CAMISARDS. - The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, enacted by a decree of Louis XIV on 18 Oct. 1685, which removed the freedom of worship and forced French Protestants to accept Catholicism, provoked a reaction in France that escalated into ferocious episodes. For their own political interests, the English, the Dutch, the German Lutherans, and the Calvinists of Geneva lent their support.
The War of the Spanish Succession, which began in 1701, offered the Protestants a new opportunity to rebel. A great number of “seers,” “prophets,” children of God, soldiers of the Eternal, began to proclaim the triumph of the persecuted and the destruction of the Roman Church, gathering in defiance of royal prohibitions. The revolutionary movement spread especially in certain rural districts of the Vivarais, Languedoc, and particularly the Cévennes. In vain did the royal officials attempt to suppress it by force and repression. The killing of François de Langlade de Chavla, a descendant of Lont-de-Montvert (Logère), who had shown particular harshness toward the rebels, on 24 July 1702, was the signal for a general uprising under the command of two young men: Cavalier and Roland. The name *camisards*, by which the rebels were designated, derived from the shirt (*camise*) they wore alone during some night attacks. Never was a religious war so cruel as this one, in terms of the mass slaughter of people, looting, burning of churches, and acts of brutality, and it was kept alive by the fanatical preaching of their prophets. In reaction, the royal troops became progressively more cruel in their repression, especially under the command of Marshal Montrevel, a Calvinist convert, in 1703–1704. Thanks to the energy and clemency of Marshal Villars, the movement was finally suppressed; Cavalier submitted to him, while Roland was killed on 14 Aug. 1704. Nevertheless, disturbances and clashes continued to break out here and there until 1715, when many camisards left France and the support of the Protestant powers waned.