The campaign of 1703, the third year of the insurrection, began unfavourably for the Camisards. The ill-success of Count Broglie as commander of the royal forces in the Cevennes, determined Louis XIV.—from whom the true state of affairs could no longer be concealed—to supersede him by Marshal Montrevel, one of the ablest of his generals. The army of Languedoc was again reinforced by ten thousand of the best soldiers of France, drawn from the armies of Germany and Italy. It now consisted of three regiments of dragoons and twenty-four battalions of foot—of the Irish Brigade, the Miguelets, and the Languedoc fusiliers—which, with the local militia, constituted an effective force of not less than sixty thousand men!
Such was the irresistible army, commanded by a marshal of France, three lieutenant-generals, three major-generals, and three brigadier-generals, now stationed in Languedoc, to crush the peasant insurrection. No wonder that the Camisard chiefs were alarmed when the intelligence reached them of this formidable force having been set in motion for their destruction.
The first thing they determined upon was to effect a powerful diversion, and to extend, if possible, the area of the insurrection. For this purpose, Cavalier, at the head of eight hundred men, accompanied by thirty baggage mules, set out in the beginning of February, with the object of raising the Viverais, the north-eastern quarter of Languedoc, where the Camisards had numerous partizans. The snow was lying thick upon the ground when they set out; but the little army pushed northward, through Rochegude and Barjac. At the town of Vagnas they found their way barred by a body of six hundred militia, under the Count de Roure. These they attacked with great fury and speedily put to flight.
But behind the Camisarde was a second and much stronger royalist force, eighteen hundred men, under Brigadier Julien, who had hastened up from Lussan upon Cavalier's track, and now hung upon his rear in the forest of Vagnas. Next morning the Camisards accepted battle, fought with their usual bravery, but having been trapped into an ambuscade, they were overpowered by numbers, and at length broke and fled in disorder, leaving behind them their mules, baggage, seven drums, and a quantity of arms, with some two hundred dead and wounded. Cavalier himself escaped with difficulty, and, after having been given up for lost, reached the rendez-vous at Bouquet in a state of complete exhaustion, Ravanel and Catinat having preceded him thither with, the remains of his broken army.
Roland and Cavalier now altered their tactics. They resolved to avoid pitched battles such as that at Vagnas, where they were liable to be crushed at a blow, and to divide their forces into small detachments constantly on the move, harassing the enemy, interrupting their communications, and falling upon detached bodies whenever an opportunity for an attack presented itself.
To the surprise of Montrevel, who supposed the Camisards finally crushed at Vagnas, the intelligence suddenly reached him of a multitude of attacks on fortified posts, burning of châteaux and churches, captures of convoys, and defeats of detached bodies of Royalists.
Joany attacked Genouillac, cut to pieces the militia who defended it, and carried off their arms and ammunition, with other spoils, to the camp at Faux-des-Armes. Shortly after, in one of his incursions, he captured a convoy of forty mules laden with cloth, wine, and provisions for Lent; and, though hotly pursued by a much superior force, he succeeded in making his escape into the mountains.
Castanet was not less active in the west—sacking and burning Catholic villages, and putting their inhabitants to the sword by way of reprisal for similar atrocities committed by the Royalists. At the same time, Montrevel pillaged and burned Euzet and St. Jean de Ceirarges, villages inhabited by Protestants; and there was not a hamlet but was liable at any moment to be sacked and destroyed by one or other of the contending parties.
Nor was Roland idle. Being greatly in want of arms and ammunition, as well as of shoes and clothes for his men, he collected a considerable force, and made a descent, for the purpose of obtaining them, on the rich and populous towns of the south; more particularly on the manufacturing town of Ganges, where the Camisards had many friends. Although Roland, to divert the attention of Montrevel from Ganges, sent a detachment of his men into the neighbourhood of Nismes to raise the alarm there, it was not long before a large royalist force was directed against him.
Hearing that Montrevel was marching upon Ganges, Roland hastily left for the north, but was overtaken near Pompignan by the marshal at the head of an army of regular horse and foot, including several regiments of local militia, Miguelets, marines, and Irish. The Royalists were posted in such a manner as to surround the Camisards, who, though they fought with their usual impetuosity, and succeeded in breaking through the ranks of their enemies, suffered a heavy loss in dead and wounded. Roland himself escaped with difficulty, and with his broken forces fled through Durfort to his stronghold at Mialet.