Napoléon Peyrat (20 January 1809 – 4 April 1881) was a French author and historian from

Les Bordes-sur-Arize Les Bordes-sur-Arize (, literally ''Les Bordes on Arize''; oc, Las Bòrdas d'Arisa) is a Communes of France, commune in the Ariège (department), Ariège Departments of France, department of southwestern France. Population Inhabitants of Les ...

(French:

). Preyat was an anti-monarchist who was also opposed to the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

."In the Languedoc,... inventions ranged from Napoléon Peyrat’s Cathar-inspired republicanism to

Frédéric Mistral Joseph Étienne Frédéric Mistral (; oc, Josèp Estève Frederic Mistral, 8 September 1830 – 25 March 1914) was a French writer of Occitan literature and lexicographer of the Provençal form of the language. He received the 1904 Nobel P ...

’s discovery of Occitania.." J. L. Nelson, "Catharama". ''The

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of ...

'', 7 June 2001. Peyrat was the author o
''Histoire des pasteurs du Désert: depuis la révocation de l'édit de Nantes jusqu'à la Révolution française, 1685 - 1789''
(History of the Desert Fathers: from the revolution of the Edict of Nantes to the French Revolution, 1685-1789). Published in 1842, English translation 1852. It is a notable history of the Revolt of the

Camisards Camisards were Huguenots (French Protestants) of the rugged and isolated Cévennes region and the neighbouring Vaunage in southern France. In the early 1700s, they raised a resistance against the persecutions which followed Louis XIV's Revocation ...

. Peyrat also wrote the two volume ''Histoire des Albigeois: les Albigeois et l'Inquisition'' (1872) (History of the Albigensians: the Albigensians and the Inquisition) a history of

Catharism Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Follow ...

. Peyrat's book depicts the Cathars as the forerunners of the values of Protestantism and French Republicanism.

References

External links

Biography-Bibliography
in French.

*''Histoire des pasteurs du Désert'', in French

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peyrat, Napoleon 19th-century French historians 1809 births 1881 deaths French male non-fiction writers French republicans 19th-century French male writers category:Historians of Catharism