We Flew As If With Wings

There is an eloquent statement about how the Camisards loved the psalms and how they inspired and refreshed their souls under the most severe persecutions. I have read it before in Robert Louis Stevenson's travelogue of the Cévennes, and two historical guides to the Psalter. But none of those writings cited the actual source of this quote, although they gave me clues to follow. Those interested in the Camisards or the psalms may find the path of my research to be of interest.

John Ker (1819-1886), The Psalms in History and Biography (1886, 2006 ed.), p. 96:

An old Camisard, as the hunted Protestants of the Cevennes were called, says, 'We flew when we heard the sound of the psalms, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been felt to be known. However weary we might be, we thought no more of our fatigue, and grew light as soon as the psalms reached our ear.'

Rowland Prothero (1851-1937), The Psalms in Human Life (1903, 2008 ed.), pp. 165-166:

Upon [the] excited minds [of the Camisards] the Psalms exercised an almost supernatural power. "As soon," says Durand Fage, "as we began to sing the chant of the Divine Canticles, we felt within us a consuming fire, an ecstatic desire which no words can express. However great our fatigue, we thought of it no more. The moment the chant of the Psalms struck our ears, we grew light as air."

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879, 1897 ed.), p. 181:

'We flew,' says one old Camisard,' when we heard the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been experienced to be understood. However weary we might be, we thought no more of our weariness and grew light, so soon as the psalms fell upon our ears.'

The Wikisource annotated edition of this work attributes the quote to "Les Pasteurs du Désert. N. Peyrat."

Napoléon Peyrat (1809-1881), Histoire des pasteurs du Désert: depuis la révocation de l'édit de Nantes jusqu'à la Révolution française, 1685 - 1789 (1842), Vol. 1, p. 271:

Nous volions, continue Durand Fage, nous volions, quand nous entendions le chant de ces divins cantiques; nous sentions audedans de nous une ardeur qui nous animait, un désir qui nous transportait : cela ne se peut exprimer. Quelque grande que fût quelquefois notre lassitude, nous n'y pensions plus, dès que le chant des psaumes frappait nos oreilles: nous devenions légers. C'est une de ces choses qu'il fautavoir éprouvées, pour les connaître.

A brief footnote by Peyrat lead me to François Maximilien Misson (c. 1650-1722), Le Théâtre sacré des Cévennes (1707), which was translated almost immediately into English by John Lacy (1664-?), an enthusiast who was also a wealthy member of the congregation pastored by Dr. Edmund Calamy the Historian, as A Cry from the Desert; or, Testimonials of the Miraculous Things Lately Come to Pass in the Cevennes, Verified Upon Oath, and By Other Proofs (1707). I found an 1847 French edition entitled Les prophètes protestants. Réimpression de l'ouvrage intitulé Le théatre sacré des Cévennes; ou, Récit des diverses merveilles nouvellement opérées dans cette partie de la province du Languedoc. Avec une préf. et des notes de A. Bost. The deposition of M. Durand Fage, given in London in January 1707, begins on p. 109. The particular quote in question is found on p. 113:

A cinq cents pas plus loin, la mélodie des psaumes nous attira. Nous volions quand nous entendions le chant de ces divins cantiques. Nous sentions au dedans de nous une ardeur qui nous animait, un désir qui uous trans-portait: cela ne se peut exprimer. Quelque grande que fût quelquefois notre lassitude, nous n'y pensions plus, dés le moment que le chant des psaumes frappait nos oreilles: nous devenions légers. C'est une de ces choses merveilleuses qu'il faut avoir éprouvées pour les connaître.

Of Durand Fage, a Camisard known to have been fighting Dragoons in 1702, submitted to French authorities in 1705, was escorted to the German frontier, traveled to Geneva and Holland before arriving in London in 1706, we know little. He was born in 1681 at Aubais, in Languedoc, but the date of his death, presumably in the mid-18th century, is unknown. His deposition is a vivid first-hand account of life among the Camisards, and we are thankful to have his testimony. Although he may have been an enthusiast, the quote that led me down this path bears witness to his piety and eloquence as well.

The Country of the Camisards

The Cévennes of France are to the Camisards as the Highlands of Scotland are to the Covenanters -- final resting place for martyrs, whose remembrance flowers, like those poppies of Flanders Fields, grow and flourish on blood-soaked "rocky heather-filled hillsides."

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote one of first modern travelogues in 1879, titled Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes. In that pioneering work, he toured the land where almost two centuries before French Camisards died for the cause of Christ under the persecution of dragoons sent by the 'Sun King,' Louis XIV, of 'The Man in the Iron Mask' fame.

Under the pen-name of W. P. Bannatyne, Stevenson wrote a poetic tribute to those heroic Camisards with whom he felt, like the Covenanters, a kinship, which he included in this book. 'How deep the corn,' indeed.

The Country Of The Camisards

We travelled in the print of olden wars;
Yet all the land was green;
And love we found, and peace,
Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword—
No more the sword they wield;
And O, how deep the corn
Along the battlefield!

--W. P. Bannatyne

Puritan Passwords

In our modern age, we utilize passwords all the time for our logging in to our email accounts, banking, and every other business or method of communication that utilizes some basic level of access security. Passwords, of course, are not unique to our age though.

Early Christians (not in the Gnostic fashion of a secret society but for safety and security) used passwords and watchwords when assembling together, as did hunted Scottish Covenanters, French Huguenots and Camisards, and others. Lollards, for example, said upon meeting "May we all drinke of a cuppe" and upon departing "God kepe you and God blesse you" (Shannon McSheffrey and Norman Tanner, eds. and trans., Lollards of Coventry, 1486-1522, p. 36); Guido de Brès and others who attended the first synod gathering of the Reformed Churches in the Lowlands said the password "the vineyard" to gain entrance to the meeting (Jim West, Drinking With Calvin and Luther, p. 57).

Here are a few words from Puritan church history and theology (for those interested in such subjects) that make for great passwords for the more benign use of accessing one's accounts. Don't tell us your passwords, but if you have ideas to share in this vein, please pass them along!

Calvin's pseudonyms -- The many pseudonyms of John Calvin make for useful account passwords.

Calvinus -- The beer of modern Calvinists.

Calviniana -- The legacy of John Calvin.

Septemvir or Septemvirs -- A group of seven men; a term applied to the seven Independent dissenting brethren at the Westminster Assembly (including the five apologists who wrote An Apologeticall Narration -- Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, William Bridge, Sidrach Simpson and Jeremiah Burroughs -- and two others, William Greenhill and William Carter).

Amanuensis -- A secretary or assistant, such as Tertius who served the Apostle Paul (Rom. 16.22), or John Wallis, who served as amanuensis to the scribes at the Westminster Assembly.

Smectymnuus -- The nom de plume of a group of Presbyterian Puritans who engaged in a pamphlet war with Joseph Hall over issues of church polity and liturgy. The name is an acronym derived from the initials of the five authors: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy the Elder, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstowe (the "W" represented as "uu"). The group was supported by John Milton as well.

Theodidactic -- The doctrine that all of God's Word teaches us (2 Tim. 3.16), though not all laws (note: judicial) are binding upon Christians.

Periwig -- The word from which 'wig' is derived, a headcovering employed by some Puritans and condemned by others.

Register

(Prisonnières huguenotes à la Tour de Constance by Jeanne Lombard)

In 1970, French novelist André Chamson, whose ancestors were Camisards and whose wife was a descendant of one of the imprisoned Camisard women at the Tour de Constance, wrote that the story of Le Tour de Constance (one of two novels he wrote on the subject) showed the power of "the constancy of a woman's heart and the firmness of a human soul."

The Camisards were those post-1685 (following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes) French Huguenots from the Cévennes region of France who fought (in the War of the Camisards, 1702-1715) a policy instituted by King Louis XIV of France known as dragonnades in which against royalists troops known as dragoons who engaged in billeting and forced conversions to Roman Catholicism. King Louis XIV, who identified himself with the Greek mythological god of the sun, Apollo, was likewise known as the Sun-King for the magnificence of his reign (he built the Palais de Versailles and was a patron of the arts) and used his sun as his royal emblem. He is the king portrayed as the good twin in The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas (the last chapter of which is entitled The Man in the Iron Mask) and subsequent films based on that story. Despite the myth, this king was responsible for the depopulation (by persecution resulting in death and emigration) of France by an estimated 1 to 2 million Huguenots, who were often well educated merchants, artisans, craftsmen and other professionals, whose loss to French society was incalculable and whose effects are still felt today. The Huguenot diaspora was France's loss and the world's gain.

(The Clandestine Baptism by Jeanne Lombard)

Those Huguenots who remained in the mountainous Cévennes (it was both the land and the people which inspired the pioneering travelogue by Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes) were the Camisards who, like Scottish Covenanters during the Killing Times, fought against overwhelming forces and impossible odds. They worshiped in field conventicles and caves, and were hunted like animals; many were caught and killed or imprisoned for life. But their endurance is both a testimony and a byword for faith in the midst of unimaginable circumstances.

The story of one such Camisard, a woman named Marie Durand, is legendary. In 1730, at the age of 15 (18, according to some accounts), she was imprisoned at the Tour de Constance (Tower of Constance), a Bastille-like prison Aigues-Mortes, where female Camisards were kept and where, it is said, "[i]n no other prison has 'so much innocence and purity been kept in irons'" (Martin Garrett, Provence: A Cultural History). Her brother Pierre was a pastor of the Church in the Desert, as the French Reformed Church was known after the Revocation, and so her family bore the brunt of persecution, as royal authorities applied pressure on him. Her father and fiance were imprisoned as well. Her father was released in 1743; her fiance was released and banished from France in 1750. Marie, however, was not released until 1768. During her 38-year imprisonment she is said to have written the word Register -- a dialectal version of Resister ("resist") -- on the stone wall in her cell. She refused every offer to capitulate and renounce her faith and suffered her lengthy sentence as a result of stubbornness both on her part and that of her captors.

("Resist" inscribed on her prison cell by Marie Durand)

When she re-entered society and returned to her old house, the world had changed, and the persecution against French Protestants was winding down (Francois Rochette was the last French Camisard pastor of the Church of the Desert to be executed. He was martyred for the faith on February 20, 1762. His last words on the scaffold before his execution were, "La voici l'heureuse journee, etc." (Ps. 118.24)." cf., Rowland Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life, p. 228.) She lived only a few more years outside of the prison that she called her home for Christ. Marie Durand entered her final rest in 1776.