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The Roman Catholic Reaction�Vincent de Paul. Francois de Sales : changed conditions of the Huguenot cause ; their effect on the character of the Wars of Religion 1621-29� Henri de Rohan, sieges of Montauban and la Rochelle; The Roman Catholic triumph and maintenance of the strictest orthodoxy�Port Royal, Pascal, Madame Guyon; Edicts against the Huguenots and the use of the Psalter: the Vaudois and Henri Arnaud; Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685); persecution of the French Huguenots ; the rising in the Cevennes�murder of Fran9ois du Chayla, Cavalier and the Camisards, Bellot, Martignargues (1704), Salindres (1709); the Pastors of the Desert�Rang, Roger. Benezet, Rochette; effect of the Psalms on the virtues and defects of the Huguenots.
THE French Wars of Religion, waged in the seventeenth century by the Due de Rohan and Cardinal Richelieu, differed materially from those led by the Guises on the one side, and by Coligny or Henry of Navarre on the other. The Huguenots were now confronted by a Roman Catholic reaction. The austerities of monastic life were revived, and to these was added the cultivation of learning. Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, set their houses in order; Clairvaux, Citeaux, and Cluny underwent a reformation. Jesuits laboured in the world for the advancement of the Roman faith, and multiplied their schools and seminaries. New religious orders supplied preachers and made proselytes. Missions were conducted among country people by the new congregation of St Vincent de Paul. Women shared the same movements. Montmartre, Val de Grace, Port Royal, became models of conventual piety. The Feuillantines and Jesuitines rivalled the zeal of the Jesuits and the Feuillants. The work of educating young girls was taken up by the Port-Royalists. Sisters of Charity found cells in the sick-room, and lived in the world unscathed, with the fear of God for their grilles, and pure modesty for their veils. Religious communities breathed the new life which the spirit of St Francois de Sales, St Vincent de Paul, or Madame de Chantal inspired. The ranks of the secular clergy were recruited by men of ardent faith and irreproach- able conduct. Bishops, for the most part men of unstained
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reputation, reformed their dioceses, rebuilt churches, re- organised parishes, revived ecclesiastical discipline, or headed philanthropic movements, such as those for the erection of charitable hospitals. Lay society felt the influence of the movement. Missioners rekindled the Roman faith among the poorer classes. Provincial magistrates, who had been attracted to the Reformed doctrines by their logical consistency or by jealousy of the Papacy, returned to the older faith. Even at Court, men and women, for whom Fenelon wrote his Counsels, found it possible to live pure lives without renouncing the business or pleasures of the world.
The power of the Roman Catholics was growing, that of the Protestants was decaying. As their hold on France relaxed, the Reformed churches grew more tenacious of their privileges, while the Gallican clergy demanded changes in the Edict of Nantes. The balance of parties, on which the Edict was founded, was disturbed by gains on the one side and losses on the other. Was the Edict to remain untouched ?
In this religious reaction the Psalms played their part. They were not the exclusive possession of the Huguenots. Men of the type of Montaigne might condemn " the promiscu- ous, rash, and indiscreet use of the holy and divine songs which the Holy Spirit inspired in David," or deprecate placing them in the hands of "shop-boys." But their power was recognised. The Abbe Desportes, the effeminate Petrarch of the Court of Henry III., translated the whole Psalter into French verse. Courtiers and state officials, like Jean Metezeau, or Michel de Marillac, versified the Psalter in the hope of rivalling the work of Marot and of Beza. The preface to the version of Metezeau, which is dedicated to Henry IV., is a strange production. "David," he says, "was somewhat prone to love women, and that love of women is the only charge which Your enemies can make against Your Majesty;
but Your Majesty has one advantage over the wise King, that You have not on this account drawn down the wrath of God neither upon Yourself nor upon Your people." Corneille and Racine translated portions of the Psalter. But of the numerous translations that were made as pious or literary exercises, the only successful version was that of Godeau, Bishop of Grasse and Vence. His paraphrases were set to music, and four of the airs were composed by Louis XIII. himself. In his preface, Godeau explains the object of his work. " To know the Psalms by heart," he says, " is among Protestants a sign of their communion. To our shame it must be said, that, in towns or districts where Protestants are numerous, the Psalms are ever on the lips of artisans and labourers, while Catholics are either dumb or sing obscene songs." Godeau's success was greatest in a direction which he scarcely anticipated, or desired. Forbidden by edicts to sing psalms at home, in the
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version of Marot and Beza, the Huguenots sang them in that of the Roman Catholic bishop. So widespread became the practice, that fresh edicts were issued in general terms, alto- gether prohibiting the singing of Psalms in French.
But, apart from the multiplication of versions of the Psalms, their universal influence may be illustrated from the lives of leaders of the Roman Catholic reaction. Such men as St Vincent de Paul or St Fran9ois de Sales may be taken as examples.
From Cadiz to Patras the Mediterranean and its coasts were scoured by the corsairs of Barbary. Their light galliots and brigantines swept down on their prey with the swiftness and precision of the osprey, overbearing resistance and baffling pursuit. Nor was it only the seaman, the merchant, or the traveller, who ran the risk of slavery. Landing on the shore, the corsairs swept off whole villages into captivity. The peasant of Provence, returning home at nightfall from pruning his vines or his olives, might find himself in the morning chained to the oar. The friar, who told his beads on the outskirts of Valencia, might, before the week was out, be hoeing the rice-fields of Tripoli. In 1605, Vincent de Paul was making his way from Toulouse by Narbonne to Marseilles. The ship in which he was crossing the Gulf of Lyons was seized by Barbary pirates, and both passengers and crew carried to Tunis. Sold as a slave to a fisherman, he passed after a time into the hands of an apostate Christian from Nice, who carried him away to labour on an inland farm. As he dug in the fields under a burning sun, he excited the interest of one of the Turkish wives of his master. {< One day/' as Vincent writes in his letter to M. de Commet, " she asked me to sing to her some of the praises of my God." The remem- brance of the captive Israelites,tf How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? " filled his heart, and he sang, " By the waters of Babylon " (Ps. cxxxvii.). The woman told her husband that he had done wrong to change his faith, and she warmly praised the religion that Vincent had expounded to her. Her words sank into the renegade's heart, and woke his slumbering conscience. He determined to escape and take Vincent with him. In 1607, they landed together at Aigues Mortes, and the captive was once more free.
The same words have often expressed the sorrows of prisoners or exiles. They rose to the lips of John II., King of France, a prisoner in England after the Battle of Poictiers, and a guest at a tournament. He looked on the brilliant scene with sorrowful eyes, and, when urged to enjoy the splendour of the pageant, answered mournfully, " How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Ps. cxxxvii., verse 4.) So also the same psalm had appealed with peculiar force to Luiz de Camoens, the epic poet of Portugal. In March
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1553, he had been released from prison on condition that he sailed for India. As in the twilight the ship dropped down the "golden-sanded" Tagus, he exclaimed, like Scipio Afri- canus, "Ungrateful country? thou shalt not possess my bones." Even at Goa he found no rest. His satires on the vices of the inhabitants caused, it is said, his banishment to Macao. There much of the Lusiad was written; there also he made a modest fortune. Embarking on board ship, he set sail for Goa. But, on the voyage, he was wrecked off the Mekong river, on the coast of Cochin China. All that he had was lost; he had only preserved the manuscript of his poem, when, friendless, ruined, and alone, he landed on the " gentle Mecon*s friendly shore.*'
" Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave, Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave For ever lost; myself escaped alone. On the wild shore, all friendless, hopeless, thrown;
My life, like Judah's heaven-doomed King of yore, By miracle prolonged."1
As he sat by the banks of the Mekong, waiting for means of returning to Goa, his heart by the Tagus, his eyes searching the ocean for a sail, he wrote the paraphrase of Psalm cxxxvii., which is the finest metrical version of the poem. By the same words Heine was inspired to begin a metrical version of a psalm, which, in another mood, he parodied. How often, and with what pathetic force, must the words of the exiles' lament have appealed to the Puritans in New England, or to the Huguenots in Canada! What memories of silent tragedies must they have stirred in the hearts of the Covenanters, toiling among the slaves in the sugar plantations or the rice- fields of the West Indies and America!
This digression on the use of a particular psalm may be allowed, in view of its peculiar appropriateness to the lot of the exiled Huguenots. But, here. Psalm cxxxvii. was referred to as an illustration of the influence of the Psalter on the lives of leaders in the Roman reaction. A psalm had freed St Vin- cent de Paul to labour for the Catholic faith in his native land. By the Psalms was inspired the life of St Francois de Sales, Bishop of Geneva (1567-1622).
Few men have been more widely revered for the sanctity of their characters and the active beauty of their careers. To some he is most widely known as the friend of Madame de Chantal, whom he placed over his Order of the Visitation;
others know him best from the reminiscences which Bishop Camus gathered in his Esprit de St Francois de Sales : others revere his name for the charm which he gave to personal holiness. Nobly-bom, brilliant in intellect, he added to his
1 Lusiads Book vii.
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mental and spiritual gifts the fascination of a singularly attractive appearance. From his birth near Annecy, among the beautiful mountain scenery of Savoy, his mother, whose first child he was, looked upon him as ft lent to the Lord," and, at an early age, the bent of his character was clearly shown. His mind was so steeped in the Psalter, that his thoughts naturally clothed themselves in the words of the Psalms. The rule of life which he laid down for himself in his twentieth year, is founded on their language. He promises to hear Mass with all the earnestness of his soul, crying out, " 0 come hither and behold the works of the Lord." If in the night he wakes, he will pray the Lord to lt lighten his dark- ness "; he " will water his couch with tears " for his indiffer- ence to sin. If midnight terrors beset him, he will remember that " He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep " (Ps. cxxi.^ verse 4), and that he will be " safe under his feathers " (Ps. xci., verse 4). " The Lord is my light and my salvation, ... of whom, then, shall I be afraid ? " (Ps. xxvii., verse i).
While studying law at Padua in 1591, he was seized with rheumatic fever. His life was despaired of. Ready for death, he received the last Sacrament, and awaited his end with resignation, repeating such verses as, " 0 how amiable are Thy dwellings. Thou Lord of Hosts : my soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord " (Ps. Ixxxiv., verses i, 2); and again, " The Lord is my light and my salva- tion ; ... of whom, then, shall I be afraid?" or again, t{ Blessed is he whose hope is in the Lord his God." But he recovered, and, two years later, was ordained, sorely against the will of his father, who desired him, as his eldest son and heir, to take his place in the world. His life at Chablais, as a missionary among the Calvinists (1593-1603), or at Geneva, as the administrator of a diocese (1603-22), was a psalm in action. It was to the Psalms that in death he turned for the expression of his confidence and hope.
On the feast of St John, 1622, he was struck down by a paralytic seizure, which left his mind unclouded. A friendly visitor expressed regret at his condition; "Father," he replied, " I am waiting on God's mercy: Expectans, expectavi Dominum et intendit mini." (I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my calling, Ps. xl., verse i). " If it were God's will, ye would gladly depart now ? " continued his friend. " If God wills it, I will it too," answered the bishop: " now, or a little while hence�what matters it? " As other friends came to see the dying man, the words of the Psalms seemed ever on his lips. Often he was heard to murmur: (< My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God" (P{^ Ixxxiv^ verse 2). "My song
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shall be alway of the loving-kindness of the Lord'* (Ps. Ixxxix., verse i). "When I am in heaviness, I will think upon God " (Ps. IxxviL, verse 3). " When shall I come to appear before the presence of God ? *' (Ps. xlii., verse 2). <( Did he," asked one of the watchers by his bedside, "fear the last struggle ?" <( Mine eyes are ever looking unto the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net" (Ps. xxv., verse 14), was the reply. He died in the evening of the Holy Innocents' Day,1622.
Men like St Vincent de Paul or St Francois de Sales, had turned the tide of religious enthusiasm. It was now on the side of Roman Catholics. The change brought into clear relief the position occupied by the Huguenots, who formed a State within a State, a smaller France within the arms of the larger, a separate people protected by fortified cities, organised by distinct political institutions, defended, if need be, by its own armies, maintaining its own ambassadors, supported by foreign alliances. The strangeness of the position was further illustrated by the political position of France during the years which intervened between the death of Henry IV. and the ascendency of Richelieu. The queen, the ministers, the princes of the blood, the nobility, each fought for their own hand. No leader and no party espoused any great cause; personal ambitions over-rode public policy ;
individual interests supplanted patriotism. The Crown had been respected ; it was now despised. State affairs had been guided towards definite ends; now they drifted to and fro in confusion. Favourites without services, ministers without ideas, marshals without armies, successively wielded an authority of which they knew not the use. Before many years had passed, absolute power proved the only cure for anarchy;
from a want of government, France passed to its excess. For the next few years, however, two forces �the nobility and the Reformed churches�now allied, now divided, opposed the Crown and convulsed the country. Internal peace and external strength seemed to be lost to France, till Richelieu had restored and aggrandised the power of the monarchy. Thus the Reformed churches were fighting against the needs and spirit of the age. In the sixteenth century, the struggle for religious and political independence was not in conflict with the general tendencies of a period which had barely emerged from feudal chaos. But in the seventeenth century they were contending against the new force of centralisation. They fought for existence as a State within a State, when the State itself was to be merged in the Crown: for liberty, when liberty itself was on the eve of extinction ; for walled cities of security, when feudal castles were razed to the ground on every side; for municipal independence, when all but the shadow of civic freedom was approaching annihilation; for
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representative assemblies, when the voice of the States- General was to be silenced for a century and a half.
In the character of the religious wars of the seventeenth century the changed conditions, within and without, were clearly marked. The Psalms had not indeed lost their power. Henri de Rohan, the soul of the Protestant cause in France, still relied on their support. Threatened with assassination, he had no fear, for, as he wrote to his mother, April 3oth, 1628, f< Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Ps. xci., verse i). But the Huguenots no longer counted allies in the royal family: the nobility, with the exception of Rohan and Soubise, sided with the Crown. The Reformed churches had ceased to move as one man: their faith was chilled; their religious differences were revealed; they disputed the policy of armed resistance. North of the Loire, no Protestant stirred hand or foot. The struggle was confined to the Cevennes, the burghers of Rochelle, and the cities of the south. Even in the latter there was division, for the civic aristocracy dreaded the republican teaching of Huguenot pastors. The three short wars of 1621-2, 1625-6, and 1627-9, were wars of sieges, within a contracted area: pitched battles were not, as in the previous century, fought in every part of the country. With two of those sieges, that ofMontauban in 1621, and of Rochelle in 1627, the Psalms are associated.
On August 2ist, 1621, the royal army, consisting of 20,000 men, began the siege of Montauban, on the defence of which Rohan had concentrated all his energies. The king himself was in the camp: the Due de Mayenne, Luynes, five Marshals of France, and a crowd of the most distinguished of the French nobility, were among the officers. By day, on the ramparts of the Huguenot stronghold, men and women fought side by side; by night, they repaired together the breaches made by the cannonade of the preceding day. Six weeks passed. Winter was approaching. The royalists made no progress;
the Due de Mayenne was killed, losses in officers and men were heavy, and, at the end of September, Rohan threw 700 men and a convoy of provisions into the town. At nightfall, on October i7th, a Protestant soldier, serving in the king's army, played under the battlements of the town the familiar tune of Psalm Ixviii., ft Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered." It was a signal that the siege was raised. The next day the camp was struck, and the royalists retired.
The siege of Rochelle, in 1627-8, was the central point of interest in the third and last of the civil wars. On November , 6th, 1627, the French drove Buckingham from the island of Rh6. The English fleet sailed away, and Richelieu drew round the doomed city his iron girdle of famine. Within the walls provisions ran short. Every unclean animal was eaten.
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Bones, parchment, plaster, leather gloves, shoulder belts, and saddles were devoured. Then the starving people fed on the corpses of the dead. One woman died gnawing her own arms. As the siege progressed, it is said that the daily death-roll was 400. On October 27th, 1628, the town surrendered, and with its fall ended both the war and the independence of the Reformed churches.
During the blockade, when her neighbours were starving, a widow named Prosni generously supported many of the poor from her present surplus. Her sister-in-law, Madame de la Goute, remonstrated with her, asking what she would do when her store was expended. " The Lord will provide," was her reply. " Behold," she said, {t the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, and upon them that trust in His mercy;
to deliver their soul from death, and to feed them in the time of dearth" (Ps. xxxiii., verses 17, i8). The siege continued, and Madame Prosni with her four children was in sore straits. Her sister-in-law taunted her with her faith and its fruits, and refused all help. In her dejection she returned home, resolving that she would at least meet death with patience. At the door she was welcomed by her children, dancing with joy. A stranger, during her absence had knocked at the door, and, on its being opened, had thrown in a sack of wheat and departed. She never discovered the name of her benefactor, whose timely aid enabled her to support herself and her family till the siege was ended.
The Peace of Alais (June 1629) guaranteed to the Huguenots a full measure of civil equality, as well as freedom of religious exercises. Had the spirit of the compact been observed, it might have healed the breach. But the triumph of the Roman Catholic reaction was too complete. The extreme men, who assumed the lead, demanded uniformity of faith; heresy, both within and without the Church, was to be extinguished;
and the strife was renewed.
In the general reform of conventual and monastic life, the Abbey of Port
Royal had set a striking example. Behind its cloistered walls, almost within
sight and hearing of Versailles and Paris, yet in a valley so sequestered as to
terrify Madame de S6vigne by its solitude, were gathered some of the purest and
most devoted women of France, under the strict rule of Mere Angelique Amauld.
The spiritual directions of St Francois de Sales, who loved the Port-Royalists,
had tempered firmness with gentleness, and given a charm to the pursuit of
personal holiness; the Petites Ecoles of the abbey rivalled the educational
establishments of the Jesuits. But St Cyran, who succeeded Francois de Sales as
spiritual director, was suspected of heresy, and Port Royal was in- volved in
the charge. Persecution fell upon the community. It was to a psalm that they
appealed. " The sisters of Port