Find Me in the Stars: a Cévenoles Sagas novel – Book Two of the Huguenot Trilogy
Jules Larimore
“Larimore’s ability to engulf a reader into a tale… is brilliantly done.”
5-star Highly Recommended Award of Excellence ~ Historical Fiction Company
Separated by miles, connected by the stars, two healers forge their destinies in a quest for a brighter tomorrow.
Inspired by a true story, this refugee’s tale of sacrifice, separation, and abiding love unfolds in the Cévennes Mountains of Languedoc, France, 1697. A sweeping adventure during the time of Louis XIV’s oppressive rule and persecutions, this compelling narrative follows the intertwined destinies of two remarkable protagonists, Amelia Auvrey, a mystic holy-woman healer, and Jehan BonDurant, an apothecary from a noble Huguenot family, in a riveting tale of enduring love, faith, and the search for light in the darkest of times.
Amelia and Jehan are fierce champions of tolerance and compassion in their cherished Cévenole homeland, a region plagued by renewed persecution of Huguenots. The escalated danger forces their paths to diverge, each embarking on their own dangerous journey toward survival and freedom. The Knights Hospitaller provide protection and refuge for Amelia and her ailing sage-femme grandmother, even as they come under suspicion of practicing witchcraft. And, to avoid entanglement in a brewing rebellion, Jehan joins a troupe of refugees who flee to the Swiss Cantons seeking sanctuary—a journey that challenges his faith and perseverance. Jehan arrives to find things are not as he expected; the Swiss have their own form of intolerance, and soon immigrants are no longer welcome. The utopian Eden he seeks remains elusive until he learns of a resettlement project in the New World.
During their time apart, Amelia and Jehan rely on a network of booksellers to smuggle secret letters to each other—until the letters mysteriously cease, casting doubt on their future together. Jehan is unclear if Amelia will commit to joining him, or if she will hold fast to her vow of celibacy and remain in the Cévennes. Seemingly ill-fated from the start, their love is tested to its limits as they are forced to navigate a world where uncertainty and fear threaten to eclipse their unwavering bond.
As a stand-alone sequel to the award-winning The Muse of Freedom, a bestseller in Renaissance Fiction, Find Me in the Stars is based on true events in the life of Jean Pierre Bondurant dit Cougoussac–an unforgettable adventure where love and light endure against all odds.
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Guest post: Jean Pierre Bondurant and the Plantagenets
Thank you, Jennifer, for inviting me to do a guest post on your blog! I am thrilled to be here to celebrate the release of my latest novel in the Huguenot Trilogy, Find Me in the Stars: a Cevenoles Sagas novel.
I thought some of your readers, especially those who enjoyed your novel, The Last Plantagenet?, might like to know that the real-life person, Jean Pierre Bondurant dit Cougoussac (my 8th great-grandfather) who inspired Jehan BonDurant in the series, is related, albeit distantly, to the Plantagenets. The Plantagenet line stretches in many directions throughout England and France and makes a recurring appearance here and there in my ancestry.
Jean Pierre Bondurant was born 18 July 1677, in the mysterious Cévennes mountains of southern France to Huguenot parents of minor nobility, (descendants of many royal European bloodlines), during the time of Louis XIV’s persecutions against Protestants. He came of age just after his parents both passed, only to inherit a near-derelict estate due to the King’s new heavy taxes on the nobles.
The persecutions created a legacy of secrecy among the Reformed Protestant families as edicts forbidding their worship forced them to hold prayer meetings in basements and barns, fields and caves. Other edicts restricted or forbade the practicing of many professions, ordered dragoons billeted upon Protestant households to torture them into abjuring, and ordered children of Huguenot parents to be taken from them at the age of seven to be educated in Dominican prieurés (priories) and convents. From the interconnection of many strands of documentation, it appears that Jean Pierre was one of these children. And after schooling at a Dominican prieuré until the age of eighteen, he must have felt thrust into a harsh, unknown world when he came of age and was released. The King’s increasing persecutions against Protestants must have tormented him while he struggled to decide where his loyalties lay.
Because he was converted and raised in the Catholic faith, he, like many “nouveaux convertis” (newly converted), likely did not fit in well. To keep his estate and work in his chosen profession as an apothecary, he had to retain his standing as a good Catholic, always under the watchful eye of local priests and spies. There is a high probability that the Protestants also did not trust him for not staying true to his family’s faith.
In 1688, Louis XIV initiated the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg. The war, along with Louis’s extravagances at his Versailles court, drained France’s coffers to the point that new taxes had to be instituted to cover the cost of the war—just as famines were occurring from the two years of cold, wet weather in 1694-1695. While the poor in many parts of France were starving, the ensuing destruction and atrocities from the persecutions were creating divisions between neighbors and within families. The situation had citizens questioning whether they should stay in the country, or leave to seek refuge in a new land. As a result of the persecutions and the poverty in the Cévennes mountains, a mysterious spiritual resistance arose to fight the absolutism of the kingdom—both against the demand for religious unity and the new taxes that created an unfair burden on the poor and working classes.
Find Me in the Stars is the story of the Cévenol people during that time; some who chose to live in secrecy, some who chose to rebel, and some who took the path of the refugees, fleeing the country by the hundreds of thousands, stifling the French economy in a way Louis XIV never could have imagined.
Pamphlets offering resettlement projects for the persecuted in idyllic locations were being widely distributed at the time. This promise of a more peaceful future is most likely what made Jean Pierre Bondurant take the risk of fleeing the country.
In 1697, after a powerful storm called a Cévenol episode severely damaged two mills and a hemp field that were part of Jean Pierre Bondurant’s estate, he decided to sell them along with some livestock to fund a quick escape from France. He left with a guide and small group of people who would have traveled mostly at night and relied on a network of supporters along the sheep drailles and routes to Aarau in the Swiss cantons.
Tens of thousands of refugees also fled to the Swiss cantons for freedom of conscience and for better opportunities in a land where peace prevailed. But, in 1699, most were required to leave due to new restrictions the government imposed on the French refugees. The Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire, (now a part of Germany), offered the Huguenot refugees safe haven in a town called Sieburg, (commonly called Karlshafen since 1717), and assistance in building their communities.
Other refugees had learned of a new relocation project in “Carolana Floride” colony in the New World that was heavily promoted throughout several “refuge“ countries via pamphlets and meetings. Carolana was a vast tract of land covering what is today North and South Carolina and the northern panhandle of Florida. Those interested in the project left the Swiss cantons, traveling the Rhine River to Rotterdam, then taking ships to London to await the promised voyage to the New World. Jean Pierre Bondurant did, in fact, join one of these resettlement projects after a harrowing journey. This promise of Eden did not turn out the way he expected and, instead, took him to a Virginia settlement in a wild environment with harsh conditions, which you can learn more about if you read the next novel to be released in the series, (date to be determined).
To contrast the plight and flight of the character Jehan BonDurant, and to create a love interest, I created a fictional character, Amelia Auvrey, a free-spirited, mystic holy-woman healer. Other key characters to represent the Cévenoles who stayed behind, are her grandmother, also a healer known as a sage-femme, and another character based on a real person, Commandeur Timoleon of the Order of Saint Jehan Knights Hospitaller from the commandery based on Mont Lauzère (Lozère) in the Cévennes.
Since readers seem to love a little romance in their novels, I wanted Jehan to meet someone he would have something in common with. We know he trained as an apothecary, so creating Amelia as a healer seemed like a good place to start. Her character is a “free-spirit” who does not avow to any one religion but embraces them all, so she inspires Jehan to seek his own spiritual path rather than letting it be dictated to him. I was able to use her to touch on ancient healing techniques — Greek, Gabali Celtae, and others — that might be considered magic or witchcraft by many. In fact, I had a recent review that seemed to question the purpose of adding “magic” that didn’t seem necessary to the plot line. It may seem beyond belief that women like this existed in the Cévennes in the 17th century, but in fact, they did. So the purpose was to create an authentic persona and backdrop to the story of two young people drawn to each other by common interests but separated by the persecutions. Below are a couple of quotes I found in my research that tell us these healers were common in the Cévennes, at least up until the late 19th century.
“There is almost no village, even today, where we do not find one or more secret healers, (that’s the name we give them) sorcerers or diviners, with the reputation to cure all kinds of illnesses, even from a distance, by means of signs, dead ends or ridiculous formulas.” – The Lozérien Peasant: Local Studies (Ed. 1899) by Jules Barbot
“The Druidic cult must have laid deep roots in the hearts of the peoples of Mont Lozère because, in these solitary, deserted places, covered, here and there, with vast forests, everything seemed to favor this mysterious, symbolic religion, with austere dogmas and barbaric practices. Moreover, the inhabitants of Lozère bordered on the Cévennes population, with a light and frivolous character, who has always been eager for pleasures and entertainment. At the Gap-Français Hospital, on June 25, at the summer solstice, we still celebrate a fair known for centuries under the name of the dance fair and whose origins go back, perhaps -be, in the Druidic era. Mr. André, however, tells us in his Notice on the Gap-Français, that this fair owes its origin to the Commanders of the Hospital.” — From hospitaliers-saint-jean.com citing the Bulletin de Lozère, 1864.
If anyone is interested in sources pertaining to this history, they can be found in the Historical and Author’s Notes of the first book in the Huguenot trilogy series, The Muse of Freedom: a Cévenoles Sagas novel.
Author Bio
Jules Larimore is the author of emotive, literary-leaning historical fiction with a dose of magic, myth, and romance to bring to life hopeful human stories and inspire positive change. She is a member of France’s Splendid Centuries authors’ collaborative, a board member of the Historical Novel Society of Southern California, and lives primarily in Ojai with time spent around the U.S. and Europe gathering a rich repository of historical research in a continued search for authenticity.
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Jennifer C. Wilson 