François Langlade (c. 1647 – 24 July 1702) was the French Catholic "Abbé of Chaila" (or "Chayla"), "Archpriest of the Cevennes" and "Inspector of Missions of the Cevennes

Cévennes

The Cévennes are a range of mountains in south-central France, covering parts of the départements of Gard, Lozère, Ardèche, and Haute-Loire.The word Cévennes comes from the Gaulish Cebenna, which was Latinized by Julius Caesar to Cevenna...

". His brutal repression of French (Protestant) Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

s by means of torture caused his assassination and sparked the War of the Camisards

Camisard

Camisards were French Protestants of the rugged and isolated Cevennes region of south-central France, who raised an insurrection against the persecutions which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685...

.

A missionary in his youth in Siam (modern Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

), he there suffered near-martyrdom at the hands of Buddhists, was left for dead, but survived and returned to France. His house in Le Pont-de-Montvert

Le Pont-de-Montvert

Le Pont-de-Montvert is a commune in the Lozère département in southern France.It is located in the heart of the Parc National des Cévennes. The inhabitants of Le Pont-de-Montvert are called Pontoises or Montvertipontains.-History:...

 served as a prison for Protestants who were tortured. As Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

said, Chayla "..closed the hands of his prisoners upon live coal, and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to convince them that they were deceived in their [religious beliefs]."