Chapter 18

See Livy v. 10, vi. 4; Plutarch,Camillus. For the Gallic retreat, see Polybius ii. 18; T. Mommsen,Römische Forschungen, ii. pp. 113-152 (1879).

CAMILLUSandCAMILLA,in Roman antiquity, originally terms used for freeborn children. Later, they were used to denote the attendants on certain priests and priestesses, especially the flamen dialis and flaminica and the curiones. It was necessary that they should be freeborn and the children of parents still alive (Dion. Halic. ii. 21). The name Camillus has been connected with the Cadmilus or Casmilus of the Samothracian mysteries, identified with Hermes (seeCabeiri).

CAMISARDS(fromcamisade, obsolete Fr. for “a night attack,” from the Ital.camiciata, formed fromcamicia—Fr.chemise—a shirt, from the fact of a shirt being worn over the armour in order to distinguish friends from foes), the name given to the peasantry of the Cévennes who, from 1702 to 1705 and for some years afterwards, carried on an organized military resistance to thedragonnades, or conversion by torture, death and confiscation of property, by which, in the Huguenot districts of France, the revocation of the edict of Nantes was attempted to be enforced. The Camisards were also called Barbets (“water-dogs,” a term also applied to the Waldenses), Vagabonds, Assemblers (assembléewas the name given to the meeting or conventicle of Huguenots), Fanatics and the Children of God. They belonged to that romance-speaking people of Gothic descent whose mystic imagination and independent character made the south of France the most fertile nursing-ground of medieval heresy (seeCatharsandAlbigenses). At the time of the Reformation the same causes produced like results. Calvin was warmly welcomed when he preached at Nîmes; Montpellier became the chief centre for the instruction of the Huguenot youth. It was, however, in the great triangular plateau of mountain called the Cévennes that, among the small farmers, the cloth and silk weavers and vine dressers, Protestantism was most intense and universal. These people were (and still are) very poor, but intelligent and pious, and of a character at once grave and fervent. From the lists of Huguenots sent from Languedoc to the galleys (1684 to 1762), we gather that the common type ofphysiqueis “belle taille, cheveux bruns, visage ovale.” The chief theatre of the revolt comprised that region of the Cévennes bounded by the towns of Florac, Pont-de-Montvert, Alais and Lasalle, thus embracing the southern portion of the department of Lozère (the Bas-Gévaudan) and the neighbouring district in the east of the department of Gard.

In order to understand the War of the Cévennes it is necessary to recall the persecutions which preceded and followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. It is also necessary to remember the extraordinary religious movement which had for a great number of years agitated the Protestants of France. Faced by the violation of that most solemn of treaties, a treaty which had been declared perpetual and irrevocable by Henry IV., Louis XIII. and even Louis XIV. himself, they could not, in the enthusiasm of their faith, believe that such a crime would be left unpunished. But being convinced that no human power could give them liberty of conscience, they went to the Bible to find when their deliverance would come. As far back as 1686 Pierre Jurieu published his workL’Accomplissement des prophéties, in which, speaking of the Apocalypse, he predicted the end of the persecution and the fall of Babylon—that is to say of Roman Catholicism—for 1689. The Revolution in England seemed to provide a striking corroboration of his prophecies, and the apocalyptic enthusiasm took so strong a hold on people’s minds that Bossuet felt compelled to refute Jurieu’s arguments in hisApocalypse expliquée, published in 1689. TheLettres pastoralesof Jurieu (Rotterdam, 1686-1687), a series of brief tracts which were secretly circulated in France,continued to narrate events and prodigies in which the author saw the intervention of God, and thus strengthened the courage of his adherents. This religious enthusiasm, under the influence of Du Serre, was manifested for the first time in the Dauphiné. Du Serre, who was a pupil of Jurieu, communicated his mystic faith to young children who were called the “petits prophètes,” the most famous of whom was a girl named “La belle Isabeau.” Brought up on the study of the prophets and the Apocalypse, these children went from village to village quoting and requoting the most obscure and terrible passages from these ancient prophecies (seeAntichrist). It is necessary to remember that at this time the Protestants were without ministers, all being in exile, and were thus deprived of all real religious instruction. They listened with enthusiasm to this strange preaching, and thousands of those who were called New Catholics were seen to be giving up attendance at Mass. The movement advanced in Languedoc with such rapidity that at one time there were more than three hundred children shut up in the prisons of Uzès on the charge of prophesying, and the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, which was entrusted with their examination, went so far in their ignorance as to pronounce these irresponsible infants guilty of fanaticism. After the peace of Ryswick, 1697, the fierceness of the persecution was redoubled in the South. “I will show no mercy to the preachers,” wrote the terrible Baville, the so-called “king of Languedoc,” and he kept his word. The people of the Cévennes were in despair, for their loyalty to the king had been remarkable. In 1683 on the 6th of September an assembly composed of fifty pastors, sixty-four noblemen and thirty-four notables, held at Colognac, had drawn up a statement of its unalterable loyalty to Louis XIV. It is important to notice that the revolt of the Cévennes was essentially a popular movement. Among its leaders there was not a single nobleman, but only men of the people, a baker, a blacksmith, some ex-soldiers; but by far the most extraordinary characterisic is the presence, no longer of children, but of men and women who declared themselves inspired, who fell into religious ecstasies and roused in their comrades the most heroic bravery in battle and at the stake.

The assassination of the abbé du Chayla marks the beginning of the war of the Cévennes. The abbé, a veteran Catholic missionary from Siam, had been appointed inspector of missions in the Cévennes. There he introduced the “squeezers” (which resembled the Scottish “boot”), and his systematic and refined cruelty at last broke the patience of his victims. His murder, on the 23rd of July 1702, at Pont de Monvert, was the first blow in the war. It was planned by Esprit Séguier, who at once began to carry out his idea of a general massacre of the Catholic priests. He soon fell, and was succeeded by Laporte, an old soldier, who, as his troop increased, assumed the title of “the Colonel of the Children of God,” and named his camp the “Camp of the Eternal.” He used to lead his followers to the fight, singing Clement Marot’s grand version of the 68th Psalm, “Que Dieu se montre seulement,” to the music of Goudimel. Besides Laporte, the forest-ranger Castanet, the wool-carders Conderc and Mazel, the soldiers Catinat, Joany and Ravenel were selected as captains—all men whom thethéomanieor prophetic malady had visited. But the most important figures are those of Roland, who afterwards issued the following extraordinary despatch to the inhabitants of St André:—“Nous, comte et seigneur Roland, généralissime des Protestants de France, nous ordonnons que vous ayez à congédier dans trois jours tous les prêtres et missionnaires qui sont chez vous, sous peine d’être brûlés tout vifs, vous et eux” (Court, i.p. 219); and Jean Cavalier, the baker’s boy, who, at the age of seventeen, commanded the southern army of the Camisards, and who, after defeating successively the comte de Broglie and three French marshals, Montrevel, Berwick and Villars, made an honourable peace. (SeeCavalier, Jean.)

Cavalier for nearly two years continued to direct the war. Regular taxes were raised, arsenals were formed in the great limestone caves of the district, the Catholic churches and their decorations were burned and the clergy driven away. Occasionally routed in regular engagements, the Camisards, through their desperate valour and the rapidity of their movements, were constantly successful in skirmishes, night attacks and ambuscades. A force of 60,000 was now in the field against them; among others, the Irish Brigade which had just returned from the persecutions of the Waldenses. The rising was far from being general, and never extended to more than three or four thousand men, but it was rendered dangerous by the secret and even in many places the open support of the people in general. On the other hand their knowledge of a mountainous country clothed in forests and without roads, gave the insurgents an enormous advantage over the royal troops. The rebellion was not finally suppressed until Baville had constructed roads throughout this almost savage country.

Montrevel adopted a policy of extermination, and 466 villages were burned in the Upper Cévennes alone, the population being for the most part put to the sword. Pope Clement XI. assisted in this work by issuing a bull against the “execrable race of the ancient Albigenses,” and promising remission of sins to the holy militia which was now formed among the Catholic population, and was called the Florentines, Cadets of the Cross or White Camisards. Villars, the victor of Hochstädt and Friedlingen, saw that conciliation was necessary; he took advantage of the feeling of horror with which the quiet Protestants of Nimes and other towns now regarded the war, and published an amnesty. In May 1704 a formal meeting between Cavalier and Villars took place at Nimes. The result of the interview was that a document entitledTrés humble requête des réformés du Languedoc au Roiwas despatched to the court. The three leading requests for liberty of conscience and the right of assembly outside walled towns, for the liberation of those sentenced to prison or the galleys under the revocation, and for the restitution to the emigrants of their property and civil rights, were all granted,—the first on condition of no churches being built, and the third on condition of an oath of allegiance being taken. The greater part of the Camisard army under Roland, Ravenel and Joany would not accept the terms which Cavalier had arranged. They insisted that the edict of Nantes must be restored,—“point de paix, que nous n’ayons nos temples.” They continued the war till January 1705, by which time all their leaders were either killed or dispersed.

In 1709 Mazel and Claris, with the aid of two preaching women, Marie Desubas and Elizabeth Catalon, made a serious effort to rekindle revolt in the Vivarais. In 1711 all opposition and all signs of the reformed religion had disappeared. On the 8th of March 1715, by medals and a proclamation, Louis XIV. announced the entire extinction of heresy.

What we know of the spiritual manifestations in the Cévennes (which much resembled those of the Swedish Raestars of Smaland in 1844) is chiefly derived fromLe Théâtre sacré des Cévennes, London, 1707, reprinted at Paris in 1847;A Cry From the Desert, &c., by John Lacy, London, 1707;La Clef des prophéties de M. Marion, London, 1707;Avertissements prophétiques d’Élie Marion, &c., London, 1707. About the date of these publications the three prophets of the Cévennes, Marion, Durand-Fage and Cavalier (a cousin of the famous Jean Cavalier) were in London and were objects of lively curiosity. The consistory of the French church in the Savoy sent a protest to the lord mayor against “cette secte impie et extravagante” and the matter was tried at the Guildhall. Misson, author of theThéâtre sacré, declared in defence of the accused, that the same spirit which had caused Balaam’s ass to speak could speak through the mouths of these prophets from the Cévennes. Marion and his two friends Fatio, a member of the Royal Society of London, and Daudé, a leading savant, who acted as his secretaries, were condemned to the pillory and to the stocks. Voltaire relates (Siécle de Louis XIV.c. 36) that Marion wished to prove his inspiration by attempting to raise a dead body (Thomas Ernes) from St Paul’s churchyard. He was at last compelled to leave England.1

The inspiration (of which there were four degrees,avertissement,souffle, prophetie, dons) was sometimes communicated by a kiss at the assembly. The patient, who had gone through several fasts three days in length, became pale and fell insensible to the ground. Then came violent agitations of the limbs and head, as Voltaire remarks, “quite according to the ancient custom of all nations, and the rules of madness transmitted from age to age.” Finally the patient (who might be a little child, a woman, a half-witted person) began to speak in the good French of the Huguenot Bible words such as these: “Mes frères, amendez-vous, faites pénitence, la fin du monde approche; le jugement général sera dans trois mois; répentez-vous du grand péché que vous avez commis d’aller à la messe; c’est le Saint-Esprit qui parle par ma bouche” (Brueys,Histoire du fanatisme de notre temps, Utrecht, 1737, vol. i. p. 153). The discourse might go on for two hours; after which the patient could only express himself in his native patois,—a Romance idiom,—and had no recollection of his “ecstasy.” All kinds of miracles attended on the Camisards. Lights in the sky guided them to places of safety, voices sang encouragement to them, shots and wounds were often harmless. Those entranced fell from trees without hurting themselves; they shed tears of blood; and they subsisted without food or speech for nine days. The supernatural was part of their life. Much literature has been devoted to the discussion of these marvels. The Catholics Fléchier (in hisLettres choisies) and Brueys consider them the product of fasting and vanity, nourished on apocalyptic literature. The doctors Bertrand (Du magnétisme animal, Paris, 1826) and Calmeil (De la folie, Paris, 1845) speak of magnetism, hysteria and epilepsy, a prophetic monomania based on belief in divine possession. The Protestants especially emphasized the spirituality of the inspiration of the Camisards; Peyral,Histoire des pasteurs du désert, ii. 280, wrote: “Il fallait à cet effort gigantesque un ressort prodigieux, l’enthousiasme ordinaire n’y eût pas suffi.” Dubois, who has made a careful study of the problem, says: “L’inspiration cévenole nous apparait comme un phénomène purement spirituel.” Conservative Catholics, such as Hippolyte Blanc in his book onL’inspiration des Camisards(1859), regard the whole thing as the work of the devil. The publication of J.F.K. Hecker’s work,Die Volkskrankheiten des Mittelalters, made it possible to consider the subject in its true relation. This was translated into English in 1844 by B.G. Babington asThe Epidemics of the Middle Ages.

Although the Camisards were guilty of great cruelties in the prosecution of the war, there does not seem to be sufficient ground for the charge made by Marshal de Villars: “Le plupart de leurs chefs ont leurs demoiselles” (letter of 9th August 1704, in theWar Archives, vol. 1797). Court replied to these unjust charges: “Their enemies have accused them of leading a life of licence because there were women in their camps. These were their wives, their daughters, their mothers, who were there to prepare their food and to nurse the wounded” (Histoire, vol. i. p. 71).

Bibliography.—The works devoted to the history of the Camisards are very numerous. Nevertheless there exists no work specifically devoted to this extremely interesting period in French history, for in none of the published works has proper use been made of the valuable documents preserved in the archives of the ministry of war. Among the chief works are:—Père Louvreleuil (priest, former curé of St. Germain de Calberte),Histoire du fanatisme renouvelé où l’on raconte les sacrilèges, les maladies et les meurtres commis dans les Cévennes(Toulouse, 1704); M. de Brueys,Suite de l’histoire du fanatisme de notre temps où l’on voit les derniers troubles des Cévennes(Paris, 1709);Lettres choisies de M. Fléchier évêque de Nîmes avec une relation des fanatiques du Vivarez(Paris, 1715); Madame de Merez de l’Incarnation,Memoires et journal très fidèle de ce qui s’est passé le 11 de may 1703 jusqu’au 1 juin 1705 à Nîmes touchant les phanatiques, published by E. de Barthélemy (Montpellier, 1874). These works are written by Catholic writers immediately after the war of the Cévennes, and, despite their partiality, include some valuable documents.Mémoires du marquis de Guiscard(Delft, 1705); Maximilien Misson,Le Théâtre sacré des Cévennes ou Récit de diverses merveilles nouvellement opérées dans cette partie de la province de Languedoc(London, 1707); Misson, the author of theVoyages en Italie, which met with such a great success, gave prominence to the facts relating to the inspiration of the Camisards; theThéâtrealso contains important extracts from the works of Benoit, Brueys, Guiscard and Boyer, and several original letters from Camisards;Histoire des Camisards, &c.(London, 1740), the anonymous work of a distinguished writer, which was eventually condemned by the parlement of Toulouse to be torn up and burnt in 1759; Antoine Court,Histoire des troubles des Cévennes(3 vols., 1760), the best work of this period, compiled from numerous manuscript references. The war of the Cévennes has been treated in several English works,e.g.A Compleat History of the Cevennes, giving a Particular Account of the Situation, &c., by a doctor of civil law (London, 1703). This work includes a dedication to the queen, an historical account of the people of the Cévennes, the bull of Pope Clement against the Camisards, and the bishop of Nîmes’s mandate publishing the bull, and a discourse on the obligations of the English to help the Camisards, and a form of prayer used in the Camisard assembly, printed in London in 1703 under the titleFormulaire de prières des Cévennois dans leurs assemblées. The History of the Rise and Downfal of the Camisards, &c.(London, 1709), dealt with the prophets of the Cévennes in London, and is only an abridged translation of Père Louvreleuil’s work. Among modern works are, Ernest Moret,Quinze ans du règne de Louis XIV(3 vols., 1859), a work which gives a remarkable history of the war of the Cévennes;Les Insurgés protestants sous Louis XIV., studies and unedited documents published by G. Frosterus (1868);Mémoires de Bonbonnoux,chief Camisard and pastor of the desert, published by Vielles (1883); Bonnemère,Histoire de la guerre des Camisards(1859). Two popular works are—F. Puaux,Histoire populaire de la guerre des Camisards(1875); Anna E. Bray,The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cévennes with some Account of the Huguenots of the Seventeenth Century(London, 1870).

(F. Px.)

1This curious affair provoked a lengthy controversy, which is described in “La Relation historique de ce qui s’est passe a Londres au sujet des prophètes camisards” (Republique des Lettres, 1708), in the study of M. Vesson,Les Prophètes camisards à Londres(1893), and also in the bookLes Prophètes cévenols, ch. iii. (1861) by Alfred Dubois.

CAMOENS[CamŌes],LUIS VAZ DE(1524-1580), the prince of Portuguese poets, sprang from an illustrious and wealthy family of Galician origin, whose seat, called the castle of Camoens, lay near Cape Finisterre. His ancestor, the poet Vasco Pires de Camoens, followed the party of Peter the Cruel of Castile against Henry II., and on the defeat of the former had to take refuge along with other Galician nobles in Portugal, where he founded the Portuguese family of his name. King Fernando received him well, and gave him posts of honour and estates, and though the master of Aviz sequestered some of these and Vasco lost others after the battle of Aljubarrota, where he fought on the Spanish side, considerable possessions still remained to him. Antão Vaz, the grandfather of Luis, married one of the Algarve Gamas, so that Vasco da Gama and Camoens, the discoverer of the sea route to India and the poet who immortalized the voyage in hisLusiads, were kinsmen. Antão’s eldest son Simão Vaz was born in Coimbra at the close of the 15th century, and married Anna de Sá e Macedo, who bore him an only son, Luis Vaz de Camoens; thus the poet, like his father and grandfather, was acavalleiro fidalgo, that is, an untitled noble.

Four cities dispute the honour of being his birthplace, though Lisbon has the better title; and there is a like dispute about the year, which, however, was almost certainly 1524. The poet spent his childhood in Coimbra, where his father owned a property, and made his first studies at the college of All Saints, designed for “honourable poor students,” and there contracted friendships with noblemen like D. Gonçalo da Silveira and his brother D. Alvaro, who were inmates of the nobles’ college of St Michael. These colleges were offshoots from and attached to the Augustinian monastery of Santa Cruz, an important religious and scholastic establishment, where the poet’s uncle D. Bento de Camoens, a virtuous and very learned man, was professed. The Renaissance, though late in penetrating into Portugal, had by this time definitely triumphed, and the university of Coimbra, after its reform in 1537 under the auspices of King John III., boasted the best teachers drawn from every country, among them George Buchanan. The possession of classical culture was regarded as the mark of a gentleman; the colleges of Santa Cruz required conversation within the walls to be in Greek or Latin, and the university, when it absorbed the colleges, adopted the same rule. In these surroundings, aided by a retentive memory, Camoens steeped himself in the literature and mythology of the ancients, as his works show, and he was thus able in after years to perfect the Portuguese language and to enrich it with many neologisms of classical origin. It is fortunate, however, for his country and his fame that he never followed the fashion of writing in Latin; on the contrary, except for his Spanish poems, he always employed his native tongue. After completing his grammar and rhetoric the poet entered on his university course for the degree of bachelor of arts, which lasted for three years, from 1539 to 1542, and during this period he met Jorgede Montemayor, the author ofDianá, who was then studying music. He seems to have imbibed much of that encyclopaedic instruction to which the humanists aspired, for his writings show a very extensive reading, and his scientific knowledge and faculty of observation compelled the admiration of the great Humboldt. The thoroughness of his teaching is apparent when we remember that he wrote his epic in the fortresses of Africa and Asia, far from books, and yet gave proof of acquaintance with universal history, geography, astronomy, Greek and Latin literature, and the modern poetry of Italy and Spain. Much of the credit for this learning must be attributed to the encouragement of D. Bento, now prior of Santa Cruz, who became chancellor of the university the very year when Camoens entered it. There is a tradition that this uncle destined him for the church and caused him to study theology. The poet’s knowledge of dogma and the Bible, his friendly intercourse with the Lisbon Dominicans at the end of his life, and the share he is said to have taken in their disputations, make the hypothesis a likely one, but he made his own choice and preferred a lay life. We have very little verse of his Coimbra time, but it seems that he began in the Italian manner, following the new classical school of Sá de Miranda (q.v.), and that, though attached to the popular muse and well acquainted with the national songs and romances, legends and lore, his poetry in the old style (medida velha) is mostly of later date. An exception may perhaps be found in hisAutoafter the manner of Gil Vicente (q.v.),The Amphitryons, a Portuguese adaptation from Plautus which was very well received. At the age of eighteen Camoens left Coimbra, bidding adieu to the old city in verses breathing the most tendersaudade. Lisbon, which impressed Cervantes so much as to draw from him a classic description in the novelPersiles y Sigismunda, made an even greater impression on the youthful Camoens, and theLusiadsare full of eulogistic epithets on the city and the Tagus.

Arriving in 1543, it has been conjectured that he became tutor to D. Antonio de Noronha, son of the great noble D. Francisco de Noronha, count of Linhares, who had lately returned from a French embassy to his palace at Xabregas. The poet’s birth and talents admitted him to the society of men like D. Constantine de Braganza, the duke of Aveiro, the marquis of Cascaes, the count of Redondo, D. Manoel de Portugal and D. Gonçalo da Silveira, son of the count of Sortelha, who died a Christian martyr in Monomotapa. At Xabregas Camoens must have met Francisco de Moraes (q.v.), who had served as secretary to the count of Linhares on his embassy, and there he probably read the MS. ofPalmeirim; this would explain the origin of two of his roundels which are clearly founded on passages in the romance. Camoens had had a youthful love affair in Coimbra, but on Good Friday of the year 1544 he experienced the passion of his life. On that day in some Lisbon church he caught sight of D. Catherina de Ataide (daughter of D. Antonio de Lima, high chamberlain to the infant D. Duarte), who had recently become a lady-in-waiting to the queen. This young girl, the Nathercia of his after songs, counted then some thirteen years, and was destined to be his Beatrice. To see more of her, he persuaded the count of Linhares to introduce him to the court, where his poetical gifts and culture ensured him a ready welcome, and his fifth idyll, addressed to his patron on this occasion, paved the way for his entrance. Though inferior to his later compositions, it excels in harmony any verse previously written in Portuguese. At first his suit probably met with few difficulties, and if Catherina’s family regarded it seriously, their poverty, combined with the fact that the poet came of a good stock and had the future in his hands, may have prevented any real opposition. It was his own imprudence that marred his fortunes, and his consciousness of this fact gave his muse that moving expression, truth andsaudade, which are lacking in the somewhat artificial productions of the sentimental Petrarch. But while Camoens gained protectors and admirers, his temperament and conduct ensured him envious foes, and the secret of his love got out and became the subject of gossip. All was not smooth with the lady, who showed herself coy; now yielding to her heart, she was kind; and then listening to her friends, who would have preferred a better match for her, she repelled her lover. Jealousy then seized him, and sick of court life for the moment, he gladly accompanied his patron to the latter’s country house; but once there he recognized that Lisbon was the centre of attraction for him and that he could not be happy at a distance. His verses at this time reveal his parlous condition. He oscillates between joy and depression. He passes from tender regrets to violent outbursts, which are followed by calm and peace, while expressions of passionate love alternate with bold desires and lofty ambitions. It is clear that there was an understanding between him and Catherina and that they looked forward to a happy ending, and this encouraged him in his weary waiting and his search for a lucrative post which would enable him to approach her family and ask for her hand. From this period date the greater part of his roundels and sonnets, some of the odes and nearly all the eclogues.

His fifth eclogue shows that he was seriously thinking of his patriotic poem in 1544; and from the fourth it seems likely that theLusiadswere in course of composition, and that cantos 3 and 4 were practically completed. He had by now established his fame and was known as the Lusitanian Virgil, but presently he had a rude awakening from his dreams of love and glory. He had shown his affection too openly, and some infraction of court etiquette, about which the queen was strict, caused the tongue of scandal to wag; perhaps it was an affair with one of Catherina’s brothers, even a duel, that led to the decree which exiled him from Lisbon.

Camoens’s rashness, self-confidence and want of respect for the authorities all contributed to the penalty, and the composition of the playEl Rei Seleucowould aggravate his offence in the eyes of John III. Produced in 1545 and derived from Plutarch, the plot was calculated to draw attention to the relations between the king and his stepmother, and to recall the action of D. Manoel in robbing his son John III. of his intended bride. Camoens composed it for a wedding festivity in the house of Estacio da Fonseca, and some of the verses refer so openly to his passion, that if, as is likely, he spoke them himself, emphasizing them with voice and gesture so as to publish his love to the world, this new boldness, combined with the subject of the piece, must have rendered his exile a certainty. All we know definitely, however, is that the court was henceforth closed to him, and in 1546 he had to leave Lisbon, the abode of his love and the scene of his triumph. Tradition says that he went to the Ribatejo and spent seven or eight months with his mother’s relatives in or near Santarem, whence he poured out a number of his finest poems, including hisElegy of Exileand some magnificent sonnets, which, in vigour of ideas and beauty of expression, exceeded anything he had hitherto produced. Poets cannot live on bays, however, and pressed by necessity he determined to become a soldier.

One of his best modern biographers thinks that he petitioned the king for liberty to commute his penalty into military service in Africa; but whether this be so, or whether he merely went there to gain his spurs, certain it is that in the autumn of 1547 he proceeded to Ceuta. For the next two years, the usual period of service there, he lived the routine life of a common soldier in this famous trade emporium and outpost-town, and he lost his right eye in a skirmish with the Moroccans, though some writers make the incident occur on the voyage across the straits when his ship was attacked by Sallee rovers. Elegy ii. and a couple of odes date from his stay in Ceuta. He is full of sadness and almost in despair, but is saved from suicide by love and memory of the past. He has intervals of calm and resignation, even of satirical humour, and these become more frequent as the term of his exile draws near, and in one of them he wrote his prose letter to a “Lisbon friend.” The octaves on theDiscontent of the World, which breathe a philosophic equanimity and lift the reader out of the tumult of daily life, go to show that his restless heart had found peace at last and that he had accustomed himself to solitude.

In November 1549 the aged governor of Ceuta, D. Affonso de Noronha, was summoned to court and created viceroy of India,and Camoens accompanied him to Lisbon, intending to follow him to the East in the armada which was due to sail in the spring of 1550. Reaching the capital in December, the poet almost immediately enlisted, but when the time came for departure he had changed his mind. His affection for Catherina and dreams of literary glory detained him, and he lived on in the expectation of obtaining a post on the strength of his services and wound. But month after month passed by without result, and in his disappointment he allied himself with a group of hot-blooded youths, including the ex-friar Antonio Ribeiro, nicknamed “the Chiado”, after whom the main street of Lisbon takes its name, and endeavoured to forget his troubles in their society. He took part in their extravagances and gained the name of “Trinca-fortes” (“Crack-braves”) from his bohemian companions, while there were ladies who mocked at his disfigurement, dubbing him “devil” and “eyeless face”. In the course of his adventures he had often to draw his sword, either as attacker or attacked, and he boasted that he had seen the soles of the feet of many but none had seen his. When the reply to his application came from the palace it was a negative one, and he had now nothing further to expect. His stock of money brought from Ceuta was certainly exhausted, and misery stared him in the face, making him desperate. On the feast of Corpus Christi, the 16th of June 1552, he found two masked friends of his engaged in a street fight near St Dominic’s convent, and joining in the fray he wounded one Gonçalo Borges, a palace servant, with the result that he was apprehended and lodged in gaol. This unprovoked attack upon a royal servant on so holy a day constituted a serious offence and cost him eight months’ imprisonment. In a pathetic sonnet he describes his terrible experiences, which made such an impression on him that years afterwards he recurred to them in his great autobiographical Canzon 10. When Borges’ wound was completely healed, the poet’s friends intervened to assist him, and it was arranged that on his formally imploring pardon Borges should grant it and desist from proceeding with the case. This was effected on the 13th of February 1553, and on the 7th of March the king, taking into consideration that Camoens was “a youth and poor and decided to serve this year in India”, confirmed the pardon. He had been obliged to humble his pride and enlist again, but while he complained of his troubles he recognized, in his frank, honest way, that his own mistakes were in part the causes of them.

After bidding good-bye to Catherina for the last time, Camoens set sail on Palm Sunday, the 24th of March 1553, in the “S. Bento”, the flagship of a fleet of four vessels, under Fernaõ Alvares Cabral. His last words, he says in a letter, were those of Scipio Africanus, “Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea”.

He relates some of his experiences on board and the events of the voyage in various sonnets in Elegy iii. and in theLusiads. In those days the sailors navigated the ships, while the men-at-arms kept the day and night watches, helped in the cleaning and, in case of necessity, at the pumps, but the rank of Camoens doubtless saved him from manual work. He had much time to himself in his six months’ voyage and was able to lay in a store of nautical knowledge, while tempestuous weather off the Cape of Good Hope led him to conceive the dramatic episode of Adamastor (Lusiads, canto 5). The “S. Bento”, the best ship of the fleet, weathered the Cape safely, and without touching at Mozambique, the watering-place of ships bound for India, anchored at Goa in September. It seems probable that the idea of theLusiadstook further shape on the voyage out, and that Camoens modified his plan; cantos 3 and 4 were already written, but from an historical he now made it a maritime epic. The discovery of India became the main theme, while the history of Portugal was interlaced with it, and the poem ended with the espousals between Portugal and the ocean, and a prophecy of the future greatness of the fatherland.

At the time of his arrival Goa boasted 100,000 inhabitants, and with its magnificent harbour was the commercial capital of the west of India. The first viceroy had been content with a sea dominion, but the great Affonso de Albuquerque saw that this was not enough to secure the supremacy of the Portuguese; recognizing the strategic value of Goa, he seized it and made it the capital of a land empire, and built fortresses in every important point through the East. Since his death a succession of remarkable victories had made the flag of Portugal predominant, but the enervating climate, the pleasures and the plunder of Asia, began to tell on the conquerors. Corruption was rife from the governor downwards, because the ruling ambition was to get rich and return home, and the hero of one day was a pirate the next. After all, it was only human nature, for a governorship lasted but three years and Portugal was far away, so the saying went round—“They are installed the first year, they rob the second, and then pack up in the third to sail away.” Camoens was well received at first, owing to his talents and bravery, and he found the life cheap and merry, but having left his country with high ideals, the injustice and demoralization of manners he found in India soon disgusted him. He compared Goa to Babylon, and called it “the mother of villains and the stepmother of honest men.”

His first military service in the East took place in November 1553, when he went with a force led by the viceroy to chastise a petty king on the Malabar coast. The expedition only lasted two or three months, and after some trivial combats it returned to Goa. In February of the following year Camoens accompanied the viceroy’s son, D. Fernando de Menezes, who led an armada to the mouth of the Red Sea and thence up the Arabian coast to snap up hostile merchantmen and suppress piracy. Next the fleet went on to Ormuz, as was the custom with these annual cruises, and then to Bassora, where the poet helped to make some valuable prizes, and wrote a sonnet—it was ever, with him, “in one hand the sword, in the other the pen”! Returning to Goa in November he learnt of the deaths of Prince John, and of his friend and pupil the young D. Antonio de Noronha, and paid his tribute in a feeling sonnet and eclogue. In February 1555 he sailed on another pirate hunt and spent six weary months off Cape Guardafui, varied by a visit to Mombasa and by further work on his epic, and only got back to Goa in the following September. His experiences are recorded in the profound and sad 10th Canzon.

Meanwhile Francisco Barreto, an honourable and generous man, had become governor-general of India in the June of 1555, and, his appointment being popular, a reign of festivities began in Golden Goa to welcome his succession, in the course of which Camoens produced hisFilodemo, a dramatized novel written in his court days. The same occasion probably gave birth to theDisparates na India(“Follies of India”), and certainly to theSatyra do Torneio(“Satire of the Tourney”), which confirmed the poet’s reputation as a sayer of sharp things and gave considerable umbrage to those whom the cap fitted. However, it was not the enmities thus aroused but military duty which compelled him to quit Goa once more in the spring of 1556. He had enlisted in Lisbon for five years, the usual term, and in compliance with the orders of the governor he sailed for the Moluccas in April and there fought and versified for two years, though nearly all is guesswork at this period of his life. He appears to have spent the time between September 1556 and February 1557 in the island of Ternate, where he wrote Canzon 6, revealing a state of moral depression similar to that of Canzon 10, and he perhaps visited Banda and Amboina. In the following year he took part in the military occupation of Macao, which the emperor of China had presented to the Portuguese in return for their destruction of a pirate fleet which had besieged Canton. The poet’s five years’ term of service was now over, and he remained at Macao many months waiting for a ship to carry him back to India. He had made some profit out of theMercî de Viagem, granted by the governor Barreto to free him from the poverty in which he habitually lived, and he spent his money royally. At the same time he continued his epic, working in the grotto which still bears his name.

All seemed to be going smoothly with him until suddenly his fortunes took a serious turn for the worse. As the result of an intrigue the captain of the yearly ship from China to India, who acted as governor of Macao during his stay in port, imprisonedCamoens, and took him on board with a view of bringing him to trial in India. The ship, however, was wrecked in October 1559 at the mouth of the Mekong river, and the poet had to save his life and hisLusiadsby swimming to shore, and though he preserved the six or seven finished cantos of the poem, he lost everything else. While wandering about on the Cambodian coast awaiting the monsoon and a vessel to take him to Malacca, he composed those magnificent stanzas “By the Waters of Babylon,” called by Lope de Vega “the pearl of all poetry,” in which he recalls the happy days of his youth, sighs for Lisbon (Sion) and his love, and mourns his long exile from home. He got somehow to Malacca, and after a short stay there reached Goa, still as prisoner, in June 1561. He was straightway lodged in gaol, where he heard for the first time of the death of Catherina, and he poured out his grief in the great sonnet,Alma Minha Gentil. The viceroy, D. Constantius de Bragança, had recently returned from Jafanapatam, bringing as prize a tooth of Buddha, and Camoens approached him with a splendid epistle in twenty octaves, after the manner of Horace’s ode to Augustus. It failed, however, to hasten the consideration of his case, but in September the Conde de Redondo, a good friend, came into office and immediately ordered his release from prison. His troubles were not yet at an end, however, for one Miguel Rodriguez Coutinho, a well-known soldier and citizen of Goa who lent money at usurious rates, thought the opportunity a good one to obtain repayment of a debt, and had Camoens lodged once more in gaol. As soon as he came out the poet composed a burlesque roundel satirizing his persecutor under the nickname of Fios Seccos (“dry threads”).

Though very poor he now led an easier, even a pleasant life for a time. He was able to see his friends D. Vasco de Ataide, D. Francisco de Almeida, Heitor da Silveira, João Lopes Leitaõ and Francisco de Mello, all men of family and note. One day he invited them to a banquet, at which, instead of the usual dishes, each guest was served with a set of witty verses, and after these had been read out and chaff had gone round, the food came and they formed a merry party. The poet used his interest with the viceroy to recommend to him the naturalist Garcia da Orta, whoseColloquieson the simples and drugs of the East, the first product of the press in India, appeared in April 1563 with an ode by Camoens. His life for the next three years is almost a blank, but we know that he was hard at work finishing his epic, assisted by the advice of the historian Diogo do Couto, who became its commentator, and further that the new viceroy, his friend D. Antão de Noronha, nominated him to a reversion of the factory of Chaul, which, however, never fell into possession. It is clear from his writings that fourteen years in the East had told on Camoens. His best friends were dead or scattered, and he was overwhelmed withsaudade. His sole ambition was to go home and print his poem, but he had no money to pay his passage. In September 1567, however, Pedro Barreto was named captain of Mozambique, and insisted on the poet accompanying him to Sofala, at the same time lending him two hundred cruzades. It was part of the way home, so Camoens accepted, but after they reached Mozambique Barreto called in this money, and his debtor, being unable to pay, was detained there for two whole years. Here Diogo do Couto found him “so poor that he ate at the cost of friends, and in order that he might embark for the Kingdom we friends collected for him the clothes he needed and some gave him to eat, and that winter he finished perfecting theLusiadsfor the press and wrote much in a book he was making, which he calledParnaso of Luiz de Camoes, a book of much learning, doctrine and philosophy, which was stolen from him.” Thanks to Couto and others, Camoens was able to liquidate his debt and set sail in November 1569 in the “Santa Clara,” and he reached Portugal on the 7th of April 1570, after an absence of seventeen years.

The only wealth he brought with him from India was the MS. of his great poem, a”Tesoro del Luso”in the words of Cervantes. Moreover, he returned at an unfortunate moment—one of pest and famine. The great plague which had killed a quarter, or, as some say, half of the population of the capital, was declining, but a rigid quarantine prevailed, and the ship had to lie off Cascaes until the sanitary authorities allowed her to enter the Tagus. Camoens was welcomed by his mother, whom he found “very old and very poor”—his father had died at Goa about 1555—and after a visit to Catherina’s tomb, which inspired the poignant sonnet 337, he set about obtaining the royal licence to print theLusiads. This was dated the 24th of September 1571 and gave him a ten years’ copyright, and as soon as the book appeared some friendly and influential hand, perhaps D. Manoel de Portugal, perhaps D. Francisca de Aragão for whom he had rhymed in the happy days of his youth, presented the national epic to King Sebastian. Shortly afterwards, on the 28th of July 1572, the king gave the poet a pension of fifteen milreis for the term of three years, as a reward for his services in India and for his poem. It was relatively a considerable sum, seeing that he had no great military record, and it seems even generous when we remember that Magellan had only received twelve, and had left Portugal because King Manoel would not give him a slight increase. Many functionaries with families had less to live on, and Camoens’s subsistence was secure for the time being, and he could afford an attendant, so that the legend of the slave Antonio may well be true. Moreover, he was in the enjoyment of the fame his poem brought him. Philip II. is said to have read and admired it, and the powerful minister, Pedro de Alcaçova Carneiro, echoed the general opinion when he remarked that it had only one defect, in not being short enough to learn by heart or long enough to have no ending. Tributes came from abroad too. Tasso wrote and sent Camoens a sonnet in his praise, Fernando de Herrera celebrated him, and the year 1580 saw the publication of two Spanish versions, one at Alcalá, the other at Salamanca. His pension lapsed in 1575, but on the 2nd of August it was renewed for a further term; owing, however, to a mistake of the treasury officials, Camoens drew nothing for about a year and a half and fell into dire distress. This explains the story of Ruy da Camara, who had engaged him to translate the penitential psalms, and not receiving the version, called on the poet, who said in excuse that he had no spirit for such work now that he wanted for everything, and that his slave had asked him for a penny for fuel and he could not give it.

On the 2nd of June 1578, just before his start for the expedition to Africa which cost him his life and Portugal her independence, King Sebastian had renewed the poet’s pension for a further period. Though Camoens had neither the health nor the means to accompany the splendid train of nobles and courtiers who followed the last crusading monarch to his doom, he began an epic to celebrate the enterprise, but burnt it when he heard the news of the battle of Alcacer. Instead, he mourned the death of his royal benefactor in a magnificent sonnet, and in Elegy x. reproached the cowardly soldiery who contributed to the rout. On the 31st of January 1580 the cardinal king Henry died, and, foreseeing the Spanish invasion, Camoens wrote in March to his old friend D. Francisco de Almeida: “All will see that I so loved my country that I was content not only to die in her but with her.” A great plague had been raging in Lisbon since the previous year, and the poet, who lay ill in his poor cottage in the rua de Santa Anna, depressed by the calamities of his country, fell a victim to it. He was removed to a hospital and there passed away, unmarried and the last of his line, on the 10th of June 1580. A Carmelite, Frei José Indio, attended him in his last moments and received the only recognition Camoens could give, his copy of theLusiads. He wrote afterwards: “What more grievous thing than to see so great a genius thus unfortunate. I saw him die in a hospital in Lisbon, without a sheet to cover him, after having triumphed in the East Indies and sailed 5000 leagues by sea.” The house of Vimioso supplied the winding-sheet, and Camoens was buried with other victims of the plague in a common grave in the cemetery of Santa Anna. Years later D. Gonçalo Coutinho erected in the church of that invocation anin memoriamslab of marble with an inscription, and subsequently epitaphs were added by other admirers, but the earthquake of 1755 damaged the building, and all traces of these last acts of homageto genius have disappeared. The third centenary of the poet’s death was made the occasion of a national apotheosis, and on the 8th of June 1880 some remains, piously believed to be his, were borne with those of Vasco da Gama to the national pantheon, the Jeronymos at Belem.

The masterpiece of Camoens, theLusiads, is theeposof discovery. It is written in hendecasyllabicottava rima, and is divided into ten cantos containing in all 1102 stanzas. Its argument is briefly as follows. After an exordium proposing the subject, invoking the Tagus muses and addressing King Sebastian, Vasco da Gama’s ships are shown sailing up the East African coast on their way to India. At a council of the gods the fate of the fleet is discussed, and Bacchus promises to thwart the voyage, while Venus and Mars favour the navigators. They arrive at Mozambique, where the governor endeavours to destroy them by stratagem, and, this failing, Bacchus tries other plots against them at Quiloa and Mombasa which are foiled by Venus. In answer to her appeal, Jupiter foretells the glorious feats of the Portuguese in the East, and sends Mercury to direct the voyagers to Melinde, where they are hospitably received and get a pilot to guide them to India. The local ruler visits the fleet and asks Gama about his country and its history, and in response the latter gives an account of the origin of the kingdom of Portugal, its kings and principal achievements, ending with the incidents of the voyage out. This recital occupies cantos 3, 4 and 5, and includes some of the most admired and most powerful episodes in the poem,e.g.those of Ignez de Castro, King Manoel’s dream of the rivers Ganges and Indus, the speech of the old man of Belem and the apparition of Adamastor off the Cape of Good Hope. Canto 6 describes the crossing of the Indian Ocean from Melinde to Calicut and a fresh hostile attempt on the part of Bacchus. He descends to Neptune’s palace, and at a council of the sea-gods it is resolved to order Aeolus to loose the winds against the Portuguese, but the tempest is quelled by Venus and her nymphs in answer to Gama’s prayer, and the morning light reveals the Ghats of India. Just before the storm, occurs the night scene in which Velloso entertains his shipmates with the story of the Twelve of England, another of the famous episodes. Canto 7 is taken up with the arrival at Calicut, a description of the country and the details of Gama’s reception by the raja. The governor of the city visits the fleet and inquires about the pictures on their banners, whereupon Paulo da Gama, Vasco’s brother, tells him of the deeds of the early Portuguese kings. Meanwhile Bacchus, not to be baulked, appears to a priest in the guise of Mahomet, and stirs up the Moslems against the Christian adventurers, with the result that the raja charges Gama with being a leader of convicts and pirates. To this the captain makes a spirited reply and gets his despatch, but he has new snares to avoid and further difficulties to overcome before he is finally able to set sail on the return voyage. Pitying their toils, Venus determines to give the voyagers repose and pleasure on their way home, and directs their course to an enchanted island, which is described in canto 9, in the longest and perhaps the most beautiful episode in the poem. On landing they are received by the goddess and her nymphs, and general joy ensues, heightened by banquets and amorous play. In a prophetic song, the siren tells of the exploits of the Portuguese viceroys, governors and captains in India until the time of D John de Castro, after which Tethys ascends a mountain with Gama, shows him the spheres after the system of Ptolemy and the globe of Asia and Africa, and describes the Indian life of St Thomas the apostle. Finally the navigators quit the island and reach Lisbon, and an epilogue contains a patriotic exhortation to King Sebastian and visions of glory, which ended so disastrously at the battle of Alcacer.

Though the influence of Camoens on Portuguese has been exaggerated, it was very considerable, and he so far fixed the written language that at the present day it is commonly and not inaccurately called “the language of Camoens.” TheLusiadsis the most successful modern epic cast in the ancient mould, and it has done much to preserve the corporate life of the Portuguese people and to keep alive the spirit of nationality in times of adversity like the “Spanish Captivity” and the Napoleonic invasion. Even now it forms a powerful bond between the mother-country and her potentially mighty daughter-nation across the Atlantic, the United States of Brazil. The men of the Renaissance saw nothing incongruous in that mixture of paganism and Christianity which is found in theLusiadsas in Ariosto, though some modern critics, like Voltaire, consider it a grave artistic defect in the poem. The fact that theLusiadsis written in a little-known language, and its intensely national and almost exclusively historical character, undoubtedly militate against a right estimate of its value, now that Portugal, once a world power, has long ceased to hold the East in fee or to guide the destinies of Europe. But though political changes may and do react on literary appreciations, theLusiadsremains none the less a great poem, breathing the purest religious fervour, love of country and spirit of chivalry, with splendid imaginative and descriptive passages full of the truest and deepest poetry. The structure is Virgilian, but the whole conception is the author’s own, while the style is natural and noble, the diction nearly always correct and elegant, and the verse, as a rule, sonorous and full of harmony.

In addition to his epic, Camoens wrote sonnets, canzons, odes, sextines, eclogues, elegies, octaves, roundels, letters and comedies. The roundels includecartas, motes, voltas, cantigas, trovas, pastoralsandendechas. In the opinion of many competent judges Camoens only attains his true stature in his lyrics; and a score of his sonnets, two or three of the canzons, eclogues and elegies, and the Babylonian roundels will bear comparison with any composition of the same kind that other literatures can show. Referring to theLusiads, A. von Humboldt calls Camoens a “great maritime painter,” but in his best lyrics he is a thinker as well as a poet, and when free from the trammels of the epic and inherited respect for classical traditions, he reveals a personality so virile and deep, a philosophy so broad and human, a vision so wide, and a form and style so nearly perfect, as not only to make him the foremost of Peninsular bards but to entitle him to a place in that small company of universal poets of the first rank.

The oldest and most authentic portrait of Camoens appeared in 1624 with his life, by Manoel Severim de Faria. It is a kitcat and shows the poet in armour wearing a laurel crown; his right hand holds a pen, his left rests on a copy of theLusiads, while a shield above shows the family arms, a dragon rising from between rocks. The likeness exhibits a Gothic or northern type, and the tradition of his red beard and blue eyes confirms it. Except for an ode, sonnet and elegy, all Camoens’s lyrics were published posthumously.

Back to Index Next