Avoiding the places held by the Catholics, they visited many of the chateaux of Huguenot gentlemen, to whom D'Arblay communicated the instructions he had received, from the Admiral, as to the assemblage of troops, and the necessity for raising such a force as would compel the Royalists to keep a considerable army in the south, and so lessen the number who would gather to oppose his march eastward.
After stopping for a short time in Navarre, and communicating with some of the principal leaders in that little kingdom, they turned eastward.

They were now passing through a part of the country where party spirit was extremely bitter, and were obliged to use some caution, as they were charged to communicate with men who were secretly well affected to the cause; but who, living within reach of the bigoted parliament of Toulouse, dared not openly avow their faith.
Toulouse had, from the time the troubles first began, distinguished itself for the ferocity with which it had persecuted the Huguenots; yielding obedience to the various royal edicts of toleration most reluctantly, and sometimes openly disobeying them.

Thus, for many miles round the city, those of the Reformed faith lived in continual dread; conducting their worship with extreme secrecy, when some pastor in disguise visited the neighbourhood, and outwardly conforming to the rites of the Catholic church.

Many, however, only needed the approach of a Huguenot army to throw off the mask and take up arms; and it was with these that D'Arblay was specially charged to communicate.

Great caution was needed in doing this, as the visit of a party of Huguenots would, if denounced, have called down upon them the vengeance of the parliament; who were animated not only by hatred of the Huguenots, but by the desire of enriching themselves by the confiscation of the estates and goods of those they persecuted.
The visits, consequently, were generally made after nightfall; the men-at-arms being left a mile or two away.