Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps him young and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong race of Southern Protestants, which has resisted everything to guard its faith. I should not be surprised if he has had some nimble Cévennole, companion of Jean Cavalier, among his ancestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the Seine, accustomed to sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts some intact fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in faith, eloquent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult, knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound that light cannot be made to penetrate it,--he had remained on duty at his post during the Commune; for the prisoners had more need of spiritual aid, now that the regular administration no longer watched over them. He had been indignant at the incarceration of Catholic priests, and had signed the fine protest demanding the liberty of the archbishop, which the ministers had carried to the Hôtel de Ville. Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened him, he commended his spirit to God, remembering that the little stone of David had killed the giant Philistine, and he decided to fight for his home. He encamped energetically before the door, to forbid access; and using the weapons bestowed upon him by Providence and study, he spoke. The federates stopped before this man, whose simplicity rendered him heroic. One may guess what he said to them:-- "Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execrable? Why be enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose religion, founded on the dogma of free examination, is naturally allied to republican ideas? The faith he teaches is that promulgated by Christ: Christ said to Peter, 'Sheathe thy sword;' he said to men,'Love one another!' No, the people of Paris, this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose unfortunates have been succored during the siege; this people, so good when not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the house of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in the exercise of charity."