"It is not a question of exterminating these people," he said, "but of reducing them, of forcing them to fidelity; the king must have industrious people and flourishing districts preserved to him." The opinion of the generals prevailed; the Cevenols were proclaimed outlaws, and the pope decreed a crusade against them.

The military and religious enthusiasm of the Camisards went on increasing.

Cavalier, young and enterprising, divided his time between the boldest attempts at surprise and mystical ecstasies, during which he singled out traitors who would have assassinated him or sinners who were not worthy to take part in the Lord's Supper.

The king's troops ravaged the country; the Camisards, by way of reprisal, burned the Catholic villages; everywhere the war was becoming horrible.

The peaceable inhabitants, Catholic or Protestant, were incessantly changing from wrath to terror.