CHAPTER XXV.

PAR LE FER ET PAR LE FEU.

He made his way in.

Entered by the Porte des Carmes, to find himself in the midst of a

seething mass of people who shouted and gesticulated while pushing

each other to and fro, some doing so in their anxiety to escape from

out the city, others endeavouring to force themselves farther into it

and toward the Canal de la Gau, which was near the gate. A mass of

people who seemed infuriated, beyond the bounds of reason, to frenzy,

who shouted and screamed, "_Au glaive, au glaive avec les héritéques_.

Kill all! Burn all! Now is the time." While others shrieked, "To the

mill, to the mill!" as onward they went in the direction of the canal.

He had put his horse up in a stall behind the gate, tethering it to a

peg alongside one or two other animals which, by their trappings,

evidently belonged to some dragoons; and now, borne on by the crowd,

Martin went the same way, keeping his feet with difficulty yet still

progressing, progressing toward where he saw the flames ascending,

darting through dense masses of black smoke, roaring as a vast furnace

roars. Toward the mill that, all said, was the place which was on

fire; the mill in which there were three hundred people--women,

children, and old, decrepit, useless men, old, aged Protestants who

could not take to the mountains--being burned to death; the mill in

which they had been worshipping God in their own fashion.

"Tell me," Martin besought a bystander, big, brawny, and muscular,

whom he found by his side and who, in spite of his splendidly

developed manhood, wept, dashing the tears fiercely away from his eyes

every moment. "Tell me what has happened. Tell me, I beg you."

"Murder! Butchery! A crime that will ring down the ages. Montrevel is

burning three hundred helpless ones in Mercier's mill." Then he

paused, casting his eyes over Martin's riding dress (stained now with

the dust of his long rides) and upon his lace at breast and throat,

smirched and dirty from continued wear. Paused to say: "What are you?

a _seigneur_, I see. But of which side? The butchers or the

slaughtered?"

"I am of the Reformed faith."

"Of Nîmes?" the man asked. "If so, God help you. Your mother or your

babe may be burning there and you powerless to succour them.

Montrevel's wolves surround the mill. He is there too, mad with wine

and lust of blood. If there is any woman or child you love in Nîmes at

this moment, God help you."

"She whom I love is not here. But, alas! can we do nothing? You wear a

sword as I do? We can strike a blow----"

"Do! What can we do? There are two hundred dragoons there. What will

our blades avail, though we were the best _ferrailleurs_ in France?"

Then suddenly he cried, "See, there is the slaughter-house!"

He spoke truly. The burning mill was before them.

A sight to freeze one's blood, to turn that blood to ice even beneath

the sky of brass, even before the hot flames that darted forth,

licking up, devouring all.

It stood, an ancient building of stone foundations and wooden

superstructure. They said the former dated back to Cæsar's day, the

latter to that of Charles le Bel, upon the banks of the canal as it

would never stand again, since now it was nothing but a mass of

burning fuel. Also a human hecatomb, there being within it the ashes

of three hundred human beings whose bodies had that morning been

consumed. And Martin blessed God that he had not been there to hear

their piercing shrieks, their cries for mercy and their supplications.

Around the nearly destroyed mill, except on one side where it adjoined

an inn, "La Rose de Provence," the front of which was all singed and

scarred, he saw the executioners, the men who had been soldiers,

fierce yet valiant, until this morning, but who were now worthy of no

nobler name than that of cowardly murderers. Dragoons, Croatian

Cravates, now Prance's most bloody swashbucklers with one exception,

the Miquelets, those fierce Pyrenean tigers, as well as

_chevaux-légers_ and countless numbers of the _milice_. And near them,

his sword drawn, his face inflamed with drink and fury, his breast a

mass of ribbons and orders, was Montrevel upon his horse, a scandal to

the _bâton_ he had lately gained.

"Murderer! Assassin! Brave butcher of women and babes," howled many in

the crowd, one half of which was Protestant, "noble papist! you have

done your work well. Yet beware of Cavalier and Roland!"

And even as they so shouted, from more than one window high up in the

roofs there came little puffs of smoke and spits of flame, showing

that he was aimed at. Only the devil protected him. His time was not

yet come. He was mad now with fury or drink, or thirst for human

blood. Mad, stung to frenzy by resistance and contempt, even in spite

of all that he had done that morning, of having glutted his ire on the

helpless, which should have sufficed, all heard him roar:

"_Finissons!_ Nîmes is heretic to the core. Make an end of it.

_Avancez, mes soldats_. Burn, destroy, slaughter. Kill all." And he

turned his horse toward where the crowd was thickest and bade the

carnage begin, marshalling his troops into companies the better to

distribute them about the doomed city.

But now there stepped forth one--Sandricourt, Governor of Nîmes--who

forbade him to do that which he threatened; warned him that if one

more house or street was injured he would himself that night set forth

for Paris, and tell Louis that Montrevel was unworthy of the command

he held in this distracted province.

"Ha! Sandricourt, 'tis Sandricourt," whispered one in a knot of

Protestants standing near to where Martin and the man he had accosted

were. "He is the best, he and Fléchier, bishop though he is. If all

were like them--if Baville were--then--then we might live in peace,

not see nor know the awful terrors we have seen this day. Oh, the

horror of it! the horror of it!" and he buried his face in his hands

as though to hide some sight that he feared might blast him.

Baville! The name recalled the man to Martin's memory. Nay, it did

more, far more than that. Recalled his love, Urbaine. Set him

wondering, too, if by any chance this holocaust had taken place at the

Intendant's suggestion; if this was a vengeance on those who had

destroyed her. For he must deem her dead by now; weeks had passed

since she disappeared. Had he set the shambles fresh running with

blood to avenge her loss?

He must see Baville at once, must tell him she was safe. Thereby,

perhaps, more slaughter might be averted.

"Where is Baville?" he asked, turning to the group of terrified

Protestants by his side. "Is he in this carnage?"

"God, he knows," one replied. "Yet he has not appeared. Not since this

commenced. Were you here at the beginning?"

"Nay, I arrived but now. Is it true, can it be true there are three

hundred destroyed within that?" and he glanced toward the _débris_ of

the mill, the superstructure now nothing but ashes and charred beams,

with, lying above them, the red tiles of what had been a roof ere it

fell in, burying beneath it--what?

"It is true, it is true," the man wailed. Then, composing himself, he

told of all that had gone before. "They were at prayer," he said, "in

there, in Mercier's mill. I myself and Prosper Roumilli," indicating

one of the men by his side. "Also Antoine La Quoite and Pierre

Delamer," nodding to two others near him, "were hastening to join

them; all grieved that we were too late. Late, _grand Dieu!_ What have

we not escaped?"

"Death and destruction," whispered La Quoite, trembling.

"Ay, death and destruction. _Hélas!_ they raised their songs of

thanksgiving too loud. Their _cantiques_ told where they were, reached

the ears of that murderer there who was at his breakfast----"

"He was," again interrupted La Quoite, "with the woman, Léonie Sabbat.

A fitting companion. She can drink even him beneath the table."

"Furious he left that table, summoned a battalion, passed swiftly

here, surrounded the mill. Furious, too, because as they passed the

cathedral he heard the organ blow, knew that Fléchier worshipped too,

mad and savage because during such time we should also worship God in

our own way."

"Yet our day will come," murmured Pierre Delamer, "it will come. I am

old, yet shall I not die until it comes."

"The soldiers burst open the door," went on the original speaker,

"rushed in among them sabres in hand, slew many. Yet this was too slow

for him----"

"It was," exclaimed La Quoite. "He said they would be three hundred

minutes slaying three hundred people thus. Too slow! He drew off his

men, closed the doors, set fire to the mill. You see the end," and he

pointed to the ashes of the ruined place, ashes that were also

something else besides the remains of the mill.

Again the first speaker took up the story, Martin feeling sick unto

death as he stood by and heard.

"From within there came the shouts of the lost, the piercing cries,

the heartrending shrieks. Midst burst walls, at windows, upon the

roof, we saw the death-doomed appear. Flying spectres, phantoms, upon

them the wounds the soldiers had made, black, singed by the flames.

And then, O God! the sight passed man's endurance."

"What next?" asked Martin, white to the lips.

"What next? This: With their new weapons, the accursed _baïonnettes_,

the soldiers thrust back into the flames those whom the could get at;

those whom they could not reach they fired at. We saw them fall back

shrieking. Yet in God's mercy their shrieks ceased soon--there were

none left."

"But one," exclaimed the man called La Quoite, "a girl, _pauvre petite

fillette!_ She escaped so far as to reach the ground unhurt, to escape

their blades, although they held them up as she jumped from the

window, so that thereby she might be impaled. But they missed her,

and, running toward Montrevel, she shrieked for mercy. Poor child,

poor child! not more than fifteen--than fifteen!"

"His lackey," struck in Delamer, "had more mercy than the master. He

helped her to escape from out the hands of the soldiers."

"Thank God there was a man, a human heart, among them," murmured

Martin.

"Ay, yet it availed little. The brigand ordered her to the hangman's

hands, also the lackey. The gibbet was prepared. Both would have died

but that a Catholic woman, _une s[oe]ur de la miséricorde_, upon her

knees--Heaven's blessings light upon her!--besought him by the God

whom all worship equally to give them their lives."

"And he yielded?"

"He yielded. He spared these two, though an hour later the lackey was

thrown outside the gate of Nîmes, his master bidding him go hang or

drown himself, or join his friends, _les Protestants_, whereby once

more he might fall into his hands."

"There is one good piece of news yet to be told," whispered La Quoite,

who was a man of fiercer mood than the others. "In the _mêlée_ the

soldiers sabred many of the Catholics unwittingly. God be praised!"

and he laughed harshly.

And now the end of this day's work had come. Montrevel had left the

spot. Behind him went the dragoons and _milices_. The butchery was

over. He should have been well satisfied with his morning.

Yet it scarcely looked as though he were so. His eyes glared around

him as he rode off, his hand clutched convulsively the sword laid

across his horse's mane. No wonder that they said afterward, when his

recall came and the noble and merciful Villars replaced him, that on

that day he was mad as the long-chained and infuriated panther is mad.

He had met with nothing but defeat and disaster since he had marched

into Languedoc _tambours battants_; nothing but scorn and contempt and

derision from the mountaineers whom he had sworn to crush beneath his

heel; had received nothing but reproof from headquarters.

"Baville must be somewhere near," Martin said to La Quoite as they

watched him ride forth from the scene of carnage. "Where is he?"

"I know not; yet, doubtless, not far. And he too is mad for the death

of his loved one. God grant he is not close at hand; that none of us

fall into his clutches. He would spur Montrevel on to fresh attempts."

Yet La Quoite's prayer found no echo in Martin's heart. He wished to

find Baville, desired to see him, to stand face to face with him and

tell him that Urbaine was safe. For safe she must be even after this

massacre, safe even though in Cavalier's hands.

Had he not said that he knew for certain she too was a Protestant, as

they were--_une Huguenote!_

Note.--Justice requires it to be said that, of all the Roman Catholic

writers who have described and written upon the slaughter at the mill

in Nîmes, not one has approved of it, or attempted to exonerate

Montrevel. In truth, this awful outrage was the brutality of a rude,

ungovernable soldier and not of a priest; and Fléchier, Bishop of

Nîmes, was loud in its condemnation. It led to Montrevel's recall and

to the arrival of Marshal Villars, who at last restored peace to

Languedoc by the use of clemency and mercy. Such peace was not,

however, to take place for some time.

Also it should be stated that Baville was quite free from any part in

this matter, and that Louis XIV knew nothing of what had happened, nor

indeed of any of the terrible events which occurred about the same

time, it being the system of Madame de Maintenon and of Chamillart to

keep him in ignorance of what was being enacted so far away from

Versailles. It has been told that when he heard of the massacre at the

mill he was observed to weep for the first and only time in his life.

He might well do so!