[Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) I by Alexandre Dumas Pere]@TWC D-Link bookMassacres Of The South (1551-1815) I CHAPTER IV 11/37
As to his soldiers, they were billeted on the inhabitants, and received each as daily rations a pound of meat, a quart of wine, and two and a half pounds of bread. The same day a convocation was held on the site of the old meeting-house which had been destroyed by the Catholics.
It was a very numerous assembly, to which crowds of people came from all parts; but on the following days it was still more numerous; for, as the news spread, people ran with great eagerness to hear the preaching of the word of which they had been so long deprived.
D'Aygaliers tells us in his Memoirs that--"No one could help being touched to see a whole people just escaped from fire and sword, coming together in multitudes to mingle their tears and sighs.
So famished were they for the manna divine, that they were like people coming out of a besieged city, after a long and cruel famine, to whom peace has brought food in abundance, and who, first devouring it with their eyes, then throw themselves on it, devouring it bodily--meat, bread, and fruit--as it comes to hand. So it was with the unfortunate inhabitants of La Vannage, and even of places more distant still.
They saw their brethren assembling in the meadows and at the gates of Calvisson, gathering in crowds and pressing round anyone who started singing a psalm, until at last four or five thousand persons, singing, weeping, and praying, were gathered together, and remained there all day, supplicating God with a devotion that went to every heart and made a deep impression.
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