CEVEHNES CEYLON. 



131 



isli succession made it necessary for him to extend 

 his forces on every side, for the protection of France ; 

 and the duke of Marlborough, and the duke of Sa- 

 voy, by promises, and by some small assistance, aug- 

 mented the flame which was kindled in the south of 

 France. In the diocese of Nimes, the fanatics de- 

 termined to recompense evil with evil, murdered 84 

 priests, and burned 200 churches ; but, in the mean 

 time, more than 40,000 of then- number were broken 

 upon the wheel, burned at the stake, or thrown into 

 prison. At length, in 1704, after marshal Montre- 

 vel had exertea all lus ability to no purpose, Louis 

 recalled his best general, marshal Villars, from the 

 army of the Rhine, to give a new direction to the 

 perilous state of affairs in the south of France. One 

 of the leaders of the rebels had conceived the pro- 

 ject of effecting a union with the duke of Savoy in 

 Daupliiny. The whole country, from the sea-shore 

 to the highest mountain-ridge, was more or less in 

 their hands, and with the inhabitants of Nimes, 

 Montpellier, Oranges, Uzes, &c., agreements were 

 made, which secured them arms, bread, and other 

 necessaries. They melted down a vast number of 

 bells to make cannon, and Cavalier acted like an able 

 general. The Catholic peasantry no longer dared 

 to cultivate their fields, or to carry provisions into 

 the cities. Such was the state of things when Vil- 

 lars arrived at Beaucaire, April 20, 1704, and at 

 Nimes the 21st. He began with instituting the ne- 

 cessary inquiries in regard to the cause of the rebel- 

 lion, the character of the people, and their mode of 

 thinking. Then he proclaimed a general amnesty 

 for all who would lay down then- arms, and forthwith 

 liberated every prisoner who promised to return to 

 his allegiance. By this mode of proceeding, he in- 

 duced several bodies of the insurgents to lay down 

 their arms ; while, on the other hand, he threatened 

 the obstinate with the severest punishment ; and, to 

 enforce his menaces, troops were sent out in every 

 direction from a given point, where a body of forces 

 was stationed to afford them assistance, and, if ne- 

 cessary, to meet the combined forces of the in- 

 surgents in the field. Every prisoner, taken in arms, 

 .vas directly put to death, or hanged and broken 

 on the wheel, in Alois, Nimes, or St Hippolyte. 

 Such was the success of Vi liars, that, on May 10, 

 Cavalier regarded the cause of the Camisards as des- 

 perate, and made proposals for a treaty, which 

 was concluded on condition that he should surrender 

 himself with his followers, but be permitted to leave 

 the country with them. Villars had a personal inter- 

 view with him in Nimes : the whole troop consisted 

 of 1600 men, and, not far from Nimes, they were en- 

 tertained by Villars with the greatest hospitality. 

 The memoirs of Villars say their number was 1600 : 

 Voltaire speaks only of 800. On the 22d, the treaty 

 was confirmed in Paris, and, at the same time, Cava- 

 lier was made colonel, with a pension of 1200 livres, 

 and permission to appoint the officers of the regiment 

 which he was to raise. It was the design of Louis, 

 probably by the advice of Villars, in this way to pre- 

 vent a company of brave soldiers from leaving the 

 country, at the same time that he guarded against in- 

 jury from them. Villars now gave orders that every 

 gibbet and every scaffold should be torn down ; but, 

 just as he seemed to have completed his task, things 

 took another turn. Cavalier had gone to Anglade, 



a neighbouring place, to organize his regiment, when 

 the peasants, instigated by his lieutenant, and ani- 

 mated by their prophets, became again disorderly, 



no security. At length, however, Villars succeeded, 

 by his personal influence, and by cutting off their pro- 

 visions, in bringing them to submission. They all 

 entered the service of Piedmont, and marched under 

 Cavalier to Catalonia, where the whole regiment was 

 destroyed in the battle of Almanza, in which Cava- 

 lier himself was severely wounded. Meanwhile, the 

 civil war in France did not end with their departure. 

 There were still factions, of which the one headed 

 by a certain Roland was the most distinguished. 

 But Villars, who confided more in kindness and man- 

 agement than in his strength, sought to gain posses- 

 sion of their chiefs only by the former qualities. He 

 succeeded, indeed, in capturing Roland, who was in 

 love with a girl of the country, and the musket of a 

 dragoon spared him the tortures of a public execu- 

 tion. Others surrendered themselves, trusting to the 

 marshal's word, and the billets de surete en blanche 

 which he gave them, securing them and then- friends 

 from persecution, whether political or religious. 

 Thus, by the end of December, Villars had happily 

 accomplished his difficult enterprise, and there were 

 only a few remnants of the party, wandering in the 

 highest regions of the mountains. But, the next 

 year, marshal Berwick, after then* audacious project 

 to seize him at Nimes had miscarried, totally sup- 

 pressed them. Two hundred were executed, and 

 many fled to foreign lands. From that time a war or 

 opinions has prevailed, to a greater or less degree, 

 in the south of France, and, lately, since the restora- 

 tion, has led to dreadful outrages in Nimes and other 

 places. See Huguenots and France. 



CEYLON (Seilari) ; an island in the Indian ocean, 

 containing 19,469 square miles. It is separated from 

 the south-eastern extremity of the Coromandel coast 

 by the shallow strait of Manaar, but united to it by 

 Adam's bridge a remarkable chain of sand-banks. 

 Ceylon lies between the parallels of 5 50" and 9 50 

 N. lat., and between 79 2& and 81 50' E. Ion. For 

 the first certain information relating to this island, 

 which is considered as the cradle of the religion of 

 Buddlia, we are indebted to the Portuguese Almeyda, 

 who, in 1505, entered a port of Ceylon by accident, 

 and was hospitably received by the natives. The 

 Portuguese were induced to establish commercial 

 settlements in the island, on account of the great 

 quantity of cinnamon which it produced ; but their 

 cruelty, their avarice, and their fanaticism, which 

 they evinced in suppressing the religion of the na- 

 tives, and endeavouring to convert them to Christi- 

 anity by violence, made them so much abhorred, that 

 the Cingalese, in 1603, assisted the Dutch in driving 

 them out of the island. By the conquest of the prin- 

 cipal Portuguese town, Colombo, the Dutch succeed- 

 ed, in 1656, in expelling the Portuguese. But the 

 gratitude of the natives, at their imagined deliver- 

 ance, which had induced them to cede the most valu- 

 able districts to the Dutch, was soon changed into 

 hatred. Bloody wars ensued, in which the Europe- 

 ans were the victors, and forced their opponents to 

 seek refuge in the interior of the island, where they 

 remained independent. After Holland had been 

 erected into the Batavian republic by the French, in 

 1795, the English took possession of this island, and 

 at the peace of Amiens, hi 1802, it was formally ced- 

 ed to them. In 1815 they subjected the whole of it 

 by the capture of the Cingalese king of Candy, and 



the conquest of his principal town. The island is 

 subject immediately to the crown. The capital is 

 Colombo. Its coasts are flat and covered with rice- 



and, without listening to Cavalier, who had hurried fields, interspersed with forests of cocoa-trees. The 

 back, plunged into the adjacent forests. They would j ulterior of the country is traversed by a chain cl steep 



not hearken to his persuasions, nor to the commands 

 of Villars, and obstinately declared that the king 

 must restore the edict of Nantes ; otherwise they had 



mountains, covered with wood, which divides the is- 

 land into two almost equal parts, and the highest 

 point of which is the famous Adam's peak (q. v.), of 

 i 2 



