e actually
received in England the grade of colonel, which he had been offered
in France. At the battle of Almanza the regiment commanded by Cavalier
found itself opposed by a French regiment. The old enemies recognised
each other, and with a howl of rage, without waiting for the word of
command or executing any military evolutions, they hurled themselves at
each other with such fury that, if we may believe the Duke of Berwick,
who was present, they almost annihilated each other in the conflict.
Cavalier, however, survived the slaughter, in which he had performed his
part with energy; and for his courage was made general and governor of
the island of Jersey. He died at Chelsea in May 1740, aged sixty years.
"I must confess," says Malesherbes, "that this soldier, who without
training became a great general by means of his natural gifts; this
Camisard, who dared in the face of fierce troopers to punish a crime
similar to those by which the troopers existed; this rude peasant,
who, admitted into the best society; adopted its manners and gained its
esteem and love; this man, who though accustomed to an adventurous life,
and who might justly have been puffed up by success, had yet enough
philosophy to lead for thirty-five years a tranquil private existence,
appears to me to be one of the rarest characters to be met with in the
pages of history."

CHAPTER VI

At length Louis XIV, bowed beneath the weight of a reign of sixty years,
was summoned in his turn to appear before God, from whom, as some said,
he looked for reward, and others for pardon. But Nimes, that city with
the heart of fire, was quiet; like the wounded who have lost the
best part of their blood, she thought only, with the egotism of a
convalescent, of being left in peace to regain the strength which had
become exhausted through the terrible wounds which Montrevel and the
Duke of Berwick had dealt her. For sixty years petty ambition had
taken the place of sublime self-sacrifice, and disputes about etiquette
succeeded mortal combats. Then the philosophic era dawned, and the
sarcasms of the encyclopedists withered the monarchical intolerance
of Louis XIV and Charles IX. Thereupon the Protestants resumed their
preaching, baptized their children and buried their dead, commerce
flourished once more, and the two religions lived side by side, one
concealing under a peaceful exterior the memory of its martyrs, the
other the memory of its triumphs. Such was the m