militia.

The Camisard chiefs then separated, Laporte and his band taking a
westerly direction. The Royalists, having received considerable
reinforcements, hastened from different directions to intercept him, but
he slipped through their fingers, and descended to Pont-de-Montvert,
from whence he threw himself upon the villages situated near the sources
of the western Gardon. At the same time, to distract the attention of
the Royalists, the other Camisard leaders descended, the one towards the
south, and the other towards the east, disarming the Roman Catholics,
carrying off their arms, and spreading consternation wherever they went.

Meanwhile, Count Broglie, Captain Poul, Colonel Miral, and the
commanders of the soldiers and militia all over the Cevennes, were
hunting the Protestants and their families wherever found, pillaging
their houses, driving away their cattle, and burning their huts; and
it was evident that the war on both sides was fast drifting into one
of reprisal and revenge. Brigands, belonging to neither side,
organized themselves in bodies, and robbed Protestants and Catholics
with equal impartiality.

One effect of this state of things was rapidly to increase the numbers
of the disaffected. The dwellings of many of the Protestants having
been destroyed, such of the homeless fugitives as could bear arms fled
into the mountains to join the Camisards, whose numbers were thus
augmented, notwithstanding the measures taken for their extermination.

Laporte was at last tracked by his indefatigable enemy, Captain Poul,
who burned to wipe out the disgrace which he conceived himself to have
suffered at Champ-Domergue. Information was conveyed to him that
Laporte and his band were in the neighbourhood of Molezon on the
western Gardon, and that they intended to hold a field-meeting there
on Sunday, the 22nd of October.

Poul made his dispositions accordingly. Dividing his force into two
bodies, he fell upon the insurgents impetuously from two sides, taking
them completely by surprise. They hastily put themselves in order of
battle, but their muskets, wet with rain, would not fire, and Laporte
hastened with his men to seek the shelter of a cliff near at hand.
While in the act of springing from one rock to another, he was seen to
stagger and fall. He had been shot dead by a musket bullet, and his
career was thus brought to a sudden close. His followers at once fled
in all directions.

Poul cut off Laporte's he