ABSTRACT
For Huguenot refugees arriving in the Dutch Republic, hearing a sermon in one of the Walloon churches was akin to spiritual rebirth. Many had not heard a minister preach in years, either because the authorities had destroyed their church in the run-up to the Revocation, or because they had lived as nouveaux convertis before going into exile. When the refugee nobleman Isaac Dumont de Bostaquet arrived in Middelburg in 1687 he therefore went straight to the local Walloon church to hear a sermon, noting in his journal that ‘this spiritual food, of which I had experienced such a great dearth, seemed to have a wonderful taste to me’. 1 Jean Migault, who debarked in Rotterdam in 1688 with a group of refugees from the Poitou, was similarly awestruck by a sermon from ‘the famous Mr. Jurieu’, observing that ‘there wasn’t one among us whose heart wasn’t filled with gratitude and love’. 2
