Cévennes Mountains (France); France -- Description and travel
The Edict of Nantes had been revoked; shoals of Huguenots had left
France, where the exercise of their religion was no longer tolerated;
the temples had been levelled with the dust, the pastors arrested,
imprisoned, and executed. Those who escaped to Geneva or Holland
exhorted such of their flock as remained to continue steadfast to
their convictions and to their prejudices. In the spring of 1668, near
Castres, a shepherdess, aged ten, had a vision of an angel, who forbade
her to attend Mass. The news spread everywhere, and crowds went to see
the girl and hear her narrative from her own lips. This was the first
manifestation, but it was not till twenty years had elapsed that such
became common. A preacher, Corbière, from the same district, by some
trickery caused two angels armed with sticks to enter the assembly
where he was haranguing and to well thrash and expel such as had
attended Mass. The intendant of the province sent his agents to take
him. Corbière was surprised whilst holding a meeting in a wood. He drew
a circle about him with a stick, and thundered, "Get thee behind me,
Satan!" The dragoons hesitated, but the commandant shot him through the
head.
Now appeared in Dauphiné la belle Isabeau, a shepherdess of about
seventeen, who went into trances and preached and prophesied when in
them. When she emerged from one of these ecstasies she remembered
nothing about what she had said and done when in it. Usually to
prophesy she lay on a bed, and this was the position almost always
adopted by the prophets and prophetesses who succeeded her.
She was arrested and imprisoned, but treated with the utmost kindness,
well fed, and visited daily by good charitable ladies. Under this
influence, and when well nourished, her fits became fewer, and finally
totally left her. Then she married a lusty young peasant, and ceased to
be of consequence in the movement.
Meanwhile a pastor, Jurieu, from the place of his exile, Rotterdam, had
proclaimed himself to be inspired. He had a medal struck with "Jurius
Propheta" on it, and largely circulated in the Cévennes. Moreover, he
printed his prophecies in 1686, and they passed from hand to hand. In
them he announced that the Papacy would fall in the year 1690, and that
the Reformation would be established throughout France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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