Part 406

"The movement known as the War of the Camisards is an episode of the history of Protestantism in France which, though rarely studied in detail and perhaps but partially understood, was not devoid of significance. When it occurred, in the summer of 1702, a period of little less than 17 years had elapsed since Louis XIV., by his edict of Fontainebleau, October, 1685, solemnly revoked the great and fundamental law enacted by his grandfather, Henry IV., for the protection of the adherents of the Reformed faith, known in history as the Edict of Nantes. During the whole of that period the Protestants had submitted, with scarcely an attempt at armed resistance, to the proscription of their tenets: … The majority, unable to escape from the land of oppression, remained at home … nearly all of them cherishing the confident hope that the king's delusion would be short-lived, and that the edict under which they and their ancestors had lived for three generations would, before long, be restored to them with the greater part, if not the whole, of its beneficent provisions. Meanwhile, all the Protestant ministers having been expelled from France by the same law that prohibited the expatriation of any of the laity, the people of the Reformed faith found themselves destitute of the spiritual food they craved. True, the new legislation affected to regard that faith as dead, and designated all the former adherents of Protestantism, without distinction, as the 'New Converts,' 'Nouveaux Convertis.' And, in point of fact, the great majority had so far yielded to the terrible pressure of the violent measures brought to bear upon them … that they had consented to sign a promise to be 're-united' to the Roman Catholic Church, or had gone at least once to mass. But they were still Protestants at heart. … Under these circumstances, feeling more than ever the need of religious comfort, now that remorse arose for a weak betrayal of conscientious conviction, the proscribed Protestants, especially in the south of France, began to meet clandestinely for divine worship in such retired places as seemed most likely to escape the notice of their vigilant enemies. … It was not strange that in so exceptional a situation, a phase of religious life and feeling equally exceptional should manifest itself. I refer to that appearance of prophetic inspiration which attracted to the province of Vivarais and to the Cévennes Mountains the attention of all Europe. … Historically … the influence of the prophets of the Cévennes was an important factor in the Protestant problem of the end of the 17th and the commencement of the 18th centuries. … Various methods were adopted to put an end to the prophets with their prophecies, which were for the most part denunciatory of Rome as Antichrist and foreshadowed the approaching fall of the papacy. But this form of enthusiasm had struck a deep root and it was hard to eradicate it. Imprisonment, in convent or jail, was the most common punishment, especially in the case of women. Not infrequently to imprisonment was, added corporal chastisement, and the prophets, male and female, were flogged until they might be regarded as fully cured of their delusion. … But no utterances of prophets, however fervid and impassioned, would have sufficed to occasion an uprising of the inhabitants of the Cévennes Mountains, had it not been for the virulent persecution to which the latter found themselves exposed at the hands of the provincial authorities directly instigated thereto by the clergy of the established church. {1245} For it must be noticed that a large part of the population of the Cévennes was still Protestant, and made no concealment of the fact, even though the king's ministers affected to call them 'New Catholics,' or 'New Converts.' The region over which the Camisard war extended with more or less violence comprised six episcopal dioceses, which, in 1698, had an aggregate population of about two-thirds of a million of souls. Of these souls, though Protestantism had been dead in the eye of the law for 13 years, fully one-fourth were still Protestant. … The war may be said to have begun on the 24th of July, 1702, when the Abbé du Chayla, a noted persecutor, was killed in his house, at Pont de Montvert, by a band of 40 or 50 of the 'Nouveaux Convertis,' whom he had driven to desperation by his cruelty to their fellow believers. If we regard its termination to be the submission of Jean Cavalier, the most picturesque, in the month of May, 1704, the war lasted a little less than two years. But, although the French government had succeeded, rather by craft than by force, in getting rid of the most formidable of its opponents … it was not until five or six years later—that is, until 1709 or 1710—that … comparative peace was finally restored. … During the first months of the insurrection the exploits of the malcontents were confined to deeds of destruction accomplished by companies of venturesome men, who almost everywhere eluded the pursuit of the enemy by their superior knowledge of the intricacies of the mountain woods and paths. The track of these companies could easily be made out; for it was marked by the destruction of vicarages and rectories, by the smoke of burned churches, too often by the corpses of slain priests. The perpetrators of these acts of violence soon won for themselves some special designations, to distinguish them from the more passive Protestants who remained in their homes, taking no open part in the struggle. … About the close of 1702, however, or the first months of 1703, a new word was coined for the fresh emergency, and the armed Protestants received the appellation under which they have passed into history—the Camisards. Passing by all the strange and fanciful derivations of the word which seem to have no claim upon our notice, unless it be their evident absurdity, we have no difficulty in connecting it with those nocturnal expeditions which were styled 'Camisades'; because the warriors who took advantage of the darkness of the night to ride out and explore or force the enemy's entrenchments, sometimes threw over their armor a shirt that might enable them to recognize each other. Others will have it that, though the name was derived from the same article of apparel—the 'camisa' or shirt—it was applied to the Cévenol bands for another reason, namely," that when they found opportunities, they carried off clean linen from the villages and left their soiled garments in exchange. The final overthrow of the Camisards "was not accomplished without the employment of 100,000 troops, certainly far more than ten times the total number ever brought into the field by the Camisards. … Not less than three officers of the highest grade in the service, marshals of France, were successively appointed to put down a revolt which it might have been expected a simple colonel could suffice to quell—M. de Broglie being succeeded by the Marshal de Montrevel, the Marshal de Montrevel by the Marshal de Villars, and the Marshal de Villars by the Marshal de Berwick."

_H. M. Baird, The Camisard Uprising (Papers of the American Society of Church History, volume 2, pages 13-34)._

ALSO IN: _Mrs. Bray, The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes._

_N. Peyrat, The Pastors in the Wilderness._

_S. Smiles, The Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, chapters 5-8._

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1711. The War of the Spanish Succession in America (called Queen Anne's War).

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1713. The War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.

See ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; SPAIN: A.D. 1702, to 1707-1710; GERMANY: A. D. 1702, to 1706-1711; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, to 1710-1712.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1715. Renewed Jesuitical persecution of the Jansenists. The odious Bull Unigenitus and its tyrannical enforcement.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

A. D. 1710. The War of the Spanish Succession: Misery of the nation. Overtures for Peace. Conferences at Gertruydenberg.

"France was still reduced to extreme and abject wretchedness. Her finances were ruined. Her people were half starving. Marlborough declared that in the villages through which he passed in the summer of 1710, at least half the inhabitants had perished since the beginning of the preceding winter, and the rest looked as if they had come out of their graves. All the old dreams of French conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, in Italy, and in Germany were dispelled, and the French generals were now struggling desperately and skilfully to defend their own frontier. … In 1710, while the Whig ministry [in England] was still in power, but at a time when it was manifestly tottering to its fall, Lewis had made one more attempt to obtain peace by the most ample concessions. The conferences were held at the Dutch fortress of Gertruydenberg. Lewis declared himself ready to accept the conditions exacted as preliminaries of peace in the preceding year, with the exception of the article compelling Philip within two months to cede the Spanish throne. He consented, in the course of the negotiations, to grant to the Dutch nearly all the fortresses of the French and Spanish Netherlands, including among others Ypres, Tournay, Lille, Furnes, and even Valenciennes, to cede Alsace to the Duke of Lorraine, to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, and those on the Rhine from Bale to Philipsburg. The main difficulty was on the question of the Spanish succession. … The French troops had already been recalled from Spain, and Lewis consented to recognise the Archduke as the sovereign, to engage to give no more assistance to his grandchild, to place four cautionary towns in the hands of the Dutch as a pledge for the fulfilment of the treaty, and even to pay a subsidy to the allies for the continuance of the war against Philip. The allies, however, insisted that he should join with them in driving his grandson by force of arms from Spain, and on this article the negotiations were broken off."

_W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 1._

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

{1246}

FRANCE: A. D. 1713-1714. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

FRANCE: A. D. 1714. The desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.

FRANCE: A. D. 1715. Death of Louis XIV. The character of his reign.

Louis XIV. died September 1, 1715, at the age of 77 years, having reigned 72 years. "Richelieu, and after him Mazarin, governing as if they had been dictators of a republic, had extinguished, if I may use the expression, their personality in the idea and service of the state. Possessing only the exercise of authority, they both conducted themselves as responsible agents towards the sovereign and before the judgment of the country; while Louis XIV., combining the exercise with the right, considered himself exempted from all rule but that of his own will, and acknowledged no responsibility for his actions except to his own conscience. It was this conviction of his universal power, a conviction genuine and sincere, excluding both scruples and remorse, which made him upset one after the other the twofold system founded by Henry IV., of religious liberty at home, and abroad of a national preponderance resting upon a generous protection of the independence of states and European civilisation. At the personal accession of Louis XIV., more than fifty years had passed since France had pursued the work of her policy in Europe, impartial towards the various communions of Christians, the different forms of governments, and the internal revolutions of the states. Although France was catholic and monarchical, her alliances were, in the first place, with the Protestant states of Germany and with republican Holland; she had even made friendly terms with regicide England. No other interest but that of the well-understood development of the national resources had weight in her councils, and directed the internal action of her government. But all was changed by Louis XIV., and special interests, the spawn of royal personality, of the principle of the hereditary monarchy, or that of the state religion, were admitted, soon to fly upward in the scale. Thence resulted the overthrow of the system of the balance of power in Europe, which might be justly called the French system, and the abandonment of it for dreams of an universal monarchy, revived after the example of Charles V. and Philip II. Thence a succession of enterprises, formed in opposition to the policy of the country, such as the war with Holland, the factions made with a view to the Imperial crown, the support given to James II. and the counter-revolution in England, the acceptance of the throne of Spain for a son of France, preserving his rights to the Crown. These causes of misfortune, under which the kingdom was obliged to succumb, all issued from the circumstance applauded by the nation and conformable to the spirit of its tendencies, which, after royalty had attained its highest degree of power under two ministers, delivered it unlimited into the hands of a prince endowed with qualities at once brilliant and solid, an object of enthusiastic affection and legitimate admiration. When the reign, which was to crown under such auspices the ascendant march of the French monarchy, had falsified the unbounded hopes which its commencement had excited; when in the midst of fruitless victories and continually increasing reverses, the people beheld progress in all the branches of public economy changed into distress,—the ruin of the finances, industry, and agriculture—the exhaustion of all the resources of the country,—the impoverishment of all classes of the nation, the dreadful misery of the population, they were seized with a bitter disappointment of spirit, which took the place of the enthusiasm of their confidence and love."

_A. Thierry, Formation and Progress of the Tiers État or Third Estate in France, chapter 9._

FRANCE: A. D. 1715. Accession of King Louis XV.

FRANCE: A. D. 1715-1723. State of the kingdom at the death of Louis XIV. The minority of Louis XV. and Regency of the Duke of Orleans.

"Louis XIV. … left France excessively exhausted. The State was ruined, and seemed to have no resource but bankruptcy. This trouble seemed especially imminent in 1715, after the war, during which the government had been obliged to borrow at 400 per cent., to create new taxes, to spend in advance the revenue of two years, and to increase the public debt to 2,400 millions. The acquisition of two provinces (Flanders, Franche-Comté) and a few cities (Strassburg, Landau, and Dunkirk) was no compensation for such terrible poverty. Succeeding generations have remembered only the numerous victories, Europe defied, France for twenty years preponderant, and the incomparable splendor of the court of Versailles, with its marvels of letters and arts, which have given to the 17th century the name of the age of Louis XIV. It is for history to show the price which France has paid for her king's vain attempts abroad to rule over Europe, and at home to enslave the wills and consciences of men. … The weight of the authority of Louis XIV. had been crushing during his last years. When the nation felt it lifted, it breathed more freely; the court and the city burst into disrespectful demonstrations of joy; the very coffin of the great king was insulted. The new king [Louis XV., great-grandson of Louis XIV.] was five years old. Who was to govern? Louis XIV. had indeed left a will, but he had not deceived himself with regard to the value of it. 'As soon as I am dead, it will be disregarded; I know too well what became of the will of the king, my father!' As after the death of Henry IV. and Louis XIII. there was a moment of feudal reaction; but the decline of the nobility may be measured by the successive weakening of its efforts in each case. Under Mary de'Medici it was still able to make a civil war; under Anne of Austria it produced the Fronde; after Louis XIV. it only produced memorials. The Duke of Saint-Simon desired that the first prince of the blood, Philip of Orleans, to whom the will left only a shadow of power, should demand the regency from the dukes and peers, as heirs and representatives of the ancient grand vassals. But the Duke of Orleans convoked Parliament in order to break down the posthumous despotism of the old king, feigning that the king had committed the government to his hands. The regency, with the right to appoint the council of regency as he would, was conferred upon him, and the command of the royal household was taken from the Duke of Maine [one of the bastard sons of Louis XIV.], who yielded this important prerogative only after a violent altercation. {1247} As a reward for the services of his two allies, the Duke of Orleans called the high nobility into affairs, by substituting for the ministries six councils; in which they occupied almost all the places, and accorded to Parliament the right of remonstrance. But two years had hardly passed when the ministries were re-established, and the Parliament again condemned to silence. It was plain that neither nobility nor Parliament were to be the heirs of the absolute monarchy. … Debauchery had, until then, kept within certain limits; cynicism of manners as well as of thought was now adopted openly. The regent set the example. There had never been seen such frivolity of conduct nor such licentious wit as that exhibited in the wild meetings of the roués of the Duke of Orleans. There had been formerly but one salon in France, that of the king; a thousand were now open to a society which, no longer occupied with religious questions, or with war, or the grave futilities of etiquette, felt that pleasure and change were necessities. … Louis XV. attained his majority February 13, 1723, being then 13 years old. This terminated the regency of the Duke of Orleans. But the king was still to remain a long time under tutelage; the duke, in order to retain the power after resigning the regency, had in advance given [Cardinal] Dubois the title of prime minister. At the death of the wretched Dubois he took the office himself, but held it only four months, dying of apoplexy in December, 1723."

_V. Duruy, History of France, chapters 52 and 55._

ALSO IN: _W. C. Taylor, Memoirs of the House of Orleans, volume 1, chapters 11-17, and volume 2, chapters 1-3._

_F. Rocquain, The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution, chapter 1._

_J. B. Perkins, France under the Regency._

FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1719. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance. War with Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720. John Law and his Mississippi Scheme.