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The Huguenots in France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes
The Huguenots in France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes Author:Samuel Smiles Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. CLAUDE BROUSSON, THE HUGUENOT ADVOCATE. TO give an account in detail of the varieties of cruelty inflicted on the Huguenots, and of the agonie... more »s to which they were subjected for many years before and after the passing of the Act of Revocation, would occupy too much space, besides being tedious through the mere repetition of like horrors. But in order to condense such an account, we think it will be more interesting if we endeavour to give a brief history of the state of France at that time, in connection with the biography of one of the most celebrated Huguenots of his period, both in his life, his piety, his trials, and his endurance —that of Claude Brousson, the advocate, the pastor, and the martyr of Languedoc. Claude Brousson was born at Nismes in 1647. He was designed by his parents for the profession of the law, and prosecuted his studies at the college of his native town, where he graduated as Doctor of Laws. He commenced his professional career about the time when Louis XIV. began to issue his oppressive edicts against the Huguenots. Protestant advocates were not yetforbidden to practise, but they already laboured under many disabilities. He continued, however, for some time to exercise his profession, with much ability, atCastres, Castelnaudry, and Toulouse. He was frequently employed in defending Protestant pastors, and in contesting the measures for suppressing their congregations and levelling their churches under existing edicts, some time before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had heen finally resolved upon. Thus, in 1682, he was engaged in disputing the process instituted against the ministers and elders of the church at Jnsmes, with the view of obtaining an order for the demolition of the remaining Protestant temple of that city. Th...« less