The Cure,
Louvrelenil, Although He Took A Panic At The Arch-Priest's Funeral, And
So Hurriedly Decamped To Alais, Stood
Well by his isolated pulpit, and
thence uttered fulminations against the crimes of the Protestants.
Salomon besieged the village for
An hour and a half, but was beaten back.
The militiamen, on guard before the cure's door, could be heard, in the
black hours, singing Protestant psalms and holding friendly talk with the
insurgents. And in the morning, although not a shot had been fired,
there would not be a round of powder in their flasks. Where was it gone?
All handed over to the Camisards for a consideration. Untrusty guardians
for an isolated priest!
That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Germain de Calberte, the
imagination with difficulty receives; all is now so quiet, the pulse of
human life now beats so low and still in this hamlet of the mountains.
Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion-hunters; and
people turned round to have a second look, or came out of their houses,
as I went by. My passage was the first event, you would have fancied,
since the Camisards. There was nothing rude or forward in this
observation; it was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that of
oxen or the human infant; yet it wearied my spirits, and soon drove me
from the street.
I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly carpeted with
sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil the inimitable attitudes of the
chestnuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves.
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