comrades could not long hold
out against the large bodies of regular troops sent against them, he
suggested a plan which in the end proved to be so good that for years
the poor peasants were able to maintain war against all the armies that
King Louis could send against them, although he sent many of his finest
generals and as many as sixty thousand men to subdue them.

Cavalier's plan was to collect more men, divide, and make uprisings in
several places at once, so that the king's officers could not tell in
which way to turn. As he and his comrades knew the country well, and had
friends to tell them of the enemy's movements, they could nearly always
know when it was safe to attack, and when they must hide in the woods.

Cavalier took thirty men and went into one part of the country, while
Captain La Porte, with a like number, went to another, and Captain St.
John to still another. They kept each other informed of all movements,
and whenever one was pressed by the enemy, the others would begin
burning churches or attacking small garrisons. The enemy would thus be
compelled to abandon the pursuit of one party in order to go after the
others, and it soon became evident that under Cavalier's lead the
peasants were too wily and too strong for the soldiers. Sometimes
Cavalier would fairly beat detachments of his foes, and give them chase,
killing all whom he caught; for in that war both sides did this, even
killing their prisoners without mercy. At other times Cavalier was
worsted in fight, and when that was the case he fled to the woods,
collected more men, and waited for another chance.

Without trying to write an orderly history of the war, for which there
is not space enough here, I shall now tell some stories of Cavalier's
adventures, drawing the information chiefly from a book which he himself
wrote years afterwards, when he was a celebrated man and a general in
the British army.

One Sunday Cavalier, who was a preacher as well as a soldier, held
services in his camp in the woods, and all the Protestant peasants in
the neighborhood attended. The Governor of Alais, whose name was De la
Hay, thought this a good opportunity not only to defeat Cavalier's small
force, but also to catch the Protestant women and children in the act of
attending a Protestant service, the punishment for which was death. He
collected a force of about six hundred men, cavalry and infantry, and
marched towards the wood, where he knew he should