of the
church; Joany disarming Genouillac; and Lafleur terrifying the
villages of the Lozere almost to the gates of Mende.

Although the winters in the South of France, along the shores of the
Mediterranean, are comparatively mild and genial, it is very different
in the mountain districts of the interior, where the snow lies thick
upon the ground, and the rivers are bound up by frost. Cavalier, in
his Memoirs, describes the straits to which his followers were reduced
in that inclement season, being "destitute of houses or beds,
victuals, bread, or money, and left to struggle with hunger, cold,
snow, misery, and poverty."

"General Broglie," he continues, "believed and hoped that though
he had not been able to destroy us with the sword, yet the
insufferable miseries of the winter would do him that good
office. Yet God Almighty prevented it through his power, and by
unexpected means his Providence ordered the thing so well that at
the end of the winter we found ourselves in being, and in a
better condition than we expected.... As for our retiring places,
we were used in the night-time to go into hamlets or sheepfolds
built in or near the woods, and thought ourselves happy when we
lighted upon a stone or piece of timber to make our pillows
withal, and a little straw or dry leaves to lie upon in our
clothes. We did in this condition sleep as gently and soundly as
if we had lain upon a down bed. The weather being extremely cold,
we had a great occasion for fire; but residing mostly in woods,
we used to get great quantity of faggots and kindle them, and so
sit round about them and warm ourselves. In this manner we spent
a quarter of a year, running up and down, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, through great forests and upon high mountains,
in deep snow and upon ice. And notwithstanding the sharpness of
the weather, the small stock of our provisions, and the marches
and counter-marches we were continually obliged to make, and
which gave us but seldom the opportunity of washing the only
shirt we had upon our back, not one amongst us fell sick. One
might have perceived in our visage a complexion as fresh as if we
had fed upon the most delicious meats, and at the end of the
season we found ourselves in a good disposition heartily to
commence the following campaign."[44]

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