Camisards

Camisards (French dialect camisa, “shirt”), name applied to the French Huguenot (Protestant) peasants of the Cévennes mountain region, southern France, who rose in rebellion in 1702 against King Louis XIV. The Camisards, so-called because of the black smocks they wore during night raids, had sought refuge in the Cévennes after Louis XIV in 1685 had revoked the religious freedom granted to them by the Edict of Nantes (1598). The revolt was prompted by a religious “awakening” among the Huguenots. Led principally by the French soldier Jean Cavalier, the Camisards conducted guerrilla warfare from mountain strongholds against the royal troops. Roman Catholic churches were burned, and their priests were killed or forced to flee. Urged on by Pope Clement XI, who issued a papal bull censuring the Camisards, the Roman Catholics razed more than 450 villages, killing most of the inhabitants. In 1704 the Royalist commander Duc Claude Louis Hector de Villars met with Cavalier and persuaded the rebel leader to surrender in return for a commission in the royal army and a pardon for his followers. These terms of surrender were rejected by the majority of the Camisards, who demanded full restoration of the rights granted by the Edict of Nantes. The struggle continued sporadically until the death in 1710 of Cavalier's successor, Abraham Mazel.