FRENCH JOURNEY - PROGRAMME 1

CEVENNES - PROTESTANTS

North of Montpellier lie the lush, green hills of the Cevennes. This is an area indelibly associated with France’s Wars of Religion in the 16th Century, when these mountains became the hiding place of Protestants fleeing Catholic persecution. Generations later many Protestants still make their home there. David went to visit one such family.  

Deep in the hills lies Mollezon, a tiny hamlet of no more than half a dozen families that is typical of the small Protestant enclaves that nestle in the heart of the Cevennes.

At Yvan Etienne’s house, three generations of his family regularly meet for meals whose ingredients they largely grow or raise themselves.

Yvan Etienne family 1:  This afternoon we're going to see what sort of computer we get.
 
Yvan Etienne family 2:  Are you not going to do history?
 
Yvan Etienne family 1: …Geography, but the guy is going to come and deliver the computers.
 
Yvan Etienne family 2:  Ah, right.

Although 75 years old, grandfather Yvan still looks after four vegetable plots. He invited David on a guided tour.

David:  So this is your vegetable garden?

Yvan Etienne:   Everything grows in this region - beans, aubergines, tomatoes - all the vegetables come up  It's a poor region, but to die of starvation - you'd have to be extremely lazy.

David:  Does your son have a vegetable garden?

Yvan Etienne:  No, he's busy with his goats  They come to Dad's vegetable garden.  When I grow vegetables,  it's for the whole family I don't do it for my wife and myself,  I do it for the family.

Son Bernard farms dairy goats for a living. It’s a hand to mouth existence as the land up here is largely inaccessible to modern farm machinery, but he doesn’t see this as his biggest problem.

David:  What's the biggest problem about this lifestyle, living here?

Bernard Etienne:  Well, the biggest handicap for me is the children's schooling.  Very early on, you have to send your children away to boarding school at ten years old.  It's a bit tough.  I feel the children are penalised, so that's a handicap.

Bernard has two sons. His eldest has moved to the city, while the youngest - Nathanaël - is still at home and brings the goats in for milking every day after school.

David:  How many goats do you have on the farm?

Nathanaël Etienne:  On the farm? 130

David:  130?  

Nathanaël Etienne:   Because there are 120 here.  There are some that don't go out.

David:  Why?

Nathanaël Etienne:   Some are tiny ones that can't go out yet.  There's one that broke her leg, so we put it in plaster.

David:  Do you like living in the country?  What do you like best?

Nathanaël Etienne:  I like everything about farming -  tractors, fields, ploughing.

David:  What don't you like?

Nathanaël Etienne:  What I really don't like is hunting I used to like it, but nowadays hunting is all about pastis and who has the best jeep.

Talking to them now it’s hard to imagine that these people have had such a violent past. For although the Cevennes are lush and green, the Protestants in exile here called them ‘the desert’, a reference to their sense of being outcasts.

Until 1685 Protestants had periodically been tolerated. Then the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes unleashed an unprecedented wave of persecution. Protestants who weren’t killed or imprisoned fled for their lives. Banned from having churches or celebrating religious ceremonies, they held vast assemblies in remote outdoor locations. Services such as this clandestine baptism were held under cover of darkness. As memories of persecution fade into history, the Protestants’ land of exile - the desert - has nevertheless become their home.

David:  You're a Protestant in a Catholic country - have you ever experienced prejudice?

Yvan Etienne:  No. When we were young, there was more of a difference.  When a Protestant married a Catholic..it was usually the Protestant who gave way to the Catholic.  I'm happy to say it's no longer a problem.

David:  Is it important to you...that your children and grandchildren share your faith?

Yvan Etienne:  I hope so. It gives me some comfort and pleasure.

And as if to prove that you can put roots down even in the desert, the local Protestants have an anthem to their country of exile. It’s called La Cevennole.

Yvan Etienne (singing):  Greetings, beloved mountain, sacred land of our ancestors Your green peaks are strewn with their glorious memories….

								
Copyright BBC 2000.