Abjurations multiplied through terror.
"There have been sixty thousand conversions in the jurisdiction of Bordeaux, and twenty thousand in that of Montauban," wrote Louvois to his father in the first part of September, 1685; "the rapidity with which this goes on is such, that, before the end of the month, there will not remain ten thousand religionists in the district of Bordeaux, in which there were a hundred and fifty thousand on the 15th of last month." "The towns of Nimes, Alais, Uzes, Villeneuve, and some others, are entirely converted," writes the Duke of Noailles to Louvois in the month of October, 1685; "those of most note in Nimes made abjuration in church the day after our arrival.

There was then a lukewarmness; but matters were put in good train again by means of some billets that I had put into the houses of the most obstinate.

I am making arrangements for going and scouring the Uvennes with the seven companies of Barbezieux, and my head shall answer for it that before the 25th of November not a Huguenot shall be left there." And a few days later, at Alais--"I no longer know what to do with the troops, for the places in which I had meant to, post them get converted all in a body, and this goes on so quickly that all the men can do is to sleep for a night at the localities to which I send them.

It is certain that you may add very nearly a third to the estimate given you of the people of the religion, amounting to the number of a hundred and eighty-two thousand men, and, when I asked you to give me until the, 25th of next month for their complete conversion, I took too long a term, for I believe that by the end of the month all will be settled.

I will not, however, omit to tell you that all we have done in these conversions will be nothing but useless, if the king do not oblige the bishops to send good priests to instruct the people who want to hear the gospel preached.