True to Her Faith by Harriet Gabourel

I bought this book mainly because of the subtitle: A Story of France in the Time of the Huguenots. That was the subject of interest to me, as some of my ancestors in Jersey were forced to flee France during the persecution after the Edict of Nantes was repealed in 1685. The fact that the story was apparently told through the life of a child, and claimed to be suitable for reading to 7 year olds, was an added benefit; my grandson is almost seven.

The book is beautifully and vividly written, both as regards descriptions of the rural scenery and depictions of the convictions and tortured emotions of the main players, and contains a wealth of information about the sufferings of the Huguenots under the obsessive and paranoid King Louis XIV.

The French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century

This book by Pierre Goubert contains a wealth of otherwise hard-to-find facts about the often poverty-stricken and mostly unnoticed country folk in the diverse provinces and regions we now know as France. Everything warrants a chapter: food, clothing and housing; birth, marriage and death; farming and poaching practices; relationships between peasants, seigneurs, unwelcome soldiers, haughty priests and the revenue-hungry royal bailiffs; taxes and revolts.

Psaumes interdits by Marjolaine Chevallier

This is a very well-crafted story of an extended family of Huguenots caught up in the frenzied and irrational persecution under King Louis XIV after he repealed the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It is based on a true incident, in which smuggled documents from sympathisers in Holland are salvaged from a shipwreck near Rochefort on the west coast of France.

The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents by Arthur Conan Doyle

Two exciting stories in one book. Conan Doyle has diligently researched events and conditions both in Versailles and in French-Canadian North America, and developed two superbly written tales linked by the person of Amory De Catinat, a half-hearted young Huguenot serving as a personal guard of the King.

Two exciting stories in one book. Conan Doyle has diligently researched events and conditions both in Versailles and in French-Canadian North America, and developed two superbly written tales linked by the person of Amory De Catinat, a half-hearted young Huguenot serving as a personal guard of King Louis XIV.

The first story is a shockingly dramatic account of the callously immoral intrigues in the Court of Louis XIV, especially in relation to his rival lovers, the treacherous Mme de Montespan and her children’s governess, the devout Mme de Maintenon, who in a breakneck midnight wedding becomes his second wife. Although she was born in a Protestant family, to the sorrow of all save a few obsessive Catholic priests she fulfils her ill-considered promise to persuade the weak King to revoke the Edict of Nantes, thus triggering a renewed massive persecution of Huguenots throughout France.

In the second episode, De Catinat, his betrothed cousin Adele, and her father, together with two Americans, escape by dead of night and make their way across the Atlantic and up the St Lawrence River as far as Montreal. Here a new adventure commences, as they are forced to flee from another fanatic Churchman into the hostile forests.

Sadly, we only catch small and rather contemptible glimpses of the faith that inspires the Huguenots, and instead are plunged into a gory battle with Iroquois Indians, for whom the author shows not the slightest respect nor consideration.

The polished narrative and historic detail, including a couple of factual appendices, justify what would otherwise be a drawn-out adrenaline shot.

This is a very well-crafted story of an extended family of Huguenots caught up in the frenzied and irrational persecution under King Louis XIV after he revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It is based on a true incident, in which smuggled documents from sympathisers in Holland are salvaged from a shipwreck near Rochefort on the west coast of France.

The Pastors of the Religion Prétendue Réformée, or R.P.R., have been forced to emigrate to Le Refuge, i.e. Holland, Great Britain, the New World or wherever they are welcomed or tolerated. Those Huguenots who refused to comply with the royal demand to renounce their Protestant faith, like Lydie’s fiancé, have been sent as slaves to the galleys or executed; those who remained had to sign an abjuration of their faith and are known by the political and ecclesiastical hierarchy as ‘New Converts’.

The harsh living conditions, exacerbated by ruthless dragonnades, in addition to random taxes and fines, are described very graphically. We come to know and love elderly grandmother Anne, her children François, Madeleine, Élie, Lydie and Zacharie, and their families with all their fears and yearnings. The tension builds up when François’ 15-year old daughter is removed from her family and interned in a convent, to ensure she is brought up in the ‘true faith’, and several houses are ransacked in search of Bibles, Psalmodies or religious tracts. Élie experiences pangs of conscience when he is compelled to have his young son baptised in the Catholic Church and to decorate his house for the Corpus Christi procession, which he feels is an abomination.

Various contradictory missals from exiled Pastors provoke moral torment for those who long to remain faithful, and Élie’s arrest and incarceration in deplorable conditions highlights the misery of these persecuted believers.

I must admit it was a struggle to persevere through this dated French text, but the language is rich and eloquent. I was a bit disappointed that the story ended so abruptly, with too many unresolved issues.

Goubert provides invaluable background information for the novel I’m writing about a family of Huguenot refugees who flee to Jersey after Louis XIV’s Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. But I have some grievances, which prevent me giving it a higher rating:

• Many of the references to places, people and other books will only be familiar to indigenous students of French history
• The translation is not very fluent and includes archaic technical terms
• The prose includes considerable repetition and rather rambling descriptions
• Hardly any mention is made of the large minority of Huguenots and the persecution they suffered, e.g. through the infamous dragonnades.

The subtitle of this book – A Story of France in the Time of the Huguenots – caught my attention, as some of my ancestors in Jersey were forced to flee France during the persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

The book is beautifully and vividly written, both as regards descriptions of the rural scenery and depictions of the convictions and tortured emotions of the main players.

It contains a wealth of information about the sufferings of the Huguenots under the obsessive, paranoid King Louis XIV.

Multiple tragedies

Two major stories – the lives of Suzanne de l’Orme and Jean Ferrand and their families – are linked through the person of the faithful Pastor Louis Morin, with the fates of several minor characters woven between them.

We are shocked by the indiscriminate, brutal persecution of innocent people – confiscation of property, destruction of Protestant Churches, banning of private worship meetings, prohibition of practising one’s profession, abduction of children to be reeducated in convents; their only offence being refusal to renounce their faith and confess allegiance to the ruling Roman Catholic Church. At the same time, we see some sincere Catholics ignoring the royal policy and assisting the miserable victims. The conflict is not in essence a question of faith, but of conformity or otherwise to national religious practices. And the consequence for hundreds of thousands is that they have no option but to flee at dead of night by perilous routes – across stormy seas in small sailing vessels or via long treks through hostile mountains – to seek asylum in neighbouring countries: England, the Netherlands, Switzerland. For the nation, the result is a collapse of the social and economic structures.

History repeats itself

The parallel today, of religious bigotry in the Middle East and parts of Africa, causing untold suffering, massive destruction and the resulting complications of hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees risking their lives to cross over to the imagined paradise of Western Europe, cannot be overlooked.

Archaic language

Sadly, however, this book’s Dickensian language makes it entirely unsuitable for young audiences or readers; even many 21st century adults would probably soon give up.