At the end of this time, as his letters to Chamillard remained unanswered, and finding himself without resources in a foreign country, he believed himself justified in returning to France and taking up his residence on his family estate.  Unfortunately, on his way through Lyons, the provost of merchants, hearing of his return, had him arrested, and sent word to the king, who ordered him to be taken to the chateau de Loches.  After a year’s imprisonment, d’Aygaliers, who had just entered on his thirty-fifth year, resolved to try and escape, preferring to die in the attempt rather than remain a prisoner for life.  He succeeded in getting possession of a file with which he removed one of the bars of his window, and by means of knotting his sheets together, he got down, taking the loosened bar with him to serve, in case of need, as a weapon.  A sentinel who was near cried, “Who goes there?” but d’Aygaliers stunned him with his bar.  The cry, however, had given the alarm:  a second sentinel saw a man flying, fired at him, and killed him on the spot.

Such was the reward of the devoted patriotism of Baron d’Aygaliers!

Meantime Roland’s troops had increased greatly in number, having been joined by the main body of those who had once been commanded by Cavalier, so that he had, about eight hundred men at his disposal.  Some distance away, another chief, named Joanny, had four hundred; Larose, to whom Castanet had transferred his command, found himself at the head of three hundred; Boizeau de Rochegude was followed by one hundred, Saltet de Soustel by two hundred, Louis Coste by fifty, and Catinat by forty, so that, in spite of the victory of Montrevel and the negotiations of M. de Villars, the Camisards still formed an effective force of eighteen hundred and ninety men, not to speak of many single troopers who owned no commander but acted each for himself, and were none the less mischievous for that.  All these troops, except these latter, obeyed Roland, who since the defection of Cavalier had been recognised as generalissimo of the forces.  M. de Villars thought if he could separate Roland from his troops as he had separated Cavalier, his plans would be more easy to carry out.

So he made use of every means within his reach to gain over Roland, and as soon as one plan failed he tried another.  At one moment he was almost sure of obtaining his object by the help of a certain Jourdan de Mianet, a great friend of his, who offered his services as an intermediary, but who failed like all the others, receiving from Roland a positive refusal, so that it became evident that resort must be had to other means than those of persuasion.  A sum of 100 Louis had already been set on Roland’s head:  this sum was now doubled.

Three days afterwards, a young man from Uzes, by name Malarte, in whom Roland had every confidence, wrote to M. de Paratte that the Camisard general intended to pass the night of the 14th of August at the chateau Castelnau.