The peace of Ryswick had not brought the Protestants the hoped-for alleviation of their woes.  Louis XIV. haughtily rejected the petition of the English and Dutch plenipotentiaries on behalf of “those in affliction who ought to have their share in the happiness of Europe.”  The persecution everywhere continued,—­with determination and legality in the north, with violence and passion in the south, abandoned to the tyranny of M. de Lamoignon de Baville, a crafty and cold-bloodedly cruel politician, without the excuse of any zealous religious conviction.  The execution of several ministers who had remained in hiding in the Cevennes, or had returned from exile to instruct and comfort their flocks, raised to the highest pitch the enthusiasm of the Reformers of Languedoc.  Deprived of their highly-prized assemblies and of their pastors’ guidance, men and women, graybeards and children, all at once fancied themselves animated by the spirit of prophecy.  Young girls had celestial visions; the little peasant lasses poured out their utterances in French, sometimes in the language and with the sublime eloquence of the Bible, sole source of their religious knowledge.  The rumor of these marvels ran from village to village; meetings were held to hear the inspired maidens, in contempt of edicts, the galleys, and the stake.  A gentleman glass-worker, named Abraham de la Serre, was, as it were, the Samuel of this new school of prophets.  In vain did M. de Baville have three hundred children imprisoned at Uzes, and then send them to the galleys; the religious contagion was too strong for the punishments.  “Women found themselves in a single day husbandless, childless, houseless, and penniless,” says Court; they remained immovable in their pious ecstasy; the assemblies multiplied; the troops which had so long occupied Languedoc had been summoned away by the war of succession in Spain; the militia could no longer restrain the Reformers growing every day more enthusiastic through the prophetic hopes which were born of their long sufferings.  The arch-priest of the Cevennes, Abbe du Chayla, a tyrannical and cruel man, had undertaken a mission at the head of the Capuchins.  His house was crammed with condemned Protestants; the breath of revolt passed over the mountains on the night of July 27, 1702, the castle of the arch-priest was surrounded by Huguenots in arms, who demanded the surrender of the prisoners.  Du Chayla refused.  The gates were forced, the condemned released, the priests who happened to be in the house killed or dispersed.  The archpriest had let himself down by a window; he broke his thigh; he was found hiding in a bush; the castle was in flames.  “No mercy, no mercy!” shouted the madmen; “the Spirit willeth that he die.”  Every one of the Huguenots stabbed the poor wretch with their poniards:  “That’s for my father, broken on the wheel; that’s for my brother, sent to the galleys; that’s for my mother, who died of grief; that’s for my relations in exile!” He received fifty-two