Early on the eighteenth of April, D'Oppède reached Mérindol, the ostensible object of the expedition. But a single person was found within its circuit, and he a young man reputed possessed of less than ordinary intellect. His captor had promised him freedom, on his pledging himself to pay two crowns for his ransom. But D'Oppède, finding no other human being upon whom to vent his rage, paid the soldier the two crowns from his own pocket, and ordered the youth to be tied to an olive-tree and shot. The touching words uttered by the simple victim, as he turned his eyes heavenward and breathed out his life, have been preserved: "Lord God, these men are snatching from me a life full of wretchedness and misery, but Thou wilt give me eternal life through Jesus Thy Son."[492] [Sidenote: The village razed.] Meantime the work of persecution was thoroughly done. The houses were plundered and burned; the trees, whether intended for shade or for fruit, were cut down to the distance of two hundred paces from the place. The very site of Mérindol was levelled, and crowds of laborers industriously strove to destroy every trace of human habitation. Two hundred dwellings, the former abode of thrift and contentment, had disappeared from the earth, and their occupants wandered, poverty-stricken, to other regions.[493] [Sidenote: Treacherous capture of Cabrières.] Leaving the desolate spot, D'Oppède next presented himself, on the nineteenth of April, before the town of Cabrières. Behind some weak entrenchments a small body of brave men had posted themselves, determined to defend the lives and honor of their wives and children to their last drop of blood. D'Oppède hesitated to order an assault until a breach had first been made by cannon. Then the Waldenses were plied with solicitations to spare needless effusion of blood by voluntary surrender. They were offered immunity of life and property, and a judicial trial. When by these promises the assailants had, on the morrow, gained the interior of the works, they found them guarded by Étienne de Marroul and an insignificant force of sixty men, supported by a courageous band of about forty women. The remainder of the population, overcome by natural terror at the strange sight of war, had taken refuge--the men in the cellars of the castle, the women and children in the church. [Sidenote: Men butchered and women burned.]