Camisards

Camisards were Huguenots (French Protestants) of the rugged and isolated Cévennes region, and the Vaunage in southern France. They raised an insurrection against the persecutions which followed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which had made being Protestant illegal. The Camisards operated throughout the mainly protestant Cévennes region which in the eighteenth century also included the Vaunage and the parts of the Camargue around Aigues Mortes. The revolt by the Camisards broke out in 1702, with the worst of the fighting continuing until 1704, then scattered fighting until 1710 and a final peace by 1715. The Edict of Tolerance was not finally signed until 1787.

The name camisard in the Occitan language can be attributed to a type of linen smock or shirt known as a camisa (chemise) that peasants wear in lieu of any sort of uniform. Alternatively, it can derive from the Occitan word camus, meaning paths (chemins). Camisada, in the sense of "night attack", is derived from a feature of their tactics.

In April 1598, Henry IV had signed the Edict of Nantes and the religious wars that had ravaged France ended. Protestants had been given limited civic rights and the liberty to worship according to their convictions. This "fundamental and irrevocable law" was maintained by Henry's son, Louis XIII. In October 1685, Henry's grandson, Louis XIV (The Sun king), revoked the Edict of Nantes, issuing his own Edict of Fontainebleau. Louis was determined to impose a single religion on France: that of Rome. As early as 1681 he instituted the dragonnades which were conversions enforced by dragoons, labelled "missionaries in boots". They were billeted in the homes of Protestants to help them decide to convert back to the official church or alternatively to emigrate. The Cévennes was a centre of resistance, and the policy did not work.

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