I’ve been told that a certain set of ancestors would provide quite a story. The wealth of new material I’ve unearthed, most within just the past three weeks, in spite of complete lack of acquaintance with French, only heightens that feeling. In my eagerness to share this inspiring account—or that portion which I’ve been able to painstakingly assemble—I nonetheless make no literary pretensions, and I know this is compiled disastrously. (The sources named at the end are only those readily at hand.) I will, however, claim the literary license to rove freely among some extended relations and simply expect the reader to keep up. All linkage is provided for the reward of the patient.
The primary Protestant protagonist remains enigmatic. Charles LaPierre, the son of Jean Pierre and Philis Remesie, received baptism March 17 or 19, 1655 in LaSalle, Gard (region of Languedoc), France. (Click here for a view of the pleasant hamlet, and here to see a bridge he would have used.) If I’m not mistaken in my interpretation, the register indicates that he was born on the 20th of February. His name often fluctuated (even on the same record) in earlier years between Payre, Peyre, Pieyre, Pierre, and eventually LaPierre. By the late 1670s, he quite consistently signed his name to that effect, with a lovely, literate flourish.
He owned additional property at St. Hippolyte, presumably the Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort approximately four miles south. (One obscure reference, during the troubled times in which we shall soon be immersed, mentions the danger from soldiers at a fort in the latter place, while reciting LaPierre’s cordial hospitality to fellow fugitives.) A cursory inspection of that town’s early baptisms only verifies the insular nature of the times, adducing no compelling reason to believe there was a branch of Pierres there—I did, however, spot a Remesie.
Charles LaPierre married Jeanne Roque on January 20, 1680 in LaSalle, according to the rites of the Reformed church (which is to say, Protestant). This shoemaker and his bride welcomed their first child (and my direct ancestor), Jean, into this world on February 6, 1681. (Contrary to the proliferation of erroneous statements that it was on the 2nd.) The little boy was presented by "Jean Lapierre, grandfather," and "Marguerite Guionne," his maternal grandmother. Another little boy, Charles, joined the family in late 1682. From all indications, the latter did not survive into adulthood.
LaPierre’s political antipathies can be traced back to a petition from the city of Le Vigan (roughly 8.5 miles west in a southerly bearing line from LaSalle) to the Marquis of Montanegre. Signed on July 24, 1684, regrettably only by surname, no fewer than three LaPierres affixed their signature. This protested the practice of "dragonnading," or dispersing the king’s troops—dragoons—throughout the countryside of suspect Huguenot regions, which generally made life miserable, oftentimes in appalling fashion. In this case, the citizens cited the difficulty of paying for the subsistence of these troops, running above 100,000 livres since October. One co-signer, the schoolmaster [Francois] Vivens (or Vivent) would become very (in)famous indeed, and a close companion to LaPierre. Keep in mind that this was not a safe activity! One 72-year-old pastor, Isaac Homel, the first in an ever-growing number, was broken on the wheel for not showing contrition after voicing such disapproval. Years later, his daughter recalled how he continued to sing and preach as this was carried out.
At this point, I introduce the brilliantly tragic figure, at this time already actively at work, who within a few years became another companion to LaPierre’s future sufferings: Claude Brousson.
This lawyer, ultimately excluded from his practice by steadily tightening strictures on Protestants, orated so skillfully that he maintained his place in a hostile Catholic environment long after others had been debarred. When the worsening climate forced a choice, he utilized his talents on behalf of the Protestant/Huguenot cause. He later became a most prolific writer and revered preacher, sending his message all the way to the king.
Judgment Day struck on October 18, 1685, with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The new decree’s harsh terms forbade all levels of society from practicing the Protestant religion "in any place or private house, under any pretext whatever," encouraged baptism and Catholic training of children, and placed all Huguenots under the predicament of illegality of immigration. The king surely felt that the desired outcome of conversion was the only option remaining. Only ministers had leave to depart the kingdom, and that within two weeks.
An unexpected lack of compliance evoked harsh measures against the most recalcitrant regions, foremost among which was Languedoc, amid the Cevennes mountains. I do not know what the date of "general submission" of the town of LaSalle was, but thereafter three names, which will prove of interest in this study, appear on the official list of "fugitives" who had left behind property upon the calamitous announcement, also amounting to some of the highest figures: Pierre Durand, Jean Roque, and Jean La Pierre shoemaker. Guillaume Guion, another wealthy fugitive, is probably related, but this remains unconfirmed. (That Charles’ father, brother, and son all bear the name Jean leads to considerable confusion; some scholars entertained passingly the possibility of two preachers, Jean and Charles. This Jean was in all likelihood one of the signers of the Le Vigan document. This is simplified considerably if we realize that the youngest Jean was far too young, and the brother Jean is accounted for by an entry in 1654: "died, Jean son of Jean la pierre, shoemaker." Given the peculiarities of naming patterns, it’s not altogether impossible that Charles’ full name was Jean Charles LaPierre.) Durand, "regent and sexton to LaSalle," had owned "the most beautiful" property, and this was converted into barracks. When Sainte-Croix de Caderle was assaulted, Martha, the widow of Antoine Roques (uncle to Charles’ wife), also went into the countryside. She was 74 years old at the time, and would spend many years there with her daughter, Marguerite.
Secret meetings continued, scarcely abated, on an organized basis called "The Desert." At one night-time gathering, in January 1686, there were nearly 400 people from LaSalle and surrounding locales assembled for sermon and sacrament. A lamp hung from a nearby apple tree. Pierre Durand opened and closed the meeting with prayers, and here we see the fiery, young Vivent deliver a sermon, warning those who partook that they must not thereafter take Mass. (Residents often had to endure the indignity of accepting Catholic communion wafers offered at the point of dragoons’ bayonets, even before the Revocation.) Jean Roques, son of the aforementioned Antoine, and cousin to Charles’ wife, was a predicant, or lay preacher, on this occasion acting as one of two guides and bodyguards for Vivent. When Vivent asked him to help administer the sacrament, Roques first laid his gun down on the table. In conformity with such proceedings, Roques publicly declared before Vivent that he would "live and die a Protestant." None who had gone back on their religion were permitted to take at this time, though one cried for the privilege.
Soon, Jean’s brother, Henri, a carder (one who works with wool), was among four people arrested in the vicinity of their hometown of Caderle. Some sources mistake him for a son of Jean Roque and Marguerite Guion, hence brother to Charles’ wife, Jeanne. One of them does just credit in attributing to that family having "suffered so greatly for their faith." His age does not preclude this finding, though I have yet to locate him in that family unit. The remainder of the accounts securely place him as a cousin. Regardless, he is closely related.) Because he had attended an illegal assembly on February 26, 1686, he was condemned to the galleys for three years. He died in a hospital by late December, but did so "persevering." No Catholic last rites for a Roque! Sadly, one source which offers physical descriptions has all the fields garbled. Inasmuch as "Huguenot convicts represented less than 5 percent of the total number . . . [and] the monarchy had plenty of convicts to man its galley ships . . . galley sentences for religion’s sake were . . . ‘selective repression,’" intended for "particularly harsh and uncommon punishment." The same date that sentence was passed on Henri, April 3, 1686, it was ordered that the home of his brother, Jean Roques, whom they did not have in custody, should be razed. It appears that this Jean had accompanied Vivent again to a March 10 meeting in a valley between Peyrolles and Valmy.
Our reference point returns to Charles’ wife, Jeanne Roque. As resistance in Languedoc persisted into late 1686, there was a call for 300 of the most obstinate to be deported to the Caribbean islands. (Yes, the conditions were punishment in those days.) Preparations were made for intake at Aigues-Mortes. During that year, 58-year-old merchant Jean Roque, this one Jeanne’s father, of Frechaussel at LaSalle, was committed to the Tower of Constance in Aigues-Mortes. Common prisoners were placed in worse conditions toward the bottom. He died soon afterward.
In his history of that accursed tower, Bost refers to two sisters whose "fate was especially moving." One, Louise Guion, was the wife of the Pierre Durand whom I’ve already discussed. He had attempted to leave the kingdom with his wife and two daughters. They were arrested at Dijon, and on March 10, 1687, he was first condemned to the galleys. On account of his being too old to row, he was simply deported to the French colonies, where he died in 1690. Mrs. Durand spent time at the Tower of Constance and was then moved to the Queen’s Tower at Montpellier, where she was placed in solitary confinement. During a violent fever, she relented, saying she would do anything to get out. Similarly, her daughters followed her lead in recanting before a priest.
The other sister, Marguerite Guion, was widow of the elder Jean Roque. She was confined in the Tower of Constance with children Jacques, Jean, Jeanne (noted to be wife of Charles LaPierre, who had become a preacher), Isabeau, and Marthe. 15-year-old Jacques perished. Jean, however, succumbed to the trials and renounced his religion. He would be the only survivor in an "annihilated" family, fleeing to Switzerland the next year with the remaining Durands. A source which pleasingly praises the martyrs’ crowns earned by Jean the father and Jacques, and so forth, states the younger Jean’s first place of refuge as Brandenburg, a reasonable destination on account of the Edict of Potsdam, but this source is not entirely accurate in every particular, as it claims Jean refused abjuration. A more reliable record places some of them in Magdeburg. On November 8, 1691, Jeanne Durand, daughter "of the late Pierre Durand, bourgeois de La Salle, and Louise Guion," married Pastor Charles Flavard of Anduze, son of "Etienne Flavard, bourgeois d’Anduze, and the late Marguerite Vallette." One distraught mother brought up that she’d been under the impression he was going to marry her daughter.
Since Marguerite Guion Roque and her three daughters remained firm in their contrary opinion, they were marked for deportation. This was reserved expressly for "the more obstinate," those who were "potential leaders" and "hopelessly impervious to conversion." Fewer than 430 Huguenots were transported in this manner in the years 1687 and 1688. There is a surprising amount of detail available about the final voyage of the Notre-Dame de Bonne Esperance. The prisoners were put aboard, separated into men’s and women’s cabins, on March 8, 1687, but did not disembark from Marseilles for Martinique until the 12th. Cramped conditions were so bad that during storms, those who couldn’t move would be covered with water, and there were other indescribable inconveniences. 17-year-old Marthe died from an illness that was devastating the ship at this time. "Horrific" living conditions on transport ships caused an average death rate of 25 percent. Still, victims of the African slave trade could complain of worse.
The ship struck a rock and foundered during the night between May 18 and 19, 1687. No one could find the key to the women’s quarters and it took too long to break the door down with axes. Water had been pouring in from all sides. Seeing this, the women had prepared to die by singing psalms, praying, embracing each other, and commending themselves to God. Very few left this watery tomb. The eyewitness, Etienne Serres, who heard a description of the widow of Roque of La Salle’s final moments, only named four women who were saved from the shipwreck. In recounting these events, he said those who drowned were all women who made the trip voluntarily and could never be forced against their conscience, even unto death. While Serres was floating on a plank awaiting rescue, the ship’s most Catholically eminent chaplain called out for his conversion, considering that they were both so near death. He replied, "Can you really think I want to forget God in the time that I must prepare myself to go to him? How can you believe I want to make a faux pas when I’m going to finish my course?" etc. The chaplain begged him to say no more.
Back on the mainland, Jean Roques, their cousin and a bodyguard/preacher, was now in league with an old soldier, also a lay preacher, from LaSalle named Jean Manoel. Without explanation, it is said that Manoel also knew LaPierre. The tough old man was arrested first and already interrogated before they finally caught Roques in a secret vault at Jean Bourdarier’s home at St. Croix on June 19, 1687, which was entered through the stables. This, too, was ordered razed. Roques was imprisoned at Nimes. At the time of arrest, he had a fragment of a self-composed sermon and copies of some religious literature on him. When confronted during interrogation with his declaration of living and dying a Protestant, "he persisted in that sentiment."
Manoel and Roques were hanged at Nimes on the same day, June 26. One of the executioners slapped Manoel (who went first) twenty times. None present, including Jesuits, made a move to halt this abuse. Manoel ascended the platform with composure. He prayed for those who killed him, urging the judges and other prosecutors "to no longer make war with God." It is said, in the best translation I can manage myself, that "Jean Roques died with the same consistency. At the time that he perished, faithful to the faith of his childhood, one of his brothers was in the galleys and his wife, two small children, his mother, and one of his sisters wandered around LaSalle, in the woods." The 30-year-old martyr "kept his oath."
What of Roques’ confiscated effects? He had informed his persecutors that he intended to send one as a letter to Montpellier and Nimes. In one, initially referring to the error and idolatry around them, he recalled the suffering "of those [who] at the expense of their property and their lives, make every effort . . . to move those who, unfortunately, by timidity and cowardice have horribly abandoned the doctrine of God and the prophets and apostles." Bost made a point of reminding the reader of his wandering family members, and that his home was gone. Roques continued, with apparent allusion to Hebrews 11:36-38, "we suffer every day so faithfully, some in prison, the others in the galleys, the others as exiles, . . . in the mountains, in caves, holes in the ground, in the remotest places . . . [because of] men[‘s] rage. . . . I can join this number, with my family scattered. . . . There is no cruelty exercised against us, . . . . [of which the] people in this place are not guilty, and especially those who exercise justice and police . . . . [who] persecute so cruelly in making war against Jesus Christ. . . . We . . . pray to God to have mercy and give them true repentance . . . ."
Bost pleasantly observes of the sermon, "a warning of a peasant of the Cevennes to the urban plain," that we may "savor his naivete and childlike confidence." What I can gather from the text:
My dear brothers and sisters, it is with regret that I . . . see our misfortune, and when I consider the greatness of our calling[?] and perseverance . . . , I can not help but sigh, seeing the threats that God makes against . . . sins, . . . because God says there is no peace for the wicked it must necessarily [follow] or [else repent]. . . . God does not want the death of the sinner, but his life. The good God punishes us not to lose us, but to save us. . . . It is time that you convert, and why will you die o house of Israel? Today . . . [change?] your hearts, lest God swear in his wrath that you will not enter into his rest. . . . [Consider?], you ungrateful people, after God had reformed the Church by . . . love and His omnipotence, and it has cost so much blood and . . . for the happy Reformation . . . you have cowardly abandoned. . . . [This] is the example of a wise physician who probes the wound to the bottom and does not flatter, so that the remedies make greater impression. I wish you would know that you are in poor condition, [which] you [may] lift quickly by living holy repentance, since God threatens . . . to throw in . . . conviction all those who are found mated with Babylon . . . .
The Abbe Rouquette, who interrogated Roques, evidently concluded that his soul was "religiously empty" or some such thing, all the more difficult to believe, Bost adds, when picturing the captive singing verses from a rendition of Psalm 25 which he was carrying, to a melody that he loved:
Dieu seul est la droite voie
Et nous conduit par la main;
Au pecheur qui se fourvoie
Il montre le droit chemin.
Pour le servir il fait choix
Des humbles dans leur misere;
Il fait connaitre ses lois
A tous les coeurs debonnaires.
O Dieu, garantis ma vie
Contre tant de conjures
J’espere, malgre l’envie
De voir mes jours assures.
Que ma seule integrite
Soit ma garde et ma defense;
D’Israel, par ta bonte,
Fais moi voir la delivrance!
All the while, LaPierre’s friend Vivent was proving worse than a nuisance to Monsieur Baville, the intendant of Languedoc, who had put out bounty notices already by 1686. In spite of a short, slim, and knock-kneed (from a childhood injury) appearance, his reputation as a "guerilla fighter" grew impressively. He insisted on guards over his assemblies. A spy passed along the word that this man had "the heart of a lion." Throughout the summer of 1686, he had many scrapes and escapes. After some prisoners were taken from one of his meetings, he counterattacked with 30 companions, ingeniously tricking the foe into believing he had cannon when he only had tree trunks, and freed his friends.
So eager was Baville for this to cease that he cut a deal with Vivent. In return for safe passage abroad for himself and 270 others, they would stop all efforts at resistance. One may well wonder at Vivent’s "naively" supplying a list of names and basic identification, which Baville would later put to good use. Only three down from Vivent, who headed the list, was Charles Lapierre, shoemaker of Lasalle, 30 years old. The king’s men made annotations in the margin, and it didn’t escape their notice that he was a predicant, or that the last name in the first group was the widow of the hanged Jean Roques.
At Baville’s insistence, the 270 were broken into three parties. Things went terribly wrong as the first group of about 45 departed. Instead of being directed the short way to Geneva, they were sent across the border toward Spain in August 1687. This was in the hopes of dispersal and other difficulties attendant to such hostile terrain/population. One writer attributes their collective escape to Vivent’s energies. Thus LaPierre was spirited out of the country that had severed his wife’s entire family from him. A small second group also managed to get out. However, with full duplicity, Baville closed his trap on the remaining 203. These victims, including Vivent’s wife and brother, were shipped to the West Indies.
Baville had what he wanted. "Lower Languedoc and the Cevennes were empty of preachers that had . . . risen against soldiers or missionaries of the king," culminating in the exile of many predicants, including Vivent and Lapierre. The unhappy Vivent spent his time in Amsterdam recalling the broken agreement, understandably a bit peeved. He was certainly not idle. He took up with "the Huguenot firebrand," Pastor Pierre Jurieu. At some point, he arranged with William of Orange, future king of England (Glorious Revolution of 1688), to serve as a secret agent to stir up rebellion in the French homeland. LaPierre met with Jurieu and then went on to Berlin.
At this crossroads, Charles LaPierre now had complete freedom of choice. His son—probably the only surviving family member—was scarcely 8 years old. Would he despair listlessly, even with a child to raise, or would he rise to the measure of the truth for which his beloved companion died? What sort of man did Jeanne Roque—whose life and death argue for one of the only good reasons I’ve ever heard for a mother to voluntarily absent herself from the home—marry? Baville’s wanted posters in 1687 described him as "of small size, blond and flat hair, round face and quite white, a little pockmarked, small, grey eyes, rather large and broad nose, and dirty teeth." Okay, you try maintaining dental hygiene as a seventeenth-century Frenchman, especially one without a home for two years. That aside, he obviously wouldn’t win any beauty contests, though the physical descriptions were almost universally unflattering, for the eyes of the beholders were very jaded. However, Brousson himself described LaPierre as leading "a pure and holy life, full of zeal and courage, and well versed in the divine scriptures."
Evidently LaPierre, of his own volition, expressed a desire to Minister Gautier in Berlin that he should return to France and preach. Walter approved of this zeal. LaPierre spontaneously passed back into Holland in 1689, where Jurieu also persuaded him to follow this prompting. Brousson had independently begun urging those who could teach to re-enter the embattled country and rekindle the dying light. In July 1689, eight or nine pastors or predicants (basically, pseudo-pastors, as they had no formal training) were poised at the border between Switzerland and France, prepared to face certain death. They divided into companionships, LaPierre taking a man named Serein with him from Geneva. Brousson and Vivent were among them. (Click here for a convenient, only slightly overwrought, English version of the immediately preceding events.) These unusual missionary efforts were to be conducted in guerilla-like fashion, dividing and regrouping whenever possible or necessary. They did not expect to stay off the radar; their only hope was to perform good labors quickly and disappear even faster.
It was only a matter of weeks before the lieutenant-general of the king’s armies in Languedoc had issued a large award for Vivent, dead or alive, with smaller individual sums for seven colleagues (omitting Brousson, but including LaPierre). He accused Vivent of reneging on the kingdom’s goodness in pardoning him and assisting him out of the country. Anyone who helped these disrupters of the public peace would be treated as accomplices and see the destruction of their home. One "illegal assembly" of Cevennolese at Hospitalet in September 1689 heard sermons first from Vivent and Lapierre, and then Brousson. Throughout the evening, the numbers grew to nearly a hundred, largely composed of men with contraband weapons. Vivent and all his companions were noted to have about a dozen rifles and some pistols.
LaPierre’s whereabouts are understandably difficult to track during these years; otherwise, Baville would have bagged him. During that trial of fire, one after another of the companions was seized and executed horribly. One prisoner, put to the question, named La Pierre among five preachers, the others having fled or been killed. When asked how they survived, he replied it was in God’s hands. When asked again who gave them bread and meat, he said, "those whose hearts God has touched."
LaPierre wintered with a few near Saint-Andre de Valborgue while Vivent went into a northern, Catholic region. At another time, he passed back through Vigan in company with Quest and La Porte. More placards were posted, promising rewards for the capture of any preachers. Throughout 1690 and 1691, they continued to deliver sermons, baptize, and give the sacrament. Brousson laid his hands on LaPierre at Uzes in 1690, in his belief conferring jealously guarded authority (he had twice acquired from the theological elite in exile) which placed one somewhere above "predicant" status. LaPierre "worked" the entire plain of Saint Felix, where he encountered a new companion (Etienne Bon), who went by the name of La Victoire. They moved on to Valestaliere, where LaPierre apparently fell ill. Upon his recovery, sharing a desire to preach "to the valley where he was born," they held one of the larger meetings (in October 1691) at Monoblet near LaSalle. Listeners came from Lasalle, Monoblet, Colognac, Dufort, and Saint-Hippolyte, enjoying a sermon from Vivent, another from Lapierre, and then the sacrament. Vivent’s "troop" joined up with Laporte’s and Lapierre’s (he was at the head of Villemejeanne, La Victoire, and La Rose, alias for Mr. Julien) on the night of November 7 for a cave meeting; LaPierre and Laporte departed on foot. They later reconvened, with new fugitives, in the woods of Saint Felix.
A round of new arrests hit LaSalle. Seemingly frightened at the statistics they were uncovering, in what had been believed a relatively pacified province, efforts were redoubled. LaPierre took a man from the Monoblet audience, by the name of Villeneuve, and led eighteen men to the rescue of prisoners along the road between LaSalle and Saint-Hippolyte.
Initial stunning blows against the entrenched persecutors would see rapid and steady reversals in 1692. LaPierre remained in the vicinity of Nimes. In late November 1691, Guillaume Fraissinet of Caderle had been arrested with his wife, Jeanne Roques, another sister of the Jean who had been hanged. His wife, trapped in LaSalle, had been able to escape (corresponding with LaPierre’s rescue operation?), but was recaptured a month later. The Fraissinets were imprisoned at Saint-Hippolyte, along with the newly taken widow of Antoine Roques, referred to much earlier. Madame Roques was now 80 years old and had wandered since 1686. Her longtime companion, daughter Marguerite, had rather sharply remarked that she would abandon her if she changed religion. Marguerite was separately arrested at Bussas in August 1691 and taken to the castle at Sommieres.
At any rate, the year 1692 opens with proceedings against the venerable old widow Roques. "Intractably," she refused to become a Catholic or in any way be taught that it was a change for good with religion, adding that her son Jean (the hanged one) had served as an example for the whole family. (I quote the philosopher Boethius: "I have never been moved from justice to injustice by anything.") She also remained steadfast, she said, for her daughter’s sake. That February, Vivent was shot and killed after troops surprised him at his hideout. Increasing desperation had led to assassination attempts, implicating several of Vivent’s companions, who distanced themselves somewhat thereafter from his "violence." LaPierre was strongly accused by Baville, in partnership with two others, for the death of a Captain Bres. (On account of additional deaths of two bishops, he’d increased the price on Brousson and several others, including LaPierre, as "murderers and assassins." Very similar accusations were leveled at Joseph Smith and the Missouri Saints. It often takes one to think someone else is one! As President Taylor observed, many measure others by the foulness of their own hearts.) This was not helped by LaPierre’s cold reaction that "a persecutor of the church should not be spared." One man who was associated with Vivent at his death later made reference to the sword and pistol which LaPierre owned. Oh, what I’d give for the copy one captive had of a sermon written by LaPierre, or his weaponry!
Somehow, weighing the lives already lost and that it was an uneven war of extirpation involving faith, families, and freedom, I think a lot of my own compunctions disappear in the balance. What would the moral imperative be if you stood midway or two thirds of the way down a line of people with their cheek turned in one direction, and witnessed every single one of them before you shot in turn? Is there responsibility toward those who come after you, if you are in a position to take any sort of action? Believe it or not, this is why I have cheered the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, wherein no more than a thousand starved, under-equipped, largely untrained resisters held off at least twice their number in special German units for nearly a month. Taking a stand, even in the face of impossible odds, is in and of itself a way under the heavens to combat evil and rid your garments of that generation’s sins. Anyway, complacency is not a word often tossed in the direction of my family members.
LaPierre and La Jeunesse continued to minister to many around Nimes into 1693. Brousson was at Uzes, and LaPierre eventually approached that city in his labors. One weaver of Uzes was condemned who had guided LaPierre. Our good man Charles was now named in every recitation of a dwindling list of preachers. Apparently around this time he was drawn ever more closely to Brousson. The small band of brave men dwelt together in love. Another preacher taken by Baville refused to inform on those still at liberty, saying that nothing could move him to harm his brothers. It was somewhat anomalous when Quest hinted in earlier correspondence to Lapierre that the latter had absconded with one of his prized manuscripts. Lapierre’s response is his only preserved letter. In poorly translated part:
Mr. and honored brother, Having received [your letter] and seen by the reproaches you made of me without being informed of the things [of which] you accuse me, I beg you believe that I am not a man guilty of that [with which] you accuse me. . . . I should knock down [a tendency to claim?] all the qualities of perfection, which I love more than my own life because I am not a man to deny the truth. . . . I assure you with sincerity that I never took a book in Noguier. . . . God forbid that I make profit of damage to my brother. . . . I assure you that I have particular esteem for you, knowing your zeal and piety; and the care you take for the edification of our brothers greatly increases the love I have for you. . . . I beg [you to consult?] with our brother Francois [Vivent] [over] the manner that I have [toward] you. . . . I want to have the honor to see you, for me to justify my fidelity. Having written in haste I do not [cover] everything as I could wish. . . . Please, believe me one of your servants, without reservation, [and] make sure that I have the honor to see you. . . . C. Lapierre
In September 1694, he taught at Aigremont. He then administered the sacrament and delivered some sermons at a general synod held in Montpellier around Christmas. Only two of the remaining preachers failed to attend this secret meeting with at least 150 attendees. A few months later, he had momentarily withdrawn into the mountains of Castrais. We know that in 1695 he was at Graissessac, producing a "harvest" that David Gazan (code name La Jeunesse) subsequently took up. That October, he preached in the woods of Roc de Brezes, near Laucane, before about 200 people. A witness described him as blinking when he spoke, of medium stature, and with chestnut-colored hair, perhaps 45 years old. His text: "The Lord will extend His arm to save His people, and the people will give shouts of joy."
Moving to Bas-Languedoc from Bedarieux, he left an indelible impression on Marc Triol of Graissessac, who later recounted the passage of "that certain Monsieur Lapierre" in 1732. His audience must have included many who had forsaken their faith under pressure. "He touched many, representing why they had abandoned the Lord, which produced many tears." Bost then incites my curiosity, "We know already, from Baron Fontarèches, with what power Lapierre stirred hearts." The authorities caught up with Henri Pourtal in 1696, and there is only one known meeting subsequently that year, near Saint-Laurent d’Aigouze a few days before Christmas. The preacher and the crowd were not dispersed by a downpour, and it was LaPierre, returned to Haut-Languedoc. (Actually, not much deterred these diligent folk. One 18-year-old described a separate meeting held by Brousson, interrupted by the king’s men, as the sounded warning left too little time. Although Brousson and many others made good their escape, the boy’s father was killed, his brother was shot in the chest, and his sister was escorted to the Tower of Constance. "Nonetheless, two weeks later, he and his mother attended yet another nearby assembly.") LaPierre was lodging with a certain Martin, and remained in the area, near Castres, into 1697 with Gazan.
They were known to preach in June and July at Les Fargues and the Combelegarde of Metairie. On August 10, at Roc des Peiroulets in the woods of Montagnol, Lapierre taught from Isaiah 53:11-12, dressed in gray homespun. This time his age was estimated at 40. Some women gave him six shirts of Rouen fabric. He was spotted again during the night between September 25 and 26, labeled as "Mr. Lapierre, Lasalle," preaching in Galibert’s barn at Calmon on the plain of Mazamet. 87 people "who had not abjured," were allowed to take communion. After another assembly at Saint-Amans Villemagne at the end of December, Lapierre returned to Bas-Languedoc while Gazan made his way to Switzerland, where he was by early February 1698.
1698 was the fateful year. Brousson did not see LaPierre and drew the conclusion that he, too, had left the country. Bost paints the mournful scene: "Between les Causses and the Sea, we have seen so many preachers come and go, there only remained Roman, Lapierre, Olivier, and Brousson." An informant by the name of Quesnot, speaking of his acquaintances in the mountains, says that Lapierre "often changes place, and has almost no home." (This kind of helps one understand Matt. 8:20 more fully, in conjunction with 10:16-42.) There is one more interesting twist, which reveals the manner of young Jean LaPierre’s upbringing: "He has a son he is training to be a minister, he is sent first to one place, sometimes another." He accurately places the boy’s age around 16 to 17.
On November 4, 1698, Claude Brousson, the real mind behind the resistance, was strangled to death on the wheel. No one denied the brave manner of his death, and Utt closes that chapter with striking words from Baville’s correspondence regarding the undying courage of those he pursued so relentlessly: "If the God that these people serve is the same one that we adore, we risk being very disappointed some day." In his final days, Brousson had only rattled off the names of companions who’d already been immolated. Gazan and Lapierre’s names alone came up, purely because he believed they were out of the country already. In fact, three remained alive in the country: Lapierre, Olivier, and Roman.
Not long afterward, LaPierre finally left France for good. Shortly after his departure, an irrepressible nation of Cevennes peasantry rose up in the War of the Camisards. With their mobility, innovation, and adaptability, they fought the king’s forces to a standstill for years. They still excite the admiration of special operations studies today, in their inurement to extreme conditions and facility for reducing enemy forces which vastly outnumbered and outgunned them.
By November 1701, entitled to retirement from the scene of action, LaPierre was established as a minister in London, England, at the French Chapel of Spring Gardens, known as the Little Savoye. At that date, he married another refugee, with whom he had two more children. Their boy later crossed the English Channel before marrying; one of his direct male descendants was in the resistance movement during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, and spent time in a concentration camp.
In 1718, Charles was an old pensioner, still lecturer at the Little Savoy(e). The record says that he was "with Mr. Brousson when broken on the wheel." Bost ponders whether that merely means still in the preaching service or he descended to Montpellier "to witness the death of his master and illustrious friend." LaPierre was succeeded in his post, one conjectures posthumously, in 1722. Yet the wily, untraceable old fighter could just as easily have joined his younger son in continental Europe. Maybe he still traipses the earth, refusing to die!
Denouement
On August 8, 1701, Jean LaPierre had entered Trinity College in Dublin, paying his own expenses and receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1706. He soon received a license from the Archbishop of Dublin to serve as schoolmaster in the city. On February 23, 1707, the Bishop of London ordained him a priest. There are many ironies to his life, not the least of which was his taking Anglican orders, a delicate subject for most Huguenot histories. Still another is expressed in April 1719 in another country, when, after some French Catholics left Mobile in Louisiana territory for South Carolina, LaPierre exulted that he’d witnessed the conversion of "Roman Catholicks" with "publick abjuration of Popery." Here was a taste of their own medicine, indeed, for the British colonies, excepting Maryland, wouldn’t allow Catholicism to take root.
On February 17, 1708, Jean and his wife Susanne traveled to the Little Savoy from their parish of St. James, Westminster, to have Charles and his second wife serve as sponsors for his firstborn, named Jeanne, presumably for Jean’s martyred mother. Only one week later, he departed for foreign shores. 20 pounds were paid by the British government for ministerial passage. Four months later, Jean, his blind wife, and "their little girl" arrived in an impoverished state. Hirsch provides plenty of pitiful pathos about what it was like to forge into the frontier with a full, French family:
A letter of his, dated January 1, 1725-6, leaves no misgiving about the grim shadows that lay across his way, even on that New Year’s day. There is reference to his family, who "are a great charge" to him, for there are "five small children." There is no lament recorded in those words, they are merely a matter-of-fact statement. But there was a wife as well, "who had lost her eyesight before their departure from England." Does not one’s fancy naturally linger in that household, where a mother gropes her way amid the manifold duties of her home, or sits helplessly among the cares, with the full weight of her own handicap and of the family’s poverty pressing down upon her.
He immediately assumed care of the St. Denis parish in South Carolina. For years he would operate here, and within "other vacant English parishes at convenient intervals." (He was pastor at Charleston’s French Church in partnership with Boisseau and L’Escot in 1712-1713, and possibly alone in 1728 just before his move to Cape Fear, or New Hanover, in North Carolina.) It was in this Orange Quarter of South Carolina that his second daughter, Martha (undoubtedly named after his young martyred aunt Marthe Roque), was born. She is both my 6th great-grandmother and 7th great-grandmother.
It is curious that an early acquaintance commented that "his English is not only accurate but adept in the use of colloquialisms, so one would guess that he left his native land fairly early in life," as the governor of North Carolina commented of his sadly spent condition in the 1750s that it was largely "by reason of his foreign Dialect and his age." St. Denis was created as a distinct parish "for a time ‘till ye present inhabitants or their children attain the English tongue.’" In a 1733 letter, one of several (of which this is a different example), LaPierre himself informs us that his instructions from Bishop Compton of London were to serve "until the death of the old settlers who did not understand the English Tongue." He became an assistant to Rev. Has(s)ell in the neighboring parish of St. Thomas, in his own words, "hoping of the two nations to make but one and the same people."
Van Ruymbeke introduces us to LaPierre’s first days in America, utilizing a contemporary resident’s letters in the first description:
Apparently they were not disappointed by their minister’s sermons, which "surpassed their hopes," as LaPierre revealed himself to be "a good theologian," expounding on biblical texts "methodically and in a charming manner with his expressions, his voice, and hands" so that "the entire assembly was extremely edified." Within a few weeks LaPierre had won "the heart and affection of his church," and his parishioners were so eager "to bring him what is necessary to life [that soon] he was agreeably overwhelmed with an abundance of goods." In no time LaPierre was "admired by the English as much as by the French" and was heralded as "the most skilful preacher in the French language who ever came to this land of Caroline." This reputation is supported by Thomas Hasell, pastor at St. Thomas and formerly a fellow student of LaPierre’s at "l’academie de Dublin," who remembered him as "the most recommendable of all the students for his good behaviour having never been censured."
The honeymoon period of LaPierre’s ministry, however, did not last long and was the prelude to more than a decade of bitter conflict.
In a nutshell, LaPierre was ever and anon stuck with the conformist, Calvinist desires of his parishioners and very exacting, sometimes sharply contradictory, orders from the Church of England under whose sovereignty he now served. He faced the severe loneliness of never pleasing anyone, almost fitting and to be anticipated once one commences to compromise. His personal inclinations were still toward Calvinist practices in private. Prior to ordination, he had served wholly French churches. The Anglican representative in America, in a confusing letter, first stated that LaPierre had not been "well satisfied" with criticism that he must enforce strict Anglicanism but that he "has been just to his Engagements ever since." Then Commissary Johnston proceeded to lay the difficulties at his feet again, as due to a "warm & indiscreet temper," and lastly, only subtly, defended him as "plagu’d by those headstrong fools" in his parish.
Van Ruymbeke sympathized: "Clearly, the quickest way out of the crisis would have been for Johnston to support LaPierre openly while reprimanding him in private. Instead, by blaming the French minister and siding with his factious flock, the commissary not only further undermined LaPierre’s legitimacy among them but also, somewhat ironically, considerably weakened the local Anglican establishment in the eyes of its Huguenot opponents. . . . The French ministers, assigned to newly and imperfectly conformed Huguenot-Anglican parishes, were often caught between (no pun on LaPierre’s surname intended) a rock and a hard place." In dealing with many intransigent people, some with rather wild notions, LaPierre had to combat a rise in millenarian beliefs. To correct one misconception regarding the day of the Sabbath, "LaPierre, ‘having in [Carolina] no Book upon this Subject,’ composed a pamphlet entitled The Vindication of ye Christian Sabbath. This document has not survived and it is not known whether anyone ever read it, but it obviously had no influence whatsoever on the course of events."
The next time a commissary, this one by the name of Garden, denounced LaPierre, it was for actually pleasing his constituents. Upon receiving a scurrilous, threatening letter, John felt that his hand was forced, when he otherwise "would have made . . . all reasonable satisfaction in a meeting of ye clergy as our former custom was, without any need troubling [His] Lordship," so he wrote the Bishop of London, embedding the nasty correspondence from Garden. This embarrassment was an odd echo of a letter that his father had once written. Not surprisingly, LaPierre seized upon the opportunity to move north, where he eventually served as chaplain to the North Carolina General Assembly at New Bern, also officiating in Christ Church there. His daughter, Martha, married Benjamin Fordham, Sr., an officer therein, who served as sergeant at arms. This Benjamin was also a soldier during the French and Indian War. Their son, Benjamin, Jr., served in the American Revolution (on the colonists’ side, naturally). From him, the bloodline divides three ways before converging again.
By some remarkable happenstance, this family married into the Swinson line for three successive generations, each one being too distantly related to be aware of the consanguinity. (The Swinsons, who arrived in Virginia around 1675, probably from Lincolnshire, are warlike as far back as I can trace them. They never "shun the fight.") The first descendant of these fighters and martyrs to enter the direct patrilineal family became a widow to one of the five out of six Swinson boys who died, between Vicksburg and Gettysburg, in the Civil War; the last became mother to five Swinson boys who fought through World War II and the Korean conflict. While the next generation married the most refined woman I think the Swinsons have ever seen, whose father was the apogee of moral character, she actually brought an infusion of some truly fighting Scotch-Irish, as well as the Hardy line through which we’re related to General Douglas MacArthur. Last and certainly not least, my mother is descended from a vast body of Austro-Germans who freely confessed their Lutheran faith to accept exile from the archdiocese of Salzburg in 1731, as well as another Huguenot line which left France during the years of declining rights presaging the Revocation (following the associated links—which improperly confound the authorship of a pamphlet, however—shows their connection to yet another Huguenot family of long standing in the British Isles). And this is merely to cite prominent examples.
I can’t refrain from inserting hymnal accompaniment from my dear familial German refugees, as a companion piece to Roques’:
Ein Pilgrim bin ich auch nunmehr, muss reisen fremde Strassen,
drum bitt ich dich, mein Gott und Herr, du wollst mich nicht verlassen.
Ach steh mir bei, du starker Gott, dir hab ich mich ergeben,
verlass mich nicht in meiner Not, wanńs kosten soll mein Leben.
Den Glauben hab ich frei bekennt, des darf ich mich nicht schämen.
Ob man mich einen Ketzer nennt und tut miŕs Leben nehmen.
I’m beginning to see why I often hear the echoes of all the plaintively religious cries of forebears from many climes—also why there’s a near-perpetual martial drumbeat in my mind. I believe I better comprehend my appreciation for men of David W. Patten’s stature. I’m informed still further why the Terminator franchise’s scenery (even if largely off limits on account of prior movies’ ratings) speaks to me on so many levels. Charles LaPierre lived a lot like John Connor. I’m very selective in my emulation, and I have found many new, amazing friends beyond of late. Even friends (here) have informed me that my religiosity is practically "militant." This mortal experience is, to my mind, little more nor less than continuing to wage the war that Satan already brought against his brethren. "He maketh war with the saints of God, and encompasseth them round about" (D&C 76:29). There is no room for compromise, and repentance is our only hope of resistance.
Elder Ballard said, "We must be just as dedicated, effective, and determined in our efforts to live the gospel as [Satan] is in his efforts to destroy it—and us" (Ensign, May 1999, 86). That is a matter of building our store of confrontational tactics and outmaneuvering strategy. President Young remarked that "Christ will never cease the warfare, until he destroys death and him that hath the power of it" (JD, 4:31), and has reminded us that "the men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, 294).
There’s a reason I’ve thought of "valiant in the testimony of Jesus" as demanding no reinforcements other than the knowledge that one has zealously sought to be on His side. A valiant individual will hold the line, though they stand alone in it! How can we effectively tell Satan to get behind us (see Matt. 16:23) when we cannot boldly, nobly, and independently withstand "the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work" (D&C 10:5), when we fear man more than God, that is, "savourest not the things of God, but those that be of men" (Matt. 16:23, again)?
Nor can I bear, in physical terms, to see oppression of the innocent. With me it is decidedly not Nemo me lacessit impune, but something rather more like (?) Nemo lacessit alius impune.
What I’m learning about Charles LaPierre is the personification of many strong emotions I’ve been unable to satisfactorily explain my entire life. I don’t want to disappoint those who have gone before in facing that which lies ahead. In a positive assertion of the matter, I feel that I have a remarkable, unexpected, additional source of strength from those who successfully bore their battle, Christ having already won the only one about which there could ever have been any true difficulty.
SOME WORKS CONSULTED
Bond, Bradley G., ed. French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. pp. 89-90
Bost, Charles. Les Martyrs d’Aigues-Mortes. Paris: Editions de la Cause, 1922.
Bost, Charles. Les Predicants des Cevennes et du Bas-Languedoc, 1684-1700. 2 vols. Paris: Libraire ancienne Honore Champion, Editeur, 1912.
Bulletin Historique et litteraire, Vol. 49, Societe de l’histoire du protestantisme francais. Paris: 1900. p. 636
Cahiers du Centre de Genealogie Protestante, Paris, 1984, vol. 3., no. 6, 316, 326-327.
Claude Jamier: Forcat, Deporte & Naufrage, http://generoyer.free.fr/H-ClaudeJAMIER.htm
Fothergill, Gerald. A List of Emigrant Ministers to America, 1690-1811. London: Elliot Stock, 1904, 40.
Gaultier, Francoise. Histoire Apologetique, ou Defense des Libertez des Eglises Reformees de France. Amsterdam, 1688. p. 149
Hirsch, Arthur H. The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
LaSalle, France, Reformed Church parish registers, 1561-1685, Salt Lake Family History Library microfilms 0687553-4
Lenoir County Historical Association. The Heritage of Lenoir County. Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1981.
"Letters from North and South Carolina to England regarding the conditions of the Church of England, 1712-1781." Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1960. Salt Lake Family History Library microfilm 0239273
Minet, William and Susan Minet. Registres des Eglises de la Savoye de Spring Gardens et des Grecs, 1684-1900. London: The Huguenot Society of London, 1912.
Onslow County Historical Society. The Heritage of Onslow County. Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1983.
Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 1:325-327; 2:306-307; 8:23; 19:171, 183.
Tollen, Henri. Geschichte der Französischen Colonie von Magdeburg. Halle: Verlag von Max Niemeyer, 1887. p. 363
Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, No. 85. Charleston, SC, 1980. pp. 56-58
Utt, Walter C. and Brian E. Strayer. The Bellicose Dove: Claude Brousson and Protestant Resistance to Louis XIV, 1647-1698. Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press, 2003.
Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand. From New Babylon to New Eden: The Huguenots and Their Migration to Colonial South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006.
Wood, Lillian Fordham. "The Reverend John LaPierre." The Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, vol. XL, no. 4.
