Brousson determined to enter France from the north, and to visit districts that were entirely new to him. For this purpose he put himself in charge of a guide. At that time, while the Protestants were flying from France, as they continued to do for many years, there were numerous persons who acted as guides for those not only flying from, but entering the country. Those who guided Protestant pastors on their concealed visits to France, were men of great zeal and courage--known to be faithful and self-denying--and thoroughly acquainted with the country. They knew all the woods, and fords, and caves, and places of natural shelter along the route. They made the itinerary of the mountains and precipices, of the byways and deserts, their study. They also knew of the dwellings of the faithful in the towns and villages where Huguenots might find relief and shelter for the night. They studied the disguises to be assumed, and were prepared with a stock of phrases and answers adapted for every class of inquiries. The guide employed by Brousson was one James Bruman--an old Huguenot merchant, banished at the Revocation, and now employed in escorting Huguenot preachers back to France, and escorting flying Huguenot men, women, and children from it.[28] The pastor and his guide started about the end of August, 1695. They proceeded by way of Liége; and travelling south, they crossed the forest of Ardennes, and entered France near Sedan. [Footnote 28: Many of these extraordinary escapes are given in the author's "Huguenots: their Settlements, Churches, and Industries, in England and Ireland."] Sedan, recently the scene of one of the greatest calamities that has ever befallen France, was, about two centuries ago, a very prosperous place. It was the seat of a great amount of Protestant learning and Protestant industry. One of the four principal Huguenot academies of France was situated in that town. It was suppressed in 1681, shortly before the Revocation, and its professors, Bayle, Abbadie, Basnage, Brazy, and Jurieu, expelled the country. The academy buildings themselves had been given over to the Jesuits--the sworn enemies of the Huguenots. At the same time, Sedan had been the seat of great woollen manufactures, originally founded by Flemish Protestant families, and for the manufacture of arms, implements of husbandry, and all kinds of steel and iron articles.[29] At the Revocation, the Protestants packed up their tools and property, suddenly escaped across the frontier, near which they were, and went and established themselves in the Low Countries, where they might pursue their industries in safety. Sedan was ruined, and remained so until our own day, when it has begun to experience a little prosperity from the tourists desirous of seeing the place where the great French Army surrendered.