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His pride knew no bounds when, three days after the rescue, Sir Hugh Pawlett, the Governor, answering De la Foret's letter requesting permission to visit the Comtesse de Montgomery, sent him word to fetch De la Foret to Mont Orgueil Castle. Clanking and blowing, he was shown into the great hall with De la Foret, where waited Sir Hugh and the widow of the renowned Camisard.
He had twelve of his men dressed up in the clothes of the soldiers who had fallen, and six others in their ordinary Camisard dress bound with ropes as prisoners of war. Cavalier himself donned the uniform of the fallen officer; and thus disguised and well armed, the party moved up the steep ascent to the castle.
Again, if in the northern Cevennes the people are narrow in religious judgments, and more filled with zeal than charity, what was I to look for in this land of persecution and reprisal in a land where the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebellion, and the terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic peasantry into legalized revolt upon the other side, so that Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other's lives among the mountains?
As to Ravanel, he is sufficiently known to our readers to make any words of introduction unnecessary. De l'Estrade threw himself on the nearest of the three, and, without using his sword, struck him with his fist. "Well, yes, I am Ravanel," said the Camisard, "but that is no reason for making so much noise."
Cavalier was enraged at the recital of their woes; and though his force was not one-sixth the strength of the enemy, he determined to meet their advance and give them battle. Placing the poor people of Lascours in safety, the Camisard leader took up his position on a rising ground at the head of a little valley close to the village of Martinargues.
But their death, instead of inspiring the Calvinists with terror, gave them rather fresh courage, for, as an eye-witness relates, the five Camisards bore their tortures not only with fortitude, but with a light-heartedness which surprised all present, especially those who had never seen a Camisard executed before.
Roland just had time to leap out of bed and mount his horse; he was taking to flight with his men by a back door when a detachment of dragoons came up with him; the Camisard chief put his back against an old olive and sold his life dearly. When he fell, his lieutenants let themselves be taken "like lambs" beside his corpse.
"I must confess," says Malesherbes, "that this soldier, who without training became a great general by means of his natural gifts; this Camisard, who dared in the face of fierce troopers to punish a crime similar to those by which the troopers existed; this rude peasant, who, admitted into the best society; adopted its manners and gained its esteem and love; this man, who though accustomed to an adventurous life, and who might justly have been puffed up by success, had yet enough philosophy to lead for thirty-five years a tranquil private existence, appears to me to be one of the rarest characters to be met with in the pages of history."
Aye! at least I would have bound up his wounds for him. But now, the devil will not catch him directly. Such Camisard webs are usually formed of very tough materials." "They were compelled to proceed again, in order to reach with safety the solitary village in the mountain heights."
Thus, on another occasion, in a fit of rage at having been baffled by the young Camisard leader, he dispatched a squadron of dragoons to Ribaute for the express purpose of pulling down the house in which Cavalier had been born! A befitting sequel to this sanguinary struggle at the Tower of Belliot was the fate of Guignon, the miller, who had betrayed the sleeping Camisards to Montrevel.
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