Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/277

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ATROCITIES
199

membered alive because she refused to abjure her religion.

On the 17th of the same month, in the same year, the band under Joany entered Chamborigaud and committed atrocious acts. They tied three children up in I sacks and threw them into a furnace. A mother flying with her five children was caught; her eldest son was stabbed with a bayonet and his tongue torn out, the youngest had his eyes scooped out, the third was dismembered; the mouth of the fourth was filled with burning coals, and the fifth was brained with clubs. The mother was then stabbed to death. The six victims were then put on a bed, along with other inhabitants of the place, in one heap, and the whole consumed by fire. Twenty-four victims perished. When Joany left, the Catholics retaliated by destroying the houses of the Protestants, so that only two houses remained standing, those of the Catholics having been burnt by Joany. The two last were burnt by the fanatics on August 27th, 1703, and three more Catholics killed. Next year seven houses that had been rebuilt or repaired were again set on fire and three Catholic families slaughtered.

At S. Génies de Malgoire, Cavalier took the place in April, 1704, and cut the whole garrison to pieces. He set fire to the church and the houses of the Catholics, and burnt in them seven of the inhabitants and the curé and vicaire.

At Ambais Sommière, on September 27th, 1703, the band of Cavalier roasted a girl of three years old over a slow fire.

The war was degenerating into fiendish reprisals on one side as well as the other. But the sad feature in this was that the victims in most cases were not those