CAMISARDS, Icami-zardz, Protestarits in France (in the Cevennes), who, in the begin ning of the 18th century, in consequence of the persecution to which they were exposed after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, rose against the royal deputies. The name is usually thought to be derived from a provincial form of the French word °chemise,* signifying a shirt or smock, and it is said to have been applied to them because their ordi nary outer garment was a smock or blouse. The first occasion on which they broke out into open revolt against the royal deputies was on the night of 24 July 1702, when 50 of them attacked the house of the Abbe du Chayla, one who had signalized himself by his cruelty during the persecutions. They set free the prisoners whom they found confined in the dungeons, and put the abbe himself to death. This was the signal for a general rising of the mountaineers. The government sent troops to punish the authors of these acts. A certain Jean Cavalier, a peas ant, whom a fortune-teller had pointed out as the deliverer of Israel, placed himself at the head of the Camisards. His unlimited authority with his adherents, his talents and courage, enabled him to oppose the measures of experi enced generals with so much success that nego tiation was substituted for force. The Marshal
Villars in 1704 made a treaty with Cavalier, by virtue of which Cavalier himself was received into the royal service as a colonel. This treaty, however, did not satisfy his associates, because it did not concede to them liberty of conscience, and on that account Cavalier was reproached as a traitor who had sacrificed the cause of his coreligionists to his own interest. At the court, too, he was received with coldness, so that in a short time he was glad to go into vol untary exile. He went to England, where Queen Anne gave him a 'favorable reception. Voltaire, who became acquainted with him in London, speaks of him in high terms. At the time of his death Cavalier was general and governor of Jersey. The name camtsards blows (white camisards), or cadets de la croix (cadets of the cross), was given to a band of Roman Catholics formed to put down the Calvinistic Camisards, who were called caniisards noirs, or black Camisards. See also FRANCE - HISTORY.