Source:
http://www.archive.org/details/rebellioninceve01tiecgoog
A predilection for the productions of Tieck and a desire tointroducethis remarkable work of the great German Poet to a larger circle of thereading world: were the chief inducements, on the part of thetranslator, for causing it to appear in an English form. As far asregards the manner in which the translation itself has been executed,the writer will be allowed to affirm, that the original has been, inevery sense, as closely adhered to, as the idiom of the Englishlanguage would admit of; to say, however, whether those efforts havebeen attended with any corresponding success, must be humbly left tothe judgment of the discerning critic.
As far back as the twelfth century, religions sects wereformed in thisdistrict (the Cevennes) under the names of "The Poor of Lyons," "TheAlbigenses," "Waldenses," &c. Notwithstanding the crusades andinquisitions raised against them by the popes for centuries, numerousremnants had preserved themselves, who, when the Reformation found afooting, obtained a signal increase, and finally, through the edict ofNantes, were protected from further persecutions. But when Louis XIV.,1685, revoked the edict and purposed to reconduct all his subjects byforce into the bosom of the Catholic Church, then began a series of themost cruel persecutions against the Protestant inhabitants of thedistricts bordering on the Cevennes, especially after the peace ofRyswick, 1697. Missionaries were accompanied by dragoons in order tosupport by force of arms the preachings of the monks, (hence theseconversions called dragoonings) and the tax collectors were directedto require all, especially those, suspected of protestantism, to pay uptheir taxes. The most savage cruelties, in which children were tornfrom their parents, in order to bring them up in the Catholic faith,men, who were gone to their houses of prayer, sent to the galleys, andwomen thrown into prisons, their priests hanged, the churchesdestroyed, at length produced despair. Those, who did not emigrate,fled into the retired mountain districts.
Prophets and prophetesses arose, promising victory to thepeasantry,and esteeming him a martyr, who fell into the hands of the dragoons. Aremarkable fanaticism took possession of the Protestant people, which,in many, even in children, shewed itself in the most fantastic trancesof a really epidemic nature. See Bruyes "Histoire du fanatisme de notretemps" (Utrecht, 1757). The struggle began first with the murder of thetax-gatherers; the assassination of the Abbé du Chaila, 1703, who wasat the head of those dragoonings, at length gave the signal for ageneral rising. The revolted peasants were called "Camisards," eitherfrom the provincial word Camise (shirt) in derision of their poverty,or, because they wore a shirt in their surprises by which they mightrecognise one another, or from the word "Camisade" (nightly