He Is A Catholic, A Protestant, Or A
Plymouth Brother, In The Same Indefeasible Sense That A Man Is Not A
Woman, Or A Woman Not A Man.
For he could not vary from his faith,
unless he could eradicate all memory of the past, and, in a strict and
not a conventional meaning, change his mind.
THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY
I was now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of black roofs upon the
hillside, in this wild valley, among chestnut gardens, and looked upon in
the clear air by many rocky peaks. The road along the Mimente is yet
new, nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise when the first
cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although it lay thus apart from the
current of men's business, this hamlet had already made a figure in the
history of France. Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the
five arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up clothes and corn and
arms against necessity, forged bayonets and sabres, and made themselves
gunpowder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the
same caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and wounded were
brought up to heal; and there they were visited by the two surgeons,
Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly nursed by women of the neighbourhood.
Of the five legions into which the Camisards were divided, it was the
oldest and the most obscure that had its magazines by Cassagnas. This
was the band of Spirit Seguier; men who had joined their voices with his
in the 68th Psalm as they marched down by night on the archpriest of the
Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven, was succeeded by Salomon Couderc,
whom Cavalier treats in his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole army
of the Camisards. He was a prophet; a great reader of the heart, who
admitted people to the sacrament or refused them, by 'intensively viewing
every man' between the eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures off by
rote. And this was surely happy; since in a surprise in August 1703, he
lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It is only strange that
they were not surprised more often and more effectually; for this legion
of Cassagnas was truly patriarchal in its theory of war, and camped
without sentries, leaving that duty to the angels of the God for whom
they fought. This is a token, not only of their faith, but of the
trackless country where they harboured. M. de Caladon, taking a stroll
one fine day, walked without warning into their midst, as he might have
walked into 'a flock of sheep in a plain,' and found some asleep and some
awake and psalm-singing. A traitor had need of no recommendation to
insinuate himself among their ranks, beyond 'his faculty of singing
psalms'; and even the prophet Salomon 'took him into a particular
friendship.' Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic troop
subsisted; and history can attribute few exploits to them but sacraments
and ecstasies.
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