Christian History Home > Issue 71 > Escape from Babylon
Escape from Babylon
As repression became a way of life in France, Huguenots faced three choices: convert, go underground, or risk everything to reach le Refuge.
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke | posted 7/01/2001 12:00AM
In 1684, having "suffered through eight months [of] exactions and quartering by the soldiery, for the religion with much evil," Judith Giton, a Huguenot from southern France, decided to escape. With her mother, two of her brothers, and a servant, she slipped away at night, leaving soldiers sleeping in the family bed.
The group traveled north along the Rhone and Rhine rivers to Holland and reached England in 1685. They stayed three months in London waiting for a Carolina-bound ship, then crossed the Atlantic under terrible conditions. Judith's mother died of scarlet fever, and a storm forced them to stop in Bermuda, where the captain, having "committed certain rascalities," was imprisoned and the ship seized. Penniless, Judith and her brothers indentured themselves to pay for their passage to South Carolina.
Once in Charleston, Judith endured "affliction … sickness, pestilence, famine, [and] poverty," and her elder brother, Louis, died of a fever. After a few years, though, Judith "had it ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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