thrown into their prisons, merely because they were suspected by them. Out of one-and-twenty parishes, three hundred young men were seized from the district of Nismes alone, besides whole families and are shut up in the dungeons and fortresses of the level country and of the mountains. The inhuman Intendant trusts no one, and how can the subject be tranquil and faithful to the king, when the tyrant in his cold-blooded intrigues only meditates how to make the people wretched? The terrible man has been heard to say with his own lips, that the best and the safest method would be to extirpate from the face of the earth all who are converted, as well as the rebels. The Marshal himself, it is said, is shocked at these ideas, God and the king have not so far forgotten us ever to permit such infamy. But since the day before yesterday----Yes, weep, mourn, ye unfortunate, banished, houseless people!" And as in chorus there arose a sobbing and lamentation, but the speaker continued thus, "Early the day before yesterday, as we were going forth to our field labours, we heard the beating of drums, we took it for the usual marching of the royal troops through the country, but they soon drew near, we ascended the mountain and saw that the extensive mountain district, valley, and ravine, as far as the eye could reach, were surrounded. They did not leave us long in suspense, we were summoned to the square of our large village. Thence they published to our magistrates and to us, that in Nismes a decree had been pronounced to entirely depopulate our district, and many others, two-and-thirty parishes, including more than eighty villages and farms, to send the inhabitants to the open country, to other provinces, to islands, and to pull down and set fire to all the houses, stables, and farms without exception. Four regiments are encamped in the district to accomplish this devilish work. All uttered screams and lamentations, but they were disregarded, like ill-fated cattle, destined for slaughter, the wretched creatures suffered themselves, to be driven forth; and from the neighbouring mountain we already beheld the houses demolished; the axes resounded, the cattle lowed, and the mountains groaningly repeated the melancholy echo. As it proceeded too slowly for the monsters, we soon saw flames too flaring up; like greedy jaws, like thirsty tongues, did the fire lick up our beloved old dwellings and swallowed them in flames. The trees before the houses were consumed with them. Yes, Roland, the district, the dear villages, the hospitable houses, which so often and so amicably received you and yours, these are in a brief space reduced to a desert, and in future I shall not be able perhaps to find a trace of where I lived with my parents, where I sat with them before the door, and played in the spring, where I became acquainted with my wife, where she bore me her first son. The stork will never again familiarly and confidingly take up his lodging on the