From the beginning of the troubles the Cevennes had been the asylum of those who suffered for the Protestant faith; and still the plains are Papist, and the mountains Protestant.

When the Catholic party is in the ascendant at Nimes, the plain seeks the mountain; when the Protestants come into power, the mountain comes down into the plain.
However, vanquished and fugitive though they were, the Calvinists did not lose courage: in exile one day, they felt sure their luck would turn the next; and while the Catholics were burning or hanging them in effigy for contumacy, they were before a notary, dividing the property of their executioners.
But it was not enough for them to buy or sell this property amongst each other, they wanted to enter into possession; they thought of nothing else, and in 1569--that is, in the eighteenth month of their exile--they attained their wish in the following manner: One day the exiles perceived a carpenter belonging to a little village called Cauvisson approaching their place of refuge.

He desired to speak to M.Nicolas de Calviere, seigneur de St.Cosme, and brother of the president, who was known to be a very enterprising man.

To him the carpenter, whose name was Maduron, made the following proposition: In the moat of Nimes, close to the Gate of the Carmelites, there was a grating through which the waters from the fountain found vent.

Maduron offered to file through the bars of this grating in such a manner that some fine night it could be lifted out so as to allow a band of armed Protestants to gain access to the city.