Nevertheless, during the progress of these horrors and obscenities, so disgraceful to France and the catholic religion, the agents of government had a powerful force under their command, and by honestly employing it they might have restored tranquility. Murder and robbery, however, continued, and were winked at, by the catholic magistrates, with very few exceptions; the administrative authorities, it is true, used words in their proclamations, &c. but never had recourse to actions to stop the enormities of the persecutors, who boldly declared that, on the 24th, the anniversary of St. Bartholomew, they intended to make a general massacre. The members of the reformed church were filled with terror, and, instead of taking part in the election of deputies, were occupied as well as they could in providing for their own personal safety.
_Arrival of the Austrians at Nismes._
About this time, a treaty between the French court and the allied sovereigns, prohibited the advance of the foreign troops beyond the line of territory already occupied, and traced by the course of the Loire, and by the Rhone, below the Ardeche. In violation of this treaty, 4000 Austrians entered Nismes on the 24th of August; under pretence of making room for them, French troops, bearing the _feudal_ title of Royal Chasseurs, followed by the murdering bands of the Trestaillons and Quatretaillons, who continued their march to Alais, where a fair was to be held, and carried disorder and alarm into all the communes on that route. Nothing now was heard but denunciations of fusillading, burning, razing, and annihilating; and while the catholics were feasting and murdering at Nismes, the flames of the country houses of the protestants, rising one hundred feet in the air, rendered the spectacle still more awful and alarming. Unfortunately, some of the peasants, falsely charged with the murder of two protestants, were brought to Nismes while the prefect was celebrating the fete of St. Louis. At a splendid dinner given to the Austrian commanders, and even without quitting the table, it appears, that the French prefect placed the fate and fortune of these unfortunate prisoners at the disposal of Count Stahremberg, who, of course, believing the representations made to him ordered the accused to be immediately shot. To mortify and exhaust the protestant communes, the Austrians were directed to occupy them, where they completely disarmed the inhabitants without the least opposition. In fact, these foreigners were soon undeceived. They expected to meet the most perfidious and brutal enemies in arms, and in open rebellion against their king; but, on the contrary, they found them all in peace, and experienced the most kind and respectful treatment; and though their duty was a most vexatious and oppressive one, they performed it in general with moderation. On this account they could not refrain from expressing their astonishment at the reports made to them by the authorities at Nismes, declaring, "They had found a population suffering great misfortunes, but no rebels; and that compassion was the only feeling that prevailed in their minds." The commander himself was so convinced of the good disposition of the people of the Cevennes, that he visited those districts without an escort, desiring, he said, to travel in that country as he would in his own. Such confidence was a public reproach on the authorities at Nismes, and a sentence of condemnation on all their proceedings.
As the persecution of the protestants was spreading into other departments, strong and forcible representations were secretly printed and made to the king. All the ordinary modes of communication had been stopped; the secrecy of letters violated, and none circulated but those relative to private affairs. Sometimes these letters bore the postmark of places very distant, and arrived without signatures, and enveloped in allegorical allusions. In fact, a powerful resistance on the part of the outraged protestants was at length apprehended, which, in the beginning of September excited the proclamation of the king, on which it was observed, "that if his majesty had been correctly and fully informed of all that had taken place, he surely would not have contented himself with announcing his severe displeasure to a _misled people, who took justice into their own hands, and avenged the crimes committed against royalty_." The proclamation was dictated as though there had not been a protestant in the department; it assumed and affirmed throughout the guilt of the sufferers; and while it deplored the atrocious outrages endured by the followers of the duke d'Angouleme, (outrages which never existed,) the plunder and massacre of the reformed were not even noticed.