[a. F. camisard, f. Pr. camisa shirt- + -ARD: cf. CAMISADE.] ‘Name given to the Calvinist insurgents of the Cevennes, during the persecution which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes’ (Littré). Also attrib.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3908/3. Accounts … of the Successes of the Camisars against the French King’s Forces. Ibid., No. 3973/2. These Roman Catholicks call themselves the White Camisars, or the Florentines.
1710. Steele & Addison, Tatler, No. 257, ¶ 12. Brownists, Independents, Masonites, Camisars, and the like.
1816. Keatinge, Trav., I. 30. They could effect little in a midnight warfare against Camisards.
1882–3. Schaff, Relig. Encycl., I. 376. Without leaders the Camisard army gradually melted away.
