A gentleman glass-worker, named Abraham de la Serre, was, as it were, the Samuel of this new school of prophets.

In vain did M.de Baville have three hundred children imprisoned at Uzes, and then send them to the galleys; the religious contagion was too strong for the punishments.
"Women found themselves in a single day husbandless, childless, houseless, and penniless," says Court; they remained immovable in their pious ecstasy; the assemblies multiplied; the troops which had so long occupied Languedoc had been summoned away by the war of succession in Spain; the militia could no longer restrain the Reformers growing every day more enthusiastic through the prophetic hopes which were born of their long sufferings.

The arch-priest of the Cevennes, Abbe du Chayla, a tyrannical and cruel man, had undertaken a mission at the head of the Capuchins.

His house was crammed with condemned Protestants; the breath of revolt passed over the mountains on the night of July 27, 1702, the castle of the arch-priest was surrounded by Huguenots in arms, who demanded the surrender of the prisoners.

Du Chayla refused.