Jean Cavalier

Jean Cavalier (born Nov. 28, 1681, near Ribaute, Fr.—died May 17, 1740, London, Eng.) was the leader of the French Huguenot insurgents known as the Camisards from 1702 to 1704.

The son of a Huguenot shepherd from the Languedoc region of southern France, Cavalier sought refuge in Geneva in 1701 to escape a wave of severe persecution of Protestants by the government of King Louis XIV. He returned to his native area and found work as an apprentice baker shortly before the local Huguenots’ Camisard revolt broke out at Le Pont-de-Montvert on July 24, 1702. Several months later Cavalier emerged as the leader of the uprising, which swept through Languedoc and the Cévennes. His genius at guerrilla warfare enabled him to defeat government forces at Vagnas on Feb. 10, 1703, and soon he was threatening Nîmes. On March 4, 1704, he defeated one of Louis XIV’s finest regiments at Martignargues. A serious reverse at Nages (April 16, 1704) and the loss of his arsenal at Euzet (April 19) forced him to agree to a truce at Pont-d’Avesnes on May 12. He made his submission at Nîmes four days later, but his followers deserted him when he failed to secure religious liberty from the government. On August 26 he fled to Switzerland; by early 1705 the revolt had lost its force.

Cavalier fought with the British against the French in Portugal and Spain in 1707 and eventually retired to a Huguenot colony in Ireland. His Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes was published at Dublin in 1726. In 1735 he was made a brigadier in the British army. Appointed lieutenant governor of Jersey in 1738, he became a major general the following year.