Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN Xaurcttf* A.221aU>ri»n, DUBLIN. Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2007 witli funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcli ive.org/details/celebratedcrimes08dumaiala %kxanhte Wrmae CELEBRATED CRIMES VOLUME VIII EDITIONS LIBRARY EDITION, printed on specially -manufactured ribbed paper with deckle edges, illustrated with photo- gravures in one state. IMPERIAL JAPAN LIBRARY EDITION, printed throughout on Japanese vellum, with photogravures in two states. Limited to 100 numbered copies. LARGE PAPER JAPAN LIBRARY EDITION, printed throughout upon stout Japanese vellum, with photo- gravures in two states. Limited to 25 numbered copies. MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH Sacking the Cathedral at Nlmes. aiejcanlire ^^omas CELEBRATED CRIMES TRANSLATED BY I. G. BURNHAM ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAVURES Original Drawings by De Los Rios, Prodhomme Wagrez, Etc. volume viii H. S. NICHOLS 3 SOHO SQUARE and 62A PICCADILLY LONDON, W. 1895 (All fights reserved) Entered at Stationers' Hall, 1895. H. S. NICHOLS. PRINTER, 3 SOHO SQUARE. LONDON. W. CONTENTS OF VOL VIII. EA0S. Massacres in the South 1 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. VIII. MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH. After Drawings by Jacques Wagrez. Sacking the Cathedral at Nimes Fronts. PAGE. Massacre of the Family of M. de Laveze .... 46 Captain Poul at Fondmorte 50 Louis Fourteenth's Reception of Jean Cavalier . 158 Boeton Broken on the Cross 200 Massacres in the South. Vol. vnL—1. ; CELEBRATED CRIMES. MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH. 1551-1815. It may be that our readers, whose memories hardly go back beyond the Restoration, will be surprised at the large frame in which we enclose the picture that we are about to place before their eyes, embracing something more than two centuries and a half ; but everything has its precedent, every river its source, every volcano its internal fire; from 1551 to 1815, on that portion of the earth's surface to which we direct our attention, the pendulum swung constantly from one side to the other, action was followed by reaction, vengeance by reprisals and the religious annals of the South are nothing more than a double entry ledger kept by fanaticism with death, with the blood of Protestants entered on one side, and of Catholics on the other. In the great political and religious commotions of the South, whose convulsions, like earthquakes, reached sometimes to the capital, Nimes was always the central point. We therefore select Nimes as the central point of our narrative, which may sometimes stray away to other places, but will always return thither in the end. Nimes, reunited to France under Louis VIII., and governed by consuls, whose authority, substituted for (3) 4 MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH. that of Bernard Athon VI., its viscount, dated from the year 1207, had just celebrated, during the episcopate of Michel Briponnet, the discovery of the relics of St. Bau- zile, martyr and patron of the town, when the new doc- trines were disseminated throughout France. The South early had its share of persecution, and in 1551 the seneschal's court at Nimes sentenced several professors of the reformed religion to be burned at the stake upon the public square at Nimes,—among them Maurice Secenat, a missionary from the Cevennes, taken in the act of preaching. Thenceforth Nimes had two martyrs and two patron saints, one worshiped by the Catholics, the other by the Protestants, and St. Bauzile, after a reign of twenty-four years, was forced to share the honors of the protectorate with his new concurrent. To Maurice Secenat succeeded Pierre de Lavan ; these two preachers, whose names have survived many other names of obscure and forgotten martyrs, were put to death upon the Place de la Salamandre four years apart, the only difference being that the first was burned and the second hanged. Pierre de Lavan was attended during his last moments by Dominique Deyron, doctor of theology ; but the usual order of things was reversed, and instead of the priest converting the patient, it was the patient who converted the priest. The word, which they had striven to stifle, rang out anew. Dominique Deyron was sentenced, pur- sued, hunted, and escaped the gibbet only by taking refuge in the mountains. The mountains are the refuge of every rising or decay- ing sect ; God has given to the kings and the mighty ones of earth the cities, the fields and the sea ; but He has given the mountains as an ofiset to the weak and the oppressed. ; MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH. 5 Persecution and proselytism, however, kept pace with each other ; but blood produced its ordinary effect,—it fertilized the soil, and after two or three years of strife, after two or three hundred Huguenots had been burned or hanged, Nimes awoke one morning to find the Pro- testants in the majority. Wherefore, in 1556 the consuls of Nimes were sternly brought to book for the manifest leanings of the city toward the reformation. In 1557, hardly a year after this admonition. King Henri II. was forced to remove the Huguenot Guillaume de Calvi^re from the office of president of the presidial court. Finally, the chief justice having ordered the consuls to supervise the execution of all heretics, those bourgeois magistrates protested against this order, and the royal authority lacked the strength to make them comply with it. Henri died, and Catherine de Medici and the Guises ascended the throne under the name of Fran9ois II. There is one period, when a nation always has a breath- ing space, and that is during the obsequies of its king. Nimes took advantage of the opportunity afforded by the burial of Bang Henri II., and on September 29, 1559, Guillaume Moget founded the first Protestant community there. Guillaume Moget came from Geneva ; he was the child of Calvin's bowels ; he arrived at Nimes with the firm determination to convert all the remaining Catholics to the new faith, or to be hanged. He was eloquent, ardent, artftil ; too intelh'gent to be violent, and disposed to make concessions, if reciprocal concessions were made to him therefore the chances were all in his favor, and Guillaume Moget was not hanged. The moment that a growing sect ceases to be enslaved it becomes a queen ; heresy, which was already mistress 6 MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH. of three fourths of the city, began to raise its head boldly in the streets. A bourgeois named Guillaume Raymond loaned his house to the Calvinist missionary ; a public service was established there, and the most irresolute were converted. Soon the house became too small to contain the multitudes who thronged thither to drink in the poison of the revolutionary doctrines, and the most impatient began to turn their eyes upon the churches. Meanwhile the Vicomte de Joyeuse, who had been appointed governor of Languedoc in the room of M. de Villars, was much concerned by this rapid progress, which the Protestants no longer attempted to conceal, but of which on the other hand they openly boasted ; he sum- moned the consuls and reprimanded them roundly in the king's name, threatening to send a garrison to Nimes which would find a way to put an end to all the commotion. The consuls promised to check the evil without the ne- cessity of outside intervention, and by way of keeping their promise doubled the patrol, and appointed a captain whose sole duty was to enforce order in the streets. Now this captain, employed to repress heresy, was Captain Bouillargues, the most abandoned Huguenot who ever lived. The result of this fortunate choice was as follows. One day when Guillaume Moget was preaching in a gar- den to an enormous crowd, a heavy shower came up. It was necessary for them to disperse or to find some place of shelter, and as the preacher was at the most interest- ing part of his sermon, they did not hesitate to adopt the latter alternative. The church of Saint-Etienne-du- Capitole was near at hand, and one of the audience sug- gested that that place would be most convenient, if not strictly appropriate. The suggestion was enthusiastically received ; the rain came down with renewed violence, and MASSACRES IN THE SOUTH. 7 they hurried off to the church. The curate and the priests were driven out, the Holy Sacrament trampled under foot, and the sacred images broken in pieces. After those preliminaries Guillaume Moget ascended the pulpit, and resumed his sermon with such eloquence, that his auditors, renewing their excitement, were not satis- fied to end their exploits for the day there, but lost no time in taking possession of the Cordelier convent, where they proceeded to instal Moget and the two women, who, in the words of Menard, the historian of Languedoc, never left him, day or night. As for Captain Bouillar- gues, his impassive demeanor was something magnificent. The consuls, being brought to book a third time, would have been very glad to deny that there had been any disorder, but it was impossible. They therefore threw themselves upon the mercy of M. de Villars, who had been reinstated in the government of Languedoc, and M. de Villars without further reference to them, intro- duced a garrison into the castle of Nimes, to be paid and fed by the city, while a military police, independent of the municipal police, was organized and placed under the control of a governor, assisted by four district cap- tains. Moget was driven from Nimes, and Captain Bouillargues was removed from his office. Thereupon Fran9ois II. died. His death produced the usual effect; the persecution was relaxed, and Moget returned to Nimes. It was a victory, and as each victory is followed by a step forward, the victorious preacher organized a consistory, and the deputies from Nimes de- manded in the States-Greneral of Orleans that houses of worship be provided.