"God help us!" the Protestants said, trembling behind their blinds, "God help us! was this needed too?" while one old man, crouching behind the fountain in the market place, whispered to another, "Those great guns! those great guns! See! Are they to blow our houses down above our heads?"
"Tush!" exclaimed a tall man standing by their side, a fellow bronzed and black from the winds of many wintry storms as well as from the scorching rays of the southern sun. "Tush! they are for the children of God, up there," and he turned a dark gleaming eye toward the dusky summits above the little town, over which by now there was stealing a cold gray that told of the coming of the summer morning. "Fear not for yourself, or them up there. Baville's roads are not yet made and never will be. Let us see that artillery mount into the Cévennes," and he laughed scornfully, some might have deemed cruelly.
Shrinking away from his great form, half in fear, half with dawning intelligence, the old man said: "You speak thus, as though you were of the persecuted--yet--yet--you wear the garments of--of--the valleys, the clothes of townsmen."
But the swarthy stranger only muttered:
"Peace, old man, and be silent. Has not the quarry worn the garb of the hunter before now?" Then he moved away and was lost in the crowd which had gathered afresh.
Ahead of all--of artillery, dragoons, chevaux-légers--there rode one who, but for the richness of his apparel his scarlet coat glistening with stars and traversed by a great ribbon, his hat laced and cockaded with galloon until none of the felt was visible, his gold-hilted and long quilloned sword, might, judging from his fierce looks, himself have been a refugee of the mountain plateaux and deserts above. A man with a great face in which were set fierce rolling eyes, a man from whose heavily moustached mouth there issued oaths whenever he opened it.
This was Julien, one of Louis' field marshals, who, because of his having left the Protestant faith to embrace that of the king, was spoken of in all the lands where the Protestants sheltered themselves as "Julien the Apostate." Also he was spoken of by them with hatred and loathing since once no better soldier of Protestantism had ever existed or, under William of Orange, had done better service. But William, the great champion of Protestantism, was dead now, and Julien, whose love for wealth was unquenchable, had learned that Roman Catholicism was the most paying game. Thus it was that he came this night into his own part of the country, since he was of old family in the town of Orange itself, to lay waste and to slaughter all who held the faith which he himself had once held. He was a true pervert!
With an oath he turned to the aide-de-camp who rode behind him and asked where this accursed Baville was, bidding him ride forward at once and see what preparations had been made for the reception of his forces. Bade him also ask if every Protestant house had been put under orders to accommodate them.
"For," he said to himself, "they must pay for their contumacy fasse Dieu! We should have good feeding here. The vagabonds are rich in all good things in this town. We must have our share."
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