The
year was 1730 and it was a dangerous time to be in France. Fifty
years before, the Edict of Nantes guaranteeing freedom of religion to
Huguenots had been revoked and Roman Catholicism had been reinstated
as the only authorized religion. Protestant worship and education
were expressly forbidden. Thousands had already fled France to seek
freedom and peace in a new distant land. Most had made the long and
arduous journey south across the Mediterranean to the tip of Africa
settling in Cape Town. But many were not able to leave France. Those
that stayed had two options: give up their faith or face the
penalties imposed for practicing their faith - imprisonment, death,
or life as a galley slave.
Before
the Edict of Nantes, Protestantism had flourished. French reformers
such as Louis De Berquin, Gaspard de Coligny, and Jacques Lefevre had
preached reforms, translated the Bible into the French language and
upheld the Word of God as the sole authority. But after the Edict of
Nantes was revoked, France lost thousands of intelligent and educated
citizens as they left France for a country of freedom. Those that
remained, were exterminated.
The
Protestants named the times they lived in as the `Desert`. In the
history of French Protestantism, the expression `Desert` defines the
period of time between the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)
and the French Revolution (1789). It was during this ‘desert’
period that the Protestants of France were deprived of freedom of
worship, meeting far from cities, hidden in isolated areas, deserts
(in the wilderness, forests, caves, or gullies…), where they
were obligated to live out their faith in hiding. The `desert` title
was a reference to the church in the wilderness described in
Revelation 12:6.
The
word ‘Desert’ also had a Biblical sense for them, the 40
years the Hebrew people of Exodus wandered in the desert, a place of
tribulations, temptations and despair, but also where they would hear
the word of the Lord.
Life
was not easy. Huguenot families that chose to stay in France lived a
life of secrecy, their homes equipped with hiding places for the
family Bible and even family members, their children raised with
danger and uncertainty constantly hanging over them threatening their
future. The king of France pursued with relentless focus the
eradication of the Protestant heretics. It was into this perilous
time that Marie Durand was born in 1715. Marie`s family chose not to
give up their beliefs even if it meant practicing their religion in
secret and living in constant peril.
When
Marie was a young girl, her mother, Claudine, was arrested after
attending a secret Protestant service and died shortly thereafter.
Marie`s older brother, Pierre, became one of the `pastors of the
desert`. These men preached in open fields, caves, and homes to those
in exile and in hiding, who continued in defiance of the restrictions
placed on them by the French monarchy.
Pierre
Durand was wanted by the government for his subversive activity.
Unable to lay hands on Pierre, officials arrested Marie`s father in
1728. Before he was taken to prison, Ėtienne Durand married his
young daughter at the age of 13 to Matthew Seres, hoping that she
would be protected by this move. The plan failed when in 1730, at the
age of fifteen, Marie Durand was arrested and taken from her home in
Bouchet-de-Pransles to the Tower of Constance to be used as bait to
capture her Protestant brother. Her husband, Matthew was soon
imprisoned along with her father in the fort. Pierre was told that if
he gave himself in, his sister and father would be freed. In 1732,
Pierre was captured and hanged.
The
Tower of Constance, located on swampy land near the Rhone River and
not far from the Mediterranean Sea, was built by Duke Philip the
Bold, its architecture designed to imitate Jerusalem architecture.
The stronghold also served as a lighthouse, with a lantern in the
top-most tower, and was known as `the beacon of Charlemagne`. During
the French Civil Wars between the Protestants and Catholics following
the Reformation, the tower had fallen into Protestant control But in
1632, Louis XIII regained control of it. King Louis XIV then
converted it into a women`s prison.
The
prisoners were kept in the upper room. A little light and air came
through narrow windows. In the center of the floor was an opening
onto the guardroom below. When Marie entered the Tower - which was
always cold in Winter and hot in summer - she brought her courageous
sunny disposition. Her faith would lighten the darkness and despair
within.
Despite
her tender youth, Marie became the Christian focal point of the Tower
and an encouragement to the other women with whom she was imprisoned.
For 38 years, Marie served as nurse and spiritual leader. She read
psalms, encouraged the dying, sang hymns, and prayed daily. She also
acted as official correspondant, penning letters for those who could
not write, and sending petitions to government officials informing
them of the prison`s horrible conditions and petitioning for release
and assistance. Many of her letters still exist today. Marie never
wavered in her strength or faith.
In
1767, Prince de Beauveau, the governor of Languedo, horrified by the
conditions the women endured inside the Tower of Constance, ordered
their release against the will of Louis XV, and in 1767 Marie and her
fellow captives began a new life outside the tower walls.
Marie
returned to her family home as the sole survivor of the attack
mounted against her faith and family. Her father and husband had long
been executed. She herself died in 1776, after only 9 years of
freedom outside the Tower.
What
would make a girl, only 15, hold so tenaciously to her faith and
resist the pressure and temptation to recant and have a normal life
outside the walls of the Tower? All she was required to do by the
Catholic authorities was to recant her Reformed faith. Many did so,
and immediately went back to their Reformed faith, but Marie would
not be dishonest. At any time, she could have given up her faith for
a life of sunshine, green grass, hygiene, better food, activity,
friendship, and possibly a new marriage and children. Instead she
scratched the word “Resist” into the stone walls of a
Tower to remind her and all those with her that staying there was of
more value than the advantages outside.
How
many of us hold enough to our faith and beliefs to do the same?
Islamic fundamentalists seem to have a faith that doesn’t
falter even in the face of a fiery death. Do we have the
tenaciousness and conviction to hang on even if everything is taken
from us even for the better part of our lives?
Our
society is not geared for that kind of sacrifice. We live in a world
of instant gratification - microwaves, fast foods, credit cards. We
wear clothes to fit in, and are upset when someone cuts us off in
traffic on our way to work or shopping. There are few limits we
experience in our country of freedom. As long as we don’t cheat
on our taxes, don’t steal from vendors, show up at our job, and
obey the traffic signs, we are free to do as we like.
But
do we value our freedom? Are we using our time to work for the Lord
and are we spending our resources to further His work? Now, as the
last golden rays of sunshine slip over the horizon of our earth’s
long and tortured history, we still have a few moments in which to
share our faith in freedom. We should not miss the opportunity. The
work we have neglected to do in a time of prosperity, we will have to
do under great trial and peril. What costs us little now, will
someday cost us our very lives. Let us not shame the legacy of those
that have gone before us and given their lives. Can we do any less in
these last moments of history?
I
pray not.Wendy Goubej
WORKS
CONSULTED
- http://www.museedudesert.com/article5808.html
- http://chi.gospelcom.net/site/ad1201.shtml
- http://chi.gospelcom.net/DAILYF/2002/12/daily-12-26-2002.shtml
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