in a letter to a friend: "I have only time to tell you that the
French have failed in their attack on the Balsille, and they have been
obliged to retire after having lost one hundred and fifty soldiers,
three captains, besides subalterns and wounded, including a colonel
and a lieutenant-colonel who have been made prisoners, with the two
sergeants who remained behind to help them. The lieutenant-colonel was
surprised at finding in the fort some nineteen or twenty officers in
gold and silver lace, who treated him as a prisoner of war and very
humanely, even allowing him to go in search of the surgeon-major of
his regiment for the purpose of bringing him into the place, and doing
all that was necessary."

Catinat did not choose again to renew the attack in person, or to
endanger his reputation by a further defeat at the hands of men whom
he had described as a nest of paltry bandits, but entrusted the
direction of further operations to the Marquis de Feuquieres, who had
his laurels still to win, while Catinat had his to lose. The Balsille
was again completely invested by the 12th of May, according to the
scheme of operations prepared by Catinat, and the Marquis received by
anticipation the title of "Conqueror of the Barbets." The entire
mountain was surrounded, all the passes were strongly guarded, guns
were planted in positions which commanded the Vaudois fort, more
particularly on the Guinevert; and the capture or extermination of the
Vaudois was now regarded as a matter of certainty. The attacking army
was divided into five corps. Each soldier was accompanied by a pioneer
carrying a fascine, in order to form a cover against the Vaudois
bullets as they advanced.

Several days elapsed before all the preliminaries for the grand attack
were completed, and then the Marquis ordered a white flag to be
hoisted, and a messenger was sent forward, inviting a parley with the
defenders of the Balsille. The envoy was asked what he wanted. "Your
immediate surrender!" was the reply. "You shall each of you receive
five hundred louis d'or, and good passports for your retirement to a
foreign country; but if you resist, you will be infallibly destroyed."
"That is as the Lord shall will," replied the Vaudois messenger.

The defenders refused to capitulate on any terms. The Marquis himself
then wrote to the Vaudois, offering them terms on the above basis, but
threatening, in case of refusal, that every man of them would be hung.
Arnaud's