Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/96

58 On the third day the Calvinists met with no better success. One man troubled them greatly, an aged hermit from the Mont Denise, who had been an artillery officer in his younger days. He was now very old and bent double; but the fire of battle kindled in his veins, and he undertook the disposition of the artillery and pointed the guns. "That holy man," says a contemporary historian, " did so well that he killed more men than did all the arquebusiers together."

The Huguenots lost heart and demanded a parley. They sent Christopher d'Allègre as their envoy into the city. This man must have been endowed with considerable effrontery to accept such an office, after having betrayed and robbed his fellow-citizens. He appeared before the consuls with a confident air, and demanded that the gates should be thrown open to Blacons. "How can you suppose," said he, "that we intend harm, we who are zealous propagators of the Reformed religion and the defenders of the oppressed? We are incapable of committing acts of violence. We will not exact of you any contribution, not even food for our men. All that we seek is to hew in pieces the gods of wood and stone and emblems that profane the temple of the living God."

But the consuls knew what such protestations were worth, by the experience of the refugees of S. Paulien, which had offered no resistance to the Huguenots. They dismissed the envoy, and he returned to stimulate the investing army to renewed exertions. At once, in a paroxysm of zeal, the host rushed again to the attack; but the citizens sallied forth, cut them down, and made many captures.

Next day the consuls and the bishop hoisted flags on