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which strangely resembled the extravagances of our own Mormonites and clairvoyants. The revocation of the edict of Nantes was followed by the forcible conversion of such of the nobility as still remained Protestant. The only persons who retained their creed were poor and uneducated. Their position made them an easy prey to fanaticism. Jurieu's Book on the Revelations, published in 1686, produced an immense effect upon them. It appointed the year 1689 for the revival of Protestantism in France, and predicted the approaching downfall of the whole Catholic hierarchy. A man named Du Serre, who lived on the same mountain which was honoured, in 1846, by the apparition of our Lady of Salette, established a sort of school of the prophets. His instruments of education seem to have been knavery and animal magnetism, by means of which he made his pupils fancy that they received Divine revelations. Similar causes must, however, have been at work over a great extent of country, for prophets began to see visions, and to dream dreams, with one consent, from the Jura to the Gulf of Lyons. In 1689 no less than three partial insurrections took place. For fourteen years the excitement continued. Some piece of table-land was chosen on the top of one of the hills of Languedoc, so that the approach of any troops could be seen in time for the meeting to disperse. Then a ring was formed around a prophet or prophetess, who lay on the ground screaming and sobbing, shedding hysterical tears, and writhing in semi-voluntary convulsions. The oracle sometimes announced that a temple of white marble would fall in the valleys of the Cevennes, ornamented with pillars bearing golden chaplets, and inscribed with the tables of the law. Sometimes it applied to Languedoc the visions of Joel, and foretold the approach of the day of the Lord, and the advent of the great people and strong, before whom the earth should quake, and the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon be dark, and the stars withdraw their shining. Nothing could exceed the intensity of the impressions thus produced on the common people. Even little children were infected, and began to prophesy. The government anticipated the 'Défense à Dieu' of the next generation, and made parents criminally responsible for the inspiration of their families. The prophets were broken on the wheel, the congregations were subjected to military execution. In one night the troops massacred eighteen persons at a prayer-meeting near Uzés, and fifteen others at Fornac. Four men and four women were hanged at Pont de Montvert, and the town was threatened with destruction. Horror spread the fascination in all directions. Many even of the subordinate officials began to

experience its power, and the victims and authors of the delusion formed a mass which daily became more and more homogeneous.

In the midst of such scenes young Cavallier passed the first sixteen years of his life. The impression which they made upon him may be inferred from his subsequent history. His language and his actions both show his bitter hatred of Popery, but his love for Protestantism was by no means commensurate with it. His understanding was as shrewd as his courage was high, and his not very honest silence as to the fanaticism of his countrymen, shows what he thought of it in after life. At sixteen, such thoughts had probably not taken very deep root. At a time of life at which feelings and opinions radically contradictory may be simultaneously indulged, his imagination may well have been captivated by the wildness of the scenes, which his understanding may even then have been beginning to despise. He was at any rate precociously intimate with human nature, and had seen the wildest manifestations of some of its strongest passions. His attendance on conventicles had taught him, as it had taught many of the Protestant peasantry, how to avoid pursuit, and had, it would seem, given him great knowledge of the country. From the constant movements of troops and militia throughout Languedoc, he had acquired considerable familiarity with the rudiments of military discipline.

In the year 1702, the government were well prepared for any outbreak of the Protestants. The Intendant of Languedoc, Guillaume Lamoignon de Baville, who ruled the province with almost absolute authority, had taken every precaution in his power to secure a speedy victory, if a victory were needed. Roads had been made for the first time through the Gévaudan and the Vivarais. Commanding positions had been levelled for the use of cavalry and artillery. The States of Languedoc voted eight regiments of regular troops, and 40,000 militia were enrolled, and drilled every Sunday. Alais St. Esprit and St. Hippolyte were fortified by the compulsory labour of all the masons, smiths, carts and horses, for thirty miles round. the midst of these preparations young Cavallier became an object of suspicion to the priest of his parish. The clever lad, who had been noticed by the bishop of the diocese, began to give up his attendance at mass, to betray an acquaintance with some of the arguments in use among the Protestants, and to be suspected of attending conventicles. Finding that his father ran some risk of being imprisoned on his account, he put himself under one of the guides, who at that time made it their business to assist refugees in flying from the country, and

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reached Geneva, in the company of about thirty other persons, on a similar errand. There he remained for some time working at his trade as a baker.

This period was an eventful one in the history of Languedoc. The continued Protestantism of the mass of the population of many of the provinces of the south and west, was attributed to the ignorance of the Catholic clergy. To remedy this, missionaries were sent to effect what the parish priests were not able to perform. The missions of the Gévaudan were under the superintendence of a certain Abbé du Chayla, Archdeacon of the High Cevennes. This man had been in early life a missionary in Siam, where it is said he had himself undergone persecution. He had returned to France with the famous Eastern Embassy to Louis XIV., and had been appointed Inspector of the Missions of the Cevennes on account of his resolute chaHe executed his commission strictly,-converting his cellars into prisons, in which the prisoners were confined in stocks by the wrists and ankles in a kneeling position. He made them hold burning coals in their hands, and twisting oiled tow round their fingers, lighted them like lamps. This conduct, coupled with accusations of perverting his authority for the gratification of his licentiousness, had made him unpopular, and as the war in the summer of 1702 had drained Languedoc of troops, he was exposed to considerable danger.

Whilst at Geneva Cavallier heard that his parents had been sent to prison, for refusing to go to mass. He returned to France in hopes of obtaining their release-it does not appear how. He found that they had been set at liberty, in consideration of a recantation, for giving which he reproached them in the bitterest terms, telling his mother that he was sorry that he should have to bear witness against her at the Day of Judgment. The same evening one of his friends asked him to go to a conventiele held at a place called Alte fage (alta fagus), on the top of Mont Bougés. After the sermon, the congregation were informed that Du Chayla had taken a party of emigrants prisoners, and had confined them in the cellar of a house, which is still standing, in the little town of Pont de Montvert, about six miles from the place where they then were. They were then addressed by a prophet known, from his frequent revelations, as Esprit' Seguier. With his tall thin

figure, his long hair, and his wild eye, he looked like one of the ancient Druids, who had prophesied and preached at Alte fage, when Nismes and Arles were still Roman colonies. He told his hearers that the Lord had bidden him deliver their brethren from captivity, and exterminate the archdeacon of Mo

loch. Solomon Couderc and Abraham Mazel, the prophets, spoke to the same effect. The latter in particular had been warned by a vision :- My brethren, I had a vision, and I saw black oxen, very fat, browsing on the plants of a garden; and ' a voice said unto me," Abraham, drive away those oxen;" and 'when I did not obey, the voice said again," Abraham, drive

away those oxen." Now the garden is the Church of God, and the black oxen are the priests, and the word is the Eternal, who has ordered me to expel them from the Cevennes.' About fifty of the congregation assembled at the same place for the next night; twenty had fire-arms, and the others scythes and axes. After being harangued and blessed by their leader, they descended from the summit of Alte fage, and crossed the landes and forests which divide it from Pont de Montvert, singing as they went the 74th Psalm, which tells how the holy places were broken down with axes and hammers, and calls upon the Lord to pluck his right hand from his bosom, and to consume the enemy. At about ten o'clock at night, Du Chayla heard the sound of their psalmody, as they moved in quick time across the waste, and up the street of the town, and commanded his guard of militia to go out to reconnoitre. Before his orders could be obeyed, Seguier's troop entered the town, called as they passed to the inhabitants to stand back from the windows, surrounded the house in which were Du Chayla and the prisoners, and demanded their liberation. This being refused, they broke open the doors of the prison, and, enraged at the sight of the wrists and ankles of their friends half dislocated and swollen, commenced an attack. The militia fired; one of the Protestants was killed, and another wounded. Then a cry arose to burn the Priest of Baal, and his troops with him, and furniture was heaped against the staircase and lighted. The militia, after receiving absolution from the archdeacon, escaped by the window, but their leader fell, and broke his thigh. He tried to hide himself behind some bushes, but his enemies found him out. We have you, damned persecutor,' cried Seguier. My 'friends,' answered his victim, if I am damned, do you wish 'to damn yourselves too?' He received fifty-two wounds, of which twenty-four were mortal. His murderers, says Antoine Court, found neither flesh enough to stab, nor life enough 'to take.' All night long the inhabitants sat up in their houses, afraid to sleep or go out. All night long the Camisards knelt round the body of the murdered man, singing psalmis, undisturbed except by the crackling of the flames of the burning house and the murmurs of the Tarn among the masses of rock which obstruct this part of its course.

Encouraged by his success, Seguier determined to commit the Protestants irrevocably. He executed, as he said, the judgments of God. That is to say, he murdered all the priests he could find, and burnt down the château de la Devèze, massacring all the inhabitants, for refusing to give up some arms which had been stored there. Large bodies of militia, and some troops, were marched into Pont de Montvert; and a certain Captain Poul, who had formerly distinguished himself against the Vaudois or Barbets, defeated the insurgents, and made Seguier his prisoner.

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His interrogatory was as follows: What is your name?' 'Pierre Seguier,'-'Why do they call you Esprit ?' 'Be'cause the spirit of the Lord is upon me.'- Where is your 'domicile? In the desert-soon in heaven.'-' Beg pardon 'of the king.' 'We have no king but the Eternal.'-' Do 'you repent of your crimes?' 'My soul is a garden full of 'shades and springs of water.' His right hand was cut off, and he was burnt alive. His last words, as preserved by popular tradition, were, My brethren, wait, and have patience in the 'Lord; for the desolation of Carmel shall flourish, and the 'desert of Lebanon shall blossom like the rose.' The insurgents, deprived of their leader, were chased from one wood to another by the troops, like so many foxes by a pack of dogs; but by degrees the vigilance of the government relaxed, and the fugitives had time to settle their plans.

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The courage which Cavallier had displayed in the recent events, in which he had taken a conspicuous, though a subordinate, part, and a promise which he had obtained from a large number of young men in his own neighbourhood, to put themselves under his command at the resumption of hostilities, secured him the second place in the army. The first was assigned to a person whose career was less brilliant, though his character was more remarkable-Roland Laporte. He was a

man of inflexible firmness, of great prudence, foresight, and selfcommand, he had some political knowledge, and possessed to an extraordinary degree the faculty of inspiring his followers with strong personal affection. He was twenty-five years of age, a vine-dresser of Lower Languedoc, and a member of a family famous in the annals of local persecution. During the autumn and winter of 1702, Roland, Cavallier, and their associates chose the scene, and matured the plans, of the insurrection.

The hills of the Ardennes, the Vosges, the mountains of Auvergne, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees, are the great watershed of France, from the eastern and northern slopes of

VOL. CIV. NO. CCXI.

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