Feeling the Pain

Feeling the Pain
By Grace Elting Castle

Over the years I’ve found books here and there that looked as if they might have a bit of historical information that could be included in a family story.

Recently I’ve re-read Palissy the Potter; The Huguenot, Artist, and Martyr and was touched once again by the pain that our ancestors endured as a result of the battles between those labeled “infidel” (Huguenots especially) and the Roman Catholics in France.

This book, written by C.L Brightwell, was published in 1858 by Carlton & Porter of New York. My copy is missing a few pages, has some mottled, some dirty, pages, but the words are important and drawings are exquisite.

There are those who like to remind us that “The Eltings were not part of the original New Paltz Patentees. That our ancestors weren’t “Huguenots.” For some that is true, but for others it is not. For those descendants of Roelif and Sarah Elting, for instance, it is only partially true. The “Huguenot blood” of ancestor grandmother Sarah (DuBois) Elting flows from her father, Abraham, the Patentee, and his father, Louis DuBois, the leader of the New Paltz Patentees. Many subsequent marriages mixed the “Huguenot” and Dutch family bloodlines until few of the descendants of Hudson Valley families can claim to be without “Huguenot” descendancy.

So I share these following quotes and thoughts for the benefit of all who seek to know more about our shared heritage.

“The early years of the little Reformed Church …were very troublous ones. It was established, in the outset, with great difficulties and imminent perils, and those who ventured to enroll themselves among its numbers were blamed and vituperated with perverse and wicked calumnies. The ignorance and superstitions of that age and country (France) were called into active exercise against the adherents of the new faith, and the vilest slanders were fabricated against them, and accredited even by those who witnessed their blameless lives. Most frequently their meetings for religious worship were held during the hours of darkness, for fear of their enemies…They were even accused of wickedness and unchaste conduct in their assemblies; nor were their wanting some ‘of the baser sort’ who said that the heretics had dealings with the devil, whose tail they went to kiss by the light of a rosin candle. Notwithstanding these things, however, the Church continued to exist, and to grow, and after a time, it made surprising increase…”

“There was in Champagne a small fortified town called Vassy, containing about three thousand inhabitants, a third of whom, not reckoning the surrounding villages, professed the Reformed religion. It happened on the 28th of February 1562, that the Duke of Guise, journeying on his way to Paris, accompanied by his cousin, the cardinal of Lorraine, with an escort of gentlemen, followed by some two hundred horsemen, visited the chateau de Joinville, which was situated in the neighborhood, on an estate belonging to the Lorraines.

“The mistress of the castle was a very old lady, the dowager Duchess of Guise, whose bigoted attachment to the faith of her ancestors made the very name of Huguenot an offence to her. Sorely indignant was she at the audacity of the inhabitants of Vassy, who had no right, she declared, as vassals of her granddaughter, Mary Stuart, to adopt a new religion without her permission…the aged woman urged her son, the fierce Duke Francis, to make a striking example of those insolent peasants. As he listened to her angry words, he swore a deep oath, and bit his beard, which was his custom when his wrath waxed strong.

“The next morning…he arrived at a village not far off the obnoxious town; and the morning breeze, as it came sweeping up the hills, brought to his ears the sound of church bells. “What means that noise?” he asked one of his attendants. ‘It is the morning service of the Huguenots,’ was the reply. It was, in fact, the Sabbath-day, and the Reformers, assembled to the number of some hundreds, were performing their worship in a barn, under the protection of a recent edict of toleration. Unsuspicious of danger, there was not a man among them armed, with the exception of some ten strangers, probably gentlemen, who wore swords.

“Suddenly a band of the duke’s soldiers approached the place, and began shouting, ‘Heretic dogs! Huguenot rebels! Kill,kill!

“The first person whom they laid hands on was a poor hawker of wine. ‘In whom do you believe?’ they cried.

“’I believe in Jesus Christ,’ was the answer, and with one thrust of the pike he was laid low. Two more were killed at the door, and instantly the tumult raged. The duke, hastening up at the sound of arms, was struck by a stone, which drew blood from his cheek. Instantly the rage of his followers redoubled, and his own fury knew no bounds. A horrible butchery followed; men, women, and children were attacked indiscriminately, and sixty were slain in the barn or in the street, while more than two hundred were grievously wounded…”

“An extraordinary effect was produced throughout the whole kingdom by the tidings of this cruel slaughter. Among the Reformed party it created a universal feeling of indignant horror and alarm…Each party flew to arms, after putting forth manifestos asserting the merits of their respective causes. The Prince of Conde hastened to Orleans, which he succeeded in occupying, and there the army of the Huguenots established headquarters. In that town the Calvinist lords assembled on the 11th of April 1562 and after partaking the Lord’s supper together, bound themselves in an alliance to maintain the Edicts, and to punish those who had broken them. They took a solemn oath to repress blasphemy, violence and whatever was forbidden by the law of God, and to set up good and faithful ministers to instruct the people; and lastly, they promised, by their hope of heaven, to fulfill their duty in this cause.

“And thus the fearful work began, and tumult, massacre, battle, and siege prevailed. Every town in France was filled with the riot of contending factions. ‘It was a grand and frightful struggle of province against province, city with city, quarter with quarter, house with house, man with man,’ says a recent historian. ‘Fanaticism had reduced France to a land of cannibals; and the gloomiest imagination would fail to conceive all the variety of horrors which were then practised.’’

The atrocities escalated until they culminated in the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre in Paris on August 24, 1572. Most readers will be aware of that fateful day when the river Seine ran red with the blood of Huguenots. The battles continued throughout the country with more than 100,000 Protestants killed, according to historians.

Brightwell’s book includes these comments about that period:

“I shall never forget, continued Pare, ‘the scene, when the broad light of an August day displayed, in all their extent, the horrors which had been committed. The bright, glowing sun, and the unclouded sky, and magnificent beauty overhead; and at our feet the blood-stained waters of the Seine; and the streets bestrewn with mangled corpses. It was too terrible. To crown the whole, it was the holy Sabbath.”

“…Since the massacre at St. Bartholomew the mobs of Paris had become familiar with blood, and a spirit of increased ferocity prevailed. Assassinations, tortures, and executions were frequent, and the extreme Roman Catholic party, to which the city had, from that time, been heartily attached, was pledged to exterminate the Huguenots.”Though the history is convoluted and told differently, as one would expect, by the Huguenots and the Catholics, in 1585, an edict was issued---at the expense of the Huguenots---“…prohibiting the future exercise of the Reformed worship, and commanding all its adherents to abjure or emigrate immediately on pain of death and confiscation. This was no miserable court quarrel; it affected the interests of all, and touched the liberty, faith, fortune and life of every man.”