Comte de Montrevel to Nimes. He was the
son of the Marechal de Montrevel, chevalier of the Order of the Holy
Spirit, major-general, lieutenant of the king in Bresse and Charolais,
and captain of a hundred men-at-arms.

In their struggle against shepherds, keepers, and peasants, M. de Brogue,
M. de Julien, and M. de Baville were thus joined together with the head
of the house of Beaune, which had already at this epoch produced two
cardinals, three archbishops, two bishops, a viceroy of Naples, several
marshals of France, and many governors of Savoy, Dauphine, and Bresse.

He was followed by twenty pieces of ordnance, five thousand bullets, four
thousand muskets, and fifty thousand pounds of powder, all of which was
carried down the river Rhone, while six hundred of the skilful mountain
marksmen called 'miquelets' from Roussillon came down into Languedoc.

M. de Montrevel was the bearer of terrible orders. Louis XIV was
determined, no matter what it cost, to root out heresy, and set about
this work as if his eternal salvation depended on it. As soon as M. de
Baville had read these orders, he published the following proclamation:

"The king having been informed that certain people without religion
bearing arms have been guilty of violence, burning down churches and
killing priests, His Majesty hereby commands all his subjects to hunt
these people down, and that those who are taken with arms in their hands
or found amongst their bands, be punished with death without any trial
whatever, that their houses be razed to the ground and their goods
confiscated, and that all buildings in which assemblies of these people
have been held, be demolished. The king further forbids fathers,
mothers, brothers, sisters, and other relations of the fanatics, or of
other rebels, to give them refuge, food, stores, ammunition, or other
assistance of any kind, under any pretext whatever, either directly or
indirectly, on pain of being reputed accessory to the rebellion, and he
commands the Sieur de Baville and whatever officers he may choose to
prosecute such and pronounce sentence of death on them. Furthermore, His
Majesty commands that all the inhabitants of Languedoc who may be absent
at the date of the issue of this proclamation, return home within a week,
unless their absence be caused by legitimate business, in which case they
shall declare the same to the commandant, the Sieur de Montrevel, or to
the intendant, the Sieur de Baville,