The edict of Revocation was carried out with rigor ; and but one feeling now possessed the minds of the Re- formed, to make their escape from that devoted land. Disguised in everj' form which ingenuity could suggest, by every outlet that A)uld anj'where be made available, througli every hardship to which the majority were most unaccustomed, the crowd of fugitives pressed for-
ward eagerly from their once dearly-loved countrj-. It is impossible to estimate with accuracy the numljer of the refugees. Sismondi {Hist, de France) computed that the total number of those who emigrated ranged from 300,000 to 400,000, and he was further of opinion that a like number perished in prison, on the scaffold, at the galleys, and in their attempts to escape ; and Weiss (in his History of the French Protestant Refugees) thinks the number no less than 300,000 of those who departed the French kingdom. Vauban wrote, only a year after the Revocation, that France had lost 60,000,000 of francs in specie, 9000 sailors, 12,000 veterans, 600 officers, and her most flourishing manufactures; and Feuelon thus described the last years of the reign of Louis XIV : "The cultivation of the soil is almost abandoned ; the towns and the coimtry are becoming depopulated. AU indus- tries languish, and fail to support the laborers. France has become as but a huge hospital without provisions." The hospitable shores of England, which had long be- fore this period furnished an asylum to the fugitive Hu- guenots, were now eagerly sought, and the Huguenots met with kmdness and assistance from the English gov- ernment. To Holland, also, and to Denmark, the best talent of the land, the most skilful artisans, directed their steps, and many great branches of industry of France, by the folly of a king who had taken his mis- tress as his first state counsellor, received their death- blow. The industrj' of some places was for a time com- pletely prostrated. Indeed, more than a century really passed before they were restored to their former pros- perity, " and then only to suffer another equally stag- gering blow from the violence and outrage which ac- companied the outbreak of the French Revolution." In fact, this last terrible event may justly be considered not only as a providential retribution, but likewise a natural penalty for the civil wrongs inflicted upon the Protestants, since these cruel measures exiled from the country a large part of its piety and intelligence, by which alone that catastrophe might have been averted.
JVom the vicinity of Nismes, where the Huguenots had always been very numerous, thousands, unwilling either to abjure their faith or to leave their native countrj', betook themselves to the mountains of the Ce- vennes, and continued the exercise of their religion in secret. These, and the mountaineers of the Cevennes, among whom sprang up a sect which displa_yed a re- markable fanatical enthusiasm, under the name of Cam- isards (q. v.), finally commenced to wage war against the royal forces, which was called the War of the Ce- rennes, or the Caniisard War, It was successfully car- ried on until 1706, when, in consequence of the war of succession with Spain, they were allowed a respite, the royal troops being otherwise employed. Their number now rapidly augmented, especially in Provence and Dau- phiny, and thus, notwithstanding all the persecutions which the Protestants had suifcred, about two millions continued to adhere to their religion (Charles Coquerel, Hist, des Ef/lises du Desert, Par. 1841, 2 vols.).
A partial repose which the Huguenots now enjoyed for more than ten years greatly increased their numbers, especially in Provence and Dauphiny; but in 1724, Louis XY, who had ascended the throne in 1715, at the instigation of the ever-conspiring Jesuits, issued a very severe ordinance against them. The spirit of the age, however, was too much opposed to persecution to sufler the edict to work the mischief intended. The govern- ors of several provinces tolerated the Protestants, and as early as 1743 they resumed their assemblies in the mountains and woods, and celebrated their Mariages du desert. In 1744 new edicts v.-ere issued against them, reqiuring upon those who had been baptized or married in the desert (as it was called) a repetition of the rite by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. Even the Roman Catholics themselves soon became loud in opposition against these violent measures, and the per- secution gradually ceased. IMen like Blontesquieu and Voltaire successfully advocated mild treatment, and it
HUGUENOTS
397
HUISII
must be conceded that the Protestants owed much of the toleration they afterwards met with to Voltaire's treatise on the subject, written in 1763, and to his pro- curiiifi; the release of John Calas (q. v.). Their position ■was still further improved on the accession of Louis XVI to (he throne (1774). In 1787 an edict was issued (wliifh the Parliament, however, registered only in 178!)) by which the validity of Protestant baptisms and marriaj^es was recognised, though subject to some pure- ly civil regulations ; they were given cemeteries for the buriiil of their dead, were allowed to follow their relig- ion privately, and granted the rights of citizenship, with the exception of the right of holding any official position.
After the breaking out of the French Revolution in 1789, a motion was made in the General Assembly to admit tlie Protestants to equal rights with the Roman Catholics : this motion was at first rejected, but finally carried. A decree of 1790 restored the Protestants to the possession of aU the rights and property they had lost subsequently to the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The " Code Napoleon" placed the Protestants equal in their civil and political rights witli the Roman Cathiilics, as, in fact, they had already been for more than fifteen years; and though, after the restoration of the Bourbons, especially in 1815 and 1810, the priests succeeded in exciting the populace of the department of the Gard to rise and murder the Protestants, the authorities conniving at the crime, still they remained equal to the Roman Catholics in the eye of the law. The sjiirit of persecution, however, continued, though in a some^vllat weaker form, both among the people and the government of the Bourbons, even in that of the Orleans familj^, though, after the July Revolution of 1830, the reformed charter of France had proclaimed universal freedom of conscience and of worship, a prin- ciple which was reasserted in 1848. (For the present state of Protestantism in France, see France.)