Paul Rabaut

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Paul Rabaut

Paul Rabaut (born January 29, 1718 in Bédarieux , Hérault , † September 25, 1794 in Nîmes ) was a French pastor of the Huguenot Église du Désert ('Church of the Desert'). He was viewed by many as the leader and leader of the persecuted church. He was a peacemaker and scholar, despite being persecuted to live like a caveman for over 30 years.

Live and act

Paul Rabaut's father was a cloth merchant. In 1738 Paul Rabaut was appointed preacher by the Protestant Synod of the historic Bas-Languedoc province . In 1740 he went to Lausanne to complete his studies in the seminary founded by Antoine Court . In 1741 Rabaut became head of the Church of Nîmes . In 1744 he became Vice President of the General Synod. During the persecution from 1745 to 1752 he was forced to go into hiding. In December 1745, however, he appeared publicly for a short time to prevent the evangelical clergyman Matthias Desubas from being violently liberated . After the success of these efforts to prevent civil war, he went into hiding again. When the Marquis of Paulmy d'Argenson was sent to the Languedoc for a military inspection in 1750, Rabaut was able to communicate successfully with him while he was changing his horses.

The persecution came to a standstill for a period, but broke out again in 1753. A bounty was placed on Rabaut. Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti became interested in the Protestants in 1755 and Rabaut visited him in July of that year. In the years 1755 to 1760 periods of persecution and toleration alternated. By 1760, the efforts of Antoine Court and Paul Rabaut had paid off enough that French Protestantism was well established and organized. From the year 1762, a time of relative peace, there are two places where Rabaut preached:

“At last, in 1762, he obtained a kind of tacit acquiescence from the Prince of Beauveau. The Protestants of Nismes then chose a huge amphitheater for their winter get-togethers, on the road to Alais, on the banks of the Cadereau River, which they called the Hermitage. There, on seats made of loose stones, six to eight thousand people gathered every Sunday, eager to hear the inspired words of their pastor. In the summer they moved their meetings to an old quarry called Lecque, surrounded on all sides by huge rocks, and only accessible via two narrow paths. The place was shielded from the burning rays of the sun, and the believers found themselves protected from the heat and rain. It was in this gloomy cave where, for more than twenty years, Rabaut's voice echoed, keeping faith and hope in the hearts of his listeners. "

Court, Rabaut himself and his son Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne tried to get legal recognition by the government. When a popular uprising broke out in 1775, the minister Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune , asked Rabaut to calm the people down.

Rabaut's success aroused the envy of his colleagues, who tried to undermine the good work Antoine Court had started. Rabaut intensified his efforts to legalize Protestants. When he was visited by the Marquis de la Fayette in 1785 , the arrangement was made that Rabaut's son, Rabaut Saint-Etienne, should go to Paris to represent the interests of the Reformed Church there.

On November 29, 1787, the Edict of Tolerance King Louis XVI. signed, which was not ratified until January 29, 1788. Two years later, the National Assembly , of which Rabaut Saint-Etienne was vice-president, proclaimed freedom of expression and made all positions accessible to non-Catholics. In 1790, a few Huguenot returnees were re-naturalized and their goods returned to them. In 1792, after more than a hundred years, the first reformed church was built in Nîmes.

However, after the fall of the Girondins in 1794, in which Rabaut Saint-Etienne was involved, Paul Rabaut, who had refused to give up his pastor, was arrested and interned in the citadel of Nîmes, where he was held for seven weeks. He died shortly after his release in Nîmes.

Works

  • Lettre adressée aux Protestans du Languedoc, à l'occasion de l'attentat commis sur la personne sacrée du Roi (1757) [1]
  • La calomnie confondue, ou Mémoire dans lequel on réfute une nouvelle accusation intentée aux protestans de la province du Languedoc, à l'occasion de l'affaire du Sr. Calas, détenu dans les prisons de Toulouse (1762) (texts rédigé par La Beaumelle ) [2]

family

Jacques Antoine Rabaut-Pommier was a son of Paul Rabaut.

Remembrance day

The day of remembrance is September 25th (the day of his death) in the Evangelical name calendar .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Tylor: The Camisards: a sequel to The Huguenots in the seventeenth century . Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, London 1893, pp. 317-325 (accessed September 15, 2018).
  2. ^ François Guizot, Henriette Elizabeth Witt, Robert Black (translator): The history of France from the earliest times to the year 1789 . Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London 1883, pp. 73-74, Volume 5, (accessed September 15, 2018).
  3. ^ Richard Heath: The reformation in France from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the incorporation of the reformed churches into the state . The Religious tract society, London 1888, pp. 110–118 (accessed September 15, 2018).
  4. ↑ de Guillaume Félice, Goldwin Smith: History of the Protestants of France: from the commencement of the Reformation to the present time . G. Routledge, London 1853, pp. 416-436 (accessed September 15, 2018).
  5. ^ Samuel Smiles: The Huguenots in France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes; with a visit to the country of the Vaudois . Harper & brothers, New York 1874, pp. 250-252 (Retrieved September 15, 2018).
  6. ^ Make wine and kill the king: The legendary vineyard at the heart of a grand European conspiracy , Salon. July 26, 2014. Accessed September 15, 2018. 
  7. ^ Charles Weiss, Henry William Herbert: History of the French Protestant refugees, from the revocation of the edict of Nantes to our own days . W. Blackwood, Edinburgh 1854, p. 540 (Retrieved September 15, 2018).
  8. ↑ Hugh Chisholm: The Encyclopaedia Britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information , 11th Vol 22nd edition 1911, p. 766 (accessed September 15, 2018).
  9. ↑ Eberhard Gresch: The Huguenots. History, Belief and Impact. 4th, revised edition. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2009, ISBN 978-3-374-02260-1 , pp. 77 to 78
  10. ↑ Reuben Saillens: The soul of France . Morgan & Scott ltd, London 1916, pp. 135-136 (accessed September 15, 2018).

literature

  • J Pons do Nîmes, Notice biographique sur Paul Rabaut (1808)
  • Charles Dardier, Paul Rabaut, ses lettres à Antoine Court (1884)
  • Paul Rabaut, ses lettres à divers (1891)
  • Hugh Chisholm , Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.) , Cambridge University Press (1911)
  • Raoul Allier, Anthologie protestante française XVIIIe et IXe siècles , Paris, G. Crès & Cie (1920), p. 41f
  • Camille Rabaud, Paul Rabaut, Apôtre du Désert (1920), online version

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rabaut, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French evangelical preacher, pastor and church leader
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1718
PLACE OF BIRTH Bédarieux
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1794
Place of death Nîmes