6.8. DETOUR: A FAITH SPECIFIC TO FRANCE

IN OVERWHELMINGLY CATHOLIC FRANCE, PERSECUTION BRINGS A PROTESTANTISM THAT IS DISTINCT

Source of this account: The journal of pastor Givry, cited in a document by Antoine Jaulmes, descendent of "Trocmé," proprietor of the valley where the assemblies were held. Jaulmes wrote the account for a reunion of descendants of one of 110 families the pastor mentions, who met three centuries later (in 1991) to commemorate the start of their Protestant faith. 

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."

Givry had succeeded in escaping to England a few months after Protestantism was forbidden, and had become a pastor in Plymouth. He returned to France to preach to Protestants "under the cross" (the Protestant term for persecuted). "Slipping into" the kingdom was not easy: was he a spy? He waited for three weeks in Rotterdam, until letters arrived affirming his identity.  

                      Adapted from a Google map

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

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

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

Givry's experience was often repeated.

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

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

He went elsewhere to preach. He was arrested and died in prison.  

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What explains this mass conversion? The people were farmers,

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

Did they dislike the former Protestants of Saint-Quentin, middlemen who do did 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 was counter-productive: Givry wrote that many felt that such brutally-imposed Catholicism could not come from God.  

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

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Next,
6.9. 

Detour:

Memories of persecution and wartime rescues