“Who rolled the Psalm to wintry skies.”
TENNYSON
THE Eighteenth century had already fulfilled nearly half its eventful course. The tempests that were destined to shake, not thrones and dynasties only, but the whole fabric of social life, were already gathering; the shadow of their clouds darkened the air, the low muttering of their rising currents was audible, not indistinctly, to the thoughtful ear. Yet, meanwhile, the very sources whence sprang the dangers of the age were its pride, its glory, and its joy. More self-conscious than any that had gone before, it vaunted itself, and chanted its own praises with multitudinous voices more or less harmonious; calling itself, not without apparent reason, the age of intellect and enlightenment, of science, of mental and social progress, and above all, the age of humanity.
Nevertheless, in the France of Montesquieu and Voltaire, there were districts to which this wonderful age had brought no joyous message―which its voice had no more power to reach than had the murmur of great Paris, far away on her throne of pride amidst her gilded palaces. Such was the mountainous region of the Cévennes, called “the Desert,” the refuge of a proscribed worship, and the home of a persecuted race.
On a lower platform of one of the monarch mountains of the Hautes Cévennes, nigh to a little hamlet called Trou, there stood in those days a solitary cottage. Its altitude was marked by a chestnut tree, whose gnarled and twisted trunk was said to be centuries old, and to which its owners pointed with pride as the farthest above the level of the sea in all the district. A footpath only led down the hill to the village, distant about a league, and with no human habitation nearer. Upland slopes, covered with scanty grass, stones, and brushwood, formed the immediate prospect; and beyond them, seeming to pierce the sky, rose the giant peaks of Tanargues, which never, even in the warmest days of summer, lost their dazzling crowns of untrodden snow.
The night of the 11th of October, 1745, had closed over the scene. The snow lay thick even on the nearer and lower hills; and the frost had sprinkled the grass before the cottage door and the fading leaves of the chestnut with jewels, soon to be lighted up and kindled into brightness by the cold beams of the full moon, then just rising. The light of that moon was not unwelcome. Groups of figures, of every age and of both sexes, clad in the warmest serge of the district, might be seen toiling up the steep ascent leading from the hamlet to the solitary cottage. This seemed already full, as most of the later arrivals remained without, and contented themselves with lingering about the door. All wore a serious, yet restful air, as waiting to receive and enjoy what they had long and earnestly desired. They looked, even the youngest there, as though they had known few save serious thoughts—anxious, careworn, resolute, stern—not unlike the Covenanters whom Claverhouse dragooned on the hillsides of Scotland.
This little company were brought thus to meet at the remote dwelling of a leading member of their community, for the purpose of attending an assembly, to be held at some distance, for the public worship of God, after the only manner possible to the Reformed Church of France in that humane, enlightened age, the eighteenth century. Each and all were well aware of the penalty attached by the laws of their country to the privilege so eagerly sought and welcomed. For a single attendance at such an assembly this penalty was, to every man, the galleys for life; to every woman, perpetual imprisonment; to every child under a given age, boy or girl, compulsory separation from their parents, and education in a convent or Catholic college.
Yet, when the opportunity presented itself, might it be truly said of each, that the language of his heart was that of the Psalmist, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” Yes, from the old man leaning on his staff for very age, who might expect never again to mingle with the assembly on earth, to the little child who was receiving his initiation in the privileges and the perils of the worship in the Desert.
Two women, one aged, the other quite young, with an infant in her arras, were standing near the cottage door, talking.
“We ought soon to be starting,” said the elder. “How I wish people would come in time! It’s so cold here! M’amie, you ought to take the little one within doors.”
“He will get no harm, mother; see how warmly I have wrapped him up. Besides, he is the strongest child of his age in all the parish.”
“What, do you intend to call him?”
“Paul; after our good elder, Monsieur Paul Plans, who has been a father to us all. Were it not for him, I know not what would have become of us last winter, while my husband was in prison.”
“Your husband, good man! paid dearly enough for your marriage in the Desert.”
“And yet, mother, do you know the first thing he said when set free and come home to us, taking in his arms the little one God had sent us in his absence― ‘Good wife,’ saith he, ‘no other but the hand that married us shall, with the help of God, baptize our babe.’”
“Is it, then, our own dear pastor, M. Roux, whom we are to hear tonight?”
“I do not doubt it. But here comes the elder, Pere Brissac; let us ask him.”
Every Protestant community in those days had its two elders, regularly chosen and appointed. A decree of the Synod rendered this obligatory, under the penalty of not being summoned to the assemblies―assemblies that led directly to the dungeon or the galleys!
As they were speaking, a white-haired man drew near; his wife, also aged, leaning on his arm; and his three daughters, with his youngest and only unmarried son, following.
“Good evening, Monsieur Brissac,” said the women.
“Good evening, Madame Bonin. Good evening, Madame Chaumette,” replied the old man, removing his cap; such courteous forms being customary amongst these peasants in accosting each other.
“Is M. le Pasteur Roux expected tonight?” asked the elder female.
“Yes; if God brings him to us in safety,” Brissac answered. “Is M. Plans within doors?”
“No, monsieur; there he stands yonder, talking to Marie Duclos.”
This was the other elder, whose hair was not white but gray―gray with case and toil, rather than with years. It was said in those days that the Cévennol had no childhood. He was born old; at twelve he was a man; at forty he was gray. But the toil-worn face of Paul Plans was kindly, honest, and thoughtful. The cases that sprinkled the head with snow had refined and educated the heart. He was just commending Marie Duclos, a young and timid girl, to the companionship of his own daughter, a pretty, demure-looking maiden of about fifteen, when his brother elder stepped up to him, and engaged him in earnest consultation about the proceedings of the night.
“We may be very sure that the hour of rendezvous is not yet past; for here comes Guillaume Vérien, the most punctual lad in the whole country,” resumed the young woman holding the infant, as a young man, with pale countenance and high narrow forehead, approached them with rapid footsteps. He saluted those near, but hastened into the house, not speaking to any.
“See now,” said Madame Bonin, “there goes a lad, a blessing to his mother, and a credit to us all. Never absent; never late! You may be sure of finding him, when and where you want him, as of finding the church on the hill. Poor boy, how pale he looks! No doubt he sits up at night to read the books they gave him at the parish school. Pity his parents ever let him go there. But the fines are heavy, and every one has not faith and courage such as your good man, m’amie. They say Guillaume would give his right hand to study the law, and be an advocate, or at least a procureur. But who would give him a certificate of ‘Catholicity,’ even if he were base enough to ask it, which he is not, God be thanked? Ah! he is a good lad―very. I only wish our dear M. Plans’ thoughtless scapegrace were such another as Guillaume Vérien!”
“Ah, mother, you must not be too hard on René Plans. I cannot forget how he sought our lost lamb on the mountain last spring; and came of his own accord each day, while my husband was in prison, to cut wood and draw water for us.”
“I never knew him go anywhere of his own accord, except to a Christmas mumming. Fine trouble he gave his good father, the year before last, going off with the mummers, and joining in all their godless tricks and follies But M. Plans made him march back again to every house where they had been, whether Catholic or Protestant, and return his Share of the gifts they received.”
“And very right too,” Madame Chaumette assented. “But, m’amie, do you remember the lovely gracious child he was, only a few years ago? Like an angel for beauty and for winning ways! And then, the vise things he used to say! All the village had it on their lips, ‘The boy will die young, or be a pastor if he grows up.’ Ah, that was before his good mother was taken to her rest. What a loss a mother is! But where is the lad tonight? That is what I am wondering at, all this time.”
Others were wondering too, and becoming increasingly anxious, as the time went on. At length Paul Plans, raising his voice, addressed the company generally: “My friends, have any of you seen aught of my son tonight?”
All gave a negative reply. In answer to inquires near him, the elder said, “I sent him to Privas, on an errand, four days ago. He could easily have retuned a day since. I expected him today, at farthest. And he knew well our arrangements. God grant nothing has befallen him!” After a pause he resumed: “Well, my friends, the time is come. Let us, in God’s name, be going.” Still there was a brief delay, for the elders were careful to ascertain that none had with them anything in the shape of a weapon, as the faithful were strictly forbidden, by their pastors, to go armed to their assemblies.
Then the long procession formed, and wound its way, by rarely trodden mountain paths, to the secret place amongst the hills where was hidden the lonely and secluded glen that night to be consecrated as a temple of the living God. Ever and anon there arose, on the still air of the autumn night, a solemn chant. And as the band drew nearer the place of rendezvous, there chants were caught up, and given back, as if by the echoes of the hills. It was thus that the various groups of Protestants, on their way from different mountain glens and hamlets to the same assembly, were wont to guide, to encourage, and to cheer each other.
But that night those songs of Zion had a prevailing air of sadness. The 51st Psalm was chosen rather than the 103rd; and a great favorite was the 79th:
“Oh God, the heathen entered have
Thine heritage; by them
Defiled is Thy house: on heaps
They laid Jerusalem.”
Or, sometimes, a plaintive strain would rise, setting forth, in quaint unpolished verses that came straight from the people’s heart, the sufferings and death of some faithful pastor who had won the martyr’s crown. Several of these lays, very touching in their simple beauty, passed from lip to lip in, the desert. No seven years’ child so dull that he could not repeat or chant them; no old, man so wise that he could tell by whom or when they were composed.
It was a fast, not a festival, that was to be solemnized that night in the lonely valley of the Cévennes. Thus the joy of meeting once more for the public worship of God was tempered by sad remembrances, proper to the season. The Protestants were about to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes―the close of a brief stormy day of doubtful prosperity, and the beginning of a long night of sorrow, and fear, and hard bondage.