'Then be it so,' said Jean Cavalier resignedly; adding, 'I have good news for you and all the faithful, Guillot. The Queen of Great Britain—the good Queen Anne—is sending a fleet to our aid.'
'Of what use will it be to us among the mountains?' asked Guillot, laughing.
'It brings us troops, Guillot—troops, who will help us to beat those of Montrevel,' replied Jean, referring to the expedition consisting of thirty-five British and twelve Dutch ships of the line, which was to sail on the 1st of July, 1703, from St. Helens, to the assistance of the Cevennois, and to the arrival of this expedition off the coast the elder Cavalier looked confidently forward to repulsing the column of De Montrevel, while Roland was fighting the King's troops elsewhere. And now to explain briefly what brought all these affairs about.
In the 'Histoire des Pasteurs du Désert,' and other annals, we are told the terrible story of that Civil War in which 30,000 Cevennois perished in battle or on the scaffold, between November, 1702, and December, 1704. Well fitted for desultory warfare are the mountains of Cevennes, with their rocky labyrinth of deep gorges and dark defiles, which a mere handful of bold peasantry were able to hold against the best troops of Louis XIV., and where, to this hour, the population is almost entirely Protestant, inhabiting some six hundred villages, which are all but inaccessible.
The white-shirted Camisards had these steep ridges to encamp on; gorges for ambuscades; forests to rally in; paths trodden only by the wolf or the fox to retreat by; and caverns which became their arsenals and fortresses. Army after army came to annihilate these peasants as heretics, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but only to be destroyed or hurled in ruin and defeat into the valleys; but the miseries of the war, the slaughter of women and children, the burning and pillaging were fearful, and spread from thence to the ocean on the south, and the Rhone on the east, among the hundred churches of Dauphine. With much sublime piety and heroic valour the armed peasantry, as in the similar case of the Scottish Covenanters, combined a great amount of psalm-singing and the strongest religious fervour, bordering at times upon fanaticism, and prophets and prophetesses, like La Bonne Madelon, roused a wildness of enthusiasm never seen in France since the days of Joan of Arc. 'The spirit of resistance began to show itself, drawn forth by the recital of their wrongs, the denunciation of their tyrants, and the assurance of support from heaven; conventicles were held, in spite of the terrors of prison, torture, and the soldiery, and in the open air among the rocks and caverns.'
Roland and Cavalier levied their troops from the different parishes, each of which furnished its quota of armed men and money, and fresh heroes to fill up the vacancies in the ranks. Many believed themselves to be sword or bullet proof, while 'the seizures, tortures, executions by breaking on the wheel and burning alive (the common modes of punishing a Camisard), led to reprisals on their part—to the slaying of priests and the sacking and burning of Catholic churches.' But in the spirit of outrage, the French troops were far surpassed by the guerilla bands, called Florentins, in the pay of the Grand Monarque.
Jean Cavalier thought of these things keenly now, as he gazed on the soft boyish face of his brother Guillot, when posting his column of Camisards in ambush one morning, ere dawn, to give a hot welcome to the royal forces under the Sieur de Montrevel, an officer high in repute for great valour, but merciless in his severity.
The sound of the drums had died away, but the sheeny bayonets glistened in the sun, and the white Bourbon colours of the regiments, with their golden fleur-de-lys, were waving in the wind, as the column of royal troops began to penetrate a defile that was clothed with the olive, the vine, and the fig-tree. The church and hamlet there had perished by fire; the place was desolate; not a human being was visible, and without halting, the troops pushed on, with an advanced guard to 'feel the way,' in front, till they reached a portion of the defile where the impending rocks were higher, the way narrower, and the trailing vines had given place to the dense, dark, and woody luxuriance of forest trees. The flower of the column was composed of one of the four battalions of the ancient regiment of Champagne, raised so far back as the reign of Henry II.
'Halt!' cried the officer of the advanced guard, whose quick eye had detected the bright flash of steel amid the green branches. In another moment, a combination of fearful sounds burst like a storm upon the silent air, while the soldiers halted, panting with the exertion of climbing the long and steep ascent. An enormous fragment of rock, dislodged from above, crashed with the sound of thunder into the defile below, a mass that must have annihilated the entire advanced guard, had the officer not halted it in time. Other masses of rock and rubbish came thundering down, barring all advance, while more than a thousand voices made the defile re-echo with the shouts of fierce exultation, mingled with a religious hymn.
On the fallen rock in front there was suddenly seen a female, 'the Good Madelon,' kneeling in an attitude of frenzied supplication, her arms thrown wildly up, her hands clasped, her black hair floating loose, her drapery streaming on the wind, and by her side stood Cavalier. As yet no shots had been fired.