all had been Sabbath peace among the mountains. There must have

been near a score of us at dinner by eleven before noon; and after
I had eaten and drunken, and sat writing up my journal, I suppose

as many more came dropping in one after another, or by twos and
threes. In crossing the Lozere I had not only come among new

natural features, but moved into the territory of a different race.
These people, as they hurriedly despatched their viands in an

intricate sword-play of knives, questioned and answered me with a
degree of intelligence which excelled all that I had met, except

among the railway folk at Chasserades. They had open telling
faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. They not only

entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, but more than
one declared, if he were rich enough, he would like to set forth on

such another.
Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had not seen a

pretty woman since I left Monastier, and there but one. Now of the
three who sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not

beautiful - a poor timid thing of forty, quite troubled at this
roaring TABLE D'HOTE, whom I squired and helped to wine, and

pledged and tried generally to encourage, with quite a contrary
effect; but the other two, both married, were both more handsome

than the average of women. And Clarisse? What shall I say of
Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy placable nonchalance,

like a performing cow; her great grey eyes were steeped in amorous
languor; her features, although fleshy, were of an original and

accurate design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty
pride; her cheek fell into strange and interesting lines. It was a

face capable of strong emotion, and, with training, it offered the
promise of delicatesentiment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a

model left to country admirers and a country way of thought.
Beauty should at least have touched society; then, in a moment, it

throws off a weight that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of
itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the

head, and, in a moment, PATET DEA. Before I left I assured
Clarisse of my heartyadmiration. She took it like milk, without

embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her
great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion.

If Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add that her
figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but

that may perhaps grow better as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might say at home, is

a place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that
the war broke out; here that those southern Covenanters slew their

Archbishop Sharp. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile
enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to understand

in these quiet modern days, and with our easy modern beliefs and
disbeliefs. The Protestants were one and all beside their right

minds with zeal and sorrow. They were all prophets and
prophetesses. Children at the breast would exhort their parents to

good works. 'A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke from its
mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud

voice.' Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the women
'seemed possessed by the devil,' and had trembling fits, and

uttered prophecies publicly upon the streets. A prophetess of
Vivarais was hanged at Moutpellier because blood flowed from her

eyes and nose, and she declared that she was weeping tears of blood
for the misfortunes of the Protestants. And it was not only women

and children. Stalwart dangerous fellows, used to swing the sickle
or to wield the forest axe, were likewiseshaken with strange

paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs and streaming tears. A
persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a score of

years, and this was the result upon the persecuted; hanging,
burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in vain; the dragoons had

left their hoof-marks over all the countryside; there were men
rowing in the galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the

Church; and not a thought was changed in the heart of any upright
Protestant.

Now the head and forefront of the persecution - after Lamoignon de
Bavile - Francois de Langlade du Chayla (pronounce Cheila),

Archpriest of the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions in the same
country, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt in the town of

Pont de Montvert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have
been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, an age by

which a man has learned all the moderation of which he is capable.
A missionary in his youth in China, he there suffered martyrdom,

was left for dead, and only succoured and brought back to life by
the charity of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of

second-sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an
experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man of the

desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing strangely put
together; and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a

Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the Faith
went roundly forward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert

served him as a prison. There he closed the hands of his prisoners
upon live coal, and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to

convince them that they were deceived in their opinions. And yet
had not he himself tried and proved the inefficacy of these carnal

arguments among the Buddhists in China?
Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but flight was

rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, and well acquainted
with the mountain-paths, had already guided several troops of

fugitives in safety to Geneva; and on him, with another convoy,
consisting mostly of women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil

hour for himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was
a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage upon Mount

Bouges; where there stood up one Seguier - Spirit Seguier, as his
companions called him - a wool-carder, tall, black-faced, and

toothless, but a man full of prophecy. He declared, in the name of
God, that the time for submission had gone by, and they must betake

themselves to arms for the deliverance of their brethren and the
destruction of the priests.

The next night, 24th July 1702, a sound disturbed the Inspector of
Missions as he sat in his prison-house at Pont de Montvert: the

voices of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer and nearer
through the town. It was ten at night; he had his court about him,

priests, soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or
fifteen; and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his

very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. But the
psalm-singers were already at his door, fifty strong, led by the

inspired Seguier, and breathing death. To their summons, the
archpriest made answer like a stout old persecutor, and bade his

garrison fire upon the mob. One Camisard (for, according to some,
it was in this night's work that they came by the name) fell at

this discharge: his comrades burst in the door with hatchets and a
beam of wood, overran the lower story of the house, set free the

prisoners, and finding one of them in the VINE, a sort of
Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, redoubled in fury

against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated assaults to carry the
upper floors. But he, on his side, had given absolution to his

men, and they bravely held the staircase.
'Children of God,' cried the prophet, 'hold your hands. Let us

burn the house, with the priest and the satellites of Baal.'
The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du Chayla and his

men lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets;
some escaped across the river under the bullets of the insurgents;

but the archpriest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only
crawl into the hedge. What were his reflections as this second

martyrdom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful man, who had
done his duty resolutely according to his light both in the

Cevennes and China. He found at least one telling word to say in
his defence; for when the roof fell in and the upbursting flames

discovered his retreat, and they came and dragged him to the public
place of the town, raging and calling him damned - 'If I be