339 years later…

If you enjoyed the freedom this past Sunday to worship as you believe, you enjoyed a blessing that was not always available to our Huguenot ancestors. Today we mark the 339th anniversary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes which caused thousands of French Protestants to flee France in search of refuge to practice their faith in peace. They left relatives, property, friends and all they had known behind to find liberty.

In this post, we share remarks from 1902 delivered to the Society by Col. Richard L. Maury of Richmond, VA and printed in the Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, 1902, VOL. 9, pg. 33. He captured the emotions and meaning of this day with eloquence and feeling.

“In effect it repealed existing laws tolerant of Huguenots and revived all those that had been made for their oppression.  It ordered immediate destruction of every Huguenot church; the death of every pastor remaining in France after fifteen days, and forbade assemblies for worship; the suppression of every Huguenot school, and instant baptism of every child by the priest; that no Huguenot should leave France under penalty of the galleys, confiscation and prison; confiscation of the goods of all absentees, and that Huguenots who abstained from any exercise of their religion, or assembling for prayer or worship should not be molested.

Thus, Huguenots were relegated to worse condition than the early days at Meaux a hundred and fifty years before. Their churches were all destroyed, their pastors and elders all gone. There was no longer any organization, no teachers; congregations had mostly fled or recanted, and the faithful few were left unsupported and alone, deprived of the comfort of their worship, and more sorely oppressed and tempted than ever, to withstand individually as best they could the unremitting effort of the most powerful government in Europe to destroy their faith. But Protestantism could not thus be destroyed. Regardless of consequences they continued their prayers to God for strength to stand fast, at home, secretly and by night, with their household, reading the Bible, praying and singing in a low voice that passers might not hear. There were many spies; informers were paid for every conviction, and there were many convictions, but the private worships still continued in many families; others too began to attend, dwellings were too small, and resort was had to obscure and remote places in forest or mountain or seashore, to which hundreds flocked; men and women with their little children to be baptized, some in arms, some afoot from many a weary mile away. Their sanctuaries were the dry bed of a stream, a wild ravine, the ocean beach, an abandoned ruin, a solitary mountain peak or dark cavern on the coast. The sailors and fishers of the Gironde often went out to sea to pray to God. At break of day there might be seen silently issuing from bay or creek three or four pilot and fishing boats running free with all sails set till out of sight of land.

Then gathering side by side and lashed together, the faithful. hidden below, came upon deck, where secure from attack or surprise their pastor preached and sung, and dipping his hand in a basin of sea water baptized the infants, After night the boats came back to land again one by one. The lonely watch upon a Breton ship entering the river leaning upon the tiller or the rail, heard from afar through mist and darkness the sad and solemn songs of men and women, over the water, and believing that the voices were of spirits from the depth of the sea crossed himself in fear to conjure them away.

In the mountains, the bitter cold of the long dark nights of winter, in the open air, in rain and snow, without pastors, pastors themselves, they worship God again. Whoever had saved his Bible brought it; whoever had a Book of Psalms brought that; whoever could read, read, a child sometimes or a girl, and those who could speak, spoke. All sang in undertones fearing the echo from the rocks and ravines where they were; had they been silent even the mountains themselves, at such a sight, would have broken into song to the music of the forest and the sound of the winds in the tops of the ancient oaks. -Michelet.

Fatigue and exposure brought death to many, old and young; often the assembly was set upon by soldiers and many killed or sent to the galleys for life. Often groups of worshipers on their way were met and killed or captured, and once at Nimes an old, abandoned mill, where Huguenots had gathered to pray and sing, was surrounded and set on fire and nearly all were burnt to death.

But still these pious gatherings multiplied and more and more sought consolation there. The rising generation added largely to their numbers, and from their ranks emerged young men, and maidens, too, devoted to this ministration; itinerant missionaries who went from place to place to lead the service, sometimes preaching a sermon, sometimes reading one of a former pastor, or if they could not read repeating one from memory.

Some of them baptized and married, and some administered the communion. Irregular, but devoted ministrants they were; they abandoned home and lived in caves and forests, and on mountain paths, dressed as peasants with staff and scrip; in hiding all day, they would move from district to district only by night, constantly changing their names to avoid arrest as long as possible, for there was a price upon their heads, and they were hunted like wild beasts; their careers were short and ended on the scaffold; in mystery and darkness they walked, peril followed, death waited, and they gave their lives in advance for their work.”