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198 Cavalier now departed at the head of eight hundred men to rouse the Vivarais. The Count du Roure, at the head of the militia, attempted to stop him; a desperate conflict ensued in the night. The Baron de Largorce, wounded in the thigh, a very old man, fell from his horse. Du Roure was forced to retreat with only sixty men. Five hundred corpses of his men strewed the battlefield. Largorce was lying on the snow. He was clubbed to death by Cavalier's men.

But this victory was a preliminary to a disaster. Cavalier was drawn into an ambuscade by S. Julien, the new commander of the troops; he lost two hundred of his men, was obliged to fly and hide himself, and make his way back to his comrades in the Cevennes as best he might.

As the contest went on, each side became more cruel. Forests were set on fire that were supposed to serve as hiding-places for the Camisards, villages were burnt that were known to harbour them.

On their side the insurgents did not spare even the Protestant nobles who hesitated about joining in the insurrection. In December, 1702, the Camisards burnt the church of S. Jean de Ceyrargues, and taking the curé they bound him hand and foot, and putting knives into the children's hands, bade them stab him to death, encouraging them with the words, "Dip your hands in the blood of the ungodly."

In January, 1703, Cavalier burnt the church and thirteen houses in S. Jean de Marvéjols, that belonged to Catholics, and massacred twenty of these latter, among them four women and a child of two years old.

In February, 1703, at Robiac, the insurgents murdered seven persons, among these a woman whom they