ready to go forthwith whithersoever it was God's
pleasure to lead me, and that assuredly, by God's help, I would make
no change in my religion."

After five months' imprisonment at Cahors, he was taken out and
marched, as already related, to the citadel of Montpellier. The
citadel adjoins the Peyrou, a lofty platform of rock, which commands
a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding country. It is now laid
out as a pleasure-ground, though it was then the principal
hanging-place of the Languedoc Protestants. Brousson, and many other
faithful pastors of the "Church in the Desert," laid down their lives
there. Half-a-dozen decaying corpses might sometimes be seen swinging
from the gibbets on which the ministers had been hung.

A more bitter fate was, however, reserved for De Pechels. After about
a month's imprisonment in the citadel, he was removed to Aiguesmortes,
under the charge of several mounted archers and foot soldiers. He was
accompanied by fourteen Protestant ladies and gentlemen, on their way
to perpetual imprisonment, to the galleys, or to banishment.
Aiguesmortes was the principal fortified dungeon in the south of
France, used for the imprisonment of Huguenots who refused to be
converted. It is situated close to the Mediterranean, and is
surrounded by lagunes and salt marshes. It is a most unhealthy place;
and imprisonment at Aiguesmortes was considered a slower but not a
less certain death than hanging. Sixteen Huguenot women were confined
there in 1686, and the whole of them died within five months. When the
prisoners died off, the place was at once filled again. The castle of
Aiguesmortes was thus used as a prison for nearly a hundred years.

De Pechels gives the following account of his journey from Montpellier
to Aiguesmortes:--"Mounted on asses, harnessed in the meanest manner,
without stirrups, and with wretched ropes for halters, we entered
Aiguesmortes, and were there locked up in the Tower of Constance, with
thirty other male prisoners and twenty women and girls, who had also
been brought hither, tied two and two. The men were placed in an
upper apartment of the tower, and the women and girls below, so that
we could hear each other pray to God and sing His praises with a loud
voice."

De Pechels did not long remain a prisoner at Aiguesmortes. He was
shortly after put on board a king's ship bound for Marseilles. He was
very ill during the voyage, suffering from seasickness and continual
fainting