In this he was seconded by the officers under him, who were actuated by the same philanthropic motives as their general in identifying themselves with the corps.

Owing to their exertions, the men advanced in fairly regular order, and good discipline was maintained.
All the men carried muskets.
But the first corps was only a kind of vanguard to the second, which was the real army, and a wonderful thing to see and hear.

Never were brought together before or since so many different kinds of howl, so many threats of death, so many rags; so many odd weapons, from the matchlock of the time of the Michelade to the steel-tipped goad of the bullock drovers of La Camargue, so that when the Nimes mob; which in all conscience was howling and ragged enough, rushed out to offer a brotherly welcome to the strangers, its first feeling was one of astonishment and dismay as it caught sight of the motley crew which held out to it the right hand of fellowship.
The new-comers soon showed that it was through necessity and not choice that their outer man presented such a disreputable appearance; for they were hardly well within the gates before demanding that the houses of the members of the old Protestant National Guard should be pointed out to them.
This being done, they promptly proceeded to exact from each household a musket, a coat, a complete kit, or a sum of money, according to their humour, so that before evening those who had arrived naked and penniless were provided with complete uniforms and had money in their pockets.
These exactions were levied under the name of a contribution, but before the day was ended naked and undisguised pillage began.
Someone asserted that during the assault on the barracks a certain individual had fired out of a certain house on the assailants.

The indignant people now rushed to the house indicated, and soon left nothing of it in existence but its walls.

A little later it was clearly proved that the individual accused was quite innocent of the crime laid to his charge.
The house of a rich merchant lay in the path of the advancing army.