influence d'Aygaliers would gain in the province should he succeed in his
aims, and their jealousy had made them resolve to forestall him in his
work, by themselves inducing Cavalier to abandon his present course.
They did not conceal from themselves that this would be difficult, but as
they could command means of corruption which were not within the power of
d'Aygaliers, they did not despair of success.

They therefore sent for a countryman called Lacombe, in order to enlist
him on their side; for Cavalier, when a boy, had been his shepherd for
two years, and both had remained friends ever since: this man undertook
to try and bring about a meeting between the two gentlemen and
Cavalier--an enterprise which would have been dangerous for anyone else.
He promised first of all to explain to Cavalier the offers of MM. de
Baville and de Lalande.

Lacombe kept his word: he set off the same day, and two days later
appeared before Cavalier. The first feeling of the young chief was
astonishment, the second pleasure. Lacombe could not have chosen a
better moment to speak of peace to his former shepherd.

"Indeed," says Cavalier in his Memoirs, "the loss which I had just
sustained at Nages was doubly painful to me because it was irreparable.
I had lost at one blow not only a great number of weapons, all my
ammunition, and all my money, but also a body of men, inured to danger
and fatigue, and capable of any undertaking;--besides all this, I had
been robbed of my stores--a loss which made itself felt more than all the
others put together, because as long as the secret of the cavern was
kept, in all our misfortunes we were never without resources; but from
the moment it got into the possession of our enemies we were quite
destitute. The country was ravaged, my friends had grown cold, their