In South Carolina. 33 



olutiou commenced, the aggregate number was one 

 hundred and two. 



The French Protestant Church in Charleston was 

 an offshoot of the Church of Pons in France, and was 

 founded in 1686 by the Kev. Elias Priolau in conjunc- 

 tion with the Kev. Florente Philippe Trouillart, who 

 were its first ministers, and served the Church as col- 

 leagues. The ruin of the Protestants had been some 

 years before resolved on in France. " If God spares 

 him " [Louis XIV.], said Madame de Maintenon, " there 

 will be only one religion in his kingdom; " and in pur- 

 suance of this determination, the Revocation of the 

 Edict of Nantes was signed at Fontainebleau October 

 22, 1685, all churches of the Protestants were ordered 

 to be demolished, their religious worship was pro- 

 hibited, and their ministers required to leave the 

 country in fourteen days on pain of the galleys. 

 About six months afterward, on the 15th of April, 

 while their enemies were demolishing the church, 

 Priolau, having assembled the Protestants who had 

 resisted all the ordeals of persecution, addressed them 

 in touching words of valedictory, and amidst the tears 

 of the people left Pons for Carolina with a consider- 

 able portion of his congregation. Isaac Mazyck, who 

 is reckoned as one of the founders of the Huguenot 

 Church in Charleston, to which he left by will one 

 hundred pounds sterling for the support of its minis- 

 ters, makes in his family Bible, under date of 1685, 

 this record: " God gave me the blessing of coming out 

 of France, and of escaping the cruel persecution carried 

 on there against the Protestants; and to express my 

 thanksgiving for so great a blessing, I promise, please 

 God, to observe the anniversary of that day by a fast." 

 The correctness of this early date assigned for its or- 



