Réveil was a 1814 revival

Christian revival

Christian revival is a term that generally refers to a specific period of increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or many churches, either regionally or globally...

 movement within the Swiss Reformed Church

Swiss Reformed Church

The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel , Bern , St...

 of Western Switzerland and Southern France .

The supporters were also called pejoratively momiers. The movement was initially under the influence of Barbara von Krüdener and later British Methodists and members of Free Church of Scotland

Free Church of Scotland (1843-1900)

The Free Church of Scotland is a Scottish denomination which was formed in 1843 by a large withdrawal from the established Church of Scotland in a schism known as the "Disruption of 1843"...

 who came to the Continent after Napoleon's fall. They accused the Protestant state church of apostasy from true Christianity, they gathered in conventicle

Conventicle

A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated meeting of laypeople, to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening, intimate manner. Philipp Jakob Spener called for such associations in his Pia Desideria, and they were the foundation of the German Evangelical Lutheran Pietist movement...

s and laid emphasis on a strict religious way of life.

The leading personalities of the Réveil were Henri-Louis Empaytaz

Henri-Louis Empaytaz

Henri-Louis Empaytaz , a protestant theologian, who was born and died in Geneva.After Napoleon Bonaparte's downfall in 1814 and the general disillusionment with the ideals of the French Revolution, Empaytaz was a leading member of Le Réveil .-Biography:He was one of the first in the Protestant...

, César Malan

César Malan

Henri Abraham César Malan was a French-speaking Protestant Christian, minister of the gospel and hymn-writer.-Life:...

, Louis Gaussen

François Samuel Robert Louis Gaussen

François Samuel Robert Louis Gaussen was a Swiss Protestant divine.-Life:Gaussen was born at Geneva. His father, Georg Markus Gaussen, a member of the Council of Two Hundred, was descended from an old Languedoc family which had been scattered at the time of the religious persecutions in France...

, Ami Bost, Antoine Jean-Louis Galland and Adolphe Monod

Adolphe Monod

Adolphe-Louis-Frédéric-Théodore Monod , was a French Protestant churchman. His elder brother was Frédéric Monod....

. Most of the momiers walked out of the State churches in 1831 and set up the Evangelical Society in Geneva, with its own "preacher school" built in 1832. In 1848 the various dissident congregations united to form an evangelical Free Church

Free church

The term "free church" refers to a Christian denomination that is intrinsically separated from government . A free church does not define government policy, nor have governments define church policy or theology, nor seeks or receives government endorsement or funding for its general mission...

 (Église libre), which since then exists along to the established church (Église national). In the canton of Vaud

Vaud

Vaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the French-speaking southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian , Waadt in German , and Vad in Romansh.-History:Along the lakes,...

  was also formed a Reformed Free Church, whose spiritual father was Alexandre Vinet

Alexandre Vinet

Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet , was a Swiss critic and theologian.-Life:He was born near Lausanne in Switzerland.Educated for the Protestant ministry, he was ordained in 1819, when already teacher of the French language and literature in the gymnasium at Basel; and throughout his life he was as much a...

.

The Franco-Swiss Réveil was contemporary and analogous to the German Erweckungsbewegung and shared the social concern of its leaders like J. F. Oberlin. It inspired preachers such as Felix Neff

Felix Neff

Felix Neff , Swiss Protestant divine and philanthropist, was born at Geneva. Originally a sergeant of artillery, he decided in 1819 to devote himself entirely to evangelistic work. He was ordained to the ministry in 1822, and soon afterwards settled in the valley of Freissinières, where he labored...

, called the "Apostle of the Alps" to preach in mountain area in the border of France, Switzerland, and Piedmont

Piedmont

Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

, and among the Waldensians. Another preacher influenced by the Réveil was the German-speaking Swiss minister Samuel Heinrich Froehlich

Samuel Heinrich Froehlich

Samuel Heinrich Froehlich was an evangelist responsible for organizing the Evangelical Baptist Church in Western Europe, which eventually spread to become known as the Nazarener-Gemeinde in Eastern Europe and the Apostolic Christian Church in the United States of America during the 1830s and 1840s...

 founder of the Neutäufer in Europe and the Apostolic Christian Church

Apostolic Christian Church

The Apostolic Christian Church is a religious body in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Paraguay, and Japan that originates from the Anabaptist movement....

 in the United States. Many of the Continental "awaked" joined the Plymouth Brethren

Plymouth Brethren

The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...

.