lier's soldiers took care to drop into the room, one by
one, apparently for orders, and suddenly, on a signal being given, the
governor and his attendants were seized and bound. At the same time
the guard outside was attacked and overpowered. The outer gates were
opened, the Camisards rushed in, the castle was taken, and the
garrison put to the sword.

Cavalier and his band carried off with them to their magazine at
Bouquet all the arms, ammunition, and provisions they could find, and
before leaving they set fire to the castle. There must have been a
large store of gunpowder in the vaults of the place besides what the
Camisards carried away, for they had scarcely proceeded a mile on
their return journey when a tremendous explosion took place, shaking
the ground like an earthquake, and turning back, they saw the
battlements of the detested Chateau Servas hurled into the air.

Shortly after, Roland repeated at Sauve, a little fortified town hung
along the side of a rocky hill a few miles to the south of Anduze, the
stratagem which Cavalier had employed at Servas, and with like
success. He disarmed the inhabitants, and carried off the arms and
provisions in the place: and though he released the commandant and
the soldiers whom he had taken prisoners, he shot a persecuting priest
and a Capuchin monk, and destroyed all the insignia of Popery in
Sauve.

These terrible measures caused a new stampede of the clergy all over
the Cevennes. The nobles and gentry also left their chateaux, the
merchants their shops and warehouses, and took refuge in the fortified
towns. Even the bishops of Mende, Uzes, and Alais barricaded and
fortified their episcopal palaces, and organized a system of defence
as if the hordes of Attila had been at their gates.

With each fresh success the Camisards increased in daring, and every
day the insurrection became more threatening and formidable. It
already embraced the whole mountain district of the Cevennes, as well
as a considerable extent of the low country between Nismes and
Montpellier. The Camisard troops, headed by their chiefs, marched
through the villages with drums beating in open day, and were
quartered by billet on the inhabitants in like manner as the royal
regiments. Roland levied imposts and even tithes throughout his
district, and compelled the farmers, at the peril of their lives, to
bring their stores of victual to the "Camp of the Eternal." In the
midst of all, they held their meet