penalty of confiscation, banishment, and death, it is not surprising that such a policy should have occasioned widespread consternation, if not hostility and open resistance.
At the period of the Revocation there were, according to the Intendant of the province, not fewer than 250,000 Protestants in Languedoc, and these formed the most skilled, industrious, enterprising, and wealthy portion of the community. They were the best farmers, vine-dressers, manufacturers, and traders. The valley of Vaunage, lying to the westward of Nismes, was one of the richest and most highly cultivated parts of France. It contained more than sixty temples, its population being almost exclusively Protestant; and it was known as "The Little Canaan," abounding as it did in corn, and wine, and oil.
The greater part of the commerce of the South of France was conducted by the Protestant merchants of Nismes, of whom the Intendant wrote to the King in 1699, "If they are still bad Catholics, at any rate they have not ceased to be very good traders."
The Marquis d'Aguesseau bore similar testimony to the intelligent industry of the Huguenot population. "By an unfortunate fatality," said he, "in nearly every kind of art the most skilful workmen, as well as the richest merchants, belong to the pretended reformed religion."
The Marquis, who governed Languedoc for many years, was further of opinion that the intelligence of the Protestants was in a great measure due to the instructions of their pastors. "It is certain," said he, "that one of the things which holds the Huguenots to their religion is the amount of information which they receive from their instructors, and which it is not thought necessary to give in ours. The Huguenots will be instructed, and it is a general complaint amongst the new converts not to find in our religion the same mental and moral discipline they find in their own."
Baville, the intendant, made an observation to a similar effect in a confidential communication which he made to the authorities at Paris in 1697, in which he boasted that the Protestants had now all been converted, and that there were 198,483 new converts in Languedoc. "Generally speaking," he said, "the new converts are much better off, being more laborious and industrious than the old Catholics of the province. The new converts must not be regarded as Catholics; they almost all preserve in their heart their attachment to their former religion. They may confess and communicate as much as you will, because they are menaced and forced to do so by the secular power. But this only leads to sacrilege. To gain them, their hearts must be won. It is there that religion resides, and it can only be solely established by effecting that conquest."
From the number, as well as the wealth and education, of the Protestants of Languedoc, it is reasonable to suppose that the emigration from this quarter of France should have been very considerable during the persecutions which followed the Revocation. Of course nearly all the pastors fled, death being their punishment if they remained in France. Hence many of the most celebrated French preachers in Holland, Germany, and England were pastors banished from Languedoc. Claude and Saurin both belonged to the province; and among the London preachers were the Dubourdieus, the Bertheaus, Graverol, and Pégorier.
It is also interesting to find how many of the distinguished Huguenots who settled in England came from Languedoc. The Romillys and Layards came from Montpellier; the Saurins from Nismes; the Gaussens from Lunel; and the Bosanquets from Caila;[32] besides the Auriols, Arnauds, Péchels, De Beauvoirs, Durands, Portals, Boileaus, D'Albiacs, D'Oliers, Rious, and Vignoles, all of whom belonged to the Huguenot landed gentry of Languedoc, who fled and sacrificed everything rather than conform to the religion of Louis XIV.
When Brousson was executed at Montpellier, it was believed that Protestantism was finally dead. At all events, it was supposed that those of the Protestants who remained, without becoming converted, were at length reduced to utter powerlessness. It was not believed that the smouldering ashes contained any sparks that might yet be fanned into flames. The Huguenot landed proprietors, the principal manufacturers, the best of the artisans, had left for other countries. Protestantism was now entirely without leaders. The very existence of Protestantism in any form was denied by the law; and it might perhaps reasonably have been expected that, being thus crushed out of sight, it would die.
But there still remained another important and vital element—the common people—the peasants, the small farmers, the artisans, and labouring classes—persons of slender means, for the most part too poor to emigrate, and who remained, as it were, rooted to the soil on which they had been born. This was especially the case in the Cevennes, where, in many of the communes, almost the entire inhabitants were Protestants; in others, they formed a large proportion of the population; while in all the larger towns and villages they were very numerous, as well as widely spread over the whole province.
The mountainous district of the Cevennes is the most rugged, broken, and elevated region in the South of France. It fills the department of Lozère, as well as the greater part of Gard and Herault. The principal mountain-chain, about a hundred leagues in length, runs from north-east to south-west, and may almost be said to unite the Alps with the Pyrenees. From the centre of France the surface rises with a gradual slope, forming an inclined plane, which reaches its greatest height in the Cevennic chain, several of the summits of which are about five thousand five hundred feet above the sea level. Its connection with the Alpine range is, however, broken abruptly by the deep valley of the Rhône, running nearly due north and south.
The whole of this mountain district maybe regarded as a triangular plateau rising gradually from the northwest, and tilted up at its south-eastern angle. It is composed for the most part of granite, overlapped by strata belonging to the Jurassic-system; and in many places, especially in Auvergne, the granitic rocks have been burst through by volcanoes, long since extinct, which rise like enormous protuberances from the higher parts of the platform. Towards the southern border of the district, the limestone strata overlapping the granite assume a remarkable development, exhibiting a series of flat-topped hills bounded by perpendicular cliffs some six or eight hundred feet high.
"These plateaux," says Mr. Scrope, in his interesting account of the geology of Central France, "are called 'causses' in the provincial dialect, and they have a singularly dreary and desert aspect from the monotony of their form and their barren and rocky character. The valleys which separate them are rarely of considerable width. Winding, narrow, and all but impassable cliff-like glens predominate, giving to the Cevennes that peculiarly intricate character which enabled its Protestant inhabitants, in the beginning of the last century, to offer so stubborn and gallant a resistance to the atrocious persecutions of Louis XIV."
Such being the character of this mountain district—rocky, elevated, and sterile—the people inhabiting it, though exceedingly industrious, are for the most very poor. Sheep-farming is the principal occupation of the people of the hill country; and in the summer season, when the lower districts are parched with drought, tens of thousands of sheep may be seen covering the roads leading to the Upper Cevennes, whither they are driven for pasture. There is a comparatively small breadth of arable land in the district. The mountains in many places contain only soil enough to grow juniper-bushes. There is very little verdure to relieve the eye—few turf-clad slopes or earth-covered ledges to repay the tillage of the farmer. Even the mountains of lower elevation are for the most part stony deserts. Chestnut-trees, it is true, grow luxuriantly in the sheltered places, and occasionally scanty crops of rye on the lower mountain-sides. Mulberry-trees also thrive in the valleys, their leaves being used for the feeding of silkworms, the rearing of which forms one of the principal industries of the district.
Even in the immediate neighbourhood of Nismes—a rich and beautiful town, abounding in Roman remains, which exhibit ample evidences of its ancient grandeur—the country is arid, stony, and barren-looking, though here the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree, wherever there is soil enough, grow luxuriantly in the open air. Indeed, the country very much resembles in its character the land of Judea, being rocky, parched, and in many places waste, though in others abounding in corn and wine and oil. In the interior parts of the district the scenery is wild and grand, especially in the valleys lying
