Their vengeance thus accomplished, the murderers felt that there was no more safety for them in either city or plain, and fled to the mountains; but in passing near the residence of M. de Laveze, a Catholic nobleman of the parish of Molezon, one of the fugitives recollected that he had heard that a great number of firearms was kept in the house.  This seemed a lucky chance, for firearms were what the Huguenots needed most of all.  They therefore sent two envoys to M. de Laveze to ask him to give them at, least a share of his weapons; but he, as a good Catholic, replied that it was quite true that he had indeed a store of arms, but that they were destined to the triumph and not to the desecration of religion, and that he would only give them up with his life.  With these words, he dismissed the envoys, barring his doors behind them.

But while this parley was going on the conspirators had approached the chateau, and thus received the valiant answer to their demands sooner than M. de Laveze had counted on.  Resolving not to leave him time to take defensive measures, they dashed at the house, and by standing on each other’s shoulders reached the room in which M. de Laveze and his entire family had taken refuge.  In an instant the door was forced, and the fanatics, still reeking with the life-blood of Abbe Duchayla, began again their work of death.  No one was spared; neither the master of the house, nor his brother, nor his uncle, nor his sister, who knelt to the assassins in vain; even his old mother, who was eighty years of age, having from her bed first witnessed the murder of all her family, was at last stabbed to the heart, though the butchers might have reflected that it was hardly worth while thus to anticipate the arrival of Death, who according to the laws of nature must have been already at hand.

The massacre finished, the fanatics spread over the castle, supplying themselves with arms and under-linen, being badly in need of the latter; for when they left their homes they had expected soon to return, and had taken nothing with them.  They also carried off the copper kitchen utensils, intending to turn them into bullets.  Finally, they seized on a sum of 5000 francs, the marriage-portion of M. de Laveze’s sister, who was just about to be married, and thus laid the foundation of a war fund.

The news of these two bloody events soon reached not only Nimes but all the countryside, and roused the authorities to action.  M. le Comte de Broglie crossed the Upper Cevennes, and marched down to the bridge of Montvert, followed by several companies of fusiliers.  From another direction M. le Comte de Peyre brought thirty-two cavalry and three hundred and fifty infantry, having enlisted them at Marvejols, La Canourgue, Chiac, and Serverette.  M. de St. Paul, Abbe Duchayla’s brother, and the Marquis Duchayla, his nephew, brought eighty horsemen from the family estates.  The Count of Morangiez rode in from St. Auban and Malzieu with two companies of cavalry, and the town of Mende by order of its bishop despatched its nobles at the head of three companies of fifty men each.