The Huguenot Testimony To The Cross

by Ray Lowe


Biggin Hill, UK

Last May, Sue and I took our two grandchildren Daniel and Carys to the south of France. On a cloudy day with rain threatening, we decided to visit the medieval city of Aigues-Mortes, some 20 kms from Montpellier.

It was this king who built the special tower first called ‘La Grosse Tour du Roi’ (The Great Tower of the King) but later named ‘La Tour de Constance’ constructed originally to be a beacon to guide sailors safely into port. Today the tower is famous for its use in the 17th and 18th centuries as a prison for French Protestants who refused to deny their faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross for their salvation. These French Christians were known as Huguenots so named after St Hugon’s Gate in the City of Tour where they often met for worship. They had been much influenced by the teaching and ministry of John Calvin of Geneva who had trained many of their pastors, but they followed a different pattern of church government from the Geneva model.

The St. Bartholomew’s massacre

The Huguenots had grown particularly strong in the southwest of France so that one of their most celebrated leaders, Admiral Coligny, could say ‘We have 2,050 churches and 400,000 men able to bear arms.’ Sadly these Protestant Christians were greatly persecuted and this led to religious wars. The worst and most infamous atrocity committed against the Huguenots was in Paris in 1572. It was hoped that the marriage between Henry of Bearn, King of Navarre and leader of the Huguenot cause, and Marguerite, a supporter of the Huguenots and daughter of Catherine de Medici sister of the King of France, would not only bring peace but that the Huguenot influence would lead to long needed reform of the Catholic Church. Sadly this was not to be, as within a few days of the marriage at a pre-arranged signal, many of those Huguenots who had attended the marriage celebrations, were slaughtered. Admiral Coligny was one of the first to die. The River Seine was filled with the mutilated corpses of men, women and children who only four days earlier had thronged the streets of Paris to celebrate a marriage intended to bring lasting peace. Instead the St Bartholomew’s massacre, as it became known, led to further war which lasted for more than twenty years.

More persecution

However religious toleration was granted in the Edict of Nantes in 1598 under a favourable French king, Henry IV. But when Louis XIV succeeded him, Huguenots were again persecuted and pressured to rejoin and submit to the teachings of the Catholic Church. When they refused, the Edict of Nantes was revoked leading to renewed persecution and further religious war. In one week 800 Huguenot meeting places were destroyed, many men who refused to recant their faith were condemned to the galleys and many women were imprisoned.

Visitation of the Spirit in Cevennes

From 1715 onwards, the Tower of Constance became a prison for Huguenot women who refused to deny their protestant faith. Many died in the tower in poor and unsanitary conditions and some even gave birth and raised their children there. One woman, Constance, was imprisoned for 27 years; and the tower is named after her. The Huguenot church went underground. Towards the close of the 18th century in the Cevennes mountains in southwest France the Huguenots enjoyed an extraordinary visitation of the Holy Spirit where some of their number, who could speak only in a local dialect, spoke in the pure French of the Bible as the Spirit came on them. Children were able to declare long passages from the Bible which they had never learned. Sadly many were branded as heretics and fanatics and many lost their lives as they faced persecution.

One of their famous leaders Jacques Roger (1675–1745) began a reorganisation of the church and set up a training school for pastors and preachers in Lausanne. It turned out to be a famous school for martyrs as many who were trained there and went on to pastor the ‘Churches of the Desert’ as they were called, were caught by the Catholic authorities and were hanged. Jacques Roger himself was hanged at Grenoble at 70 years of age. Despite much opposition and persecution, these ‘Churches of the Desert’ eventually were given religious freedom by an act of Louis XVI in 1787. When revolution broke out in 1793 they were extended liberty of conscience.

In the southwest of France today there are many, although nominal in faith, who still honour their Protestant Huguenot background and it is with these people that our Newfrontiers churches are sharing the gospel as some come to faith in Christ. Today when you greet a French man or woman in the southwest, it is usually with three kisses as opposed to two elsewhere; these three kisses were the secret sign that you were a Huguenot Christian. They also wore a distinctive cross with a dove hanging from it.

The blood of the martyrs is proving again to be seed of the church.

It is quite moving to visit Aigues-Mortes today and to go into the tower where imprisoned Christian women lived in captivity. They could have left at any time if they had recanted their faith. One feels privileged to follow in the footsteps of people who were so devoted to Jesus and endured such hostility, and grateful for their faithfulness as we seek to build churches in this region. At least our converts are unlikely to be thrown into the Tour de Constance!