CAVALIER, JEAN (1681-174o), the famous chief of the Camisards (q.v.), was born at Mas Roux, near Anduze (Gard), on Nov. 28, 1681. His father, an illiterate peasant, had been compelled by persecution to become a Roman Catholic along with his family, but his mother brought him up secretly in the Protestant faith. Threatened with prosecution for his religious opinions he went to Geneva, where he passed the year 1701; he returned to the Cevennes on the eve of the rebellion of the Camisards, who by the murder of the Abbe du Chayla at Pont de-Monvert on the night of July 24, 1702, raised the standard of revolt. Some months later he became their leader. He showed an extraordinary genius for war. Within a period of two years he was to hold in check Count Maurice de Broglie and Marshal Montrevel, and to carry on one of the most terrible partisan wars in French history.
He maintained the most severe discipline. Each battle in creased the terror of his name. On Christmas day, 1702, he dared to hold a religious assembly at the very gates of Alais, and put to flight the local militia which came forth to attack him. At Vagnas, on Feb. 1 o, 1703, he routed the royal troops, but, defeated in his turn, he was compelled to find safety in flight. But he reappeared, was again defeated at Tour de Bellot (April 3o), and again recovered himself, recruits flocking to him to fill up the places of the slain. Cavalier boldly carried the war into the plain, made terrible reprisals, and threatened even Nimes itself. On April 16, 1704, he encountered Marshal Mont revel himself at the bridge of Nages, with i,000 men against 5,000, and, though defeated after a desperate conflict, he made a successful retreat. Cavalier was induced to attend a conference at Pont d'Avene near Alais on May i i, 1704, and on May 16, he made submission at Nimes. Louis XIV. gave him a commis sion as colonel, which Villars presented to him personally, and a pension of 1,200 livres. At the same time the king authorized the formation of a Camisard regiment for service in Spain under his command.
Before leaving the Cevennes for the last time he went to Alais and to Ribaute, followed by an immense concourse of people. But Cavalier had not been able to obtain liberty of conscience, and his Camisards almost to a man broke forth in wrath against him, reproaching him for what they described as his treacherous desertion. On June 21, 1704, with a hundred Camisards who were still faithful to him, he departed from Nimes and came to Neu Brisach (Alsace), where he was to be quartered. From Dijon he went on to Paris, where Louis XIV. gave him audience and heard his explanation of the revolt of the Cevennes. Returning to Dijon, fearing to be imprisoned in the fortress of Neu-Brisach, he escaped with his troop near Montbeliard and took refuge at Lausanne. But he was too much of a soldier to abandon the career of arms. He offered his services to the duke of Savoy, and with his Camisards made war in the Val d'Aosta. After the peace he crossed to England, where he formed a regiment of refugees which took part in the Spanish expedition under the earl of Peterborough and Sir Cloudesley Shovel in May, 1705.
At the battle of Almansa the Camisards found themselves op posed to a French regiment, and without firing the two bodies rushed one upon the other. "I fought," Cavalier wrote on July 1o, "as long as a man stood beside me and until numbers over powered me, losing also an immense quantity of blood from a dozen wounds which I received." Marshal Berwick never spoke of this tragic event without visible emotion.
On his return to England a small pension was given him. He settled at Dublin, where he published Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes under Col. Cavalier, written in French and trans lated into English with a dedication to Lord Carteret (1726) . He was made general on Oct. and on May 25, 1738, was appointed lieutenant-governor of Jersey. He was promoted major-general in July, 1739, and died in the following year.
See N. A. F. Puaux, Vie de Jean Cavalier (1868) ; David C. A. Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France, ii. 54-66 (1871) ; Charvey, Jean Cavalier: nouveaux documents inedits (1884) . Eugene Sue popu larized the name of the Camisard chief in Jean Cavalier ou les fanatiques des Cevennes (1840) . A new edition of Cavalier's Memoires sur la guerre des Cevennes was published by F. Puaux in 1918.