tion which he was to exercise for so many years in
the midst of so many and such formidable perils. "On determining to
exercise the ministry in this kingdom," he wrote, in 1746, to the
superintendent of Languedoc, Lenain d'Asfeldt, "I was not ignorant of
what I exposed myself to; so I regarded myself as a victim doomed to
death. I thought I was doing the greatest good of which I was capable in
devoting myself to the condition of a pastor. Protestants, being deprived
of the free exercise of their own religion, not seeing their way to
taking part in the exercises of the Roman religion, not being able to get
the books they would require for their instruction, consider, my lord,
what--might be their condition if they were absolutely deprived of
pastors. They would be ignorant of their most essential duties, and
would fall either into fanaticism, the fruitful source of extravagances
and irregularities, or into indifference and contempt for all religion."
The firm moderation, the courageous and simple devotion, breathed by this
letter, were the distinctive traits of the career of Paul Rabaut, as well
as of Antony Court; throughout a persecution which lasted nearly forty
years, with alternations of severity and clemency, the chiefs of French
Protestantism managed to control the often recurring desperation of their
flocks. On the occasion of a temporary rising on the borders of the
Gardon, Paul Rabaut wrote to the governor of Languedoc, "When I desired
to know whence this evil proceeded, it was reported to me that divers
persons, finding themselves liable to lose their goods and their liberty,
or to have to do acts contrary to their conscience, in respect of their
marriages or the baptism of their children, and knowing no way of getting
out of the kingdom and setting their conscience free, abandoned
themselves to despair, and attacked certain priests, because they
regarded them as the primal and principal cause of the vexations done to
them. Once more, I blame those people; but I thought it my duty to
explain to you the cause of their despair. If it be thought that my
ministry is necessary to calm the ruffled spirits, I shall comply with
pleasure. Above all, if I might assure the Protestants of that district
that they shall not be vexed in their conscience, I would pledge myself
to bind over the greater number to stop those who would make a
disturbance, supposing that there should be any." At a word from Paul
Rabaut calmn