Expedients of the fugitives

taxed to the utmost, to devise methods of es-

escape. " Of those who lived near the sea-board,

some would conceal themselves in bales of

merchandise, or under loads of charcoal, or

in empty hogsheads. Others were stowed in

the holds of vessels, where they lay in heaps,

men, women and children, coming forth only in

the dead of the night to breathe the air. Some

would risk themselves in frail barks, for a voy-

age, the very thought of which would once have

made them shudder with fear. The guards

placed by the king to watch the coast, -some-

times became softened, and found such oppor-

tunities of gain in favoring the flight of the

Protestants, that they even went so far as to as-

sist them. The captains of cruisers, who had

orders to intercept any vessels that might carry

fugitives, themselves conveyed great numbers

of them out of the kingdom : and in almost

every sea-port, the admiralty officers, tempted

by the profits which the shipmasters shared with

hiding places they would not have found it very

difficult to discover. There were families that

paid from four to six or eight thousand livres

for their escape. The same thing occurred on

the landward side of the kingdom. Persons

stationed to guard the roads and passages,

would furnish guides, at a certain price, to those

whom they had been instructed to arrest, and

would even serve in this capacity themselves. As

or such as could not avail themselves of these

advantages, for want of skill or lack of means,

they contrived a thousand ways to elude the

vigilance of the countless sentinels appointed to

prevent their flight. Often they disguised

themselves as peasants, driving cattle before

them, or carrying bundles, as if on their way to

some market; or as soldiers, returning to their

garrison in some town of Holland or Germany ;

or as servants, in the livery of their masters.

Never before had there been seen so many

merchants, called by pressing business into for-

eign parts. But where no such expedients

were practicable, the fugitives betook them-

selves to unfrequented and difficult roads ; they

traveled by night only; they crossed the rivers

by fords scarcely known, or unused because of

danger; they spent the day in forests and in cav-

erns, or concealed in barns and in haystacks.

Women resorted to the same artifices with the

men, and fled under all sorts of disguises. They

dressed themselves as servants, as peasants, as

nurses. They trundled wheelbarrows, they car-
THE COLLAPSE. 253
ried hods, they bore burdens. They passed

themselves off as the wives of their guides.

They dressed in men's clothes, and followed on

foot as lackeys, while their guides rode on horse-

back, as persons of quality. Men and women

disguised themselves as mendicants, and passed

through the places where they were most ex-

posed to suspicion, in tattered garments, begging

their bread from door to door." ¹
The strain was too great; and it had been kept

up too long. The Huguenots had renounced

their dream of political power. For years past,

their anxiety had been to escape so far as possi-

ble the notice of statesmen and of parties, and

in obscurity lead quiet and peaceable lives in

all godliness and honesty. But their very sub-

missiveness and loyalty had been misinterpreted.

The priest-ridden king conceived that nothing

more was needed, for the subjection of these

obdurate heretics to the religion of the state,

than the increase of penalties and hardships.

The clergy were confident that the tame and

ignorant peasantry would yield, as so many of

the high-born and cultured had done, under the

pressure of the royal command. Many did

yield outwardly; though it may well be doubted

if, of all the conversions brought about by the

infliction of legal disabilities, and the brutalities

of the dragonnades, a single one was sincere.

But many, of more heroic mold, resisted every
¹ Benoist, Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes, tome troisieme,

seconde partie. Pp. 948-954.

multitudes who had yielded outwardly, or

who succeeded in evading punishment, were

not less eager than their more courageous

brethren to fly from the country, and seek

refuge in Protestant lands.

ferers. England, where so many of their per-

secuted countrymen had for generations found

an asylum, was foremost in its offers of hospi-

tality. The British envoy resident in Paris

kept his government informed of the measures

Doors taken by Louis XIV. against his Reformed

Escape, subjects, and warmly urged the king to plead

their cause. The "terrible edict" of June, 1681,

at length decided Charles II. to this step.

The very next month, a royal proclamation was

issued, promising letters of denization under

the Great Seal of England to all " distressed

Protestants," "who by reason of the rigors and

severities which are used towards them upon

the account of their religion, shall be forced to

quit their native country, and shall desire to

shelter themselves under his Majesty's royal

protection, for the preservation and free exer-

cise of their religion." The refugees were

assured that they should enjoy all such further

privileges and immunities as might be consistent

with the laws, for the free exercise of their

trades and handicrafts; and that an Act would

be introduced at the next meeting of Parlia-

ment, for the naturalization of all such Protest-

ants as should come over. No heavier duties
ENGLAND'S WELCOME. 255
should be imposed upon them than upon his

Majesty's natural-born subjects ; and equal ad-

vantages with those enjoyed by native subjects

should be given them for the entrance of their

children into the schools and colleges of the

realm.
The Royal Bounty.

was ordered, that such Protestants should be

suffered to pass the customs free of all duties,

with their goods and household stuff, tools and

instruments of trade ; and that all his Majesty's

officers, both civil and military, should give

them kind reception upon their arrival within

any of the ports of the realm, furnish them with

free passports, and grant them all assistance

and furtherance in their journeys to the places

whither they might desire to go. Finally, the

royal proclamation ordered that collections be

made throughout the kingdom, to provide relief

for such of the refugees as might stand in need

thereof: and the Archbishop of Canterbury and

the Bishop of London were appointed to receive

any requests or petitions which the refugees

might wish upon their arrival to present to the

king.
Other overtures.
Holland did not linger far behind its Protest-

ant neighbor in overtures of hospitality to the

oppressed Huguenots. In September of the

same year, the magistrates of Amsterdam

offered them the rights of citizenship and the

privileges of trade, and the States-General an-

nounced that all who should settle in their

territory would be exempted for the space of

Lutheran king of Denmark was equally prompt

and liberal in promises of protection and ex-

emption; and the Protestant cantons of Switzer-

land were not slow to testify their sympathy

with their persecuted brethren, and invite them

to take refuge within their borders.
The Protestant Princes.
A few years later, upon the Revocation of the

Edict of Nantes, the Protestant States of Ger-

many joined in this movement. No sooner had

that crowning act of intolerance and perfidy

The been proclaimed to the world, than the Elector

Winces?* °f Brandenburg, and other Protestant princes,

testified their indignation, by offering the pro-

scribed Huguenots a home, and by making the

amplest provisions for them within their domin-

ions.
And still, in France, the work of persecution

went steadily forward. Louis XIV. was carry-

ing out to the letter the counsels of his spiritual

advisers, and striving to make amends for his

kingly vices by crushing heresy. To prevent

his Protestant subjects from quitting the coun-

try, and from availing themselves of the

invitations of foreign powers, Louis lays upon

them his royal behest to remain at home --and

be converted. Decree follows decree, forbid-

ding all seamen and craftsmen to remove with

their families and settle themselves in other

countries, upon pain of condemnation to the

galleys for life. His Majesty announces to his

people that "an infinite number" of conversions

are taking place in all parts of the kingdom.
THE PERSECUTION CONTINUES. 257
But forasmuch as there still remain some persons

who not only stubbornly continue in their blind-

ness, but hinder others from opening their eyes, l6 g-

and prompt them to leave the country, thus

adopting a course opposed to their salvation, to

their own interests, and to the fidelity which

they owe their sovereign, all persons who may

be found guilty of having induced others thus to

remove, shall be punished by fine and bodily

inflictions.

height, when in October, 1685, he issued the 1685.

famous decree, proclaiming the success of the

measures taken for the extirpation of heresy,

and announcing the revocation and suppression

of the Edict of Nantes, the Edict of Nismes,

and all other edicts and decrees made in favor

of the Protestants in his kingdom.

God," said the royal fanatic, "we now see that

our efforts have attained the end we have had

in view: since the best and greatest part of our

subjects of that Religion have embraced the

Catholic Religion. And inasmuch as by this

means the execution of the Edict of Nantes, and

of all other ordinances in favor of the said Re-

ligion, remains useless, we have judged that we

could do nothing better, wholly to efface the

memory of the troubles, the confusion and the

evils which the progress of that false Religion

had caused in our realm, and which had given

occasion to that Edict, and to so many other

Edicts and Declarations that preceded it, or that
258 THE REVOCATION.
have resulted from it, than to revoke altogether

the said Edict of Nantes."

of a policy that had been pursued with marvel-

ous steadiness for a quarter of a century. It

ordered the immediate demolition of all re-

maining "temples" or places of worship of the

Pretended Reformed Religion. It prohibited

the religionists from assembling in any house or

locality whatsoever, for the exercises of that

religion. Ministers of the said Religion were

commanded, if unwilling to embrace the Cath-

olic faith, to leave the kingdom within fifteen

days after the publication of the present Edict,

and meanwhile to perform no function of their

office, under penalty of the galleys. Private

schools for the instruction of children of the

said Religion were prohibited, "as well as all

things in general that might denote any con-

cession whatsoever in favor of the said Religion."

Parents were commanded, under heavy penalties,

to send their infant children to the parish churches

for baptism. All persons professing the said

Religion were "most expressly" forbidden to

leave the kingdom, under penalty of the galleys

for the men, and of imprisonment and the confisca-

tion of goods for the women. Such as had already

left, were invited to return within four months,

with the promise of liberty to resume the peace-

able possession and enjoyment of their property:

but should any fail thus to return, all their goods

would be confiscated. Finally, it would be law-

ful for all his Majesty's subjects to remain within
VERDICT OF POSTERITY. 259
his kingdom, and to continue in their callings,

and in the enjoyment of their goods, unmolested

and unhindered, until such time as it might

please God to enlighten them as He had en-

lightened the others : on condition that they per-

form no exercise of their pretended Religion, nor

^assemble themselves under pretext of the

prayers or worship of that Religion.

amazed Europe two centuries ago, and which

continues to amaze mankind. The impartial

judgment of the age, and of posterity, upon this

stupendous act of despotism and bigotry, has

perhaps never been better expressed than in

the words of a Roman Catholic cotemporary, a

courtier of Louis XIV., the Duke of Saint

Simon:
"The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, with-

out the slightest pretext, or the least necessity,

as well as the various proclamations, or rather

proscriptions, that followed, were the fruits of

that horrible conspiracy which depopulated a

fourth part of the kingdom, ruined its trade,

weakened it throughout, surrendered it for so

long a time to open and avowed pillage by the

dragoons, and authorized the torments and

sufferings by means of which they procured the

death of so many persons of both sexes and by

thousands together. A plot that brought ruin

upon so great a body of people, that tore

asunder countless families, arraying relatives

against relatives, for the purpose of getting pos-

session of their goods, whereupon they left them

to pass over into the hands of foreigners, made

their states to flourish and grow populous at

the expense of our own, and enabled them to

build new cities. A plot that presented to the

nations the spectacle of so vast a multitude of

people, who had committed no crime, proscribed,

denuded, fleeing, wandering, seeking an asylum

afar from their country. A plot that consigned

the noble, the wealthy, the aged, those highly es-

teemed, in many cases, for their piety, their learn-

ing, their virtue, those accustomed to a life of

ease, frail, delicate, to hard labor in the galleys,

under the drivers lash, and for no reason save

that of their religion. A plot that, to crown all

other horrors, filled every province of the king-

dom with perjury and sacrilege; inasmuch as

while the land rang with the cries of these unhap-

py victims of error, so many others sacrificed

their consciences for their worldly goods and

their comfort, purchasing both by means of

feigned recantations; recantations from the very

act of which they were dragged, without a

moment's interval, to adore what they did not

believe in, and to receive what was really the

divine Body of the Most Holy One, while

they still remained convinced that they were

eating nothing but bread, and bread which

they were in duty bound to abhor. Such was

the general abomination begotten of flattery

and cruelty. Between the rack and recantation,

between recantation and the Holy Communion,

it did not often happen that four and twenty
THE REVOCATION. 261
hours intervened : and the torturers served

as conductors and as witnesses. Those who

seemed afterwards to make the change with

greater deliberation, were not slow to belie their

pretended conversion, by the tenor of their lives,

or by flight."

CHAPTER V.

THE REVOCZTION.

FLIGHT FROM LA ROCHELLE AND AUNIS.
Calvin’s disciples.
That part of western France that lies be-

tween the Loire and Gironde rivers --comprising

anciently the seaboard provinces of Poitou, Sain-

tonge, and Aunis --was inhabited, at the period

of the Revocation, by a population largely Prot-

estant. These provinces had been early visited

by zealous disciples of Calvin. Poitiers, the prin-

cipal town of Poitou, gave shelter to the great

reformer himself, for some months in the begin-

ning of his career ; and a few young men whom

he gathered around him then, and who caught

his fervent spirit while studying the Scriptures

with him, went forth to carry the new doctrines

into every nook and corner of the country. No-

where else in France did the Reformation take

a readier and a firmer hold. By the time of the

outbreak of the first civil war, there were many

parishes where the mass of the people had em-

braced the Reformed faith, ¹ and the churches
¹ "Un grand nombre de paroisses [surtout sur les bords de

la Sevre-Niortaise et de ses affluents, et, dans le Bas-Poitou,

sur ceux du Lay,] etaient presque entierement protestantes

a l'ouverture des guerres civiles." --Histoire des Protestants

et des eglises reformees du Poitou, par Auguste Lievre, pas-

teur. Paris et Poitiers, 1856. Tome I., page 100.

ant "temples." ^l

greatly weakened the strength of the Reformed

religion in these provinces. Yet it was still suf-

ficient to justify the king in choosing them for

the scene of that species of warfare upon his

Protestant subjects, which, as we have seen, he

found most effectual in accomplishing forced

conversions. It was in Poitou that the dragon-

nades were initiated by Marillac, the governor

of the province: and thence they soon spread

into Saintonge and Aunis.
Home of American Huguenots.
A special interest belongs to this part of

France, as the home of very many of the refu-

gees who fled at the period of the Revocation,

and who ultimately made their way to America.

It will be seen in the following pages that a

large proportion of the Huguenot families that

came by way of England and Holland to Boston,

New York, Jamestown, and Charleston, in the

last years of the seventeenth century, can be

traced back to the towns and villages of the

country between the Loire and the Gironde.

The present chapter will give the results of

investigations made in this direction.
Aunis, the smallest of the thirty-three prov-

inces into which the Kingdom of France was at

sumed to be Sir Edwin Sandys, about the year 1599. --Eu-

rope Speculum, 1599. P. 176. He adds that on the

whole the proportion of Protestants to the Roman Catholics

in France is, however, "not one to twentie."

264 LA ROCHELLE.

the birthplace of American Huguenots. Aunis.

indeed, could scarcely be dignified with the

name and rank of a province. It was a part

of Saintonge, which had been cut off from that

province, and appended to the city of La Ro-

chelle, in the fourteenth century, as a reward for

the fidelity of the citizens to King Charles the

Wise, during his wars with the English. This

little district, commonly styled "terre d'Aunis,"

Terre or "pays d'Aunis," contained only some seven

hundred square miles, and was scarcely more

than a suburb of its great seaport La Rochelle,

which had been the stronghold of the Protestants

in France for nearly seventy years, and which,

though now dismantled, and spoiled of its ancient

honors, was still the home of many of their

wealthiest and most influential families.

almost five centuries, the city enjoyed commer-

cial and municipal privileges of an extraordinary

character. Royal charters, confirmed by succes-

sive kings, secured to the citizens the right of

electing their mayor and other magistrates

every year, and exempted them from all taxes

and imposts. These distinguishing advantages

had been granted not without reason. The

Rochellese were always noted for their loy-

alty to the crown of France, and for the valua-

ble services they rendered to the state under

several reigns. One of the most remarkable

recognitions of this fidelity was made by the

king already mentioned, who conferred nobility
2 Page Image of Vue de la Rochelle

A GLORIOUS HISTORY. 265

in office, and upon their successors forever.

lese dated from the period of the Reformation.

Their city had early welcomed the "new doc-

trines" preached by Calvin's disciples. Among

the first to embrace the evangelical faith were

some of the monks and priests. Not a few of

the nuns left their cloisters, to enter a state of

life which, as they now learned, Holy Scripture

declared to be honorable in all. The book-

sellers and the schoolmasters of the town helped

to spread the teachings of the reformers. Per-

secution only increased the strength of the

movement; and at length, so general had the

change of religion become, that the Reformed,

tired of holding their crowded assemblies in

private houses or in halls, claimed the right to

meet in the churches. For a while this right

was accorded to them, and Protestants and

Romanists worshiped in the same sanctuaries,

the one congregation gathering together as the

other dispersed. So perfect was the harmony

with which this arrangement was carried out,

that on a certain occasion, the priests of the October

church of St. Sauveur, being requested to com-

mence their services at an earlier hour, for the

accommodation of the Protestants, consented to

do so, and agreed to being matins a little

before daybreak, upon condition that they should

be compensated for the use of extra lights.

This happy state of things, however, lasted but

a few months. The religionists were compelled
266 LA ROCHELLE.
to return to their former places of meeting, and

soon after, the "Edict of January" required them

to hold their assemblies outside of the city

walls.
In the course of the civil wars that followed,

La Rochelle became the rallying point and the

citadel of the Huguenot party. The vigilance

of its citizens saved them from sharing in the

massacre that commenced in Paris on St. Bar-

tholomew's day; and their heroic bravery and

constancy enabled them to resist the assaults of

the royal army, for nine months, during the

memorable siege of 1573. In the next fifty

years, the city reached the height of its pros-

perity and renown. Famous for the strength of

its fortifications, the extent of its commerce, the

wealth of its merchants, the intelligence and

morality of its people, La Rochelle was the

pride of French Protestantism. Its "Grand

Temple," the corner-stone of which had been

laid by Henry, Prince of Conde, was crowded

with vast congregations, that hung upon the

earnest and fearless eloquence of the most

learned and able pastors of the Reformed

Church. During the greater part of this

period, no other worship than that prescribed

by the evangelical faith was performed within

the city walls; and at the time of the publica-

tion of the Edict of Nantes, the Roman mass

had not been said in La Rochelle for nearly

forty years.

portance and its independence only by means of

same time a center of intelligence for the Prot-

estants of France. Its college, founded in

1565, and endowed by Jeanne d'Albret and the

princes, drew to itself some of the most emi-

nent scholars of the age. Its printing presses

were noted for their incessant activity, and for

the rare excellence of many of their produc-

tions. La Rochelle was chosen for the holding

of several of the national assemblies of the

Huguenot party, and of the ecclesiastical assem-

blies of the Reformed churches. A free and

vigorous intellectual life pervaded the place,

quickened by the very anxieties and appre-

hensions that equally prevailed. ¹
With its second and still more terrible siege,

the period of the city's independence and chief

importance came to an end. In punishment for

the stubborn resistance offered to his armies,

and in testimony of his displeasure with a popu-

lace " whose rebellions had been the main stay

and spring of the great wars that had so long
¹ A notable illustration may be quoted from the historian

Arcere: "In the midst of the troubles of the war, [1574,] pub-

lic entertainments were given in La Rochelle. A tragedy,

entitled Holofernes, was represented. The author of this

dramatic poem was Catharine de Parthenai, afterwards so

well known under the name of the Duchess of Rohan. In

this lady, the graces of a fine literary taste were blended

with learning, and intellectual talent was enhanced by a

heroic courage. It was she who was seen alone to stand firm

upon the ruins of her defeated party, after the reduction of

La Rochelle in 1628, and proudly to endure so conspicuous

a reverse of fortune." --Histoire de la ville de la Rochelle

et du pays d'Aulnis, par M. Arcere. A la Rochelle,

MDCCLVI. Tome I., page 568.

complete destruction of those fortifications

which had baffled the utmost skill of his

soldiers and engineers. "It is our will" --so

ran the royal decree --"that they be razed to the

ground, in such wise that the plow may pass

through the soil even as through tilled land."

The special privileges and dignities which the

town had enjoyed for so many centuries were

abrogated; and the "Grand Temple " of the

Protestants was converted into a cathedral