ad been
surmised, two vessels which had been detached from the combined fleets of
England and Holland by Admiral Schowel, and were the bearers of money,
arms, and ammunition to the Huguenots. They continued to cruise about
and signal, but as the rebels were forced by the presence of M. de
Montrevel to keep away from the coast, and could therefore make no
answer, they put off at length into the open, and rejoined the fleet. As
M. de Montrevel feared that their retreat might be a feint, he ordered
all the fishermen's huts from Aigues-Morte to Saint-Gilles to be
destroyed, lest they should afford shelter to the Camisards. At the same
time he carried off the inhabitants of the district of Guillan and shut
them up in the chateau of Sommerez, after having demolished their
villages. Lastly, he ordered all those who lived in homesteads, farms,
or hamlets, to quit them and go to some large town, taking with them all
the provisions they were possessed of; and he forbade any workman who
went outside the town to work to take more than one day's provisions with
him.

These measures had the desired effect, but they were terrible in their
results; they deprived the Camisards of shelter indeed, but they ruined
the province. M. de Baville, despite his well-known severity tried
remonstrances, but they were taken in bad part by M. de Montrevel, who
told the intendant to mind his own business, which was confined to civil
matters, and to leave military matters in his, M. de Montrevel's, hands;
whereupon the commandant joined M. de Julien, who was carrying on the
work of destruction with indefatigable vigour.

In spite of all the enthusiasm with which M. de Julien went to work to
accomplish his mission, and being a new convert, it was, of course, very
great. Material hindrances hampered him at every step. Almost all the
doomed houses were built on vaulted foundations, and were therefore
difficult to lay low; the distance of one house from another, too, their
almost inaccessible position, either on the peak of a high mountain or in
the bottom of a rocky valley, or buried in the depths of the forest which
hid then like a veil, made the difficulty still greater; whole days were
often lost by the workmen and militia in searching for the dwellings they
came to destroy.

The immense size of the parishes also caused delay: that of Saint-Germain
de Calberte, for instance, was nine leagues in circumference, and
contained a hundred and eleve