The Huguenots in France Part 34

All down the valley of the Pelice, we come upon village after village--La Piante, Villar, and Cabriol--which have been the scenes sometimes of heroic combats, and sometimes of treacherous ma.s.sacres.

Yet all the cruelty of Grand Dukes and Popes during centuries did not avail in turning the people of the valley from their faith. For they continue to worship after the same primitive forms as they did a thousand years ago; and in the princ.i.p.al villages and hamlets, though Romanism has long been supported by the power of the State and the patronage of the Church, the Protestant Vaudois continue to const.i.tute the majority of the population.

Rising up on the left of the road, between Villar and La Tour, are seen the bold and almost perpendicular rocks of Castelluzzo, terminating in the tower-like summit which has given to them their name. On the face of these rocks is one of the caverns in which the Vaudois were accustomed to hide their women and children when they themselves were forced to take the field. When Dr. Gilly first endeavoured to discover this famous cavern in 1829, he could not find any one who could guide him to it. Tradition said it was half way down the perpendicular face of the rock, and it was known to be very difficult to reach; but the doctor could not find any traces of it.

Determined, however, not to be baffled, he made a second attempt a month later, and succeeded. He had to descend some fifty feet from the top of the cliff by a rope ladder, until a platform of rock was reached, from which the cavern was entered. It was found to consist of an irregular, rugged, sloping gallery in the face of the rock, of considerable extent, roofed in by a projecting crag. It is quite open to the south, but on all other sides it is secure; and it can only be entered from above. Such were the places to which the people of the valleys were driven for shelter in the dark days so happily pa.s.sed away.

One of the best indications of the improved _regime_ that now prevails, shortly presented itself in the handsome Vaudois church, situated at the western entrance of the town of La Tour, near to which is the college for the education of Vaudois pastors, together with residences for the clergy and professors. The founding of this establishment, as well as of the hospital for the poor and infirm Vaudois, is in a great measure due to the energetic zeal of the Dr.

Gilly so often quoted above, whose writings on behalf of the faithful but dest.i.tute Protestants of the Piedmontese valleys, about forty years since, awakened an interest in their behalf in England, as well as in foreign countries, which has not yet subsided.

More enthusiastic, if possible, even than Dr. Gilly, was the late General Beckwith, who followed up, with extraordinary energy, the work which the other had so well begun. The general was an old Peninsular veteran, who had followed the late Duke of Wellington through most of his campaigns, and lost a leg while serving under him at the battle of Waterloo. Hence the designation of him by a Roman Catholic bishop in an article published by him in one of the Italian journals, as "the adventurer with the wooden leg."

The general's attention was first attracted to the subject of the Vaudois in the following curiously accidental way. Being a regular visitor at Apsley House, he called on the Duke one morning, and, finding him engaged, he strolled into the library to spend an idle half-hour among the books. The first he took up was Dr. 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. He returned to them again and again, and at length settled at La Tour, where he devoted the remainder of his life and a large portion of his fortune to the service of the Vaudois Church and people. He organized a movement for the erection of schools, of which not fewer than one hundred and twenty were provided mainly through his instrumentality in different parts of the valleys, besides restoring and enlarging the college at La Tour, erecting the present commodious dwellings for the professors, providing a superior school for the education of pastors' daughters, and contributing towards the erection of churches wherever churches were needed.

The general was so zealous a missionary, so eager for the propagation of the Gospel, that some of his friends asked him why he did not preach to the people. "No," said he; "men have their special gifts, and mine is _a brick-and-mortar gift_." The general was satisfied to go on as he had begun, helping to build schools, colleges, and churches for the Vaudois, wherever most needed. His crowning work was the erection of the grand block of buildings on the Viale del Re at Turin, which not only includes a handsome and commodious Vaudois church, but an English church, and a Vaudois hospital and schools, erected at a cost of about fourteen thousand pounds, princ.i.p.ally at the cost of the general himself, generously aided by Mr. Brewin and other English contributors.

Nor were the people ungrateful to their benefactor. "Let the name of General Beckwith be blessed by all who pa.s.s this way," says an inscription placed upon one of the many schools opened through his efforts and generosity; and the whole country responds to the sentiment.

To return to La Tour. The style of the buildings at its western end--the church, college, residences, and adjoining cottages, with their pretty gardens in front, designed, as they have been, by English architects--give one the idea of the best part of an English town.

But this disappears as you enter the town itself, and proceed through the princ.i.p.al street, which is long, narrow, and thoroughly Italian.

The situation of the town is exceedingly fine, at the foot of the Vandalin Mountain, near the confluence of the river Angrogna with the Pelice. The surrounding scenery is charming; and from the high grounds, north and south of the town, extensive views may be had in all directions--especially up the valley of the Pelice, and eastward over the plains of Piedmont--the whole country being, as it were, embroidered with vineyards, corn-fields, and meadows, here and there shaded with groves and thickets, spread over a surface varied by hills, and knolls, and undulating slopes.

The size, importance, industry, and central situation of La Tour have always caused it to be regarded as the capital of the valleys.

One-half of the Vaudois population occupies the valley of the Pelice and the lateral valley of Angrogna; the remainder, more widely scattered, occupying the valleys of Perouse and Pragela, and the lateral valley of St. Martin--the entire number of the Protestant population in the several valleys amounting to about twenty thousand.

Although, as we have already said, there is scarcely a hamlet in the valleys but has been made famous by the resistance of its inhabitants in past times to the combined tyranny of the Popes of Rome and the Dukes of Savoy, perhaps the most interesting events of all have occurred in the neighbourhood of La Tour, but more especially in the valley of Angrogna, at whose entrance it stands.

The wonder is, that a scattered community of half-armed peasantry, without resources, without magazines, without fortresses, should have been able for any length of time to resist large bodies of regular troops--Italian, French, Spanish, and even Irish!--led by the most experienced commanders of the day, and abundantly supplied with arms, cannon, ammunition, and stores of all kinds. All that the people had on their side--and it compensated for much--was a good cause, great bravery, and a perfect knowledge of the country in which, and for which, they fought.

Though the Vaudois had no walled towns, their district was a natural fortress, every foot of which was known to them--every pa.s.s, every defile, every barricade, and every defensible position. Resistance in the open country, they knew, would be fatal to them. Accordingly, whenever a.s.sailed by their persecutors, they fled to their mountain strongholds, and there waited the attack of the enemy.

One of the strongest of such places--the Thermopylae of the Vaudois--was the valley of Angrogna, up which the inhabitants of La Tour were accustomed to retreat on any sudden invasion by the army of Savoy. The valley is one of exquisite beauty, presenting a combination of mingled picturesqueness and sublimity, the like of which is rarely to be seen. It is hemmed in by mountains, in some places rounded and majestic, in others jagged and abrupt. The sides of the valley are in many places finely wooded, while in others well-tilled fields, pastures, and vineyards slope down to the river-side. Orchards are succeeded by pine-woods, and these again by farms and gardens.

Sometimes a little cascade leaps from a rock on its way to the valley below; and little is heard around, save the rippling of water, and the occasional lowing of cattle in the pastures, mingled with the music of their bells.

Shortly after entering the valley, we pa.s.sed the scene of several terrible struggles between the Vaudois and their persecutors. One of the most famous spots is the plateau of Rochemalan, where the heights of St. John abut upon the mountains of Angrogna. It was shortly after the fulmination of a bull of extermination against the Vaudois by Pope Innocent VIII., in 1486, that an army of eighteen thousand regular French and Piedmontese troops, accompanied by a horde of brigands to whom the remission of sins was promised on condition of their helping to slay the heretics, encircled the valleys and proceeded to a.s.sail the Vaudois in their fastnesses. The Papal legate, Albert Catanee, Archdeacon of Cremona, had his head-quarters at Pignerol, from whence he superintended the execution of the Pope's orders. First, he sent preaching monks up the valleys to attempt the conversion of the Vaudois before attacking them with arms. But the peasantry refused to be converted, and fled to their strongholds in the mountains.

Then Catanee took the field at the head of his army, advancing upon Angrogna. He extended his lines so as to enclose the entire body of heretics, with the object of cutting them off to a man. The Vaudois, however, defended themselves resolutely, though armed only with pikes, swords, and bows and arrows, and everywhere beat back the a.s.sailants.

The severest struggle occurred at Rochemalan, which the crusaders attacked with great courage. But the Vaudois had the advantage of the higher ground, and, encouraged by the cries and prayers of the women, children, and old men whom they were defending, they impetuously rushed forward and drove the Papal troops downhill in disorder, pursuing them into the very plain.

The next day the Papalini renewed the attack, ascending by the bottom of the valley, instead of by the plateau on which they had been defeated. But one of those dense mists, so common in the Alps, having settled down upon the valley, the troops became confused, broken up, and entangled in difficult paths; and in this state, marching apprehensively, they were fallen upon by the Vaudois and again completely defeated. Many of the soldiers slid over the rocks and were drowned in the torrent,--the chasm into which the captain of the detachment (Saquet de Planghere) fell, being still known as _Toumpi de Saquet_, or Saquet's Hole.

The resistance of the mountaineers at other points, in the valleys of Pragela and St. Martin, having been almost equally successful, Catanee withdrew the Papal army in disgust, and marched it back into France, to wreak his vengeance on the defenceless Vaudois of the Val Louise, in the manner described in a preceding chapter.

Less than a century later, a like attempt was made to force the entrance to the valley of Angrogna, by an army of Italians and Spaniards, under the command of the Count de la Trinite. A proclamation had been published, and put up in the villages of Angrogna, to the effect that all would be destroyed by fire and sword who did not forthwith return to the Church of Rome. And as the peasantry did not return, on the 2nd November, 1560, the Count advanced at the head of his army to extirpate the heretics. The Vaudois were provided with the rudest sort of weapons; many of them had only slings and cross-bows. But they felt strong in the goodness of their cause, and prepared to defend themselves to the death.

As the Count's army advanced, the Vaudois retired until they reached the high ground near Rochemalan, where they took their stand. The enemy followed, and halted in the valley beneath, lighting their bivouac fires, and intending to pa.s.s the night there. Before darkness fell, however, an accidental circ.u.mstance led to an engagement. A Vaudois boy, who had got hold of a drum, began beating it in a ravine close by. The soldiers, thinking a hostile troop had arrived, sprang up in disorder and seized their arms. The Vaudois, on their part, seeing the movement, and imagining that an attack was about to be made on them, rushed forward to repel it. The soldiers, surprised and confused, for the most part threw away their arms, and fled down the valley. Irritated by this disgraceful retreat of some twelve hundred soldiers before two hundred peasants, the Count advanced a second time, and was again, repulsed by the little band of heroes, who charged his troops with loud shouts of "Viva Jesu Christo!" driving the invaders in confusion down the valley.

It may be mentioned that the object of the Savoy general, in making this attack, was to force the valley, and capture the strong position of the Pra du Tour, the celebrated stronghold of the Vaudois, from whence we shall afterwards find them, again driven back, baffled and defeated.

A hundred years pa.s.sed, and still the Vaudois remained unconverted and unexterminated. The Marquis of Pianesse now advanced upon Angrogna--always with the same object, "ad extirpandos hereticos," in obedience to the order of the Propaganda. On this occasion not only Italian and Spanish but Irish troops were engaged in a combined effort to exterminate the Vaudois. The Irish were known as "the a.s.sa.s.sins"

by the people of the valleys, because of their almost exceptional ferocity; and the hatred they excited by their outrages on women and children was so great, that on the a.s.sault and capture of St. Legont by the Vaudois peasantry, an Irish regiment surprised in barracks was completely destroyed.

A combined attack was made on Angrogna on the 15th of June, 1655. On that day four separate bodies of troops advanced up the heights from different directions, thereby enclosing the little Vaudois army of three hundred men a.s.sembled there, and led by the heroic Javanel. This leader first threw himself upon the head of the column which advanced from Rocheplate, and drove it downhill. Then he drew off his little body towards Rochemalan, when he suddenly found himself opposed by the two bodies which had come up from St. John and La Tour. Retiring before them, he next found himself face to face with the fourth detachment, which had come up from Pramol. With the quick instinct of military genius, Javanel threw himself upon it before the beaten Rocheplate detachment were able to rally and a.s.sail him in flank; and he succeeded in cutting the Pramol force in two and pa.s.sing through it, rushing up to the summit of the hill, on which he posted himself.

And there he stood at bay.

This hill is precipitous on one side, but of comparatively easy ascent on the side up which the little band of heroes had ascended. At the foot of the slope the four detachments, three thousand against three hundred, drew up and attacked him; but firing from a distance, their aim was not very deadly. For five hours Javanel resisted them as he best could, and then, seeing signs of impatience and hesitation in the enemy's ranks, he called out to his men, "Forward, my friends!" and they rushed downhill like an avalanche. The three thousand men recoiled, broke, and fled before the three hundred; and Javanel returned victorious to his entrenchments before Angrogna.

Yet, again, some eight years later, in 1663, was this neighbourhood the scene of another contest, and again was Javanel the hero. On this occasion, the Marquis de Fleury led the troops of the Duke of Savoy, whose object, as before, was to advance up the valley, and a.s.sail the Vaudois stronghold of Pra du Tour; and again the peasantry resisted them successfully, and drove them back into the plains. Javanel then went to rejoin a party of the men whom he had posted at the "Gates of Angrogna" to defend the pa.s.s up the valley; and again he fell upon the enemy engaged in attempting to force a pa.s.sage there, and defeated them with heavy loss.

Such are among the exciting events which have occurred in this one locality in connection with the Vaudois struggle for country and liberty.

Let us now proceed up the valley of Angrogna, towards the famous stronghold of the Pra du Tour, the object of those repeated attacks of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Rochemalan. As we advance, the mountains gradually close in upon the valley, leaving a comparatively small width of pasture land by the river-side. At the hamlet of Serre the carriage road ends; and from thence the valley grows narrower, the mountains which enclose it become more rugged and abrupt, until there is room enough only for a footpath along a rocky ledge, and the torrent running in its deep bed alongside. This continues for a considerable distance, the path in some places being overhung by precipices, or encroached upon by rocks and boulders fallen from the heights, until at length we emerge from the defile, and find ourselves in a comparatively open s.p.a.ce, the famous Pra du Tour; the defile we have pa.s.sed, alongside the torrent and overhung by the rocks, being known as the Barricade.

The Pra du Tour, or Meadow of the Tower, is a little amphitheatre surrounded by rugged and almost inaccessible mountains, situated at the head of the valley of Angrogna. The steep slopes bring down into this deep dell the headwaters of the torrent, which escape among the rocks down the defile we have just ascended. The path up the defile forms the only approach to the Pra from the valley, but it is so narrow, tortuous, and difficult, that the labours of only a few men in blocking up the pathway with rocks and stones that lie ready at hand, might at any time so barricade the approach as to render it impracticable. The extremely secluded position of the place, its natural strength and inaccessibility, and its proximity to the princ.i.p.al Vaudois towns and villages, caused it to be regarded from the earliest times as their princ.i.p.al refuge. It was their fastness, their fortress, and often their home. It was more--it was their school and college; for in the depths of the Pra du Tour the pastors, or _barbas_,[107] educated young men for the ministry, and provided for the religious instruction of the Vaudois population.

[Footnote 107: _Barba_--a t.i.tle of respect; in the Vaudois dialect literally signifying an _uncle_.]

It was the importance of the Pra du Tour as a stronghold that rendered it so often the object of attack through the valley of Angrogna. When the hostile troops of Savoy advanced upon La Tour, the inhabitants of the neighbouring valleys at once fled to the Pra, into which they drove their cattle, and carried what provisions they could; there constructing mills, ovens, houses, and all that was requisite for subsistence, as in a fort. The men capable of bearing arms stood on their guard to defend the pa.s.ses of the Vachere and Roussine, at the extreme heads of the valley, as well as the defile of the Barricade, while other bodies, stationed lower down, below the Barricade, prepared to resist the troops seeking to force an entrance up the valley; and hence the repeated battles in the neighbourhood of Rochemalan above described.

On the occasion of the defeat of the Count de la Trinite by the little Vaudois band near the village of Angrogna, in November, 1560, the general drew off, and waited the arrival of reinforcements. A large body of Spanish veterans having joined him, in the course of the following spring he again proceeded up the valley, determined, if possible, to force the Barricade--the royal forces now numbering some seven thousand men, all disciplined troops. The peasants, finding their first position no longer tenable in the face of such numbers, abandoned Angrogna and the lower villages, and retired, with the whole population, to the Pra du Tour. The Count followed them with his main army, at the same time directing two other bodies of troops to advance upon the place round by the mountains, one by the heights of the Vachere, and another by Les Fourests. The defenders of the Pra would thus be a.s.sailed from three sides at once, their forces divided, and victory rendered certain.

But the Count did not calculate upon the desperate bravery of the defenders. All three bodies were beaten back in succession. For four days the Count made every effort to force the defile, and failed. Two colonels, eight captains, and four hundred men fell in these desperate a.s.saults, without gaining an inch of ground. On the fifth day a combined attack was made with the reserve, composed of Spanish companies, but this, too, failed; and the troops, when ordered to return to the charge, refused to obey. The Count, who commanded, is said to have wept as he sat on a rock and looked upon so many of his dead--the soldiers themselves exclaiming, "G.o.d fights for these people, and we do them wrong!"

About a hundred years later, the Marquis de Pianesse, who, like the Count de la Trinite, had been defeated at Rochemalan, made a similar attempt to surprise the Vaudois stronghold, with a like result. The peasants were commanded on this occasion by John Leger, the pastor and historian. Those who were unarmed hurled rocks and stones on the a.s.sailants from the heights; and the troops being thus thrown into confusion, the Vaudois rushed from behind their ramparts, and drove them in a state of total rout down the valley.

On entering the Pra du Tour, one of the most prominent objects that meets the eye is the Roman Catholic chapel recently erected there, though the few inhabitants of the district are still almost entirely Protestant. The Roman Catholic Church has, however, now done what the Roman Catholic armies failed to do--established itself in the midst of the Vaudois stronghold, though by no means in the hearts of the people.

Desirous of ascertaining, if possible, the site of the ancient college, we proceeded up the Pra, and hailed a young woman whom we observed crossing the rustic bridge over the Pele, one of the mountain rivulets running into the torrent of Angrogna. Inquiring of her as to the site of the college, she told us we had already pa.s.sed it, and led us back to the place--up the rocky side of the hill leading to the Vachere--past the cottage where she herself lived, and pointed to the site: "There," she said, "is where the ancient college of the Vaudois stood." The old building has, however, long since been removed, the present structure being merely part of a small farmsteading. Higher up the steep hill-side, on successive ledges of rock, are the ruins of various buildings, some of which may have been dwellings, and one, larger than the rest, on a broader plateau, with an elder-tree growing in the centre, may possibly have been the temple.

From the higher shelves on this mountain-side the view is extremely wild and grand. The acclivities which surround the head of the Pra seem as if battlemented walls; the mountain opposite throws its sombre shadow over the ravine in which the torrent runs; whilst, down the valley, rock seems piled on rock, and mountain on mountain. All is perfectly still, and the silence is only audible by the occasional tinkling of a sheep-bell, or the humming of a bee in search of flowers on the mountain-side. So peaceful and quiet is the place, that it is difficult to believe it could ever have been the scene of such deadly strife, and rung with the shouts of men thirsting for each other's blood.

After lingering about the place until the sun was far on his way towards the horizon, we returned, by the road we had come, the valley seeming more beautiful than ever under the glow of evening, and arrived at our destination about dusk, to find the fireflies darting about the streets of La Tour.

The next day saw us at Turin, and our summer excursion at an end. Mr.

Milsom, who had so pleasantly accompanied me through the valleys, had been summoned to attend the death-bed of a friend at Antibes, and he set out on the journey forthwith. While still there, he received a telegram intimating the death of his daughter at Allevard, near Gren.o.ble, and he arrived only in time to attend her funeral. Two months later, he lost another dear daughter; shortly after, his mother-in-law died; and in the following December he himself died suddenly of heart disease, and followed them to the grave.

One could not but conceive a hearty liking for Edward Milsom--he was such a thoroughly good man. He was a native of London, but spent the greater part of his life at Lyons, in France, where he long since settled and married. He there carried on a large business as a silk merchant, but was always ready to give a portion of his time and money to help forward any good work. He was an "ancien," or elder, of the Evangelical church at Lyons, originally founded by Adolphe Monod, to whom he was also related by marriage.

Some years since he was very much interested by the perusal of Pastor Bost's account of his visit to the scene of Felix Neff's labours in the High Alps. He felt touched by the simple, faithful character of the people, and keenly sympathised with their dest.i.tute condition.

"Here," said he, "is a field in which I may possibly be of some use."

And he at once went to their help. He visited the district of Fressinieres, 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.

His repeated visits made him well known to the people of the valleys, who valued him as a friend, if they did not even love him as a brother. His visits were also greatly esteemed by the pastors, who stood much in need of encouragement and help. He cheered the wavering, strengthened the feeble-hearted, and stimulated all to renewed life and action. Wherever he went, a light seemed to shine in his path; and when he departed, he was followed by many blessings.

In one place he would arrange for the opening of a new place of worship; in another, for the opening of a boys' school; in a third, for the industrial employment of girls; and wherever there was any little heartburning or jealousy to be allayed, he would set himself to remove it. His admirable tact, his unfailing temper, and excellent good sense, rendered him a wise counsellor and a most successful conciliator.

The last time Mr. Milsom visited England, towards the end of 1869, he was occupied, as usual, in collecting subscriptions for the poor Vaudois of the High Alps. Now that the good "merchant missionary" has rested from his labours, they will indeed feel the loss of their friend. Who is to a.s.sume his mantle?