One of the most remarkable records left to us in the annals of history with respect to spiritual gifts is general is that of "prophets of the Cevennes," at the close of the seventeenth century. About one hundred years earlier, in 1598, King Henry IV of France had issued the Edict of Nantes granting the French Protestants freedom of private worship, civil rights, and the right to public worship in many places. In 1685, however, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, and there was a renewal of persecution of the Huguenots (French Protestants). More than half a million of them fled the country. Thousands of others suffered martyrdom, some renounced their faith, and a remnant of them fled to the Cevennes mountains.
Among this remnant, miracles of healing, prophecy and tongues became manifest. These people became known as the Camisards after King Louis XIV sent heavily armed troops against them from 1701 until 1710 and they attempted to defend themselves. Many of the became refugees in England, where they became known as the French prophets, and were often the objects of ridicule. The Earl of Shaftesbury, in the CHARACTERISTICS, wrote of a puppet show at St. Bartholomew's Fair in 1708 at which these French Prophets were mocked. Some of them also became refugees in America, and Benjamin Franklin wrote that his first employer, Keimer, the printer of Philadelphia, "had been one of the French Prophets and could act their enthusiastic agitations" (Benjamin Franklin, WORKS, ed. J. Bigelow, vol. 1, p. 66).
Now what, exactly, were the agitations of the French Prophets? Here's one description, from Henry M. Baird's HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS, volume II, Chapter 14:
Respecting the physical manifestations, there is little discrepancy between the accounts of friend and foe. The persons affected were men and women, the old and the young. Very many were children, boys and girls of nine or ten years of age. They were sprung from the people--their enemies said, from the dregs of the people--ignorant and uncultured; for the most part unable to read or write, and speaking in everyday life the patois of the province with which alone they were conversant.
Such persons would suddenly fall backward, and while extended at full length on the ground, undergo strange and apparently involuntary contortions; their chest would seem to heave, their stomachs to inflate. On coming gradually out of this condition, they appeared instantly to regain the power of speech. . . . From the mouths of those that were little more than babes came texts of Scripture, and discourses in good and intelligible French, such as they never used in their conscious hours.
Selected quotes from "The Manifestations Throughout History" - St. Louis CATCH THE FIRE Conference, May 3-6, 1995 by Richard M. Riss.