The French Prophets of London
Renée Marshall, Senior Genealogist and Archivist
One of the curiosities in the Society’s collection is a series of small pamphlets written about three men who were known as the French Prophets.
In 1706, three Huguenots in London foretold a series of apocalyptic prophecies that they purportedly received while in a trance. The prophets were named Durand Fage, Jean Cavalier, and Élie Marion, and they were part of a wave of immigrants following the Camisard uprising in Languedoc. The French prophets became quite famous. While their fellow Huguenots paid them little attention, they acquired an enthusiastic group of English followers, as well as several prominent Englishmen who voiced their support.
Jean Cavalier, Camisard leader
painting by Pierre-Antoine Labouchère, 1864.
Musée du Désert, France
Public Domain
The English government suspected that the prophets were part of a political conspiracy. The Huguenot clergy was appalled. They were extremely concerned that the prophets’ actions would dramatically increase tensions between the Huguenots and the English. There were riots against the prophets and their followers in the spring of 1707.
The controversy over the French prophets led to a series of pamphlets being published both for and against them. Historian Lionel Laborie described this “formidable battle of pamphlets” and wrote that “at least 147 extant titles were published in five years in England alone.” Nine examples of these pamphlets survive in the Society’s archival collection.
Eventually the prophet Élie Marion and two of his scribes were put on trial. Laborie wrote that, “six of his prophetic warnings were deemed blasphemous and five of them tending towards sedition…The case was tried under common law as a non-capital offence involving religious imposture and false prophecies.” They were convicted and condemned “to stand on the scaffold for one hour on two consecutive days and pay a fine of 20 nobles each. The three men served their sentences on 1 December at Charing Cross and at the Royal Exchange…wearing paper inscriptions on their hats: ‘Elias Marion, convicted for falsely and profanely pretending himself to be a true prophet, and printing and uttering many things…to terrifie the Queen’s people.’”
Title and illustration of an anonymous handbill
Printed in London in 1707. The picture shows Élie Marion, Jean Daudé, and Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, leaders of the so-called French prophets, standing on the scaffold at Charing Cross after being sentenced to the pillory for sedition.
Quotations are from Lionel Laborie.“The Huguenot Offensive against the Camisard Prophets in the English Refuge” in The Huguenots: France, Exile & Diaspora (Sussex Academic Press, 2013).
More on Élie Marion may be read via:
Key Figures, a post by the Musée Protestant.
The French Prophets: The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England by Hillel Schwartz, January 1, 1980.