BROUSSON, Claude, French martyr: b. Nimes 1647; d. Montpellier, 4 Nov. 1698. He was educated for the law, and practised as an advocate first at Castres and Castelnaudary, and afterward in the Parliament of Toulouse, where the Protestants, to whom he belonged, were oftrn indebted to him for the zeal and ability with which he defended their cause. In 1683, when the government had resolved on recalling the edict of Nantes, and trying the effect of persecution as a means of suppressing the Ref ormation, it was at Brousson s house the depu ties from all the churches assembled, and re solved that, even were their churches destroyed, they would still hold their meetings, though it should be under the canopy of heaven. His part in this and other important movements marked him out as one of the first objects of attack; and on receiving warning of an intention to arrest him, he sought an asylum at Lausanne, where he published several works, exposing the persecutions to which the Protestants of France were subjected, and awakening the sympathy of i their brethren in all other parts of Europe. Nor
was he satisfied merely to aid the cause with his pen. At the hazard of his life he returned to France, and continued for four years among the recesses of the Cevennes, preaching the gos pel. In 1693 he repaired to Holland, where a pension was given him by the States-General; but the sufferings of his persecuted countrymen were ever uppermost in his mind, and he visited many courts of Europe to plead their cause, and more than once went to France for their instruction and encouragement. He was on a mission to France when, a price having been set on his head, he was arrested at Oleron, tried at Montpellier, condemned to be broken on the wheel and executed accordingly. He left a large number of works including 'L'Etat des reformes de France' (3 vols., 1685) ; 'Lettres pastorales' (1697) ; 'Lettres et opuscules) (1701). Consult Payne, 'The Evangelist of the Desert' (1853).