment, which shall be no longer than necessity requires.
And it is ordered, if any person shall knowingly import into any harbour of this
jurisdiction any Quaker's books or writings concerning their devilish
opinions, shall pay for such book or writing, being legally proved against him
or them, the sum of five pounds, and whosoever shall disperse or conceal
any such book or writing, and it be found with him or her, or in his or her house,
and shall not immediately deliver the same to the next magistrate, shall forfeit or
pay five pounds for the dispersing or concealing of any such book or writing.
And it is hereby further enacted, that if any persons within this colony
shall take upon them to defend the heretical opinions of the Quakers,
or any of their books or papers, shall be fined for the first time forty
shillings.
If they shall persist in the same, and shall again defend it the second time,
four pounds.
If notwithstanding they again defend and maintain the said Quakers' heretical
opinions, they shall be committed to the House of Correction until there be
convenient passage to send them out of the land, being sentenced by the Court of
Assistance to banishment.
Lastly, it is hereby ordered that what person or person soever shall revile the
persons of the magistrates or ministers, as is usual with the Quakers, such person
or person shall be severely whipped, or pay the sum of five pounds.
This is a true copy of the Court's order, as attests Edward Rawson, Secretary.
The following quotation is from a General Court held at Boston the 14th of October,
1657.
As an addition to the late order in reference to the coming or bringing of any
of the cursed sect of the Quakers into this jurisdiction, it is ordered that
whosoever shall from henceforth bring, or cause to be brought directly or
indirectly, any known Quaker or Quakers, or other blasphemous heretics into this
jurisdiction, every such person shall forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds to
the country, and shall by warrant from any magistrate be committed to prison,
there to remain until the penalty be satisfied and paid.
And if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall henceforth entertain
and conceal any such Quaker or Quakers, or other blasphemous heretics,
knowing them so to be, every such person shall forfeit to the country forty
shillings for every hour's entertainment and concealment of any Quaker or Quaker,
etc., as aforesaid, and shall be committed to prison, as aforesaid, until the
forfeiture be fully satisfied and paid.
And it is further ordered that if any Quaker or Quaker shall presume,
after they have once suffered what the law requires, to come into this jurisdiction,
every such male Quaker shall for the first offence have one of his ears cut off,
and be kept at work in the House of Correction until he can be sent away at
his own charge, and for the second offence shall have his other ear cut off.
And every woman Quaker that has suffered the law here, that shall presume to come
into this jurisdiction, shall be severely whipped, and kept at the House of
Corrections at work until she be sent away at her own charge, and so also for her
coming again she shall be alike, used as a forcehead.
And for every Quaker, he or she that shall a third time herein again offend,
they shall have their tongues bored through with a hot iron, and be kept at
the House of Correction close to work until they be sent away at their own
charge.
And it is further ordered that all and every Quaker arising from among ourselves
shall be dealt with and suffer the like punishment as the law provides against
foreign Quakers.
Edward Rawson, Secretary.
The final quotation is from an Act made at a General Court held at Boston the 20th of
October 1658.
Whereas there is a pernicious sect commonly called Quakers, lately risen,
who by word and writing have published and maintained many dangerous and horrid
tenets, and do take upon them to change and alter the received laudable customs of
our nation, in giving civil respect to equals, or reverence to superiors,
whose actions tend to undermine the civil government, and also to destroy the order
of the churches by denying all established forms of worship, and by withdrawing from
orderly church fellowship, allowed and approved by all orthodox professors of
truth, and instead thereof, and in opposition thereunto, frequently meeting
by themselves, insinuating themselves into the minds of the simple, or such as are at
least affected to the order and government of church and commonwealth, whereby divers
of our inhabitants have been infected, notwithstanding all former laws,
made upon the experience of their arrogant and bold obtrusions, to disseminate their
principles amongst us, prohibiting their coming into this jurisdiction,
they have not been deferred from their impious attempts to undermine our peace
and hazard our ruin.
For prevention thereof, this court doth order and enact, that any person or
persons of the cursed sect of the Quakers, who is not an inhabitant of, but is found
within this jurisdiction, shall be apprehended without warrant, where no
magistrate is at hand, by any constable, commissioner, or select man, and conveyed
from constable to constable to the next magistrate, who shall commit the said
person to close prison, there to remain without bail until the next court of
assistance, where they shall have legal trial.
And being convicted to be of the sect of the Quakers, shall be sentenced to
banishment on pain of death, and that every inhabitant of this jurisdiction,
being convicted to be of the aforesaid sect, either by taking up, publishing,
or defending the horrid opinions of the Quakers, or the stirring up mutiny,
sedition, or rebellion against the government, or by taking up their abusive
and destructive practices, namely denying civil respect to equals and superiors,
and withdrawing from the church assemblies, and instead thereof
frequenting meetings of their own, in opposition to our church order,
adhering to or approving of any known Quaker, and the tenets and practice of
Quakers, that are opposite to the orthodox received opinions of the godly,
and endeavouring to disaffect others to civil government and church order,
or condemning the practice and proceedings of this court against the Quakers,
manifesting thereby their complying with those, whose design is to overthrow the
order established in church and state, every such person, upon conviction before
the said court of assistance, in manner aforesaid, shall be committed to close
prison for one month, and then, unless they choose voluntarily to depart
this jurisdiction, shall give bond for their good behaviour, and appear at the
next court, continuing obstinate, and refusing to retract and reform the
aforesaid opinions, they shall be sentenced to banishment upon pain of
death, and any one magistrate, upon information given him of any such
person, shall cause him to be apprehended, and shall commit any such person to
prison, according to his discretion, until he come to trial, as aforesaid.
It appears there were also laws passed in both of the then colonies of New Plymouth
and New Haven, and in the Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam, now New York,
prohibiting the people called Quakers from coming into those places under severe
penalties, in consequence of which some underwent considerable suffering.
The two first who were executed were William Robinson, merchant of London,
and Marmaduke Stevenson, a countryman of Yorkshire.
These, coming to Boston in the beginning of September, were sent for by the court
of assistance, and they are sentenced to banishment on pain of death.
This sentence was passed also on Mary Dyer, mentioned hereafter, and Nicholas
Davies, who were both at Boston.
But William Robinson, being looked upon as a teacher, was also condemned to be
whipped severely, and the constable was commanded to get an able man to do it.
Then Robinson was brought into the street, and there stripped, and having his hands
put through the holes of the carriage of a great gun, where the jailer held him,
the executioner gave him twenty stripes with a threefold cord whip.
Then he and the other prisoners were shortly after released and banished,
as appears from the following warrant.
You are required by these, presently to set at liberty, William Robinson,
Marmaduke Stevenson, Mary Dyer and Nicholas Davies, who by an order of the
court and council had been imprisoned, because it appeared by their own
confession, words and actions, that they are Quakers, wherefore a
sentence was pronounced against them to depart this jurisdiction on pain of death,
and that they must answer it at their peril, if they or any of them after the
fourteenth of this present month, September, are found within this
jurisdiction or any part thereof.
Edward Rawson, Boston, September 12, 1659.
Though Mary Dyer and Nicholas Davies left that jurisdiction for that time,
yet Robinson and Stevenson, though they departed the town of Boston, could not yet
resolve, not being free in mind, to depart that jurisdiction, though their
lives were at stake.
And so they went to Salem, and some places thereabouts, to visit and build up their
friends in the faith.
But it was not long before they were taken and put again into prison at Boston,
and chains locked to their legs.
In the next month Mary Dyer returned also, and as she stood before the prison
speaking with one Christopher Holden, who has come thither to inquire for a ship
bound for England, whither he intended to go, she was also taken into custody.
Thus they had now three persons who, according to the law, had forfeited their
lives.
And on the twentieth of October these three were brought into court,
where John Endicott and others were assembled, and being called to the bar,
Endicott commanded the keeper to pull off their hats, and then said that they had
made several laws to keep the Quakers from amongst them, and neither whipping nor
imprisoning nor cutting off ears nor banishment upon pain of death would keep
them from amongst them.
And further he said that he or they desired not the death of any of them.
Yet, notwithstanding, his following words, without more ado, were, Give ear and
hearken to your sentence of death.
Sentence of death was also passed upon Marmaduke Stevenson, Mary Dyer and William
Edred.
Several others were imprisoned, whipped and fined.
We have no disposition to justify the pilgrims for these proceedings,
but we think, considering the circumstances of the age in which they
lived, their conduct admits of much palliation.
The fathers of New England endured incredible hardships in providing for
themselves a home in the wilderness, and to protect themselves in the
undisturbed enjoyment of rites which they had purchased at so dear a rate.
They sometimes adopted measures which, if tried by the more enlightened and
liberal views of the present day, must at once be pronounced altogether
unjustifiable.
But shall they be condemned without mercy for not acting up to principles which were
unacknowledged and unknown throughout the whole of Christendom?
Shall they alone be held responsible for opinions and conduct which had become
sacred by antiquity and which were common to Christians of all other denominations?
Every government then in existence assumed to itself the right to legislate in
matters of religion and to restrain heresy by penal statutes.
This right was claimed by rulers, admitted by subjects, and is sanctioned by
the names of Lord Bacon and Montesquieu and many others equally famed for their
talents and learning.
It is unjust, then, to press upon one poor persecuted sect the sins of all
Christendom.
The fault of our fathers was the fault of the age, and though this cannot justify,
it certainly furnishes an extenuation of their conduct.
As well might you condemn them for not understanding and acting up to the
principles of religious toleration.
At the same time, it is but just to say that imperfect as were their views of the
rights of conscience, they were nevertheless far in advance of the age to
which they belonged, and it is to them, more than to any other class of men on
earth, the world is indebted for the more rational views that now prevail on the
subject of civil and religious liberty.
Chapter 19 An Account of the Life and Persecutions of John Bunyan This great
Puritan was born the same year that the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth.
His home was Elstow, near Bedford, in England.
His father was a tinker, and he was brought up to the same trade.
He was a lively, likeable boy, with a serious and almost morbid side to
his nature.
All during his young manhood, he was repenting for the vices of his youth,
and yet he had never been either a drunkard or immoral.
The particular act that troubled his conscience were dancing, ringing the
church bells, and playing cat.
It was while playing the latter game one day that a voice did suddenly dart from
heaven into my soul, which said, "'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to
heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?' At about this time he overheard three or
four poor women in Bedford talking as they sat at the door in the sun.
Their talk was about the new birth, the work of God in the hearts.
They were far above my reach.
In his youth he was a member of the Parliamentary Army for a year.
The death of his comrade close beside him deepened his tendency to serious thoughts,
and there were times when he seemed almost insane in his zeal and penitence.
He was at one time quite assured that he had sinned the unpardonable sin against
the Holy Ghost.
While he was still a young man, he married a good woman who bought him a
library of pious books, which he read with assiduity, thus confirming his earnestness
and increasing his love of religious controversies.
His conscience was still further awakened through the persecution of the religious
body of Baptists to whom he had joined himself.
Before he was thirty years old he had become a leading Baptist preacher.
Then came his turn for persecution.
He was arrested for preaching without licence.
Before I went down to the justice I begged of God that his will be done, for I was
not without hopes that my imprisonment might be an awakening to the saints in the
country.
Only in that matter did I commit the thing to God, and verily at my return I did meet
my God sweetly in the prison.
His hardships were genuine on account of the wretched condition of the prisons of
those days.
To this confinement was added the personal grief of being parted from his young and
second wife and four small children, and particularly his little blind
daughter.
While he was in jail he was solaced by the two books which he had brought with him,
the Bible and Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Although he wrote some of his early books during this long imprisonment,
it was not until his second and shorter one, three years after the first,
that he composed his Immortal Pilgrims' Progress, which was published three years
later.
In an earlier tract he had thought briefly of the similarity between human life and a
pilgrimage, and he now worked this theme out in fascinating detail, using the rural
scenery of England for his background, the splendid city of London for his vanity
fare, and the saints and villains of his own personal acquaintance for the finely
drawn characters of his allegory.
The Pilgrims' Progress is truly the rehearsal of Bunyan's own spiritual
experiences.
He himself had been the man clothed in rags, with his face from his own house,
a book in his hand and a great burden upon his back.
After he had realised that Christ was his righteousness, and that this did not
depend on the good frame of his heart, or, as we should say, on his feelings,
now did the chains fall off my legs indeed.
His had been doubting castle and sloughs of despond, with much of the valley of
humiliation and the shadow of death.
But above all it is a book of victory.
Once when he was leaving the doors of the courthouse where he himself had been
defeated, he wrote, As I was going forth of the doors, I had much ado to bear
saying to them that I carried the peace of God along with me.
In his vision was ever the celestial city, with all its bells ringing.
He had fought Apollyon constantly, and often been wounded, shamed and fallen,
yet in the end more than conqueror through him that loved us.
His book was at first received with much criticism from his Puritan friends,
who saw in it only an addition to the worldly literature of his day.
But there was not much then for Puritans to read, and it was not long before it was
devoutly laid beside their Bibles and perused with gladness and with profit.
It was perhaps two centuries later before literary critics began to realise that
this story, so full of human reality and interest, and so marvellously modelled
upon the English of the King James translation of the Bible, is one of the
glories of English literature.
In his later years he wrote several other allegories, of which one of them,
the Holy War, it has been said that if the pilgrim's progress had never been written,
it would be regarded as the finest allegory in the language.
During the later years of his life Bunyan remained in Bedford as a venerated local
pastor and preacher.
He was also a favourite speaker in the non-conformist pulpits of London.
He became so national a leader and teacher that he was frequently called Bishop
Bunyan.
In his helpful and unselfish personal life he was apostolic.
His last illness was due to exposure upon a journey in which he was endeavouring to
reconcile a father with his son.
His end came on the 3rd of August 1688.
He was buried in Bunhill Fields, a churchyard in London.
There is no doubt but that the pilgrim's progress has been more helpful than any
other book but the Bible.
It was timely, but it was still burning martyrs in Vanity Fair while he was
writing.
It is enduring, for while it tells little of living the Christian life in the family
and community, it does interpret that life so far as it is an expression of the
solitary soul in homely language.
Bunyan indeed showed how to build a princely throne on humble truth.
He has been his own great heart, dauntless guide to pilgrims, to many.
Chapter 20 An Account of the Life of John Wesley John Wesley was born on the 17th of
June 1703 in Epworth's Rectory, England, the fifteenth of nineteen
children of Charles and Susanna Wesley.
The father of Wesley was a preacher, and Wesley's mother was a remarkable woman
in wisdom and intelligence.
She was a woman of deep piety, and brought her little ones into close
contact with the Bible stories, telling them from the tiles about the
nursery fireplace.
She also used to dress the children in their best on the days when they were to
have the privilege of learning their alphabet, as an introduction to the
reading of the Holy Scriptures.
Young Wesley was a gay and a manly youth, fond of games and particularly of dancing.
At Oxford, he was a leader, and during the latter part of his course there,
was one of the founders of the Holy Club, an organisation of serious-minded
students.
His religious nature deepened through study and experience, but it was not until
several years after he left the University, and came under the influence
of Luther's writings, that he felt that he had entered into the full riches of the
Gospel.
He and his brother Charles were sent by the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel to Georgia, where both of them developed their powers as preachers.
Upon their passage, they fell into the company of several Moravian brethren,
members of the association recently renewed by the labours of Count
Zinzendorf.
It was noted by John Wesley in his diary, that in a great tempest, when the English
people on board lost all self-possession, these Germans impressed him by their
composure and entire resignation to God.
He also marked their humility under shameful treatment.
It was on his return to England that he entered into those deeper experiences and
developed those marvellous powers as a popular preacher, which made him a
national leader.
He was associated at this time also with George Whitefield, the tradition of whose
marvellous eloquence has never died.
What he accomplished borders upon the incredible.
Upon entering his eighty-fifth year, he thanked God that he was still almost as
vigorous as ever.
He ascribed it under God to the fact that he had always slept soundly, had risen for
sixty years at four o'clock in the morning, and for fifty years had preached
every morning at five.
Seldom in all his life did he feel any pain, care or anxiety.
He preached twice each day and often thrice or four times.
It has been estimated that he travelled every year forty-five hundred English
miles, mostly upon horseback.
The successes won by Methodist preaching had to be gained through a long series of
years and amid the most bitter persecutions.
In nearly every part of England it was met at the first by the mob with stonings and
peltings, with attempts at wounding and slaying.
Only at times was there any interference on the part of the civil power.
The two Wesleys faced all these dangers with amazing courage and with a calmness
equally astonishing.
What was more irritating was the heaping up of slander and abuse by the writers of
the day.
These books are now all forgotten.
Wesley had been in his youth a high churchman and was always deeply devoted to
the established communion.
When he found it necessary to ordain preachers, the separation of his followers
from the established body became inevitable.
The name Methodist soon attached to them because of the particular organising power
of their leader and the ingenious methods that he applied.
The Wesley Fellowship, which after his death grew into the great Methodist
Church, was characterised by an almost military perfection of organisation.
The entire management of his ever-growing denomination rested upon Wesley himself.
The annual conference, established in 1744, acquired a governing power only
after the death of Wesley.
Charles Wesley rendered the Society a service incalculably great by his hymns.
They introduced a new era in the hymnology of the English Church.
John Wesley apportioned his days to his work in leading the Church to studying,
for he was an incessant reader, to travelling and to preaching.
Wesley was untiring in his efforts to disseminate useful knowledge throughout
his denomination.
He planned for the mental culture of his travelling preachers and local exhorters
and for schools of instruction for the future teachers of the Church.
He himself prepared books for popular use upon universal history, church history and
natural history.
In this, Wesley was an apostle of the modern union of mental culture with
Christian living.
He published also the best matured of his sermons and various theological works.
These, both by their depth and their penetration of thought and by their purity
and precision of style, excite our admiration.
John Wesley was of but ordinary stature and yet of noble presence.
His features were very handsome even in old age.
He had an open brow, an eagle nose, a clear eye and a fresh complexion.
His manners were fine and, in choice company with Christian people,
he enjoyed relaxation.
Persistent, laborious love for men's souls, steadfastness and tranquility of
spirit were his most prominent traits of character.
Even in doctrinal controversies, he exhibited the greatest calmness.
He was kind and very liberal.
His industry has been named already.
In the last 52 years of his life, it is estimated that he preached more than
40,000 sermons.
Wesley brought sinners to repentance throughout three kingdoms and over two
hemispheres.
He was the bishop of such a diocese as neither the Eastern nor the Western Church
ever witnessed before.
What is there in the circle of Christian effort, foreign missions, home missions,
Christian tracts and literature, field preaching, circuit preaching,
Bible readings or aught else, which was not attempted by John Wesley, which was
not grasped by his mighty mind through the aid of his divine leader?
To him it was granted to arouse the English Church, when it had lost sight of
Christ the Redeemer, to a renewed Christian life.
By preaching the justifying and renewing of the soul through belief upon Christ,
he lifted many thousands of the humbler classes of the English people from their
exceeding ignorance and evil habits and made them earnest, faithful Christians.
His untiring effort made itself felt not in England alone, but in America and in
continental Europe.
Not only the germs of almost all the existing zeal in England on behalf of
Christian truth and life are due to Methodism, but the activities stirred up
in other portions of Protestant Europe we must trace indirectly at least to Wesley.
He died in 1791 after a long life of tireless labour and unselfish service.
His fervent spirit and hearty brotherhood still survives in the body that cherishes
his name.
Chapter 21.
Persecutions of the French Protestants in the South of France during the years 1814
and 1820.
The persecution in this Protestant part of France continued with very little
intermission from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV until a very
short period previous to the commencement of the late French Revolution.
In the year 1785, Monsieur Rébeau-Saint-Étienne and the celebrated
Monsieur de Lafayette were among the first persons who interested themselves with the
court of Louis XVI in removing the scourge of persecution from this injured people,
the inhabitants of the South of France.
Such was the opposition on the part of the Catholics and the courtiers that it was
not until the end of the year 1790 that the Protestants were freed from their
alarms.
Previous to this, the Catholics at Nîmes in particular had taken up arms.
Nîmes then presented a frightful spectacle.
Armed men ran through the city, fired from the corners of the streets and
attacked all they met with swords and forks.
A man named Astuc was wounded and thrown into the aqueduct.
Baudin fell under the repeated strokes of bayonets and sabres and his body was also
thrown into the water.
Boucher, a young man only 17 years of age, was shot as he was looking out of his
window.
Three electors wounded, one dangerously.
Another elector wounded only escaped death by repeatedly declaring he was a Catholic.
A third received four sabre wounds and was taken home dreadfully mangled.
The citizens that fled were arrested by the Catholics upon the roads and obliged
to give proofs of their religion before their lives were granted.
Monsieur and Madame Vogue were at their country house, which the zealots broke
open, where they massacred both and destroyed their dwelling.
Monsieur Blanchet, a Protestant 70 years of age, was cut to pieces with a sickle.
Young Pierre, carrying some food to his brother, was asked, Catholic or
Protestant?
Protestant, being the reply, a monster fired at the lad and he fell.
One of the murderer's companions said, you might as well have killed a lamb.
I have sworn, replied he, to kill four Protestants for my share, and this will
count for one.
However, as these atrocities provoked the troops to unite in defence of the people,
a terrible vengeance was retaliated upon the Catholic party that had used arms,
which, with other circumstances, especially the toleration exercised by
Napoleon Bonaparte, kept them down completely until the year 1814,
when the unexpected return of the ancient government rallied them all once more
round the old banners.
The arrival of King Louis XVIII at Paris.
This was known at Nîmes on the 13th of April, 1814.
In a quarter of an hour, the white cockade was seen in every direction.
The white flag floated on the public buildings, on the splendid monuments of
antiquity, and even on the Tower of Mange beyond the city walls.
The Protestants, whose commerce had suffered materially during the war,
were among the first to unite in the general joy and to send in their adhesion
to the Senate and the legislative body, and several of the Protestant departments
sent addresses to the throne.
But, unfortunately, Monsieur Frémont was again at Nîmes at the moment when many
bigots, being ready to join him, the blindness and fury of the 16th century
rapidly succeeded the intelligence and philanthropy of the 19th.
A line of distinction was instantly traced between men of different religious
opinions.
The spirit of the old Catholic Church was again to regulate each person's share of
esteem and safety.
The difference of religion was now to govern everything else, and even Catholic
domestics, who had served Protestants with zeal and affection, began to neglect their
duties or to perform them ungraciously and with reluctance.
At the feats and spectacles that were given at the public expense, the absence
of the Protestants was charged on them as a proof of their disloyalty, and in the
midst of the cries of Vive le Roi, the discordant sounds of Abba le maire,
down with the maire, were heard.
Monsieur Castleton was a Protestant.
He appeared in public with the Prefect, Monsieur Roulan, a Catholic, when potatoes
were thrown at him, and the people declared that he ought to resign his
office.
The bigots of Nîmes even succeeded in procuring an address to be presented to
the King, stating that there ought to be in France but one God, one King,
and one faith.
In this they were imitated by the Catholics of several towns.
About this time, Monsieur Baron, Councillor of the Cour Royale of Nîmes,
formed the plan of dedicating to God a silver child if the Duchesse d'Angoulême
would give a prince to France.
This project was converted into a public religious vow, which was the subject of
conversation both in public and private.
Whilst persons whose imaginations were inflamed by these proceedings ran about
the streets crying, Vive les Bourbons, or the Bourbons forever.
In consequence of this superstitious frenzy, it is said that at Alais women
were advised and instigated to poison their Protestant husbands, and at length
it was found convenient to accuse them of political crimes.
They could no longer appear in public without insults and injuries.
When the mobs met with Protestants, they seized them and danced round them
with barbarous joy, and amidst repeated cries of Vive le Roi, they sang verses,
the burden of which was we will wash our hands in Protestant blood and make black
puddings of the blood of Calvin's children.
The citizens who came to the promenade for air and refreshment from the close and
dirty streets were chased with shouts of Vive le Roi, as if those shouts were to
justify every excess.
If Protestants referred to the charter, they were directly assured it would be of
no use to them, and that they had only been managed to be more effectually
destroyed.
Persons of rank were heard to say in the public streets, all the Huguenots must be
killed, this time their children must be killed, that none of the accursed race may
remain.
Still, it is true they were not murdered, but cruelly treated.
Protestant children could no longer mix in the sports of Catholics, and were not even
permitted to appear without their parents.
At dark, their families shut themselves up in their apartments, but even then stones
were thrown against their windows.
When they arose in the morning, it was not uncommon to find gibbets drawn
on their doors or walls, and in the streets the Catholics held cords already
soaked before their eyes, and pointed out the instruments by which they hoped and
designed to exterminate them.
Small gallows or models were handed about, and a man who lived opposite to one of the
pastors exhibited one of these models in his window, and made signs sufficiently
intelligible when the minister passed.
A figure representing a Protestant preacher was also hung up on a public
crossway, and the most atrocious songs were sung under his window.
Towards the conclusion of the carnival, a plan had even been formed to make a
caricature of the four ministers of the place and burn them in effigy,
but this was prevented by the mayor of Nîmes, a Protestant.
A dreadful song, presented to the prefect in the country dialect with a false
translation, was printed by his approval, and had a great run before he saw the
extent of the error into which he had been betrayed.
The 63rd regiment of the line was publicly censured and insulted for having,
according to order, protected Protestants.
In fact, the Protestants seemed to be as sheep destined for the slaughter.
In May 1815, a federative association, similar to that of Lyon, Grenoble,
Paris, Avignon and Montpellier, was desired by many persons at Nîmes,
but this federation terminated here after an ephemeral and illusory existence of
fourteen days.
In the meanwhile, a large party of Catholic zealots were in arms at
Beaucaire, who soon pushed their patrols so near the walls of Nîmes so as to alarm
the inhabitants.
These Catholics applied to the English off Marseille for assistance, and obtained the
grant of one thousand muskets, ten thousand cartouches, etc.
General Gilly, however, was soon sent against these partisans, who prevented
them from coming to extremes by granting them an armistice.
And yet, when Louis XVIII had returned to Paris after the expiration of Napoleon's
reign of a hundred days, and peace and party spirit seemed to have been subdued,
even at Nîmes, bands from Beaucaire joined Trestayens in the city to glut the
vengeance they had so long premeditated.
General Gilly had left the department several days, the troops of the line left
behind had taken the white cockade, and waited further orders, whilst the new
commissioners had only to proclaim the cessation of hostilities and the complete
establishment of the king's authority.
In vain.
No commissioners appeared, no dispatches arrived to calm and regulate the public
mind, but towards evening the advanced guard of the banditi, to the amount of
several hundreds, entered the city, undesired but unopposed.
As they marched, without order or discipline, covered with clothes or rags
of all colours, decorated with cockades not white, but white and green,
armed with muskets, sabres, forks, pistols, and reaping-hooks, intoxicated
with wine, and stained with the blood of the Protestants they had murdered on their
route, they presented a most hideous and appalling spectacle.
In the open place in front of the barracks, these banditi were joined by the
city-armed mob headed by Jacques Dupont, commonly called Trestaillon.
To save the effusion of blood, this garrison of about five hundred men
consented to capitulate, and marched out, sad and defenceless.
But when about fifty had passed, the rabble commenced a tremendous fire on
their confiding and unprotected victims.
Nearly all were killed or wounded, and but very few could re-enter the yard
before the garrison gates were again closed.
These were again forced in an instant, and all were massacred who would not climb
over roofs or leap into the adjoining gardens.
In a word, death met them in every place and in every shape, and this Catholic
massacre rivaled in cruelty and surpassed in treachery the crimes of the September
Assassins of Paris and the Jacobinical Butcheries of Lyon and Avignon.
It was marked not only by the fervour of the Revolution, but by the subtlety of the
League, and will long remain a blot upon the history of the Second Restoration.
Massacre and Pillage at Nîmes Nîmes now exhibited a most awful scene of outrage
and carnage.
Though many of the Protestants had fled to the Convene and the Gare de Nantes,
the country houses of Messrs.
Ray, Guiret, and several others had been pillaged, and the inhabitants treated with
wanton barbarity.
Two parties had glutted their savage appetites on the farm of Madame Fra.
The first, after eating, drinking, and breaking the furniture, and stealing
what they thought proper, took leave by announcing the arrival of their comrades,
compared with whom they said they should be thought merciful.
Three men and an old woman were left on the premises.
At the sight of the second company, two of the men fled.
''Are you a Catholic?'' said the banditi to the old woman.
''Yes.'' ''Repeat, then, your pater and ave.'' Being terrified, she hesitated,
and was instantly knocked down with a musket.
On recovering her senses, she stole out of the house, but met Ladet, the old valet de
ferme, bringing in a salad, which the depredators had ordered him to cut.
In vain she endeavoured to persuade him to fly.
''Are you a Protestant?'' they exclaimed.
''I am.'' A musket being discharged at him, he fell wounded, but not dead.
To consummate their work, the monsters lighted a fire with straw and boards,
threw their living victim into the flames, and suffered him to expire in the most
dreadful agonies.
They then ate their salad, omelette, etc.
The next day, some labourers, seeing the house open and deserted, entered and
discovered the half-consumed body of Ladet.
The Prefect of the Guard, M.
d'Arbeau-Juc, attempting to palliate the crimes of the Catholics, had the audacity
to assert that Ladet was a Catholic, but this was publicly contradicted by two
of the pastors at Nîmes.
Another party committed a dreadful murder at Saint-Caesare, upon Amber-la-Plume,
the husband of Susan Chivat.
He was met on returning from work in the fields.
The Chief promised him his life, but insisted that he must be conducted to
the prison at Nîmes.
Seeing, however, that the party was determined to kill him, he resumed his
natural character, and being a powerful and courageous man, advanced and
exclaimed, ''You are brigands.
Fire!'' Four of them fired and he fell, but he was not dead, and while living they
mutilated his body, and then passing a cord round it, drew it along attached to a
cannon of which they had possession.
It was not until after eight days that his relatives were apprised of his death.
Five individuals of the family of Chivat, all husbands and fathers, were massacred
in the course of a few days.
The merciless treatment of the women in this persecution at Nîmes was such as
would have disgraced any savages ever heard of.
The widows Rivet and Bernard were forced to sacrifice enormous sums, and the house
of Madame LeQuant was ravaged and her goods destroyed.
Madame F.
Didier had her dwelling sacked and nearly demolished to the foundation.
A party of these bigots visited the widow Perrin, who lived on a little farm at the
windmills.
Having committed every species of devastation, they attacked even the
sanctuary of the dead, which contained the relics of her family.
They dragged the coffins out and scattered the contents over the adjacent grounds.
In vain, this outraged widow collected the bones of her ancestors and replaced them.
They were again dug up, and after several useless efforts, they were reluctantly
left, spread over the surface of the fields.
Royal Decree in Favour of the Persecuted At length, the decree of Louis XVIII,
which annulled all the extraordinary powers conferred either by the king,
the princes, or subordinate agents, was received at Nîmes, and the laws were
now to be administered by the regular organs, and a new prefect arrived to carry
them into effect.
But in spite of proclamations, the work of destruction, stopped for a
moment, was not abandoned, but soon renewed with fresh vigour and effect.
On the 30th of July, Jacques Combe, the father of a family, was killed by some
of the national guards of Rousseau, and the crime was so public that the
commander of the party restored to the family the pocketbook and papers of the
deceased.
On the following day, tumultuous crowds roamed about the city and suburbs,
threatening the wretched peasants, and on the 1st of August they butchered
them without opposition.
About noon on the same day, six armed men, headed by Truffémy, the butcher,
surrounded the house of Monod, a carpenter.
Two of the party, who were smiths, had been at work in the house the day
before, and had seen a Protestant who had taken refuge there, Monsieur Bourillon,
who had been a lieutenant in the army, and had retired on a pension.
He was a man of an excellent character, peaceable and harmless, and had never
served the Emperor Napoleon.
Truffémy, not knowing him, he was pointed out, partaking of a frugal breakfast with
the family.
Truffémy ordered him to go along with him, adding, ''Your friend Socine is already in
the other world.'' Truffémy placed him in the middle of his troop, and artfully
ordered him to cry, ''Vive l'Empereur!'' He refused, adding he had never served the
Emperor.
In vain did the women and children of the house intercede for his life, and praise
his amiable and virtuous qualities.
He was marched to the esplanade and shot, first by Truffémy, and then by the others.
Several persons, attracted by the firing, approached, but were threatened with a
similar fate.
After some time the wretches departed, shouting ''Vive l'Empereur!'' Some women
met them, and one of them, appearing affected, said, ''I've killed seven today
for my share, and if you say a word you shall be the eighth.'' Pierre Coubet,
a stocking-weaver, was torn from his loom by an armed band and shot at his own door.
His eldest daughter was knocked down with the butt-end of a musket, and a poignard
was held at the breast of his wife while the mob plundered her apartments.
Paul Herod, a silk-weaver, was literally cut in pieces in the presence of a large
crowd, and amidst the unavailing cries and tears of his wife and four young children.
The murderers only abandoned the corpse to return to Herod's house and secure
everything valuable.
The number of murders on this day could not be ascertained.
One person saw six bodies at the Courneuve, and nine were carried to the
hospital.
If murder sometime after became less frequent for a few days, pillage and
forced contributions were actively enforced.
Monsieur Saldombrot, at several visits, was robbed of seven thousand francs,
and on one occasion when he pleaded the sacrifices he had made, "'Look,' said a
bandit, pointing to his pipe, "'this will set fire to your house, and this,'
brandishing his sword, "'will finish you.'" No reply could be made to these
arguments.
Monsieur Fellin, a silk-manufacturer, was robbed of thirty-two thousand francs
in gold, three thousand francs in silver, and several bales of silk.
The small shopkeepers were continually exposed to visits and demands of
provisions, drapery, or whatever they sold, and the same hands that set fire to
the houses of the rich, and tore up the vines of the cultivator, broke the looms
of the weaver, and stole the tools of the artisan.
Desolation reigned in the sanctuary and in the city.
The armed bands, instead of being reduced, were increased.
The fugitives, instead of returning, received constant accessions, and their
friends who sheltered them were deemed rebellious.
Those Protestants who remained were deprived of all their civil and religious
rights, and even the advocates and huissiers entered into a resolution to
exclude all of the pretended, reformed religion from their bodies.
Those who were employed in selling tobacco were deprived of their licenses.
The Protestant deacons, who had the charge of the poor, were all scattered.
Of five pastors, only two remained.
One of these was obliged to change his residence, and could only venture to
administer the consolations of religion, or perform the functions of his ministry
under cover of the night.
Not content with these modes of torment, calumnious and inflammatory publications
charged the Protestants with raising the prescribed standard in the communes,
and invoking the fallen Napoleon, and, of course, as unworthy the protection
of the laws and the favor of the monarch.
Hundreds, after this, were dragged to prison without even so much as a written
order, and though an official newspaper, bearing the title of the Journal du Gard,
was set up for five months, while it was influenced by the prefect, the mayor,
and other functionaries, the word charter was never once used in it.
One of the first numbers, on the contrary, represented the suffering Protestants as
crocodiles only weeping from rage and regret that they had no more victims to
devour, as persons who had surpassed Danton, Marat, and Robespierre in doing
mischief.
And as having prostituted their daughters to the garrison to gain it over for
Napoleon.
An extract from this article, stamped with the crown and the arms of the Bourbons,
was hawked about the streets, and the vendor was adorned with the medal of the
police.
Petition of the Protestant refugees To these reproaches it is proper to oppose
the petition which the Protestant refugees in Paris presented to Louis XVIII,
in behalf of their brethren at Nîmes.
We lay at your feet, sire, our acute sufferings.
In your name our fellow-citizens are slaughtered, and their property laid
waste.
Misled peasants, in pretended obedience to your orders, had assembled at the command
of a commissioner appointed by your august nephew.
Although ready to attack us, they were received with the assurances of peace.
On the 15th of July, 1815, we learned your majesty's entrance into Paris,
and the white flag immediately waved on our edifices.
The public tranquillity had not been disturbed when armed peasants introduced
themselves.
The garrison capitulated, but were assailed on their departure, and almost
totally massacred.
Our national guard was disarmed, the city filled with strangers,
and the houses of the principal inhabitants, professing the reformed
religion, were attacked and plundered.
We subjoin the list.
Terror has driven from our city the most respectable inhabitants.
Your majesty has been deceived if there has not been placed before you the picture
of the horrors which make a desert of your good city of Nîmes.
Arrests and proscriptions are continually taking place, and difference of religious
opinions is the real and only cause.
The calumniated Protestants are the defenders of the throne.
Your nephew has beheld our children under his banners.
Our fortunes have been placed in his hands.
Attacked without reason, the Protestants have not, even by a just resistance,
afforded their enemies the fatal pretext for calumny.
Save us, sire.
Extinguish the brand of civil war.
A single act of your will would restore to political existence a city interesting for
its population and its manufacturers.
Demand an account of their conduct from the chiefs who had brought our misfortunes
upon us.
We place before your eyes all the documents that have reached us.
Fear paralyzes the hearts and stifles the complaints of our fellow citizens.
Placed in a more secure situation, we venture to raise our voice in their
behalf, etc., etc.
Monstrous outrage upon females.
At Nîmes, it is well known that the women wash their clothes, either at the
fountains or on the banks of streams.
There is a large basin near the fountain where numbers of women may be seen every
day, kneeling at the edge of the water and beating the clothes with heavy pieces of
wood in the shape of battle doors.
This spot became the scene of the most shameful and indecent practices.
The Catholic rabble turned the women's petticoats over their heads and so
fastened them as to continue their exposure and their subjection to a newly
invented species of chastisement, for nails being placed in the wood of the
batois in the form of fleurs-de-lis, they beat them until the blood streamed
from their bodies and their cries rent the air.
Often was death demanded as a commutation of this ignominious punishment,
but refused with a malignant joy.
To carry their outrage to the highest possible degree, several who were in a
state of pregnancy were assailed in this manner.
The scandalous nature of these outrages prevented many of the sufferers from
making them public and especially from relating the most aggravating
circumstances.
I have seen, says M.
Durand, a Catholic advocate, accompanying the assassins of the Faubourg-Bourgarde,
arm a batois with sharp nails in the form of fleurs-de-lis.
I have seen them raise the garments of females and apply with heavy blows to the
bleeding body this batois or battle door, to which they gave a name which my pen
refuses to record.
The cries of the sufferers, the streams of blood, the murmurs of indignation,
which were suppressed by fear, nothing could move them.
The surgeons who attended on those women who were dead can attest by the marks of
their wounds the agonies which they must have endured, which, however horrible,
is most strictly true.
Nevertheless, during the progress of these horrors and obscenities, so disgraceful to
France and the Catholic religion, the agents of government had a powerful
force under their command, and by honestly employing it they might have restored
tranquillity.
Murder and robbery, however, continued, and were winked at by the Catholic
magistrates, with very few exceptions.
The administrative authorities, it is true, used words in their
proclamations, etc., but never had recourse to actions to stop the enormities
of the persecutors, who boldly declared that on the 24th, the anniversary of St.
Bartholomew, they intended to make a general massacre.
The members of the Reformed Church were filled with terror, and instead of taking
part in the election of deputies, were occupied as well as they could in
providing for their own personal safety.
Outrages committed in the villages, etc.
We now quit Nîmes to take a view of the conduct of the persecutors in the
surrounding country.
After the re-establishment of the royal government, the local authorities were
distinguished for their zeal and forwardness in supporting their employers,
and under pretence of rebellion, concealment of arms, non-payment of
contributions, etc., troops, national guards and armed mobs, were permitted to
plunder, arrest and murder peaceable citizens, not merely with impunity,
but with encouragement and approbation.
At the village of Mio, near Nîmes, the inhabitants were frequently forced to
pay large sums to avoid being pillaged.
This, however, would not avail at Madame Toulon's.
On Sunday, the 16th of July, her house and grounds were ravaged, the valuable
furniture removed or destroyed, the hay and wood burnt, and the corpse of
a child buried in the garden taken up and dragged round a fire made by the populace.
It was with great difficulty that M.
Toulon escaped with his life.
M.
Pichérol, another Protestant, had deposited some of his effects with a
Catholic neighbour.
This house was attacked, and though all the property of the latter was respected,
that of his friend was seized and destroyed.
At the same village, one of a party, doubting whether M.
Hermé, a tailor, was the man they wanted, asked, is he a Protestant?
This he acknowledged.
Good, said they, and he was instantly murdered.
In the canton of Vauvert, where there was a consistory church, 80,000 francs were
extorted.
In the communes of Beauvoisin and Générac, similar excesses were committed by a
handful of licentious men under the eye of the Catholic mayor and to the cries of
Vive le Roi.
Saint-Gilles was the scene of the most unblushing villainy.
The Protestants, the most wealthy of the inhabitants, were disarmed whilst their
houses were pillaged.
The mayor was appealed to, but he laughed and walked away.
This officer had at his disposal a national guard of several hundred men,
organised by his own orders.
It would be wearisome to read the lists of the crimes that occurred during many
months.
At Clavisson, the mayor prohibited the Protestants the practice of singing the
psalms commonly used in the temple that, as he said, the Catholics might not be
offended or disturbed.
At Saumière, about ten miles from Nîmes, the Catholics made a splendid procession
through the town, which continued until evening and was succeeded by the plunder
of the Protestants.
On the arrival of foreign troops at Saumière, the pretended search for arms
was resumed.
Those who did not possess muskets were even compelled to buy them on purpose to
surrender them up, and soldiers were quartered on them at six francs per day
until they produced the articles in demand.
The Protestant church, which had been closed, was converted into barracks for
the Austrians.
After divine service had been suspended for six months at Nîmes, the church,
called the Temple by the Protestants, was reopened and public worship performed
on the morning of the 24th of December.
On examining the belfry, it was discovered that some persons had carried off the
clapper of the bell.
As the hour of service approached, a number of men, women, and children
collected at the house of M.
Ribot, the pastor, and threatened to prevent the worship.
At the appointed time, when he proceeded towards the church, he was surrounded.
The most savage shouts were raised against him.
Some of the women seized him by the collar, but nothing could disturb his
firmness or excite his impatience.
He entered the house of prayer and ascended the pulpit.
Stones were thrown in and fell among the worshipers.
Still, the congregation remained calm and attentive, and the service was concluded
amidst noise, threats, and outrage.
On retiring, many would have been killed but for the chasseurs of the garrison,
who honorably and zealously protected them.
From the captain of these chasseurs, M.
Ribot soon after received the following letter.
January 2, 1816.
I deeply lament the prejudices of the Catholics against the Protestants,
who they pretend do not love the King.
Continue to act as you have hitherto done, and time in your conduct will convince the
Catholics to the contrary.
Should any tumult occur similar to that of Saturday last, inform me.
I preserve my reports of these acts, and if the agitators prove incorrigible
and forget what they owe to the best of Kings and the Charter, I will do my duty
and inform the government of their proceedings.
Adieu, my dear sir.
Assure the consistory of my esteem, and of the sense I entertain of the
moderation with which they have met the provocations of the evil disposed at
Sommière.
I have the honor to salute you with respect.
Suval de Laine.
Another letter to this worthy pastor, from the Marquis de Montlord, was received
on the 6th of January, to encourage him to unite with all good men who believe in
God, to obtain the punishment of the assassins, brigands and disturbers of
public tranquility, and to read the instructions he had received from the
government to this effect publicly.
Notwithstanding this, on the 20th of January, 1816, when the service in
commemoration of the death of Louis XVI was celebrated, a procession being formed,
the National Guards fired at the white flag suspended from the windows of the
Protestants, and concluded the day by plundering their houses.
In the commune of Angargues, matters were still worse, and in that of Fontaine,
from the entry of the King in 1815, the Catholics broke all terms with the
Protestants.
By day they insulted them, and in the night broke open the doors, or marked them
with chalk to be plundered or burned.
Saint-Mamaire was repeatedly visited by these robberies, and at Montmirail,
as lately as the 16th of June, 1816, the Protestants were attacked,
beaten and imprisoned for daring to celebrate the return of a King who had
sworn to preserve religious liberty and to maintain the Charter.
Further account of the proceedings of the Catholics at Nîmes.
The excesses perpetrated in the country, it seems, did not by any means divert the
attention of the persecutors from Nîmes.
October 1815 commenced without any improvement in the principles or measures
of the Government, and this was followed by corresponding presumption on the part
of the people.
Several houses in the Quartier Saint-Charles were sacked, and their
wrecks burnt in the streets amid songs, dances and shouts of Vive le Roi.
The Mayor appeared, but the merry multitude pretended not to know him,
and when he ventured to remonstrate, they told him his presence was unnecessary
and that he might retire.
During the 16th of October, every preparation seemed to announce a night of
carnage.
Orders for assembling and signals for attack were circulated with regularity and
confidence.
Tristayen reviewed his satellites and urged them on to the perpetration of
crimes, holding with one of those wretches the following dialogue.
Satellite.
If all the Protestants without one exception are to be killed, I will
cheerfully join, but as you have so often deceived me, unless they are all to go,
I will not stir.
Tristayen.
Come along then, for this time not a single man shall escape.
This horrid purpose would have been executed had it not been for General
Lagarde, the Commandant of the Department.
It was not until ten o'clock at night that he perceived the danger.
He now felt that not a moment could be lost.
Crowds were advancing through the suburbs, and the streets were filling with
ruffians, uttering the most horrid imprecations.
The General sounded at eleven o'clock, and added to the confusion that was now
spreading through the city.
A few troops rallied round Count Lagarde, who was rung with distress at the sight of
the evil which had arrived at such a pitch.
Of this, M.
Durand, a Catholic advocate, gave the following account.
It was near midnight.
My wife had just fallen asleep.
I was writing by her side when we were disturbed by a distant noise.
Drums seemed crossing the town in every direction.
What could all this mean?
To quiet her alarm, I said it probably announced the arrival or departure of some
troops of the garrison.
But firing and shouts were immediately audible, and on opening my window I
distinguished horrible imprecations mingled with cries of Vive le Roi.
I roused an officer who lodged in the house, and M.
Chancel, Director of the Public Works.
We went out together, and gained the boulevard.
The moon shone bright, and almost every object was nearly as distinct as day.
A furious crowd was pressing on, vowing extermination, and the greater part
half-naked, armed with knives, muskets, sticks, and sabres.
In answer to my inquiries, I was told the massacre was general, that many had been
already killed in the suburbs.
M.
Chancel retired to put on his uniform as Captain of the Pompiers, the officers
retired to the barracks, and, anxious for my wife, I returned home.
By the noise I was convinced that persons followed.
I crept along in the shadow of the wall, opened my door, entered, and closed it,
leaving a small aperture through which I could watch the movements of the party,
whose arms shone in the moonlight.
In a few moments some armed men appeared, conducting a prisoner to the very spot
where I was concealed.
They stopped.
I shut my door gently, and mounted on an alder tree, planted against the garden
wall.
What a scene!
A man on his knees, imploring mercy from wretches who mocked his agony and loaded
him with abuse.
In the name of my wife and children, he said, spare me.
What have I done?
Why would you murder me for nothing?
I was on the point of crying out and menacing the murderers with vengeance.
I had not long to deliberate.
The discharge of several fusiliers terminated my suspense.
The unhappy supplicant, struck in the loins and the head, fell to rise no more.
The backs of the assassins were towards the trees.
They retired immediately, reloading their pieces.
I descended and approached the dying man, uttering some deep and dismal groans.
Some National Guards arrived at the moment, and I again retired and shut the
door.
I see, said one, a dead man.
He sings still, said another.
It will be better, said a third, to finish him and put him out of his
misery.
Five or six muskets were fired instantly, and the groans ceased.
On the following day, crowds came to inspect and insult the deceased.
A day after a massacre was always observed as a sort of fete, and every occupation
was left to go and gaze upon the victims.
This was Louis Le Char, the father of four children, and four years after the event,
M.
Durand verified this account by his oath upon the trial of one of the murderers.
ATTACK UPON THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES Some time before the death of General Lagarde,
the Duke d'Angoulême had visited Nîmes and other cities in the south, and at the
former place honoured the members of the Protestant consistory with an interview,
promising them protection and encouraging them to reopen their temple so long shut
up.
They have two churches at Nîmes, and it was agreed that the small one
should be preferred on this occasion, and that the ringing of the bell should be
omitted.
General Lagarde declared that he would answer with his head for the safety of his
congregation.
The Protestants privately informed each other that worship was once more to be
celebrated at ten o'clock, and they began to assemble silently and cautiously.
It was agreed that M.
Jouirat Chasseur should perform the service, though such was his conviction of
danger that he entreated his wife and some of his flock to remain with their
families.
The temple, being opened only as a matter of form and in compliance with the orders
of the Duke d'Angoulême, this pastor wished to be the only victim.
On his way to the place he passed numerous groups who regarded him with ferocious
looks.
This is the time, said some, to give them the last blow.
Yes, added others, and neither women nor children must be spared.
One wretch, raising his voice above the rest, exclaimed, Ah, I will go and get my
musket and ten for my share.
Through these ominous sounds, M.
Jouirat pursued his course, but when he gained the temple, the Sextons had not the
courage to open the door, and he was obliged to do it himself.
As the worshipers arrived, they found strange persons in possession of the
adjacent streets and upon the steps of the church, vowing their worship should not be
performed, and crying, Down with the Protestants!
Kill them!
At ten o'clock, the church being nearly filled, M.
Chasseur commenced the prayers.
A calm that succeeded was of short duration.
On a sudden the minister was interrupted by a violent noise, and a number of
persons entered, uttering the most dreadful cries mingled with Vive le Roi,
but the gendarmes succeeded in excluding these fanatics and closing the doors.
The noise and tumult without now redoubled, and the blows of the populace
trying to break open the doors caused the house to resound with shrieks and groans.
The voice of the pastors who endeavoured to console their flock was inaudible.
They attempted in vain to sing the forty-second psalm.
Three quarters of an hour rolled heavily away.
I placed myself, said Mme.
Jouira, at the bottom of the pulpit with my daughter in my arms.
My husband at length joined and sustained me.
I remembered that it was the anniversary of my marriage.
After six years of happiness, I said, I am about to die with my husband and my
daughter.
We shall be slain at the altar of our God, the victims of a sacred duty, and Heaven
will open to receive us and our unhappy brethren.
I blessed the Redeemer, and without cursing our murderers, I awaited their
approach.
M.
Olivier, son of a pastor and officer in the Royal Troops of the Line, attempted to
leave the church, but the friendly sentinels at the door advised him to
remain besieged with the rest.
The National Guards refused to act, and the fanatical crowd took every
advantage of the absence of General Lagarde and of their increasing numbers.
At length, the sound of martial music was heard, and voices from without called to
the besieged, Open!
Open and save yourselves!
Their first impression was a fear of treachery, but they were soon assured that
a detachment returning from Mass was drawn up in front of the church to favour the
retreat of the Protestants.
The door was opened, and many of them escaped among the ranks of the soldiers,
who had driven the mob before them.
But this street, as well as others through which the fugitives had to pass,
was soon filled again.
The Venerable Pastor Olivier Desmond, between seventy and eighty years of age,
was surrounded by murderers.
They put their fists in his face and cried, Kill the chief of brigands!
He was preserved by the firmness of some officers, among whom was his own son.
They made a bulwark round him with their bodies, and amidst their naked sabres
conducted him to his house.
Monsieur Zouirat, who had assisted at divine service, with his wife at his side
and his child in his arms, was pursued and assailed with stones, his mother received
a blow on the head, and her life was sometime in danger.
One woman was shamefully whipped, and several wounded and dragged along the
streets.
The number of Protestants more or less ill-treated on this occasion amounted to
between seventy and eighty.
Murder of General Lagarde A length of check was put to these excesses by the
report of the murder of Count Lagarde, who, receiving an account of this tumult,
mounted his horse and entered one of the streets to disperse a crowd.
A villain seized his bridle, another presented the muzzle of a pistol close to
his body, and exclaimed, Wretch!
You make me retire!
He immediately fired.
The murderer was Louis Boissin, a sergeant in the National Guard,
but though known to everyone, no person endeavored to arrest him, and he effected
his escape.
As soon as the General found himself wounded, he gave orders to the gendarmerie
to protect the Protestants, and set off on a gallop to his hotel, but fainted
immediately on his arrival.
On recovering, he prevented the surgeon from searching his wound until he had
written a letter to the government, that in case of his death it might be
known from what quarter the blow came, and that none might dare to accuse the
Protestants of the crime.
The probable death of this General produced a small degree of relaxation on
the part of their enemies, and some calm, but the mass of the people had been
indulged in licentiousness too long to be restrained, even by the murder of the
representative of their king.
In the evening they again repaired to the temple, and with hatchets broke open the
door.
The dismal noise of their blows carried terror into the bosom of the Protestant
families sitting in their houses in tears.
The contents of the poor box and the clothes prepared for distribution were
stolen, the ministers' robes rent in pieces, the books torn up or carried away,
the closets were ransacked, but the rooms which contained the archives of the church
and the synods were providentially secured, and had it not been for the
numerous patrols on foot, the whole would have become the prey of the flames and the
edifice itself a heap of ruins.
In the meanwhile, the fanatics openly ascribed the murder of the general to his
own self-devotion and said that it was the will of God.
Three thousand francs were offered for the apprehension of Boissin, but it was well
known that the Protestants dared not arrest him and that the fanatics would
not.
During these transactions, the system of forced conversions to Catholicism was
making regular and fearful progress.
Interference of the British Government To the credit of England, the report of these
cruel persecutions carried on against our Protestant brethren in France produced
such a sensation on the part of the government as determined them to
interfere, and now the persecutors of the Protestants made this spontaneous act of
humanity and religion the pretext for charging the sufferers with a treasonable
correspondence with England.
But in this state of their proceedings, to their great dismay, a letter appeared,
sent sometime before to England by the Duke of Wellington, stating that much
information existed on the events of the South.
The ministers of the three denominations in London, anxious not to be misled,
requested one of their brethren to visit the scenes of persecution and examine with
impartiality the nature and extent of the evils they would desire us to relieve.
Reverend Clement Perrault undertook this difficult task and fulfilled their wishes
with a zeal, prudence and devotedness, above all, praise.
His return furnished abundant and incontestable proof of a shameful
persecution, materials for an appeal to the British Parliament, and a printed
report which was circulated through the continent and which first conveyed correct
information to the inhabitants of France.