Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/823

Rh What we know of the spiritual manifestations in the Cevennes (which much resembled those of the Swedish Raestars of Smaland in 1844) is chiefly derived from Le Theatre Sacre des Cevennes, London, 1707, reprinted at Paris in 1847 ; -I Cry from the Desert, etc., by John Lacy, London, 1707; La clef des proprieties de M. Marion, London, 1707; Avertissements propketitjiies d Elie Marion, &c., London, 1707 About the date of these publications Marion, Durand Fage, and Cavalier were in London. They tried to propagate their &quot; mystical phalanx &quot; there, but the consistory of the French church in the Savoy pronounced the &quot; ecstasy &quot; to be an assumed and voluntary habit. Voltaire relates (Siecle de Louis XIV., c. 36) that Marion wished to prove his inspiration by attempting to raise a dead body from St Paul s churchyard. He was at last compelled to leave England. The inspiration (of which there were four degrees, avertissement, souffle, prophetic, dons) was sometimes communicated by a kiss at the assembly. The patient, who had gone through several fasts three days in length, became pale and fell insensible to the ground. Then came violent agitations of the limbs and head, as Voltaire remarks, ; quite according to the ancient custom of all nations, and the rules of madness transmitted from age to age &quot; Finally the patient (who might be a little child, a woman, a half-witted person) began to speak in the good French of the Huguenot Bible words such as these : &quot; Mes freres, amendez-vous, faites penitence, la fin du monde approche ; lij jugement general sera dans trois mois ; repentez-vous du grand podie&quot; que vous avez commis d aller a la messe; c est le Saint-Esprit qui parle par mabouche&quot; (llistoire. du fanatisme de notre tenrjis, par Brucys, Utrecht, 1737, vol. i. p. 153). The discourse might go on for two hours ; after which the patient could only express himself in his native patois, a Romance idiom, and had no recollection of his &quot; ecstasy.&quot; All kinds of miracles attended on the Camisards. Lights in the sky guided them to places of safety, voices sang encouragement to them, shots and wounds were often harmless. Those entranced fell from trees without hurting themselves ; they shed tears of blood : and they subsisted without food or speech for nine days. The supernatural was part of their life. Much literature has been devoted to the discussion of these marvels. The Catholics Flechier (in his Lettres Choisies) and Brueys consider them the product of fasting and vanity, nourished on apocalyptic literature. The doctors Bertrand (in his Du Magnetisme Animal, Paris, 1826) and Calmeil (in his De la Folie, Paris, 1845) speak of mag netism, hysteria, and epilepsy, a prophetic monomania based on belief in divine possession. The Protestants Peyrat and Court are content with the phrase &quot; ecstasy,&quot; and do not invoke the supernatural. The Catholic Tories, such as M. Hippolyte Blanc, regard the whole thing as the work of the devil. Since the publication of Hecker s work on Epidemics of the Middle Ages, it has been possible to con sider the subject in its true relations. Although the Camisards were guilty of great cruelties in the prosecution of the war, there does not seem to be sufficient ground for the charge made by Marshal de Villars : &quot; Le plupart de leurs chefs ont leurs demoiselles &quot; (letter of 9th August 1704, in the War Archives, vol. 1797). There probably wers many cases in which a vicious use was made of the opportunities afforded by war and religious excitement ; but the charges of sexual immorality rest chiefly on the worthless statements of Louvreleuil. The standard works relating to the Camisards are, Elie B&ioit, Historic de lEdit de Nantes ; C. Coquerel, llistoire des Eylises du Desert ; and the work of Court, already mentioned.

1em  CAMOENS (or, according to the Portuguese spelling, ), (1524-1579), the son of Simao Vaz de Camoens and Ana de Sd e Miranda, was descended in the female line from the Gamas of Algarve, with which family Vasco de Gama claimed kinship ; on the male side also the Camoens were of gentle birth and high social position. Lisbon. Coimbra, Alemquer, and Santarem have claimed to be the cradle of this &quot;prince of poets of his time;&quot; the balance of evidence, however, is now generally considered to be in favour of Lisbon. Manoel Correia, who was on terms of intimacy with the poet, in his Commentaries on the Liisiad, states : &quot; The author of this book is Luiz de Camoens, Portuguese by nationality, born and bred in the city of Lisbon, of noble and accredited parentage.&quot; Correia states in his notes to canto 10 of the Lusiad, that Camoens was more than forty years of age when he wrote it ; and, further on, that the canto was written in 1570 The evidence of Faria e Sousa, extracted in 1643 from the registers of the &quot;India House at Lisbon,&quot; proves Camoens to have been twenty-five years of age in 1550; and 1524 is now generally accepted as approximately the year of his birth.