"The
Albigenses," "Waldenses," &c. Notwithstanding the crusades and
inquisitions raised against them by the popes for centuries, numerous
remnants had preserved themselves, who, when the Reformation found a
footing, obtained a signal increase, and finally, through the edict of
Nantes, were protected from further persecutions. But when Louis XIV.,
1685, revoked the edict and purposed to reconduct all his subjects by
force into the bosom of the Catholic Church, then began a series of the
most cruel persecutions against the Protestant inhabitants of the
districts bordering on the Cevennes, especially after the peace of
Ryswick, 1697. Missionaries were accompanied by dragoons in order to
support by force of arms the preachings of the monks, (hence these
conversions called _dragoonings_) and the tax collectors were directed
to require all, especially those, suspected of protestantism, to pay up
their taxes. The most savage cruelties, in which children were torn
from their parents, in order to bring them up in the Catholic faith,
men, who were gone to their houses of prayer, sent to the galleys, and
women thrown into prisons, their priests hanged, the churches
destroyed, at length produced despair. Those, who did not emigrate,
fled into the retired mountain districts.

Prophets and prophetesses arose, promising victory to the peasantry,
and esteeming him a martyr, who fell into the hands of the dragoons. A
remarkable fanaticism took possession of the Protestant people, which,
in many, even in children, shewed itself in the most fantastic trances
of a really epidemic nature. See Bruyes "Histoire du fanatisme de notre
temps" (Utrecht, 1757). The struggle began first with the murder of the
tax-gatherers; the assassination of the Abbe du Chaila, 1703, who was
at the head of those dragoonings, at length gave the signal for a
general rising. The revolted peasants were called "Camisards," either
from the provincial word Camise (shirt) in derision of their poverty,
or, because they wore a shirt in their surprises by which they might
recognise one another, or from the word "Camisade" (nightly surprise).
Their numbers and their fanaticism continued to increase, Louis's power
was rendered the less effective in putting an end to this insurrection,
as the chain of mountains presented sufficient places of refuge, and
his troops were every moment in danger of being cut off and surprised,
or of being destroyed by cold and hunger. The boldne