The unfortunate Calvinists had been disarmed so often that even their table-knives had been carried off, so it was useless to search their houses for guns and sabres.

D'Aygaliers proposed that they should take the arms of the townspeople, but M.de Villars considered that it would offend the Catholics to have their arms taken from them and given to the Protestants.

In the end, however, this was the course that had to be adopted: M.de Paratte was ordered to give fifty muskets and the same number of bayonets to M.d'Aygaliers, who also received, as the reward of his long patience, from M.de Villars, before the latter left for Nimes, the following commission: "We, Marechal de Villars, general in the armies of the king, etc., etc., have given permission to M.d'Aygaliers, nobleman and Protestant of the town of Uzes, and to fifty men chosen by him, to make war on the Camisards.
"(Signed) "VILLARS "(Countersigned) "MORETON "Given at Uzes, the 4th of May 1704" Hardly had M.de Villars set out for Nimes than d'Aygaliers met with fresh difficulties.

The bishop, who could not forget that his episcopal palace had been turned into barracks for Huguenots, went from house to house threatening those who had promised to countenance d'Aygaliers' plans, and strictly forbidding the captains of the town troops to deliver any weapons to the Protestants.

Fortunately, d'Aygaliers had not accomplished so much without having learned not to draw back when the road grew rough, so he also on his side went about confirming the strong and encouraging the feeble, and called on M.de Paratte to beg him to carry out the orders of M.de Villars.