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From Chamounix I went to Geneva, and thence by the Mont Cenis to Turin and to the Vaudois valleys. A long and weary day had ended when Paesana was reached. The next morning I passed the little lakes which are the sources of the Po, on my way into France.
He who placed magazines of bread in the clouds, and rained it upon the Israelites when they journeyed through the desert, had laid up store of corn, and oil, and wine, in the soil of these valleys; so that the Vaudois, when their enemies pressed them on the plain, and cut off their supplies from without, might still enjoy within their own mountain rampart abundance of all things.
Then Turrel, the Vaudois captain, calling out "Forward! the bridge is won!" the Vaudois jumped to their feet and rushed on. The two wings at the same time concentrated their fire on the defenders, who broke and retired, and the bridge was won. But at the further side, where the French were in overpowering numbers, they refused to give way, and poured down their fire on their assailants.
When a Vaudois commits a crime, a rare occurrence, the whole valleys mourn, and every family feels as if a cloud rested on its own reputation. No one can pass a day among them without remarking the greater decorum of their deportment, and the greater kindliness and civility of their address.
No sooner had the boats left the shore at Nyon for the further side of the lake than the young seigneur of Prangins, who had been watching their movements, rode off at full speed to inform the French resident at Geneva of the departure of the Vaudois; and orders were at once dispatched to Lyons for a strong body of cavalry to march immediately towards Savoy to cut them off.
Nor could the fugitives altogether escape the neighbourhood of the French patrols, so closely were they posted to the castle. One of the Vaudois, using his hands to save himself from falling, let drop a kettle he was carrying, which by its rolling down excited the notice of the sentinel, who at once gave the challenge, "Who goes there?"
The petition to Charles Albert in their favour was in a few days covered with the names of its greatest patriots, including those of Balbo, Cavour, and D'Azeglio. Their emancipation was at length granted, and the Vaudois now enjoy the same rights and liberties as the other subjects of Victor Emanuel.
Not far distant from San Veran are the mountain hamlets of Pierre Grosse and Fongillarde, also ancient retreats of the persecuted Vaudois, and now for the most part inhabited by Protestants.
Gilly's "Narrative," and what he read excited so lively an interest in his mind that he went direct to his bookseller and ordered all the publications relative to the Vaudois Church that could be procured. The general's zeal being thus fired, he set out shortly after on a visit to the Piedmontese valleys.
Scarcely a vestige of Catholicism remained, and Hussites, Wicklifites, Vaudois, Lutherans, Zwinglians, and various other offshoots of the principal sects, were busy relegating each other in eloquent terms to eternal damnation, when the arrival of Catholic missionaries gave the signal for a coalition against the common enemy of them all.
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