Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/248

 

This Divine, a nobleman by birth, signed himself. The oldest families in France preferred to sign with their ancient surnames, rather than with their territorial titles. I would, however, have had no doubt that in this case the surname was Pineton, were it not that in the codicil of this Monsieur De Chambrun’s will, registered at Doctors’ Commons, he is styled “Master James De Chambrun, Sieur de Pineton.”

His grandfather received ordination at the hands of Calvin, and was Pasteur of Nismes from 1562 to 1601. He published, in 1584, a quarto volume, dedicated to King Henry of Navarre, in reply to Jan Hay, a Jesuit’s, calumnies on Calvin and the Reformation. It is said of this Jacques Pineton de Chambrun that, representing an ancient and noble family, he renounced the world that he might receive from Calvin the modest but glorious title of a minister of Christ. In 1609 his son, of the same name and title, and the father of the refugee, was ordained to the new charge of fourth Pastor of Nismes, and continued in that town till 1620, when he was translated to Orange, where he served the Reformed Church till his death in 1658.

The refugee Jacques was born at Orange in 1637. His divinity studies were carried on at Saumur, his connection with which is kept in memory in the volume containing the best academic disputations held in that university, where the thesis “De Libertate Christiana” is debated, respondente Jacobo Pineton A. Chambruno. At the age of twenty-one he succeeded his father as pasteur of Orange. He acquired great reputation as a minister, a professor of theology, a controversialist, and an influential gentleman, but amidst continual turmoil and tribulation until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Louis XIV., although not the sovereign of Orange, never scrupled to invade and occupy the little principality, if it pleased him so to do, and scrupled still less, when his persecuted Protestants sought an asylum there. In 1685 worshippers whose churches had been demolished, parents with children for baptism, and fugitives from oppression crowded the streets and the highways, and even the fields and woods of Orange. At length a representation was sent to the Prince of Orange as to the offence given to the French government by this refuge for contumacious French subjects, and also a warning that a military occupation of the principality of Orange on the part of France as a necessary precaution must be expected. The Prince was powerless to prevent the execution of this threat, and concluded a truce, by which eight days were allowed for the strangers to return to their homes. This truce the French broke, and precipitately surrounded the city, and quartered the dragoons and other soldiery upon it. The churches were demolished. Four Protestant ministers were thrown into prison. As for De Chambrun, he had for some time been confined to bed; to his chronic malady, gout, there had been added the pain arising from a fracture of the left thigh, and from a severe strain upon the sinews of the leg, so that, from want of sleep, he was in a state of pitiable debility and emaciation. He was, therefore, put under arrest, two dragoons keeping guard — one at his bedside, and the other at the street door. On the afternoon of his arrival the Comte de Tesse paid him a visit, admired his elegant mansion and furniture and fine library, recognised him as one of the noblesse, and blandly exhorted him as to religion to obey the king. He replied that his rulers were God and the Prince of Orange. The Count then entrapped him into a brief disputation with his tolerant neighbour, the Bishop of Orange; but the Protestant divine having the best of it, De Tessé asserted that the King of France had set his heart on making him a Catholic, and gave him a carte blanche to ask any favour at his Majesty’s hands. De Chambrun replied, that his Majesty could have no such high thoughts about a poor minister, but that he would so far identify himself with the Protestant ministers of France, as to ask, that like them, he might have a passport to retire into Holland. De Tessé answered that it would be politically dangerous to send him to be a councillor of the Prince of Orange. He then dropped his polite tone, and demanded obedience with threats of violence. Upon De Chambrun protesting that he would not dare to maltreat such an invalid and sufferer, the French Count departed in a rage. In less than two hours, the dragoons were quartered on him, who tormented him day and night, until he became so utterly insensible, that he was believed to be dead. De Tesse, alarmed lest the king should reproach and disgrace him for having gone too far, withdrew the dragoons from his house, and ordered a litter to be prepared to carry him to Pierre-Cise. The next day as he was carried off, crowds lined the streets and the road to the distance of half a league; every one expressed the deepest commiseration; and even De Tessé relented so far that he changed his destination to St. Esprit, which