during four days, except some few poor goats which had been driven there against their will.
It was a scene in keeping with the diabolical deed perpetrated here about four hundred years ago—the murder of the Vaudois of Val Louise, in the cavern which was now in sight, though high above us. Their story is very sad. Peaceful and industrious, for more than three centuries they had inhabited these retired valleys in tranquil obscurity. The Archbishops of Embrun endeavoured, but with little success, to get them within the pale of their church; their efforts were aided by others, who commenced by imprisonments and torture,[1] and at last adopted the method of burning them by hundreds at the stake.[2]
In the year 1488, Albert Cattanée, Archdeacon of Cremona and legate of Pope Innocent VIII., would have anticipated the barbarities which at a later date roused the indignation of Milton and the fears of Cromwell;[3] but, driven everywhere back by the Waldenses of Piedmont, he left their valleys and crossed the Mont Genèvre to attack the weaker and more thinly populated valleys of the Vaudois in Dauphiné. At the head of an army which is said to have been composed of vagabonds, robbers, and assassins (who had been tempted to his banner by promises of absolution beforehand, of being set free from the obligation of vows which they might have made, and by the confirmation of property to them which they might have wrongfully acquired), as well as regular troops, Cattanée poured down the valley of the Durance. The inhabitants of the Val Louise fled before a host that was ten times their number, and took up their abode in this cavern, where they had collected pro-
- ↑ It became a regular business. "We find amongst the current accounts of the Bailiff of Embrun this singular article—' Item, for persecuting the Vaudois, eight sols and thirty deniers of gold.'" — Muston, vol. i. p. 38.
- ↑ On the 22d of May 1393, eighty persons of the valleys of Freissinières and Argentière, and one hundred and fifty persons of the Val Louise, were burnt at Embrun.—Muston, vol. i. p. 41.
- ↑ See Morland's History of the Evangelical Churches of Piedmont, 1658; Cromwell's Acts, 1658; and Burton's Diary, 1828.
