Brousson, Claude

BROUSSON, brū´´sōn´, CLAUDE: French Protestant; b. at Nîmes 1647; executed at Montpellier Nov. 4, 1698. He practised as a lawyer at Castres, Castelnaudary, and, after 1679, in Toulouse, and employed his talent with courage and self-sacrifice to defend his coreligionists against the rigorous measures of the government. In 1683 he was compelled to leave France and lived for a time in Lausanne. He visited Berlin and Holland to bring about a coalition between the Protestant princess against Louis XIV. In 1689 he returned to France and traveled through the southern part of the country admonishing and exhorting his brethren, though a price was put on his head, and he was hunted by the officials like a beast of prey. 275In 1693 he again retired to Lausanne, and was ordained there (1694). In 1695 he reentered France through Sédan, and visited most of the Reformed congregations north of the Loire, finally escaping through Franche-Comté into Switzerland. Once more, in 1697, he visited France, but was caught at Oloron, and sentenced to death by strangling. Among his works, of which a list is given in La France protestante, vol. iii., the most prominent are: État des réformés de France (The Hague, 1685); La Manne mystique du désert (Amsterdam, 1695); Lettres pastorales sur le cantique des cantiques (Delft, 1697).

Bibliography: A. Borrel, Biographie de C. Brousson, Nimes, 1852; H. S. Baynes, The Evangelist of the Desert. Life of C. Brousson, London, 1853.