y
guarded by a hundred dragoons.

He divided his men into two divisions, one to force the bridge, the other
to cover the retreat. Then he faced his foes like a wild boar driven to
bay.

Suddenly loud shouts behind him announced that the bridge was forced; but
the Camisards, instead of keeping the passage open for their leader,
scattered over the plain and sought safety in flight. But a child threw
himself before them, pistol in hand. It was Cavalier's young brother,
mounted on one of the small wild horses of Camargues of that Arab breed
which was introduced into Languedoc by the Moors from Spain. Carrying a
sword and carbine proportioned to his size, the boy addressed the flying
men. "Where are you going?" he cried, "Instead of running away like
cowards, line the river banks and oppose the enemy to facilitate my
brother's escape." Ashamed of having deserved such reproaches, the
Camisards stopped, rallied, lined the banks of the river, and by keeping
up a steady fire, covered Cavalier's retreat, who crossed without having
received a single wound, though his horse was riddled with bullets and he
had been forced to change his sword three times.

Still the combat raged; but gradually Cavalier managed to retreat: a
plain cut by trenches, the falling darkness, a wood which afforded cover,
all combined to help him at last. Still his rearguard, harassed by the
enemy, dotted the ground it passed over with its dead, until at last both
victors and vanquished were swallowed up by night. The fight had lasted
ten hours, Cavalier had lost more than five hundred men, and the royals
about a thousand.

"Cavalier," says M. de Villars, in his Memoirs, "acted on this day in a
way which astonished everyone. For who could help being astonished to
see a nobody, inexperienced in the art of warfare, bear himself in such
difficult and trying circumstances like some great general? At one
period of the day he was followed everywhere by a dragoon; Cavalier shot
at him and killed his horse. The dragoon returned the shot, but missed.
Cavalier had two horses killed under him; the first time he caught a
dragoon's horse, the second time he made one of his own men dismount and
go on foot."

M. de Montrevel also showed himself to be a gallant soldier; wherever
there was danger there was he, encouraging officers and soldiers by his
example: one Irish captain was killed at his side, another fatally
wounded, and a third slightly hurt. Grandv