ures. He
would utterly exterminate the insurgents, and, if necessary, reduce
the country to a desert. "It is not enough," said he, "merely to kill
those bearing arms; the villages which supply the combatants, and
which give them shelter and sustenance, ought to be burnt down: thus
only can the insurrection be suppressed."

In a military point of view Julien was probably right; but the savage
advice startled even Baville. "Nothing can be easier," said he, "than
to destroy the towns and villages; but this would be to make a desert
of one of the finest and most productive districts of Languedoc." Yet
Baville himself eventually adopted the very policy which he now
condemned.

In the first place, however, it was determined to pursue and destroy
Cavalier and his band. Eight hundred men, under the Count de Touman,
were posted at Uzes; two battalions of the regiment of Hainault, under
Julien, at Anduze; while Broglie, with a strong body of dragoons and
militia, commanded the passes at St. Ambrose. These troops occupied,
as it were, the three sides of a triangle, in the centre of which
Cavalier was known to be in hiding in the woods of Bouquet. Converging
upon him simultaneously, they hoped to surround and destroy him.

But the Camisard chief was well advised of their movements. To draw
them away from his magazines, Cavalier marched boldly to the north,
and slipping through between the advancing forces, he got into
Broglie's rear, and set fire to two villages inhabited by Catholics.
The three bodies at once directed themselves upon the burning
villages; but when they reached them Cavalier had made his escape, and
was nowhere to be heard of. For four days they hunted the country
between the Garden and the Ceze, beating the woods and exploring the
caves; and then they returned, harassed and vexed, to their respective
quarters.

While the Royalists were thus occupied, Cavalier fell upon a convoy of
provisions which Colonel Marsilly was leading to the castle of
Mendajols, scattered and killed the escort, and carried off the mules
and their loads to the magazines at Bouquet. During the whole of the
month of January, the Camisards, notwithstanding the inclemency of the
weather, were constantly on the move, making their appearance in the
most unexpected quarters; Roland descending from Mialet on Anduze, and
rousing Broglie from his slumbers by a midnight fusillade; Castanet
attacking St. Andre, and making a bonfire of the contents