ithout training
became a great general by means of his natural gifts; this Camisard, who
dared in the face of fierce troopers to punish a crime similar to those
by which the troopers existed; this rude peasant, who, admitted into the
best society; adopted its manners and gained its esteem and love; this
man, who though accustomed to an adventurous life, and who might justly
have been puffed up by success, had yet enough philosophy to lead for
thirty-five years a tranquil private existence, appears to me to be one
of the rarest characters to be met with in the pages of history."

CHAPTER VI

At length Louis XIV, bowed beneath the weight of a reign of sixty years,
was summoned in his turn to appear before God, from whom, as some said,
he looked for reward, and others for pardon. But Nimes, that city with
the heart of fire, was quiet; like the wounded who have lost the best
part of their blood, she thought only, with the egotism of a
convalescent, of being left in peace to regain the strength which had
become exhausted through the terrible wounds which Montrevel and the Duke
of Berwick had dealt her. For sixty years petty ambition had taken the
place of sublime self-sacrifice, and disputes about etiquette succeeded
mortal combats. Then the philosophic era dawned, and the sarcasms of the
encyclopedists withered the monarchical intolerance of Louis XIV and
Charles IX. Thereupon the Protestants resumed their preaching, baptized
their children and buried their dead, commerce flourished once more, and
the two religions lived side by side, one concealing under a peaceful
exterior the memory of its martyrs, the other the memory of its triumphs.
Such was the mood on which the blood-red orb of the sun of '89 rose. The
Protestants greeted it with cries of joy, and indeed the promised liberty
gave them back their country, their civil rights, and the status of
French citizens.

Nevertheless, whatever were the hopes of one party or the fears of the
other, nothing had as yet occurred to disturb the prevailing
tranquillity, when, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1789, a body of troops
was formed in the capital of La Gard which was to bear the name of the
Nimes Militia: the resolution which authorised this act was passed by the
citizens of the three orders sitting in the hall of the palace.

It was as follows:--

"Article 10. The Nimes Legion shall consist of a colonel, a
lieutenant-colonel, a major, a lieutenant-major, an ad