DETOUR: A FAITH SPECIFIC TO FRANCE

IN OVERWHELMINGLY CATHOLIC FRANCE, PERSECUTION BRINGS A PROTESTANTISM THAT IS INVIGORATED AND LASTING 

Mass conversions take place in spite of the prohibition when a pastor slips through the frontier. 

(In 1691)

"My God, I will go will go wherever you call me, I will console your afflicted children as long as you give me life, strength and freedom, or in prison, in the midst of your people or among your enemies, in life or in death."

-- Journal of pastor Jean-Gardien Jivry, 

cited in a family document by Antoine Jaulmes, 1999,
source of this account

Adapted from a Google map

Givry succeeds in escaping to England a few months after Protestantism is forbidden, and becomes a pastor in Plymouth. He returns to France to preach to Protestants "under the cross" (persecuted).  

His first results are disappointing: In Saint-Quentin, he preaches only twice, to 25-30 people each time, and does not give communion, the way of affirming one's faith. But delegates arrive from the countryside, inviting him to preach.

Preaching in the Desert by Max Leenhard / zoom © Le Musée du désert (The Protestant Museum)

"The desert:" Protestant term for the time when Protestantism was forbidden

Jibry's experience was often repeated.

So he preaches in a remote valley for four hours, at night, by firelight and torchlight. 

Members of 110 families from seven villages come, about 500 people: "All were papists by birth, whom God had called as by a miracle to knowledge of his truth." But since the delegates have heard of Givry's arrival and know where to find him, some must be Protestants forced to convert.

To let them think over their commitment, Givry says to make no decision until a second meeting, the following Sunday. Then he warns them again of the persecution to which conversion will lead. Yet "they said that nothing would ever lessen the love of truth that God had let them experience." He accepts their abjurations, but does not give communion: "I thought they should have more time to think over what I had said."  

Givry leaves, and goes elsewhere to preach. He is arrested and dies in prison.

What explains this mass conversion? The people are farmers,

who in the evenings and winters are often weavers as well.  

So they are artisans in part.

Do they dislike the former Protestants of Saint-Quentin, middlemen who do not respond to Givry's call?  

As well, imagine the effect of a sermon by a fervent and eloquent pastor, at night, lit by fires and torches, on people used to the monotony of rural life.  

The prohibition itself is counter-productive: Jivry says that many feel that such brutally-imposed Catholicism cannot come from God.  

Whatever the immediate reasons for conversion,
persecution reinforced or motivated their faith.

*      *      *

Next,
Detour:

Memories of persecution and wartime rescue of Jews