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Updated: June 28, 2025
In features, dress, habits, names, language, and religious doctrine, they have an almost perfect identity with the Vaudois of Piedmont at the present day. Dormilhouse consists of about forty cottages, inhabited by some two hundred persons. The cottages are perched "like eagles' nests," one tier ranging over another on the rocky ledges of a steep mountain-side.
Here the summer comes late and departs early. While flowers are blooming in the valleys, not a bud or blade of corn is to be seen at Dormilhouse. At the season when vegetation is elsewhere at its richest, the dominant features of the landscape are barrenness and desolation. The very shapes of the mountains are rugged, harsh, and repulsive.
And even Neff's ministry, as we have above seen, only lasted for the short space of about three years. Some years after the death of Neff, another attempt was made by the Roman Catholics to establish a mission at Dormilhouse. A priest went up from Les Ribes accompanied by a sister of mercy from Gap "the pearl of the diocese," she was called who hired a room for the purpose of commencing a school.
He visited the district of Fressinières, including the hamlet of Dormilhouse, as well as the more distant villages of Arvieux and Sans Veran, up the vale of Queyras; and nearly every year thereafter he devoted a certain portion of his time in visiting the poorer congregations of the district, giving them such help and succour as lay in his power.
The hamlet of Dormilhouse is said to have existed for nearly six hundred years, during which the religion of its inhabitants has remained the same.
On our way up, rain began to fall; as we ascended the Tourniquet the rain became changed to sleet; and at length, on reaching the summit of the rising ground from which we first discerned the hamlet of Dormilhouse, on the first day of July, the snow was falling heavily, and all the neighbouring mountains were clothed in the garb of winter.
We were told on the spot, that some eighty years since an avalanche shot down the mountain immediately on to the plateau on which we stood, carrying with it nearly half the village of Dormilhouse; and every year the avalanches shoot down at the same place, which is strewn with the boulders and débris that extend far down into the valley.
The view was bold and striking, displaying the grandeur of the scenery of Dormilhouse in one of its best aspects. Setting out on the return journey to Palons, we descended the face of the mountain on which Dormilhouse stands, by a steep footpath right in front of it, down towards the falls of the Biasse.
Leaving on our right the Swiss-looking châlet with overhanging roof, in which Neff used to lodge with the Baridon-Verdure family while at Dormilhouse, and now known as "Felix Neff's house," we made our way down a steep and stony footpath towards the school-house adjoining the church, in front of which we found the large ash trees, shading both church and school, which Neff himself had planted.
The story is still told of the curé bringing up from Les Ribes a large bag of apples an impossible crop at Dormilhouse by way of tempting the children to come to him and receive instruction. But they went only so long as the apples lasted, and when they were gone the children disappeared.
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