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The population of hermits slowly but surely decreased. From nearly two hundred in the 14th and 15th Centuries, there were no more than forty in 1518, sixty in 1649 and thirty-one in 1680 and the hermits were reduced to a mere handful at the time of the Revolution. At the same time, the convent resources dwindled and a balance was increasingly difficult to find with improved living conditions and periodic needs to restore order in an institution which seemed to have forgotten the Rules and moral standards. Secular and university activity served to widen the breach, often provoking issues of law and order!
As from the middle of the 14th Century, several events accelerated the decline of the convent. In 1542, it was subjected to systematic pillaging of the library, archives and almost all the linen, liturgical objects and valuable furniture, documents and money. Excommunication of the looters and their accomplices, obtained by the monks, did not secure their arrest or the return of the stolen goods. Eight years later, on 14th September 1550, the day of the Exaltation de la Sainte Croix festival, lightening hit the bell-tower destroying the spire and the upper floors. The damage was estimated at 5 000 pounds (livres). In the face of financial and material difficulties, reconstruction of the tower was out of the question and a floor and a half had to be amputated. Fortunately, the wars of religion preserved the convent. The hermits and their priors had the good sense to place themselves under the protection of the Roman Catholic church and under the French monarchy, which they did in effect, when they welcomed king Charles IX in 1565 to a parliament with the Languedoc states held in the large refectory of the convent.
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