Arrival of the Austrians at Nismes

About this time, a treaty between the French court and the allied sovereigns, prohibited the advance of the foreign troops beyond the line of territory already occupied, and traced by the course of the Loire, and by the Rhone, below the Ardeche. In violation of this treaty, 4000 Austrians entered Nismes on the 24th of August; under pretence of making room for them, French troops, bearing the feudal title of Royal Chasseurs, followed by the murdering bands of the Trestaillons and Quatretaillons, who continued their march to Alais, where a fair was to be held, and carried disorder and alarm into all the communes on that route. Nothing now was heard but denunciations of fusillading, burning, razing, and annihilating; and while the catholics were feasting and murdering at Nismes, the flames of the country houses of the protestants, rising one hundred feet in the air, rendered the spectacle still more awful and alarming. Unfortunately, some of the peasants, falsely charged with the murder of two protestants, were brought to Nismes while the prefect was celebrating the fete of St. Louis. At a splendid dinner given to the Austrian commanders, and even without quitting the table, it appears, that the French prefect placed the fate and fortune of these unfortunate prisoners at the disposal of Count Stahremberg, who, of course, believing the representations made to him ordered the accused to be immediately shot. To mortify and exhaust the protestant communes, the Austrians were directed to occupy them, where they completely disarmed the inhabitants without the least opposition. In fact, these foreigners were soon undeceived. They expected to meet the most perfidious and brutal enemies in arms, and in open rebellion against their king; but, on the contrary, they found them all in peace, and experienced the most kind and respectful treatment; and though their duty was a most vexatious and oppressive one, they performed it in general with moderation. On this account they could not refrain from expressing their astonishment at the reports made to them by the authorities at Nismes, declaring, "They had found a population suffering great misfortunes, but no rebels; and that compassion was the only feeling that prevailed in their minds." The commander himself was so convinced of the good disposition of the people of the Cevennes, that he visited those districts without an escort, desiring, he said, to travel in that country as he would in his own. Such confidence was a public reproach on the authorities at Nismes, and a sentence of condemnation on all their proceedings.

As the persecution of the protestants was spreading into other departments, strong and forcible representations were secretly printed and made to the king. All the ordinary modes of communication had been stopped; the secrecy of letters violated, and none circulated but those relative to private affairs. Sometimes these letters bore the postmark of places very distant, and arrived without signatures, and enveloped in allegorical allusions. In fact, a powerful resistance on the part of the outraged protestants was at length apprehended, which, in the beginning of September excited the proclamation of the king, on which it was observed, "that if his majesty had been correctly and fully informed of all that had taken place, he surely would not have contented himself with announcing his severe displeasure to a misled people, who took justice into their own hands, and avenged the crimes committed against royalty." The proclamation was dictated as though there had not been a protestant in the department; it assumed and affirmed throughout the guilt of the sufferers; and while it deplored the atrocious outrages endured by the followers of the duke d'Angouleme, (outrages which never existed,) the plunder and massacre of the reformed were not even noticed.

Still disorders kept pace with the proclamations that made a show of suppressing them, and the force of the catholic faction also continued to increase. The catholic populace, notwithstanding the decrees of the magistrates, were allowed to retain the arms they had illegally seized, whilst the protestants in the departments were disarmed. The members of the reformed churches wished at this period to present another memorial to the government, descriptive of the evils they still suffered, but this was not practicable. On the 26th of September, the president of the consistory wrote as follows: "I have only been able to assemble two or three members of the consistory pastors or elders. It is impossible to draw up a memoir, or to collect facts; so great is the terror, that every one is afraid to speak of his own sufferings, or to mention those he has been compelled to witness."