ary. These
were in the first place received from Huguenots settled in
Switzerland, afterwards increased by subscriptions obtained from
refugees settled in Holland, Germany, and England. The King of England
subscribed five hundred guineas yearly. Duplan was an indefatigable
agent. In fourteen years he collected fourteen thousand pounds. By
these efforts the number of students was gradually increased. They
came from all parts of France, but chiefly from Languedoc. Between
1726 (the year in which it was started) and 1753, ninety students had
passed through the seminary.

When the students had passed the range of study appointed by the
professors, they returned from Switzerland to France to enter upon the
work of their lives. They had passed the school for martyrdom, and
were ready to preach to the assemblies--they had paved their way to
the scaffold!

The preachers always went abroad with their lives in their hands. They
travelled mostly by night, shunning the open highways, and selecting
abandoned routes, often sheep-paths across the hills, to reach the
scene of their next meeting. The trace of their steps is still marked
upon the soil of the Cevennes, the people of the country still
speaking of the solitary routes taken by their instructors when
passing from parish to parish, to preach to their fathers.

They were dressed, for disguise, in various ways; sometimes as
peasants, as workmen, or as shepherds. On one occasion, Court and
Duplan travelled the country disguised as officers! The police heard
of it, and ordered their immediate arrest, pointing out the town and
the very house where they were to be taken. But the preachers escaped,
and assumed a new dress.

When living near Nismes, Court was one day seated under a tree
composing a sermon, when a party of soldiers, hearing that he was in
the neighbourhood, came within sight. Court climbed up into the tree,
where he remained concealed among the branches, and thus contrived to
escape their search.

On another occasion, he was staying with a friend, in whose house he
had slept during the previous night. A detachment of troops suddenly
surrounded the house, and the officer knocked loudly at the door.
Court made his friend go at once to bed pretending to be ill, while he
himself cowered down in the narrow space between the bed and the wall.
His wife slowly answered the door, which the soldiers were threatening
to blow open. They entered, rummaged the house, opened a