For the True Religion and the Common Cause: Transnational Publicity for the War of the Camisards (1702-1705)

David DE BOER

University of Konstanz/Leiden University

NdA : I wish to express my gratitude to Helmer Helmers and Stéphane Haffemayer for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article.

At the turn of the eighteenth century the Cévennes region in south-eastern France was rife with religious tension. Not long after the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, the remote mountains had become home to a messianistic movement ; thousands of Huguenot prophets sprang up in the mountain hamlets and began to preach about the imminent fall of the antichrist¹. Suspecting a foreign plot, the authorities responded with vigor. Under the leadership of the Abbé du Chayla, archpriest of the Cévennes and a fervent persecutor of the region’s religious dissidents, hundreds of prophesying girls, boys, women and men were locked away in prisons, one of which was in the basement of the Abbé’s very own home. On 24 July 1702 a group of Cévenol Huguenots marched to the house to free their imprisoned companions, in the process of which they caught the priest, dragged him to a nearby bridge, and stabbed him to death².

Du Chayla’s murder ignited France’s last war of religion, which would plague the Cévennes Mountains for the next eight years. The War of the Camisards – named after the characteristic black smocks worn by the insurgents for identification – was a particularly nasty conflict. The Camisards fought a guerilla war, using their unmatched knowledge of the rugged mountains to compensate for their limited numbers, training, and equipment³. Under the leadership of warrior-prophets, they were convinced that they were fighting a holy war and they did not shy away from massacring local Catholic communities. For protection and retaliation, Catholic Cévenols formed militias as well – styling themselves as White Camisards or Cadets of the Cross – and soon began to commit their own atrocities⁴. The royal army, the Camisards’ principal enemy, was brought to despair by fighting an almost invisible enemy and soon turned to razing villages by the hundreds and depopulating entire regions through forced emigration⁵.

There is an intriguing contrast between the local scale of the War of the Camisards and its international significance in the eyes of the belligerents. Although fighting within the boundaries of a desolate mountain area, the Camisards not only framed their struggle within Europe’s larger theater of war, but even regarded themselves as nothing less than the heralds of the apocalypse. The French authorities, in turn, were convinced that the revolt was orchestrated by Louis xiv’s enemies abroad⁶.

In reality, the War of the Camisards was not the result of a foreign plot. Yet it became part of one. Stakeholders within and around the political centers of England and the Dutch Republic tried to find support for the revolt, which they regarded as an excellent opportunity to deliver France a fatal blow from the inside⁷. Secret plans were made to raise funds to supply the insurgents with weapons and ammunition as well as to invade the Languedoc with an army consisting of members of the Huguenot diaspora, an idea inspired by the unexpectedly successful Glorieuse Rentrée of the Waldensians in 1689⁸. At the same time, opinion makers published pamphlets to persuade a larger audience to show solidarity with the insurgents in the Cévennes Mountains.

This raise the question how these secret and public calls to solidarity related to each other. In a recent article, Helmer Helmers points to the role of public diplomacy in early modern international relations. He shows that ambassadors often turned to the printing press to communicate with foreign audiences and manage the news surrounding the states they represented to influence public opinion⁹. As the case of the Camisards demonstrates, such practices of public diplomacy were not restricted to the ambassadors of sovereign states.

As Helmers already indicates, for those who fought a sovereign state but were devoid of a diplomatic corps themselves, public diplomacy could replace official representation¹⁰.

Writing from the perspective of today’s world, Teresa La Porte has argued that one can duly speak of public diplomacy whenever « non-state actors have a basic organization, clear objectives, stable representation and coordinated activity¹¹ ». To a considerable extent, the Camisards fulfilled these basic requirements. However, they notoriously lacked an eye for publicity. Enjoying direct divine guidance, as they believed they did, seeking foreign alliances or polishing their international image was not among their prime concerns. Even if it had been, the insurgents – including their leaders – were illiterate peasants, shepherds, and woolcombers, and thus unfamiliar with the world of international correspondence and representation. It took the Camisards six months before they first tried to attract foreign support for their cause and direct contact with foreign officials always remained rare¹².

Examining how non-insurgent advocates of the Camisard cause tried to influence international politics, this paper aims to push the boundaries of what print media we should consider as works of public diplomacy in early modern Europe. The intended impact of pamphlets will be studied in two ways. First, I will explore who these opinion makers were, who their desired public was, and what forms of action they hoped to incite. Secondly, I will investigate the political rhetoric through which they tried to convince their international audience to care about the fate of the Camisards.

IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE, REASON, AND HUMANITY

While shrouded in mystery, news about the revolt spread relatively quickly across the French borders ; it took just over three weeks before du Chayla’s murder was reported in Dutch newspapers. On 17 August 1702, the Amsterdamse Courant – edited with permission of the municipal government by Willem Arnold and Jacomijntje van Duyveland¹³ – reports from Paris six days earlier that « there is a big rumor here about something peculiar¹⁴ ». It provides correct details about du Chayla’s fame as a missionary and about the house having been set on fire before he was killed by a Huguenot crowd. Yet crucial details are lacking and some information is incorrect. The courant does not mention that the crowd had come to the house to demand the liberation of prisoners and that a skirmish had taken place. Indeed, no context about religious or political unrest is provided. Moreover, there is an unfounded detail that the murderers had offered to spare the priest’s life if he would convert. This suggests that the report was based on Catholic sources, as spokesmen of the Church immediately began to hail du Chayla as a martyr¹⁵. The reporter was aware that the story may not be entirely correct, cautiously stating that it may be somewhat « passionate¹⁶ ».

Throughout the rest of the civil war, journalists struggled to find reliable sources about what was going on in the Cévennes. Shreds of news alternatingly came from different sources in Paris, Basel, Montpellier, Livorno, Geneva, Turin, or London, often bringing conflicting stories. In June 1703, the political monthly Mercure historique et politique contenant l’état présent de l’Europe – edited by the Huguenot minister and exile Jean de La Brune (?-1743?) and published by Henri van Bulderen (1683-1713) in The Hague¹⁷ – tellingly published an anonymous letter complaining about the scarcity of reports :

Il a été assez difficile jusqu’ici d’être instruit au vrai de ce qui se passe dans les Sevennes […] il y a quelque chose de bien singulier & de bien surprenant, dans tout le cours de cette affaire, qui dure depuis près d’un an¹⁸.

For those curious news consumers who tried to make sense of the bits and pieces of information coming from newspapers, the publication of a Camisard manifest in February 1703 must have come as a pleasant surprise. The twelve-page Les Raisons véritables des habitants des Cévennes sur leur prise d’armes, published in Amsterdam, was late but not unsuccessful ; it was soon translated into Dutch (Fig. 1), into German in Berlin, and into English in London¹⁹.

Presented as a manifesto, the work purported to speak with the voice of the insurgents and was accordingly published anonymously. As Antoine Court (1695-1760) already remarked in his monumental Histoire des Troubles des Cévennes, it is very unlikely that it had in-deed been written by a Camisard²⁰; the author of the manifesto makes mistakes about details of the revolt, which cannot be explained as a conscious rewriting of history for propaganda reasons. It is likely that the work was instead written by one of the many émigré pastors who had settled in England and the Dutch Republic some two decades earlier.

That there was so little publicly available information about the War of the Camisards was a crucial advantage; it gave the author of the manifest ample opportunity to present a positive image of the insurgents, unrestrained by inconvenient facts about prophecy and atrocity. Nevertheless, the author worked on dangerous ground by justifying a religious minority’s revolt against a rightful sovereign for a general audience. In order not to alienate potential allies, the pamphlet steers away from any form of group identification that could spark controversy, such as the question of prophecy. It is well possible that the author did not know about the most recent prophetic outbreaks which had caused the initial clash with the authorities. But his failing to mention the region’s rich history of prophetic movements – which had been amply covered by no one less than the Huguenot diaspora opinion maker Pierre Jurieu – must have been an intentional omission²¹.

Figure n° 1 : Manifest van het volk in de Sevennes, wegens het opvatten der wapenen tegens den koning van Vrankryk, Amsterdam, 1703.

Instead, the author describes the Cévenol Huguenots as having been proto-Calvinists – such as the Waldensians in Piedmont were often held to have be – who had inhabited the region and had preached the Reformed faith for hundreds of years²². Yet the manifesto cannot be characterized as a typical celebration of the true religion, as the insurgents’ adherence to the Reformed faith is not coupled to a confessional truth claim. The author wants his readers to religiously identify with the insurgents, but he is careful not to define the conflict among confessional lines or to speak in religiously partisan terms. This is not to say that the pamphlet presents a fully secular understanding of the war; the author argues that divine providence led the Cévenols to take up arms for protection against the punitive expedition sent to the region following the lynching of du Chayla. It does not, however, take the form of what Alexandra Walsham has identified as « anti-Catholic Providentialism» , an act of divine intervention for the true faith²³. Instead, it is linked to the confessionally neutral right to counter violence with violence, « being a law of nature, confirmed by the laws of God and men²⁴ ». In other words, the conflict is fought with divine grace, but it is not a war of religion:

Ainsi nous pouvons fort modestement assurer que c’est ici un Gouvernement Tyrannique, un Gouvernement Militaire, qui n’est reglé ni de la justice, ni de la raison, ni même de l’humanité, & que tous les bons François sont obligez de s’y opposer jusqu’à ce que la paix & la justice soient entierement rétablis dans le Royaume. C’est à quoi nous exhortons tous nos compatriotes, car ce n’est point une affaire de Religion seulement, c’est un droit de nature commun à toutes les Nations & à toutes les Religions du monde de s’opposer à la violence de ceux qui nous ravissent nos biens sans cause et qui desolent nos maisons & nos familles²⁵.

Why was this non-confessional approach taken? Although the author’s intended readership was primarily Protestant, he must have been aware of the larger European picture; an interconfessional alliance waged war against France and Catholic princes were not eager to support an anti-Catholic revolt. To emphasize that the conflict was not of a confessional nature, the author of the manifest even claims that Catholic Cévenols supported the Camisard cause and had joined forces with their Protestant neighbors to resist the heavy taxes levied by the Sun King²⁶. The hope that the pamphlet would actually inspire Catholic Frenchmen to take up arms against their king must have been another decisive reason to speak in confessionally neutral terms. For over a decade, the London-based émigré Armand de Bourbon (1655-1732), Marquis of Miremont, had tried to make foreign powers aware of the « universal discontent » over taxation among Occitan subjects of both faiths²⁷. As one of the central advocates of an armed invasion in the Languedoc, Miremont should, indeed, be regarded as a plausible author or patron of the pamphlet.

The manifesto concludes with a direct appeal to its diverse and multiconfessional intended readership, asking « all kings, princes, lords, states, and peoples, and all Christian men in general, our neighbors and compatriots to reject such an unjust domination, to which all of Europe will have to bow if this violence and barbarity is not stopped²⁸ ».

THE LAWFULNESS, GLORY, AND ADVANTAGE OF INTERVENTION

Although the idea of supporting a fifth column in France had found its way into Europe’s inner political and diplomatic circles by the spring of 1703, not everybody was convinced by the justification laid out in the Manifesto of the Inhabitants of the Cévennes. In England the idea of aiding rebels against their legitimate monarch sparked controversy. Several members of the Privy Council regarded it as unethical and believed that support for the Camisards would provide fuel for those who disputed the legitimacy of Queen Anne’s rule²⁹.

At the request of Miremont, Abel Boyer (1667-1729) intervened in this debate by writing another defense of the Camisard cause³⁰. Boyer was a native of the Upper Languedoc who had studied theology at the academy of Puylaurens, before he fled the Dutch Republic following the

Figure n° 2 : Abel Boyer, The Lawfulness, Glory, and Advantage, of giving immediate and effectual relief to the Protestants in the Cevennes, London, J. Nutt, 1703.

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Recommended by Pierre Bayle to Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury and advisor to William iii, Boyer moved to England in 1689, where he quickly made a career as a contemporary historian and tutor to the Duke of Gloucester at the English court³¹. Boyer’s The Lawfulness, Glory and Advantage of Giving Immediate and Effectual Relief to the Protestants in the Cevennes was published in three editions by John Nutt (1665-1716), a trade publisher near Stationers’ Hall, in London in April 1703 (Fig. 2)³². Not much later, the original was followed by a French translation published by London-based exile printer Paul Vaillant and a Dutch translation by François van der Plaats in Amsterdam³³. Aiming to neutralize the Privy Council’s reservations, the Lawfulness, Glory and Advantage provides a 27 page justification for foreign intervention. This was a sensitive question. Governments often supported foreign insurgents, but they usually did so in secret, avoiding the pitfalls of a public apology.

To legitimize an intervention, one first needed to justify the revolt it-self, which was not an easy thing to do in early eighteenth-century Europe. Shaped by the disastrous breakdown of authority during the wars of religion, seventeenth-century political philosophers typically advocated undivided domestic sovereignty and struggled to combine this with a right of resistance. Influential thinkers – including Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf – provided subjects with only a very limited legal framework to defend themselves against kings who raised their swords against them³⁴.

Secondly, one had to justify the foreign intervention itself. In this respect, political philosophers tended to be more generous³⁵; Grotius famously defended that rulers – having a responsibility not only for their subjects but for all humankind – had a duty to intervene against the oppression of foreign subjects, especially if they were persecuted for their religion³⁶. Boyer indeed bases his justification on Grotius and, as a consequence, fails to justify the Camisards’ taking up arms; he quotes the legal philosopher arguing that « subjects are not bound to obey the magistrate, when he decrees any thing contrary either to the Law of Nature or of God³⁷ ». Yet he has to add that « it is not lawful for subjects to take up arms³⁸ ». In the end, he therefore relies on Grotius’ assertion « that others may […] take up Arms for them ³⁹ ».

In his effort to translate the fate of the Camisards to his English readership, Boyer departs from a confessionally neutral justification and takes a more religiously partisan approach. He argues that all Protestants should support the Camisards, who are fighting the very same battle as the English had against the « popish pretender » James ii in 1688. Moreover, the author does not shy away from claiming that « God Almighty had vouchsafed to illuminate this People with the Truth of the Gospel⁴⁰ ». As to the question of intervention, Boyer harks back to the wars of religion and reminds his readers that Elizabeth i devoted much of her reign to aiding Protestants in France and the Netherlands. James i, on the other hand, would forever carry the stain of having allowed the Protestant religion to be rooted out of Bohemia and the Palatinate, a reference to the early stages of the Thirty Years’ War⁴¹. In other words, history showed that the principle of sovereignty should not overrule a ruler’s responsibilities to the survival of the true faith. While intervention was thus primarily legitimized in confessionally neutral terms, it was supported with militant Protestant ideas, including appeals to religious truth.

TO BOLSTER AND INSPIRE

The Lawfulness, Glory and Advantage offers insight in the complex and contested role of public opinion in political discourse at the turn of the eighteenth century. The pamphlet intervened in an ongoing debate in the highest circles of government. Miremont had access to these circles but nevertheless used publicity to put pressure on them. The work communicates with different publics, thereby creating a written – if not physical – link between them : In the preface, the Lawfulness, Glory and Advantage is dedicated to Queen Anne and her Privy Council, praising them with references to providence and glory⁴². Secondly, Boyer appeals to the English people, reminding them that it is their religious and patriotic duty to show solidarity with the Camisards⁴³.

At the closing of his argument, Boyer makes a reference to the strategy of publicity itself; after pleading for a military invasion by the English fleet to support the Cévenols, he points out that there will be cautious people warning for the dangers of making such interventionist plans public. The author responds to this reservation by arguing that the Camisards will receive new « spirit and vigour » when they find out that foreign powers are willing to help them⁴⁴. Indeed, he believes that his pamphlet – or the news about it – would find its way across the French borders and encourage Protestants in the regions around the Cévennes to also rise up and « shake off their yoke⁴⁵ ». Yet the author had taken a risk. On 25 April Boyer had to appear before Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, Lord President of the Privy Council, who reprimanded him for having stirred up public opinion against the common perception that the Camisards were rebelling against their lawful monarch⁴⁶. This does not mean that the Lord President was against intervention. Nottingham had been in contact with Miremont about the possibilities of a military intervention since February and by mid-April Dutch ambassador to London Marinus van Vrijbergen could report to The Hague that Anne was planning to send weapons, money, and marines to the Mediterranean⁴⁷. Yet the English Court clearly favored the strategic merits of an unexpected strike over boosting Camisard morale with publicity.

Dutch advocates of the Camisard cause were similarly vexed by the dilemmas of secrecy versus publicity and religious partisanship versus confessional neutrality. The engagement of Jacob Surendonck (1647-1729) is a case in point. Surendonck held a powerful position in the United Provinces’ political center, formally as Land’s Advocate of the States of Holland and informally as a friend and adviser of Grand Pensionary Anthonie Heinsius (1641-1720), the Republic’s de facto head of government⁴⁸. Like many of his contemporaries, Surendonck’s perspective on European politics was marked by the fear of French Universal Monarchy and the belief that the Protestant religion was beleaguered⁴⁹. As such, he devoted much of his career to advising about the military endeavors against Louis xiv – which included a failed attempt to become « secretary of war » after the death of William iii⁵⁰.

Already during the Nine Years’ War Surendonck had incessantly tried to convince the stadtholder-king, his wife Mary Stuart, and Heinsius of the merits of a military invasion from the sea, believing that the Sun King would quickly be defeated if he were forced to fight on his own soil⁵¹. During the War of the Camisards these ideas came close to being put into practice⁵². Surendonck insisted that a publicity campaign in France was the key to a successful invasion. In a letter from June 1704 to Grand Pensionary Heinsius, pensionary of Amsterdam Willem Buys, and pensionary of Gouda Bruno van der Dussen, Surendonck stressed that shortly before the invasion two « eloquent and moving » pamphlets should be disseminated widely throughout France, « one in the name of the repressed French nation in general and the other in the name of the Protestants⁵³ ».

Figure n° 3 : Resolution of the States General, 26-02-1705.

The Land’s Advocate also had his eye on international public opinion when he tried to organize a collection⁵⁴. In the beginning of May 1703, shortly after the publication of Boyer’s pamphlet, Surendonck sent requests to several administrative bodies, including the Council of Amsterdam and one of the city’s mayors, to raise funds for the Huguenots in the Cévennes⁵⁵. Believing that secret efforts to aid the Camisards were insufficient, he argued that a Dutch charity campaign would send an important public message abroad: open support would provide an example for the English – he must have known the Privy Council’s hesitations –, bolster the insurgents in the Cévennes, and inspire other Protestants in France to rise up against Louis xiv.

Surendonck’s archive contains several versions of a seven-page manuscript, the Nadere remarques op de te doene assistentie en collecte in de seven provincien voor onse geloofsgenoten in de Sevennes, in which he provides an elaborate justification for support⁵⁶. It shows why the Camisards had the right to resist, why the laws of war allowed the United Provinces to support a rebellion, and why it was a Christian duty to do so. We do not know whether the Nadere remarques was written as a political arcanum for limited circulation or whether it was meant for publication to accompany the proposed collections. In any case, it failed to work. Like their English colleagues the Dutch authorities remained cautious with regards to public support. Rather than starting a new charity campaign, the States General used funds raised for the Huguenots in 1699. After this money was spent in 1705, they finally asked the individual provinces to each raise 100,000 guilders for the relief of the Camisards⁵⁷. However, they did so in a secret request, with the explicit request to deal with the matter discretely (Fig. 3)⁵⁸.

CONCLUSION

This paper has shown how different agents who were not official ambassadors used or wanted to use print to assume political agency and manage the news in order to influence foreign politics. Pamphleteers did so with different audiences in mind and, as such, they used different political languages to justify their goals. In their efforts to legitimize an intervention, they steered a middle course between supranational Protestant identification with the insurgents and appeals to supraconfessional solidarity through legal and humanitarian argumentation. Directed at different audiences, pamphlets were devised as multidirectional documents of communication between different stakeholders. On the one hand, they purported to speak with the voice of the insurgents to make Dutch and English audiences rally to their cause. On the other hand, they served to make (potential) insurgents aware of the fact that there was foreign interest for their struggle. These were attempts to establish a form of (imagined) contact between foreign insurgent and political elite which decisively went beyond one-directional propaganda. We can therefore speak of public diplomacy without lapsing into conceptual inflation. The authors may not have been diplomats themselves, but they certainly took on a diplomatic role.

____________

¹ Lionel Laborie, « Who were the Camisards? », French Studies Bulletin, 32-120, 2011, p. 56.

² W. Gregory Monahan, Let God Arise: The War and Rebellion of the Camisards, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 56-63.

³ According to modern estimates there were never more than 3,000 to 4,000 active culprits; W. Gregory Monahan, Let God Arise…, op. cit., p. 218.

⁴ Robert P. Gagg, Kirche im Feuer. Das Leben der südfranzösischen Hugenottenkirche nach dem Todesurteil durch Ludwig xiv , Zurich, Zwingli Verlag, p. 108-112; Chrystel Bernat, « La Guerre des Cévennes: Un Conflit Trilatéral? », Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire du protestantisme français, 148-3, 2002, p. 461-506.

⁵ Lionel Laborie, Enlightening enthusiasm: Prophecy and Religious Experience in Early Eighteenth-Century England, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2015, p. 27.

⁶ W. Gregory Monahan, Let God Arise…, op. cit., p. 129-131.

⁷ See Matthew Glozier, « Schomberg, Miremont, and the Huguenot Invasions of France »,in War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648-1713, éd. David Onnekink, Farnham, Ashgate Publishing 2009, p. 121-154.

⁸ Giovanni Gonnet, « La “Glorieuse Rentrée” », Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 135, 1989, 437-441.

⁹ Helmer Helmers, « Public Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe: Towards a New History of News », Media History, 22 (3-4), 2016, p. 401-420.

¹⁰ Helmer Helmers, « Public Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe… », art. cit., p. 402, 407.

¹¹ Teresa La Porte, « The Impact of “Intermestic” Non-State Actors on the Conceptual Framework of Public Diplomacy », The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 7-4, 2012, p. 449-450.

¹² W. Gregory Monahan, Let God Arise…, op. cit., p. 159.

¹³ Willem Pieter Sautijn Kluit, « Geschiedenis der Amsterdamsche Courant », Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, 5, 1868, p. 36-37.

¹⁴ Amsterdamse Courant, Amsterdam, Willem Arnold and Jacomijntje van Duyveland, 17 August 1702.

¹⁵ W. Gregory Monahan, Let God Arise…, op. cit., p. 66.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Alain Juillard, « Jean de La Brune (?-1743?) », in Dictionnaire des Journalistes (1600-1789), éd. Anne-Marie Mercier-Faivre and Denis Reynaud, [en ligne :] /journaliste/433-jean-de-la-brune. [page consultée le 2 octobre 2017].

¹⁸ Anonyme, Mercure historique et politique concernant l’état présent de l’Europe, ce qui se passe dans toutes les Cours, tome 3, La Haye, Henri van Bulderen, 1703, p. 639.

¹⁹ Les Raisons véritables des habitants des Cévennes sur leur prise d’armes dédié à Monseigneur le Dauphin, Amsterdam, 1703; Manifest van het volk in de Sevennes, wegens het opvatten der wapenen tegens de Koning van Vrankryk beneffens desselfs gebed, Amsterdam, 1703; Manifeste des habitans des Sevennes sur leur prise d’armes/Manifest der Völcker und Einwohner in der Landschafft Sevennen warum sie die Waffen ergriffen, Amsterdam, 1703 (édition bilingue); Sonderbahres und merckwürdiges Manifest der Einwohner in den Sevennischen Thälern der Französischen Provinz Languedoc darin die ihre trifftige und gar wichtige Ursachen oder Bewegungen anführen und entdecken/ warum sie anjetzo die Waffen ergriffen, Berlin, Friedrich Hoffmann, 1703; Manifeste des habitants des Cévennes sur leur prise d’armes, Berlin, 1703; The Manifesto of the Cevennois shewing the true reasons which have constrained the inhabitants of the Cevennes to take up arms, dedicated to my lord the Dauphine, Londres, Joseph Downing, 1703.

²⁰ Antoine Court, Histoire des troubles des Cévennes, ou de la guerre des Camisars, sous le regne de Louis le Grand, t. i, livre iii, Villefranche, Pierre Chretien, 1760, p. 283.

²¹ Pierre Jurieu, « vii. Pastoralen Brief, van gesangen en stemmen die op verscheydene plaetsen in de Lucht gehoort sijn », dans Pastorale of Herderlijke Brieven aan de Gelovige in Vrankryk, die onder de Gevankenisse van Babel zyn suchtende; Waer inne weerleyt en ongesmeten worden de Arglistigheden, dewelke den Bisschop van Meaux, en andere Bekeerders tot Verleydinge in ‘t werk stellen. En waer inne men vinden sal de voornaamste uytkomsten van de tegenwoordige Vervolginge, traduction de Gijsbert de Cretzer, La Haye, Barent Beek, 1688, p. 97-112.

²² « Manifeste des habitants des Cévennes sur leur prise d’armes », in Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du XVIII ^e siècle contenant les negociations, traitez, resolutions et autres documens authentiques concernant l’affaires d’etat, tome ii, La Haye, Henri Scheurleer, 1703/1725, p. 527.

²³ Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 280.

²⁴ « […] qui est un Droit de la nature autorisé par les loix divines & humaines » ; « Manifeste des habitants… », art. cit., p. 530.

²⁵ Anonymous, « Manifeste des habitants… », art. cit., p. 532.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 531-532.

²⁷ Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc, Urbana; Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1974, p. 273.

²⁸ « […] tous Rois, Princes, & Seigneurs, Etats, & Peuples, & en general tous hommes Chrêtiens nos voisins & compatriottes, de nous aider à repousser une si injuste Domination à laquelle toute l’Europe soit soumise, si on n’arrêtoit pas sa violence & sa barbarité », Anonymous, « Manifeste des habitants… », art. cit., p. 533.

²⁹ Gregory S. Monahan, Let God Arise… op. cit., p. 160-161.

³⁰ Lionel Laborie, « Huguenot Propaganda and the Millenarian Legacy of the Désert in the Refuge », Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, 29-5, 2012, p. 643.

³¹ Graham C. Gibbs, « The Contribution of Abel Boyer to Contemporary History in England in the Early Eighteenth Century », in Clio’s Mirror: Historiography in Britain and the Netherlands, éd. Alastair C. Duke et Coenraad A. Tamse, Zutphen, De Walburg Pers, 1985, p. 87-108; Id., « Boyer, Abel (1167?-1729), lexicographer and journalist », Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008.

³² John D. Gordan, « John Nutt: Trade Publisher and Printer “In the Savoy” », The Library, 15-3, 2014, p. 243-260.

³³ Abel Boyer, La necessité de donner un prompt & puissant secours aux Protestans des Cevennes, ou l’on fait voir la justice, la gloire & l’avantage de cette entreprise, & les moyens d’y reussir, London, P. Vaillant, 1703; Abel Boyer, Korte en klaare aanwysing van de noodzaakelyke middelen omme de Protestanten in de Sevennes spoedig te konnen helpen, en haar te ontlasten van de verdrukking die dezelve onder de tegenwoordige Regering des Fransen Konings moeten ondergaan. Nevens een korte beschryving van het zelve Landschap, en den tegenwoordigen staat, Amsterdam, François van der Plaats, 1703.

³⁴ For Grotius’ conception of the right to resist and his reception in England see Marco Barducci, Hugo Grotius and the Century of Revolution, 1613-1718: Transnational Reception in English Political Thought, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 52-68; for the right of resistance in Hobbes’s works see Peter J. Steinberger, « Hobbesian Resistance », American Journal of Political Science, 46-4, 2002, p. 856-865; Susanne Sreedhar, Hobbes on Resistance: Defying the Leviathan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010; for Pufendorf and resistance theory see Michael J. Seidler, « “Turkish Judgment” and the English Revolution: Pufendorf on the Right of Resistance », in Pufendorf und die Europäische Frühaufklärung: Werk und Einfluß eines Deutschen Bürgers der Gelehrtenrepublik nach 300 Jahren (1694-1994), éd. Fiammetta Palladini and Gerald Hartung, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1996, p. 83-104; John Locke, an admirer of Pufendorf, went a step further in his 1689 Two Treatises of Government, arguing that the people, in theory, had the right to overthrow a government. However, compared to Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf, Locke’s work was not yet widely discussed in 1703; see Roland Marden, « “Who shall be Judge?”: John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government and the Problem of Sovereignty », Contributions to the History of Concepts, 2-1, 2006, p. 59-81; for the initial reception of Locke’s Two Treatises see Martyn P. Thompson, « The Reception of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government 1690-1705 », Political Studies, 24-2, 1976, p. 184-191.

³⁵ Only in the second half of the eighteenth century did the idea develop that states could do whatever they wanted within their borders and that foreign states should in no way intervene or judge their policy; Stephen D. Krasner, « Rethinking the Sovereign State Model », Review of International Studies, 27-5, 2001, p. 20.

³⁶ R. J. Vincent, « Grotius, Human Rights, and Intervention », in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, éd. Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, Adam Roberts, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 247-248; Pufendorf had a similar view, albeit from a more confessionally partisan position. Initially being a firm opponent of foreign intervention, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) made him reconsider and favor a more interventionist policy for the survival of Protestantism; Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 158-163.

³⁷ Abel Boyer, The Lawfulness, Glory, and Advantage, of giving immediate and effectual relief to the Protestants in the Cevennes, London, J. Nutt, 1703, p. 6.

³⁸ Abel Boyer, The Lawfulness, Glory, and Advantage…, op. cit., p. 7.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 16.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 8.

⁴² Ibid., p. 3-4.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 5.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 24.

⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 12.

⁴⁶ L. Laborie, « Huguenot Propaganda… », art. cit., p. 643.

⁴⁷ Letter from Marinus van Vrijbergen to Anthonie Heinsius, 17 April 1703, De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, 1702-1720, ed. A. J. Veenendaal jr., La Haye, Martinus Nijhoff, 1976, p. 162.

⁴⁸ M. Claessens, « Inventaris van het archief van Jacob Surendonck », Nationaal Archief, La Haye, 1991, p. 8.

⁴⁹ For an excellent overview of anti-French foreign policy discourses during the War of the Spanish Succession see David Onnekink, Reinterpreting the Dutch Forty Years War, 1672-1713, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 89-122.

⁵⁰ Letter from Jacob Surendonck to Anthonie Heinsius, 21 August 1702, La Haye, Nationaal Archief, Familiearchief Surendonck, access number 3.20.57, inv. nr. 94.

⁵¹ See all letters in Familiearchief Surendonck, section b.2 « Vlootexpedities », Nationaal Archief, La Haye.

⁵² See Glozier, « Schomberg, Miremont… », art. cit.

⁵³ Letter from Johannes Surendonck to Anthonie Heinsius, Willem Buijs, and Bruno van der Dussen, 30 June 1704, La Haye, National Archive, Family archive Surendonck 3.20.57, inv. nr. 235; see also Letter from Johannes Surendonck to Anthonie Heinsius, 11 July 1708, La Haye, National Archive, Family archive Surendonck 3.20.57, inv. nr. 138; and Letter from Johannes Surendonck to Isaac van Hoornbeek, pensionary of Rotterdam, 1 April 1705, La Haye, Nationaal Archief, Family archive Surendonck 3.20.57, inv. nr. 238.

⁵⁴ For the practice of fund raising in the Dutch Republic see Erica Boersma, De Republiek als Barmhartige Samaritaan. Collectes voor Buitenlandse Geloofsgenoten in de Zeventiende Eeuw, unpublished master thesis, 2013.

⁵⁵ Letter from Jacob Surendonck to Johannes Hudde, 05 May 1703, Familiearchief Surendonck, access number 3.20.57, inv. nr. 221, Nationaal Archief, La Haye.

⁵⁶ Jacob Surendonck, « Nadere Remarques », 1703, Familiearchief Surendonck, access number 3.20.57, archival object 222, Nationaal Archief, La Haye.

⁵⁷ See « Resolutien Staten Generaal de finantien rakende », 1704, Archief van mr. C. de Jonge van Ellemeet, 1570-1798, object nr. 51, Nationaal Archief, La Haye; I thank Erica Boersma for bringing these sources to my attention.

⁵⁸ Resolution of the States General, 26-02-1705, Familiearchief Surendonck, access number 3.20.57, object nr. 223, Nationaal Archief, La Haye.