eadiness below, or, falling on the pavement, broke their limbs and were
pitilessly despatched.

The gendarmes, who had really been called out to protect the retreat of
the garrison, seemed to imagine they were there to witness a judicial
execution, and stood immovable and impassive while these horrid deeds
went on before their eyes. But the penalty of this indifference was
swiftly exacted, for as soon as the soldiers were all done with, the mob,
finding their thirst for blood still unslacked, turned on the gendarmes,
the greater number of whom were wounded, while all lost their horses, and
some their lives.

The populace was still engaged at its bloody task when news came that the
army from Beaucaire was within sight of the town, and the murderers,
hastening to despatch some of the wounded who still showed signs of life,
went forth to meet the long expected reinforcements.

Only those who saw the advancing army with their own eyes can form any
idea of its condition and appearance, the first corps excepted. This
corps was commanded by M. de Barre, who had put himself at its head with
the noble purpose of preventing, as far as he could, massacre and
pillage. In this he was seconded by the officers under him, who were
actuated by the same philanthropic motives as their general in
identifying themselves with the corps. Owing to their exertions, the men
advanced in fairly regular order, and good discipline was maintained.
All the men carried muskets.

But the first corps was only a kind of vanguard to the second, which was
the real army, and a wonderful thing to see and hear. Never were brought
together before or since so many different kinds of howl, so many threats
of death, so many rags; so many odd weapons, from the matchlock of the
time of the Michelade to the steel-tipped goad of the bullock drovers of
La Camargue, so that when the Nimes mob; which in all conscience was
howling and ragged enough, rushed out to offer a brotherly welcome to the
strangers, its first feeling was one of astonishment and dismay as it
caught sight of the motley crew which held out to it the right hand of
fellowship.

The new-comers soon showed that it was through necessity and not choice
that their outer man presented such a disreputable appearance; for they
were hardly well within the gates before demanding that the houses of the
members of the old Protestant National Guard should be pointed out to
them.

This being done, they pro