Cévennes Mountains (France); France -- Description and travel
On their side the insurgents did not spare even the Protestant nobles
who hesitated about joining in the insurrection. In December, 1702,
the Camisards burnt the church of S. Jean de Ceyrargues, and taking
the curé they bound him hand and foot, and putting knives into the
children's hands, bade them stab him to death, encouraging them with
the words, "Dip your hands in the blood of the ungodly."
In January, 1703, Cavalier burnt the church and thirteen houses in S.
Jean de Marvejols, that belonged to Catholics, and massacred twenty of
these latter, among them four women and a child of two years old.
In February, 1703, at Robiac, the insurgents murdered seven persons,
among these a woman whom they dismembered alive because she refused to
abjure her religion.
On the 17th of the same month, in the same year, the band under Joany
entered Chamborigaud and committed atrocious acts. They tied three
children up in sacks and threw them into a furnace. A mother flying
with her five children was caught; her eldest son was stabbed with a
bayonet and his tongue torn out, the youngest had his eyes scooped
out, the third was dismembered; the mouth of the fourth was filled
with burning coals, and the fifth was brained with clubs. The mother
was then stabbed to death. The six victims were then put on a bed,
along with other inhabitants of the place, in one heap, and the whole
consumed by fire. Twenty-four victims perished. When Joany left, the
Catholics retaliated by destroying the houses of the Protestants, so
that only two houses remained standing, those of the Catholics having
been burnt by Joany. The two last were burnt by the fanatics on August
27th, 1703, and three more Catholics killed. Next year seven houses
that had been rebuilt or repaired were again set on fire and three
Catholic families slaughtered.
At S. Génies de Malgoire, Cavalier took the place in April, 1704, and
cut the whole garrison to pieces. He set fire to the church and the
houses of the Catholics, and burnt in them seven of the inhabitants and
the curé and vicaire.
At Ambais Sommière, on September 27th, 1703, the band of Cavalier
roasted a girl of three years old over a slow fire.
The war was degenerating into fiendish reprisals on one side as well
as the other. But the sad feature in this was that the victims in most
cases were not those who had been actively engaged in hostilities, but
inoffensive peasants.
Thirty-one parishes in the Cévennes, by order of the governor, were
destroyed, every house was required to be burnt, and three days only
were accorded to the inhabitants to retire with their cattle and their
substance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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