Catharine Randall. From a Far Country: Camisards and Huguenots in the Atlantic World. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009. 176 pp. $44.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8203-3390-8.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Williams

Published on H-Atlantic (January, 2012)

Commissioned by W. Douglas Catterall (Cameron University of Oklahoma)

Historians have long recognized the impor‐ book is based on secondary sources in French and tant roles played by Huguenots who left France English and a variety of primary sources, includ‐ after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in lo‐ ing contemporary histories, tracts, testimonials, cales where they settled as emigrés. The premise poetry, and correspondence written by direct par‐ of Catharine Randall’s new book, From a Far ticipants in the events chronicled or by their sym‐ Country, is that a key element of the Huguenot di‐ pathizers, most notably, the American divine Cot‐ aspora--the example and infuence of the Camis‐ ton Mather. Randall’s central argument is that, ards of southern France--has been insufciently contrary to the views of some historians, French recognized in the historical literature. Randall ar‐ Protestants did not quickly assimilate to the reli‐ gues that the experience of the Camisards, per‐ gious and political culture of colonial America haps the most brutally persecuted Protestants of but, rather, maintained a distinct religious identi‐ the early modern era, was essential in shaping not ty. This identity, she argues, was an adaptation of only forms of piety but also secular ideology and the “strategy” used by the Camisards to survive social practice among their coreligionists through‐ what she calls the campaign of “genocide” out Europe and in the New World. (elsewhere, “ethnic cleansing”) pursued by ad‐ This short work is divided into seven chap‐ ministrative authorities and military forces of the ters. The frst three are devoted to the experience French Crown (p. 117, 8). The essentials of this of the Camisards in Europe, both in France during strategy, Randall writes, were “covert worship the era of the persecution and in England where and personal, ecstatic piety ... rather distrusted by the “French Prophets” sought refuge shortly after the more rule-bound continental Calvinists such 1700. The last four chapters examine the experi‐ as those in Geneva and London” (p. 115). Randall ence of French Protestants, Camisards as well as also maintains that key features of the French Huguenots in general, in colonial America. The Protestant experience--their embrace of an “en‐ H-Net Reviews thusiastic and ecstatic” form of piety, their belief the king’s French--formed the most striking ele‐ in continuing revelation through prophecy, and ment of testimonials to Camisard experience col‐ their courageous defense of individual freedom of lected and published by the Huguenot pastor conscience--exerted a powerful and lasting infu‐ Pierre Jurieu. These inspirés enjoyed visions; ence on “the culture, religiosity, and the polity of spoke in tongues; and, on occasion, wept tears of Europe and the New World” (pp. 12, 111). blood. Three intrepid Camisards made their way Randall begins her exploration of the French to England, where, known as the “French Protestant experience with what she calls the “cri‐ Prophets,” they were met with hostility not only sis in the Cévennes” --the armed assault on the by Anglicans but also by local Huguenots. Brought Camisards of Languedoc, Haute-Guyenne, and to trial for blasphemy and sedition, the French Dauphiné from the 1680s to the early 1700s (p. Prophets nonetheless inspired some English be‐ 11). To supply a portrait of Camisard resistance, lievers to prophesy in their own right, speaking in she examines the activities of two individuals, Greek and predicting the end-times. Jacques Bonbonnoux and Pierre Carrière (known The second half of Randall’s work focuses on as Corteiz). The frst she characterizes as a “village the experience of Huguenots in America. She ex‐ lad, autodidactic, soldier ‘in the Army of God,’ amines the career of three individuals in particu‐ Camisard pastor, and reformed minister” (p. 23). lar: Gabriel Bernon, Elie Neau, and Ezéchiel Carré. His autobiography describes the fervent faith of Bernon, who arrived in Québec in 1682, became a the resisters, and the activities--praying, psalm naturalized British citizen in Boston and a suc‐ singing, reading the Bible, and attending to the cessful merchant. Although in time he joined an words of a boy of seventeen who “spoke to us ev‐ Anglican congregation, “he may never ofcially ery day with prophecies or sermons”--that sus‐ have converted” and he worked tirelessly to build tained them through days of fight, hunger, and and extend the infuence of Huguenots in New fear. Bonbonnoux was one of many Camisards York City and Boston (p. 78). Carré was a pastor who recounted “‘miraculous’ happenings,” per‐ frst in Rhode Island and later in Boston; his many ceived as direct divine aid, which made possible tracts supplied early accounts of Huguenot oppo‐ the survival of these impoverished, mostly illiter‐ sition to the power of Louis XIV. Here is where ate peasants amid attacks by the strongest army Randall’s story comes to focus intensively on Cot‐ in Europe (p. 24). While Bonbonnoux represents ton Mather. Randall sees Mather’s intense piety as the heroic phase of armed struggle, Corteiz exem‐ similar to that of the Camisards: his belief in di‐ plifes the work of those ministers who, once rect spiritual messages was “akin to the reverence guerrilla resistance was defeated, worked to har‐ of the Camisards for the prophetic word” and his ness and institutionalize Camisard religiosity by diary entries “sound like descriptions of the ec‐ establishing regular synods and endorsing the stasies” experienced by Camisard visionaries (pp. Confession of Faith of the French Reformed 83, 84). A gifted linguist, Mather strove mightily Church. with his prefaces to and translations of Huguenot In chapters 2 and 3, Randall interrupts her writings to overcome the hostility and suspicion chronicle of events to explore the phenomenon of evinced by local Protestants, especially his fellow prophecy, critical, as she sees it, both to Camisard Puritans, toward French Protestants, often as‐ resistance and to the distinctive form of piety that sumed--thanks to their Frenchness--to be was central to their legacy. Stories of the Catholics or Catholic sympathizers. Denying that prophets--males and females of all ages, including Mather was a Puritan “bigot,” Randall argues that a thirteen-month-old baby boy who prophesied in he was instead an apologist for “a new sort of Pu‐ ritan ecumenism” (pp. 80, 99). The last biography

2 H-Net Reviews ofered is that of Neau, an exile born in Saintonge Randall’s argument makes a claim for the long- who became a naturalized British citizen after go‐ term persistence of the form of piety originally in‐ ing into exile. Traveling from London to the spired by the Camisards, but her narrative ends in colonies, Neau was taken prisoner by a French the early eighteenth century and thus supplies no privateer, confned in the fearsome Chateau d’Yf evidence for the distinctiveness of French Protes‐ of the coast of Marseilles, and subjected to fright‐ tantism in the colonies in later years. And while ful treatment in the course of years of solitary her study is valuable for indicating Camisard and confnement. Neau’s steadfastness through tor‐ Huguenot piety as one source of the principle of ture, attempts to starve him, and near blindness freedom of conscience, how important it was in from years in darkness made him a model for all comparison to other infuences remains an open Protestants everywhere, not just those of an en‐ question. More satisfying, to my mind, is her fnal thusiastic bent. conclusion that the experience of French Protes‐ Randall ofers a stirring and often beautifully tants in the New World helped to encourage reli‐ told story. It unearths a little-known tale of gious pluralism in America, where “there would courage, perseverance, and steadfast faith in reac‐ be a religion for every person and a person for ev‐ tion to brutal assault and lonely exile. A literary ery religion” (p. 116). scholar, Randall is especially sensitive to the lan‐ guage and rhetoric of Camisard and Huguenot e piety. Personally, I regretted that this sensitivity to It is t language did not prevent her from using the mod‐ ern terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” to de‐ : Camisards and Huguenots in the Atlantic scribe the French Crown’s depredations against World (Georgia, 2009) the Camisards. Neither “genocide” nor “ethnic - cleansing” suit a context in which conversion to as well the dominant faith brought safety from physical itself  harm and rejoicing at the rescue of a lost soul. Nor are Randall’s larger claims about the nature –not only  and signifcance of the French Protestant experi‐ but  ence in the New World always convincing. It is –  noteworthy that her argument about French (p. 117) Protestants in the colonies shifts away from Camisards--whose form of piety she sees as exem‐ [p. 8] plary of the spiritual interiority Huguenots in c America had to embrace--to three fgures who (p. 12)  were not themselves Camisards (thus confating (p. 11) phenomena she is elsewhere careful to hold dis‐ tinct) and two of whom embraced Anglicanism. -- Randall argues that these were surface conver‐ er sions, undertaken only to abet public goals, an ar‐ P gument that works well for Neau but seems ill suited to the career of Bernon, who, as she herself (p. 24) makes clear, was not averse to siding on at least (p. 24) one crucial occasion with the English governor – against his fellow Huguenots. More signifcantly,

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Citation: Elizabeth Williams. Review of Randall, Catharine. From a Far Country: Camisards and Huguenots in the Atlantic World. H-Atlantic, H-Net Reviews. January, 2012.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=33741

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