04 Camisards or French Prophets
Chapter 4 The Camisards or French Prophets
CHRISTIANS of a romantic turn of mind have found considerable satisfaction in dwelling upon the heroic battles fought out in the name of religion in the country of the Cevennes towards the close of the seventeenth and in the beginning of the eighteenth century. But when we sweep away romance and a great accretion of lies, we face some sad and bitter facts. The Camisards, the heroes of the Cevennes and they were heroes were neither Huguenots nor Roman Catholics. They were, rather, a sect of ecstatic Protestants with all the fighting qualities of Puritans and Covenanters. The origin of their name, Camisar or Camisard, is given as follows:
"These Rebels were call’d Camisards for three Reasons. The first, because at the beginning of their Insurrection, which happened in the Heat of the Summer, almost all of them wore Linnen Coats. The 2d, in regard they generally went upon all their Enterprizes by Night, which in Martial Terms has been call’d a Gamisade, from Men often putting on their Shirts over their coats, to know one another in the dark, and lastly, from their lying on the Highways which in the vulgar language of those Parts, are called Camis." 1 Later, in England, they were popularly called the French Prophets.
1 "Fanaticism Revived," etc. (collected from the letters of the Mareschals de Montrevel and Villars, etc.), London, 1707, p. 213.
We will quote the story of their origin from one * of the many pamphlets published in England against them. Their first leader was a man of prophetic gifts in the ecstatic sense and his gifts were the beginning of a contagion.
"They first began in the Month of June, 1688, and the first that laid claim to these extraordinary Gifts was one William du Serre, who dwelt in a village called Dieu-lefit, in Dauphine."
Du Serre soon gathered so considerable a following that
"the Valleys swarm’ d with them, and the Dioceses of Ujez, Viviers, Alais, Nismes, Montpelier, and Mende, were over-spread with such a Number oi Prophets, that in the Cevennes, and the lower Langitedoc only, they were computed at Eight Thousand Souls."
One very noticeable fact about many of the prophets was their extreme youth. Indeed, the place of a child in the Kingdom of God was taken by them as express authority for the prophesying of children even so young as "a Child in the Cradle of about fourteen or fifteen months old." The prophetic spirit among them seems to have been induced. The modus operandi is described as follows:
"They turn’d round with great Violence, till being quite giddy they fell upon the Floor. When so fallen, they roll’d their Eyes frightfully, look’d wild and ghastly, work’d their lips in divers Figures, drivel’ d and foam’d at the Mouth, held their Breaths, heav’d their Breasts, pufFd and swell’d their Throats, and sometimes lay as if
1 Kingston, Richard: "Enthusiastick Impostors. No Divinely Inspir’d Prophets," etc. London, 1707, pp. 2-3. they were in a Trance. Then on a sudden they would start up, shake their Heads, Gulp, and Hiccup Strangely, clap their Hands, move their Feet oddly, shake their whole Bodies into Contortions, in the nature of Convulsions. Then they would quake, groan, laugh, belch, sigh, sing, shriek hideously; and at last, stretching their Mouths open, in a yawning, distorted, dreadful manner, in a doleful Tone, and as loud as they were able, would utter their Prophecies." And in this connection we may well quote, in passing, John Humfrey, 1 in one of his published letters to John Lacy, a leader among the French Prophets in London:
"Alas, that a Person of such Reason in Discourse and Writing should think that to be transformed into a Brute for an Hour or more should be the way to become a Prophet."
It was not long before the Camisards were in conflict with the Romish church authorities, and a war of persecution began, marked on both sides by all the villainous savagery of which the Christian mind of the late seventeenth century was capable. Camisards were broken at the wheel, Catholic priests were murdered in cold blood; and men, women and children on both sides barbarously put to death in a series of savage reprisals. For a long time the Camisards were able, under the leadership particularly of Cavalier, to maintain a successful guerilla warfare even against the troops of the French government.
Cavalier, who was about twenty-three years of age when he became the Camisard commander, proved himself a man of great courage and a successful leader. Finally, however, a treaty of peace was concluded with
1 Humfrey, John: "An Account of the French Prophets and their Pretended Inspirations in Three Letters. Sent to John Lacey, Esq." London, 1708, p. 5. the authorities, and some of the prophets went into exile. Of these, three arrived in London in September, 1706: namely, Elias Marion, John Cavalier, a cousin of the great general, and Durand Page. John Cavalier is described as making
"a great deal of Noise; He is the youngest of ’em, and the most vigorous. Never a one of the three Operators, performs better, what depends purely upon the Body: But he is not capable of that vast Gravity, which makes) the Decorum of the Piece. Sometimes, upon the Return | of his Inspirations, he has not been able to forbear! Laughing himself: A Comick part would suit him better. But Monsieur Marion has more of the Serious, and a better Memory. He has a Capacity of Learning and of acting large Parts." 1 The manner of Cavalier’s conversion savours so strongly of the ad hominem methods of the revival or of spiritualism that the story is well worth the quoting:
"His curiosity led him to a numerous Meeting in Barre, where a little Boy lying on his Back, with surprizing Agitations that frighted him, mark’d him out for a Scoffer; and another Boy falling into an Exstasie, commanded the Door to be watch’ d, lest he should go away, and discover the Assembly. ... A third Boy fell into violent Agitations and discovering to him the very Thoughts of his Heart, and pressing him to amend his Life, it had, as he says, such Effect upon him, that as soon as the Sermon was ended, there seem’d a beating like a Hammer in his Breast, which Kindled a Fire in his Veins, and was followed by violent Agitations of his Head and Body which continue upon him to this very Day. At length, after three Quarters of a year’s Hiccup and Agitations, without Speech, he fell into an extraordinary
1 "Clavis Prophetica or a Key to the Prophecies of Mons. Marion, and the Other Camisars," etc. London, 1707; p. 9.
Extasy; God open’d his Mouth, and he became a Prophet also." 1
Only a short time elapsed before Marion, Cavalier and Page had interested in their ecstasies two men of means whose pleasant duty and privilege it was to play the same part which Drummond later played among the Irvingites that of paying the bills. At least, this can be well said of Sir Richard Bulkeley. John Lacy, Esq., who had been a man of standing, and apparently of some wealth, was at the same time a man whose nervous system made it possible for him not only to witness, but himself to enjoy, the prophet ecstasies. 2 It was not long before he became in fact the leader in London of the French Prophets.
Sir Richard Bulkeley, on the other hand, is a pathetic figure. He is in the inner circle, and yet not of it. He sees no visions. He does no miracles. He only believes and pays.
"Sir Richard Bulkeley has the Misfortune to be of the shortest Size, in respect of his Bodily Stature, and is very Crooked. ... A Friend of Sir Richard’s observing, that since he associated with these pretended Prophets and their Abettors, he wore very mean Clothes; ask’d him why he did not buy him new ones; Sir Richard told him, that the Spirit had declared he should be made strait, and that he would stay till the Spirit had fulfilled his Promise, for to buy new ones now, would be Money thrown away to no Purpose, because they would not fit him when he was strait." 3 Poor Sir Richard! But he is only one of a great multitude, a great multitude, of those whom no man can
1 Kingston: op. cit., p. 6.
2 Cf. Calamy, Edmund: "A Caveat against New Prophets," etc. London, 1708; pp. 6-7. Kingston: op. cit., pp. 113-4. number, who have hoped in the hopeless and gone down to that bitterest disappointment the disappointment of unanswered faith because with simple, uncritical minds they have believed one who has blasphemed against the Holy Ghost.
Elias Marion was best known for his prophecies. Marion seems never to have learned the real art of the oracle indefiniteness. He made definite prophecies, which were not fulfilled, with the result that his fellow prophets were obliged to fall into the method of symbolic interpretation to explain the non-fulfilment of such prophecies as named specifically persons, places, days and dates. It is always the part of wisdom for that group of gloomy Christians, whose happiness seems to consist in the assurance that "one shall be taken and the other left," and who feel sure that the times are waxing worse and worse, to tell us that we are in the end of the age, rather than to name the cataclysmic year.
Some of the prophecies are listed in a pamphlet 1 published in 1708 as follows:
"In 1706, they predicted the Fall of Pharaoh 2 to be Speedy, at farthest in Three or Four years; that every campaign till then should be more and more successful each than the other, till his final Downfall. That this Year, before the Campaign ended, a great Man in the French Court should declare himself a Protestant; that Thoulon should be taken, and the Tower-Guns go off in a Week: But of late, for very weighty Reasons, they say little on that Subject. . . .
"One of them pretended an Order from the Spirit to fast a Week, and so on in different Periods, till he should be able to live without victuals altogether. The Upshot of this was, that in the Space of about Three Days, he 1 "An Appeal from the Prophets to their Prophecies, etc." London, 1708; PP- 5-7.
2 The King of France. pretended a Counter-Order of the Spirit forthwith to eat, and that he did to purpose. And this ended this miraculous Dispensation.
"Last Winter, they predicted most destructive pestilential Fogs or Mists, that shou’d sweep away, like a Plague, a vast Number of the Inhabitants of this City. . . .
"One of them set a Period when he shou’d receive the Gift of Miracles. . . . The Period assigned is now Expiring, and he is still as far from Wonder-working as ever."
It is to be noted that in these prophecies are references to the working of miracles. The stories of the Cevennes abound in miracles. It is only to be expected that John Lacy and the London French Prophets would expect and would attempt to perform miracles. In Lacy’s miracles, however, the element of fraud is so obvious that even credulity stands aghast.
Elizabeth Gray or Betty Gray was a woman of rather low station whom Lacy had attached to himself. One day she pronounced a blessing on Mr. Lacy, very much after the fashion of a Shaker or Mormon blessing of later days:
"Rising off her seat, she laid her Hand upon Mr. Lacy’s Head, saying, Thou my child art Happy above all the rest, that I have made use of to do my blessed work this Day. This Day shall be the beginning of the Miracles with you: This Day you shall make the Blind to see: This Day I will begin to shew you, in what manner I will have it done in: Go in Peace. It is observable, that she did confess, when she heard the words of making the Blind to see f pronounced out of her own mouth, she had not faith to believe it would be.
"About two a Clock the same Day . . . at Dinner . . . on a sudden Betty Gray clap’d her Hands upon her Eyes, and said in a great Fright, God bless me, and the more she rub’d her eyes, the blinder she grew, and in two Minutes she found herself quite dark; and so after many Tryals being made, as to her Blindness, Dinner being ended, she was led into another Chamber, where after she had sat on the Bed side about twenty Minutes, she turned about, kneeled on the Ground, and soon was in Extasie. And then the Spirit spake by her mouth, these words: O now you do believe it, do yon? She continued Praying at the Bed side, seventeen Minutes. Then her Agitations returned again." * This is followed by some dialogue between Betty and Mr. Lacy, during which Mr. Lacy is also manifestly "seized with the Spirit." Then "he streaked her eyes three times with his Thumbs, and her Sight was restored." With the gift of prophesying and the gift of healing, we naturally expect and we are not disappointed the gift of tongues, The manner of a manifestation of the tongues is given as follows:
"Mr. Fage had Warnings of an Extasie; but being awed by the presence of some Clergymen, he stifled it; but Mr. Facio (according to Facio’ s own account) following him to another House, Fage immediately fell into an Extasie, and spoke to this Effect: Mon Enfant, je mfenvaie repandre sur les Ennemis mes Jngements terrible, & ma dernier Sentence sera, Tring, Trang, Swing, Swang, Hing, Hang. Thus in English, My Child, I am going to pour out my terrible judgments upon my Enemies, and my last Sentence shall be, Tring, Trang, Swing, Swang, Hing, Hang. Which unintelligible Jargon so stumbled Mr. Facia, that had been conversant in 1 Kingston: op. cit., pp. 79-80.
Languages, that he returned home under the greatest Concern imaginable; being under Apprehensions, that hitherto he and his Friends had been scandalously mock’d, abus’d and impos’d on.
"Here he paus’d, and gave me room to ask him, how he surmounted his Difficulty; which he said was by applying himself to Prayer, in which he was directed not to reject the Prophets. . . .
"I cannot be positive, whether it was at this time or a former, that Mr. Fage said, that the Nation that spoke this Language should in a Short time receive the gospel." 1
Fage, however, was not alone in speaking in unknown tongues. Before the French Prophets had come to England, the phenomenon had been known, and it had been counted no small wonder that a Camisard child 2 could speak while in a trance good French "which at another time she could not."
Lacy also was known to have spoken in other languages. At Chelsea 3 he spoke in Latin, although "he could not speak in Latin before, nor had read a Latin Book this Six and Twenty years."
"But Mr. Lacy’s Spirit delights in Absurdities," says Richard Kingston, the writer of "Enthusiastick Impostors,"
"And therefore at another Meeting gave his blessing in English to Frenchmen that could not understand it." 4 Mr. Kingston also describes 5 a scene which he himself witnessed at one of the meetings held at the home of
1 Kingston: op. cit., pp. 22-23.
2 Same: p. 12.
3 Humfrey: op. cit., p. 8.
4 Kingston: op. cit., p. 52.
5 Same: pp. 110-2.
"Mrs. East, a Quaker, over against the Black Horse in Crutchet-Fryars, London," on October 5, 1707:
"I observed four young Men and two Women alternately Gulping, Grunting hideously, and nodding their Heads as low as their Breasts, which turning the hinder parts of their Perukes over their Faces, made them look frightfully. When the last had done, the first began again in his turn. I went to him, felt his Pulse, and his Wast-coat being unbuttoned, as all those that acted were, I apply’d my Hand to his Heart; but could find no Disorder in his Pulse or Breast, but a violent Heaving in his Midriff and the Bottom of his Stomach, to cause the Gulping and loud Hiccuping; And so I attended all the Men-Actors round the Room, as their Fits successively came upon them; which they very quietly suffered me to do. ... None of the Men in Agitations spoke at all."
Then "the Person I sat next to on the Bench, who had been quiet all the time before, fell into violent Agitations from Head to Foot, more noisie than all the other Four, but kept his Seat. I felt his Pulse and Breast as the rest but could find no Kind of Alteration, or that the Vitals were more concerned than they are in common Actions. He started up in a strange and unintelligible Vociferation in this manner, Yaugh Daugh Faugh Raugh Raugh Faugh Daugh Yaugh, and sometimes intermixing them with very bad French, reflecting upon such as came thither out of Curiosity, whom he said God would suddenly destroy, and then sat down.
"I asked him his Name, and if he was in Health, and in his Right Mind? He answer’d, His Name was Cavalier, that he was in Health, and never better in all his Life. I reply’d, Then you must be under some sort of a Delusion. He said, How will you prove it? I told him I was ready to attempt it, if he would give me leave; and as I was beginning to say something to that purpose, he fell immediately into violent Agitations, insomuch that, standing very near him when we spoke together, I was forc’d to start back, lest he Should strike me in the Face with his Hand. In this Inspiration he began as before, just like a Dumb Man, with Yaugh-Dcutgh, &c. And then repeated verbatim what we had privately discoursed, and after denouncing some heavy judgments upon me, ended with the same inarticulate sounds he began with. When among other things, he said / was rich in this World’s Goods, but God would plague me till I was poor in Spirit. Having some reason to know he was a false Prophet in that, I could not forbear smiling; upon which an English woman came and whisper’d in my Ear, saying Do not Mock, God will strike thee Dumb....
"The three English Gentlemen I mention’d before, 1 came to me, and ask’d whether Mr. Cavalier spoke French, and what he said. I told him some of it was Gibberish, some bad French, and spoken so Thick and Passionately that I could not understand him but by Snatches. Another gentleman said, I understand and speak French, but not one Word of what this Man has said all this time. Then the three First shaked their Heads and went away."
Visions and voices play also a considerable part in the story of the French Prophets, but about them there is nothing new or distinctive. On the ethical side we are face to face with the vagaries in the vita sexualis which we will learn to look upon as our study continues, as an invariable associate of the tongues movement. In the Cevennes, the charges of immorality against the Camisards were of the usual sort which the persecutor invariably directs against the persecuted. The Romish writer, a member of a priesthood then about as corrupt morally as it could dare to be, describes their meetings as "being no better than Stews 1 Three English gentlemen had come in while these things were going on. or Public Places of Prostitution, as manifestly appeared by their Incests, Adulteries, Fornications." 1 That charge may be a lie out of the whole cloth, but in all probability there is some basis for it.
Among the French Prophets in London, immorality is clearly evident, especially in the relation existing between Lacy and Betty Gray. Lacy’s embracing Betty Gray "under inspiration," 2 Betty’s public exhibition of her breasts, 3 her willingness to play the leading part in the symbolic drama called "The Whore of Babylon," 4 together with an alarming array of direct evidence of a more specific nature, 5 all point in the same general direction in which ecstasy always points an utter indifference to, or shall we say, a transcending of, the seventh commandment in all its implications.
It may be that a mystic may feel that he is nearer heaven than a Christian who lacks his assurance of an "inner light." But let the mystic be well assured that he is perilously nearer to sin.
1 "Fanaticism Reviv’d," p. 56. See also pp. 20, 22, 35, 58.
2 Kingston: op. cit., p. 70.
3 "The Honest Quaker: or the Forgeries and Impostures of the Pretended French Prophets and their Abbetors Exposed in, a Letter," p. 3.
4 Kingston: op. cit. t p. 65.
5 Same: pp. 45-8.