1687. Three other persons—Gransille, Mercier, and Esclopier—who devoted themselves to preaching, were transported as slaves to America; and David Mazel, a boy twelve years of age, who had a wonderful memory, and preached sermons which he had learned by heart, was transported, with his father and other frequenters of the assemblies, to the Carribee Islands.
At length Brousson collected about him a number of Huguenots willing to return with him into France, in order to collect the Protestant people together again, to pray with them, and even to preach to them if the opportunity occurred. Brousson's companions were these: Francis Vivens, formerly a schoolmaster in the Cevennes; Anthony Bertezene, a carpenter, brother of a preacher who had recently been condemned to death; and seven other persons named Papus, La Pierre, Serein, Dombres, Poutant, Boisson, and M. de Bruc, an aged minister, who had been formerly pastor of one of the churches in the Cevennes. They prepared to enter France in four distinct companies, in the month of July, 1689.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER IV.
CLAUDE BROUSSON, PASTOR AND MARTYR.
Brousson left Lausanne on the 22nd of July, accompanied by his dear friend, the Rev. M. de Bruc. The other members of the party had preceded them, crossing the frontier at different places. They all arrived in safety at their destination, which was in the mountain district of the Cevennes. They resorted to the neighbourhood of the Aigoual, the centre of a very inaccessible region—wild, cold, but full of recesses for hiding and worship. It was also a district surrounded by villages, the inhabitants of which were for the most part Protestant.
The party soon became diminished in number. The old pastor, De Bruc, found himself unequal to the fatigue and privations attending the work. He was ill and unable to travel, and was accordingly advised by his companions to quit the service and withdraw from the country.
Persecution also destroyed some of them. When it became known that assemblies for religious observances were again on foot, an increased force of soldiers was sent into the district, and a high price was set on the heads of all the preachers that could be apprehended. The soldiers scoured the country, and, helped by the paid spies, they shortly succeeded in apprehending Boisson and Dombres, at St. Paul's, north of Anduze, in the Cevennes. They were both executed at Nismes, being first subjected to torture on the rack, by which their limbs were entirely dislocated. They were then conveyed to the place of execution, praying and singing psalms on the way, and finished their course with courage and joy.
When Brousson first went into the Cevennes, he did not undertake to preach to the people. He was too modest to assume the position of a pastor; he merely undertook, as occasion required, to read the Scriptures in Protestant families and in small companies, making his remarks and exhortations thereupon. He also transcribed portions of his own meditations on the Scriptures, and gave them away for distribution from hand to hand amongst the people.
When it was found that his instructions were much appreciated, and that numbers of people assembled to hear him read and exhort, he was strongly urged to undertake the office of public instructor amongst them, especially as their ministers were being constantly diminished by execution.
He had been about five months in the Cevennes, and was detained by a fall of snow on one of the mountains, where his abode was a sheepcote, when the proposal that he should become a preacher was first made to him. Vivens was one of those who most strongly supported the appeal made to Brousson. He spent many hours in private prayer, seeking the approval of God for the course he was about to undertake. Vivens also prayed in the several assemblies that Brousson might be confirmed, and that God would be pleased to pour upon him his Holy Spirit, and strengthen him so that he might become a faithful and successful labourer in this great calling.
Brousson at length consented, believing that duty and conscience alike called upon him to give the best of his help to the oppressed and persecuted Protestants of the mountains. "Brethren," he said to them, when they called upon him to administer to them the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist—"Brethren, I look above you, and hear the most High God calling me through your mouths to this most responsible and sacred office; and I dare not be disobedient to his heavenly call. By the grace of God I will comply with your pious desires; dedicate and devote myself to the work of the ministry, and spend the remainder of my life in unwearied pains and endeavours for promoting God's glory, and the consolation of precious souls."
Brousson received his call to the ministry in the Cevennes amidst the sound of musketry and grapeshot which spread death among the ranks of his brethren. He was continuously tracked by the spies of the Jesuits, who sought his apprehension and death; and he was hunted from place to place by the troops of the King, who followed him in his wanderings into the most wild and inaccessible places.
The perilous character of his new profession was exhibited only a few days after his ordination, by the apprehension of Olivier Souverain at St. Jean de Gardonenque, for preaching the Gospel to the assemblies. He was at once conducted to Montpellier and executed on the 15th of January, 1690.
During the same year, Dumas, another preacher in the Cevennes, was apprehended and fastened by the troopers across a horse in order to be carried to Montpellier. His bowels were so injured and his body so crushed by this horrible method of conveyance, that Dumas died before he was half way to the customary place of martyrdom.
Then followed the execution of David Quoite, a wandering and hunted pastor in the Cevennes for several years. He was broken on the wheel at Montpellier, and then hanged. "The punishment," said Louvreleuil, his tormentor, "which broke his bones, did not break his hardened heart: he died in his heresy." After Quoite, M. Bonnemère, a native of the same city, was also tortured and executed in like manner on the Peyrou.
All these persons were taken, executed, destroyed, or imprisoned, during the first year that Brousson commenced his perilous ministry in the Cevennes.
About the same time three women, who had gone about instructing the families of the destitute Protestants, reading the Scriptures and praying with them, were apprehended by Baville, the King's intendant, and punished. Isabeau Redothière, eighteen years of age, and Marie Lintarde, about a year younger, both the daughters of peasants, were taken before Baville at Nismes.
"What! are you one of the preachers, forsooth?" said he to Redothière. "Sir," she replied, "I have exhorted my brethren to be mindful of their duty towards God, and when occasion offered, I have sought God in prayer for them; and, if your lordship calls that preaching, I have been a preacher." "But," said the Intendant, "you know that the King has forbidden this." "Yes, my lord," she replied, "I know it very well, but the King of kings, the God of heaven and earth, He hath commanded it." "You deserve death," replied Baville.
But the Intendant awarded her a severer fate. She was condemned to be imprisoned for life in the Tower of Constance, a place echoing with the groans of women, most of whom were in chains, perpetually imprisoned there for worshipping God according to conscience.
Lintarde was in like manner condemned to imprisonment for life in the castle of Sommières, and it is believed she died there. Nothing, however, is known of the time when she died. When a woman was taken and imprisoned in one of the King's torture-houses, she was given up by her friends as lost.
A third woman, taken at the same time, was more mercifully dealt with. Anne Montjoye was found assisting at one of the secret assemblies. She was solicited in vain to abjure her faith, and being condemned to death, was publicly executed.
Shortly after his ordination, Brousson descended from the Upper Cevennes, where the hunt for Protestants was becoming very hot, into the adjacent valleys
