There is no risk of such rencontres in Dauphiny, whose valleys remain

in almost as primitive a state as they were hundreds of years ago.

Accordingly, when my friend Mr. Milsom, above mentioned, invited me to

accompany him in one of his periodical visits to the country of the

Vaudois, I embraced the opportunity with pleasure. I was cautioned

beforehand as to the inferior accommodation provided for travellers

through the district. Tourists being unknown there, the route is not

padded and cushioned as it is on all the beaten continental rounds.

English is not spoken; Bass's pale ale has not yet penetrated into

Dauphiny; nor do you encounter London tourists carrying their tin

baths about with them as you do in Switzerland. Only an occasional

negotiant comes up from Gap or Grenoble, seeking orders in the

villages, for whom the ordinary auberges suffice.

Where the roads are practicable, an old-fashioned diligence may

occasionally be seen plodding along, freighted with villagers bound

for some local market; but the roads are, for the most part, as silent

as the desert.

Such being the case, the traveller in the valleys must be prepared to

"rough it" a little. I was directed to bring with me only a light

knapsack, a pair of stout hob-nailed shoes, a large stock of patience,

and a small parcel of insect powder. The knapsack and the shoes I

found exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable; but I had very little

occasion to draw upon either my stock of patience or insect powder.

The French are a tidy people, and though their beds, stuffed with

maize chaff, may be hard, they are tolerably clean. The food provided

in the auberges is doubtless very different from what one is

accustomed to at home; but with the help of cheerfulness and a good

digestion that difficulty too may be got over.

Indeed, among the things that most strikes a traveller through France,

as characteristic of the people, is the skill with which persons of

even the poorest classes prepare and serve up food. The French women

are careful economists and excellent cooks. Nothing is wasted. The

_pot au feu_ is always kept simmering on the hob, and, with the help

of a hunch of bread, a good meal may at any time be made from it. Even

in the humblest auberge, in the least frequented district, the dinner

served up is of a quality such as can very rarely be had in any

English public-house, or even in most of our country inns. Cooking

seems to be one of the lost arts of England, if indeed it ever

possessed it; and our people are in the habit, through want of

knowledge, of probably _wasting_ more food than would sustain many

another nation. But in the great system of National Education that is

to be, no one dreams of including as a branch of it skill in the

preparation and economy in the use of human food.

There is another thing that the traveller through France may always

depend upon, and that is civility. The politeness of even the French

poor to each other is charming. They respect themselves, and they

respect each other. I have seen in France what I have not yet seen in

England--young working men walking out their aged mothers arm in arm

in the evening, to hear the band play in the "Place," or to take a

turn on the public promenade. But the French are equally polite to

strangers. A stranger lady may travel all through the rural districts

of France, and never encounter a rude look; a stranger gentleman, and

never receive a rude word. That the French are a self-respecting

people is also evinced by the fact that they are a sober people.

Drunkenness is scarcely known in France; and one may travel all

through it and never witness the degrading sight of a drunken man.

The French are also honest and thrifty, and exceedingly hard-working.

The industry of the people is unceasing. Indeed it is excessive; for

they work Sunday and Saturday. Sunday has long ceased to be a Sabbath

in France. There is no day of rest there. Before the Revolution, the

saints' days which the Church ordered to be observed so encroached

upon the hours required for labour, that in course of time Sunday

became an ordinary working day. And when the Revolution abolished

saints' days and Sabbath days alike, Sunday work became an established

practice.

What the so-called friends of the working classes are aiming at in

England, has already been effected in France. The public museums and

picture-galleries are open on Sunday. But you look for the working

people there in vain. They are at work in the factories, whose

chimneys are smoking as usual; or building houses, or working in the

fields, or they are engaged in the various departments of labour. The

government works all go on as usual on Sundays. The railway trains run

precisely as on week days. In short, the Sunday is secularised, or

regarded but as a partial holiday.[99]

[Footnote 99: I find the following under the signature of "An

Operative Bricklayer," in the _Times_ of the 30th July, 1867:

"I found there were a great number of men in Paris that

worked on the buildings who were not residents of the city.

The bricklayers are called _limousins_; they come from the

old province Le Limousin, where they keep their home, and

many of them are landowners. They work in Paris in the summer

time; they come up in large numbers, hire a place in Paris,

and live together, and by so doing they live cheap. In the

winter time, when they cannot work on the buildings, they go

back home again and take their savings, and stop there until

the spring, which is far better than it is in London; when

the men cannot work they are hanging about the streets. It

was with regret that I saw so many working on the Sunday

desecrating the Sabbath. I inquired why they worked on

Sunday; they told me it was to make up the time they lose

through wet and other causes. I saw some working with only

their trousers and shoes on, with a belt round their waist to

keep their trousers up. Their naked back was exposed to the

sun, and was as brown as if it had been dyed, and shone as if

it had been varnished. I asked if they had any hard-working

hearty old men. They answered me "No; the men were completely

worn out by the time they reached forty years." That was a

clear proof that they work against the laws of nature. I

thought to myself--Glory be to you, O Englishmen, you know

the Fourth Commandment; you know the value of the seventh

day, the day of rest!"]

As you pass through the country on Sundays, as on week-days, you see

the people toiling in the fields. And as dusk draws on, the dark

figures may be seen moving about so long as there is light to see by.

It is the peasants working the land, and it is _their own_. Such is

the "magical influence of property," said Arthur Young, when he

observed the same thing.

It is to be feared, however, that the French peasantry are afflicted

with the disease which Sir Walter Scott called the "earth-hunger;" and

there is danger of the gravel getting into their souls. Anyhow, their

continuous devotion to bodily labour, without a seventh day's rest,

cannot fail to exercise a deteriorating effect upon their physical as

well as their moral condition; and this we believe it is which gives

to the men, and especially to the women of the country, the look of a

prematurely old and overworked race.

CHAPTER II.

THE VALLEY OF THE ROMANCHE--BRIANCON.

The route from Grenoble to the frontier fortress of Briancon lies for

the most part up the valley of the Romanche, which presents a variety

of wild and beautiful scenery. In summer the river is confined within

comparatively narrow limits; but in autumn and spring it is often a

furious torrent, flooding the low-lying lands, and forcing for itself

new channels. The mountain heights which bound it, being composed for

the most part of schist, mica slate, and talcose slate, large masses

become detached in winter--split off by the freezing of the water

behind them--when they descend, on the coming of thaw, in terrible

avalanches of stone and mud. Sometimes the masses are such as to dam

up the river and form temporary lakes, until the accumulation of force

behind bursts the barrier, and a furious flood rushes down the valley.

By one of such floods, which occurred a few centuries since, through

the bursting of the hike of St. Laurent in the valley of the Romanche,

a large part of Grenoble was swept away, and many of the inhabitants

were drowned.

The valley of the Romanche is no sooner entered, a few miles above

Grenoble, than the mountains begin to close, the scenery becomes

wilder, and the fury of the torrent is evinced by the masses of debris

strewed along its bed. Shortly after passing the picturesque defile

called L'Etroit, where the river rushes through a deep cleft in the

rocks, the valley opens out again, and we shortly come in sight of the

ancient town of Vizille--the most prominent building in which is the

chateau of the famous Duc de Lesdiguieres, governor of the province in

the reign of Henry IV., and Constable of France in that of Louis XIII.

* * * * *

Wherever you go in Dauphiny, you come upon the footmarks of this great

soldier. At Grenoble there is the Constable's palace, now the

Prefecture; and the beautiful grounds adjoining it, laid out by

himself, are now the public gardens of the town. Between Grenoble and

Vizille there is the old road constructed by him, still known as "Le

chemin du Connetable." At St. Bonnet, in the valley of the Drac,

formerly an almost exclusively Protestant town, known as "the Geneva

of the High Alps," you are shown the house in which the Constable was

born; and a little lower down the same valley, in the commune of

Glaizil, on a hill overlooking the Drac, stand the ruins of the family

castle; where the Constable was buried. The people of the commune were

in the practice of carrying away the bones from the family vault,

believing them to possess some virtue as relics, until the prefect of

the High Alps ordered it to be walled up to prevent the entire removal

of the skeletons.

In the early part of his career, Lesdiguieres was one of the most

trusted chiefs of Henry of Navarre, often leading his Huguenot

soldiers to victory; capturing town after town, and eventually

securing possession of the entire province of Dauphiny, of which

Henry appointed him governor. In that capacity he carried out many

important public works--made roads, built bridges, erected fourteen

fortresses, and enlarged and beautified his palace at Grenoble and his

chateau at Vizille. He enjoyed great popularity during his life, and

was known throughout his province as "King of the Mountains." But he

did not continue staunch either to his party or his faith. As in the

case of many of the aristocratic leaders of those times, Lesdiguieres'

religion was only skin deep. It was but a party emblem--a flag to

fight under, not a faith to live by. So, when ambition tempted him,

and the Constable's baton dangled before his eyes, it cost the old

soldier but little compunction to abandon the cause which he had so

brilliantly served in his youth. To secure the prize which he so

coveted, he made public abjuration of his faith in the church, of St.

Andrew's at Grenoble in 1622, in the presence of the Marquis de

Crequi, the minister of Louis XIII., who, immediately after

Lesdiguieres' first mass, presented him with the Constable's baton.

But the Lesdiguieres family has long since passed away, and left no

traces. At the Revolution, the Constable's tomb was burst open, and

his coffin torn up. His monument was afterwards removed to Gap, which,

when a Huguenot, he had stormed and ravaged. His chateau at Vizille

passed through different hands, until in 1775 it came into the

possession of the Perier family, to which the celebrated Casimir

Perier belonged. The great Gothic hall of the chateau has witnessed

many strange scenes. In 1623, shortly after his investment as

Constable, Lesdiguieres entertained Louis XIII. and his court there,

while on his journey into Italy, in the course of which he so

grievously ravaged the Vaudois villages. In 1788, the Estates of

Dauphiny met there, and prepared the first bold remonstrance against

aristocratic privileges, and in favour of popular representation,

which, in a measure, proved the commencement of the great Revolution.

And there too, in 1822, Felix Neff preached to large congregations,

who were so anxious and attentive that he always after spoke of the

place as his "dear Vizille;" and now, to wind up the vicissitudes of

the great hall, it is used as a place for the printing of Bandana

handkerchiefs!

* * * * *

When Neff made his flying visits to Vizille, he was temporarily

stationed at Mens, which was the scene of his first labours in

Dauphiny. The place lies not far from Vizille, away among the

mountains towards the south. During the wars of religion, and more

especially after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Mens became a

place of refuge for the Protestants, who still form about one-half of

its population. Although, during the long dark period of religious

persecution which followed the Revocation, the Protestants of Mens and

the neighbouring villages did not dare to show themselves, and

worshipped, if at all, only in their dwellings, in secret, or in "the

Desert," no sooner did the Revolution set them at liberty than they

formed themselves again into churches, and appointed pastors; and it

was to serve them temporarily in that capacity that Felix Neff first

went amongst them, and laboured there and at Vizille with such good

effect.

* * * * *

Not far from Mens is a place which has made much more noise in the

world--no other than La Salette, the scene of the latest Roman

"miracle." La Salette is one of the side-valleys of the large valley

of the Drac, which joins the Romanche a few miles above Grenoble.

There is no village of La Salette, but a commune, which is somewhat

appropriately called La Salette-Fallavaux, the latter word being from

_fallax vallis_, or "the lying valley."

About twenty-seven years ago, on the 19th of September, 1846, two

children belonging to the hamlet of Abladens--the one a girl of

fourteen, the other a boy of twelve years old--came down from the

lofty pasturage of Mont Gargas, where they had been herding cattle,

and told the following strange story. They had seen the Virgin Mary

descend from heaven with a crucifix suspended from her neck by a gold

chain, and a hammer and pincers suspended from the chain, but without

any visible support. The figure sat down upon a large stone, and wept

so piteously as shortly to fill a large pool with her tears.

When the story was noised abroad, people came from all quarters, and

went up the mountain to see where the Virgin had sat. The stone was

soon broken off in chips and carried away as relics, but the fountain

filled with the tears is still there, tasting very much, like ordinary

spring water.

Two priests of Grenoble, disgusted at what they believed to be an

imposition, accused a young person of the neighbourhood, one Mdlle. de

Lamerliere, as being the real author of the pretended miracle, on

which she commenced an action against them for defamation of

character. She brought the celebrated advocate Jules Favre from Paris

to plead her cause, but the verdict was given in favour of the two

priests. The "miracle" was an imposture!

Notwithstanding this circumstance, the miracle came to be generally

believed in the neighbourhood. The number of persons who resorted to

the place with money in their pockets steadily increased. The question

was then taken up by the local priests, who vouched for the

authenticity of the miracle seen by the two children. The miracle was

next accepted by Rome.[100] A church was built on the spot by means of

the contributions of the visitors--L'Eglise de la Salette--and thither

pilgrims annually resort in great numbers, the more devout climbing

the hill, from station to station, on their knees. As many as four

thousand persons of both sexes, and of various ages, have been known

to climb the hill in one day--on the anniversary of the appearance of

the apparition--notwithstanding the extreme steepness and difficulties

of the ascent.

[Footnote 100: An authorised account was prepared by Cardinal

Wiseman for English readers, entitled "Manual of the

Association of our Lady of Reconciliation of La Salette," and

published as a tract by Burns, 17, Portman Street, in 1853.

Since I passed through the country in 1869, the Germans have

invaded France, the surrender has occurred at Sedan, the

Commune has been defeated at Paris, but Our Lady of La

Salette is greater than ever. A temple of enormous dimensions

has risen in her honour; the pilgrims number over 100,000

yearly, and the sale of the water from the Holy Well, said to

have sprung from the Virgin's tears, realises more than

L12,000. Since the success of La Salette, the Virgin has been

making repeated appearances in France. Her last appearance

was in a part of Alsace which is strictly Catholic. The

Virgin appeared, as usual, to a boy of the mature age of six,

"dressed in black, floating in the air, her hands bound with

chains,"--a pretty strong religio-political hint. When a

party of the 5th Bavarian Cavalry was posted in Bettweiler,

the Virgin ceased to make her appearance.]

* * * * *

As a pendant to this story, another may be given of an entirely

different character, relating to the inhabitants of another commune in

the same valley, about midway between La Salette and Grenoble. In

1860, while the discussion about the miracle at La Salette was still

in progress, the inhabitants of Notre-Dame-de-Comiers, dissatisfied

with the conduct of their cure, invited M. Fermaud, pastor of the

Protestant church at Grenoble, to come over and preach to them, as

they were desirous of embracing Protestantism. The pastor, supposing

that they were influenced by merely temporary irritation against their

cure, cautioned the deputation that waited upon him as to the gravity

of their decision in such a matter, and asked them to reflect further

upon it.

For several years M. Fermaud continued to maintain the same attitude,

until, in 1865, a formal petition was delivered to him by the mayor of

the place, signed by forty-three heads of families, and by nine out of

the ten members of the council of the commune, urging him to send them

over a minister of the evangelical religion. Even then he hesitated,

and recommended the memorialists to appeal to the bishop of the

diocese for redress of the wrongs of which he knew they complained,

but in vain, until at length, in the beginning of 1868, with the

sanction of the consistory of Grenoble a minister was sent over to

Comiers to perform the first acts of Protestant worship, including

baptism and marriage; and it was not until October in the same year

that Pastor Fermaud himself went thither to administer the sacrament

to the new church.

The service was conducted in the public hall of the commune, and was

attended by a large number of persons belonging to the town and

neighbourhood. The local clergy tried in vain to check the movement.

Quite recently, when the cure entered one of the schools to inscribe

the names of the children who were to attend their first mass, out of

fifteen of the proper age eleven answered to the interrogatory of the

priest, "Monsieur, nous sommes Protestantes." The movement has also

extended into the neighbouring communes, helped by the zeal of the new

converts, one of whom is known in the neighbourhood as "Pere la

Bible," and it is possible that before long it may even extend to La

Salette itself.

* * * * *

The route from Vizille up the valley of the Romanche continues hemmed

in by rugged mountains, in some places almost overhanging the river.

At Sechilienne it opens out sufficiently to afford space for a

terraced garden, amidst which stands a handsome chateau, flanked by

two massive towers, commanding a beautiful prospect down the valley.

The abundant water which rushes down from the mountain behind is

partly collected in a reservoir, and employed to feed a _jet d'eau_

which rises in a lofty column under the castle windows. Further up,

the valley again contracts, until the Gorge de Loiret is passed. The

road then crosses to the left bank, and used to be continued along it,

but the terrible torrent of 1868 washed it away for miles, and it has

not yet been reconstructed. Temporary bridges enable the route to be

pursued by the old road on the right bank, and after passing through

several hamlets of little interest, we arrive at length at the

cultivated plain hemmed in by lofty mountains, in the midst of which

Bourg d'Oisans lies seated.

This little plain was formerly occupied by the lake of St. Laurent,

formed by the barrier of rocks and debris which had tumbled down from

the flank of the Petite Voudene, a precipitous mountain escarpment

overhanging the river. At this place, the strata are laid completely

bare, and may be read like a book. For some distance along the valley

they exhibit the most extraordinary contortions and dislocations,

impressing the mind with the enormous natural forces that must have

been at work to occasion such tremendous upheavings and disruptions.

Elie de Beaumont, the French geologist, who has carefully examined the

district, says that at the Montagne d'Oisans he found the granite in

some places resting upon the limestone, cutting through the Calcareous

beds, rising like a wall and lapping over them.

On arriving at Bourg d'Oisans, we put up at the Hotel de Milan close

by the bridge; but though dignified with the name of hotel, it is only

a common roadside inn. Still, it is tolerably clean, and in summer the

want of carpets is not missed. The people were civil and attentive,

their bread wholesome, their pottage and bouilli good--being such fare

as the people of the locality contrive to live and thrive upon. The

accommodation of the place is, indeed, quite equal to the demand; for

very few travellers accustomed to a better style of living pass that

way. When the landlady was asked if many tourists had passed this

year, she replied, "Tourists! We rarely see such travellers here. You

are the first this season, and perhaps you may be the last."

Yet these valleys are well worthy of a visit, and an influx of

tourists would doubtless have the same effect that it has already had

in Switzerland and elsewhere, of greatly improving the hotel

accommodation throughout the district. There are many domestic

arrangements, costing very little money, but greatly ministering to

cleanliness and comfort, which might very readily be provided. But the

people themselves are indifferent to them, and they need the requisite

stimulus of "pressure from without." One of the most prominent

defects--common to all the inns of Dauphiny--having been brought

under the notice of the landlady, she replied, "C'est vrai, monsieur;

mais--il laisse quelque chose a desirer!" How neatly evaded! The very

defect was itself an advantage! What would life be--what would hotels

be--if there were not "something left to be desired!"

The view from the inn at the bridge is really charming. The little

river which runs down the valley, and becomes lost in the distance, is

finally fringed with trees--alder, birch, and chestnut. Ridge upon

ridge of mountain rises up behind on the right hand and the left, the

lower clothed with patches of green larch, and the upper with dark

pine. Above all are ranges of jagged and grey rocks, shooting up in

many places into lofty peaks. The setting sun, shining across the face

of the mountain opposite, brings out the prominent masses in bold

relief, while the valley beneath hovers between light and shadow,

changing almost from one second to another as the sun goes down. In

the cool of the evening, we walked through the fields across the

plain, to see the torrent, visible from the village, which rushes from

the rocky gorge on the mountain-side to join its waters to the

Romanche. All along the valleys, water abounds--sometimes bounding

from the heights, in jets, in rivulets, in masses, leaping from rock

to rock, and reaching the ground only in white clouds of spray, or, as

in the case of the little river which flows alongside the inn at the

bridge, bursting directly from the ground in a continuous spring;

these waterfalls, and streams, and springs being fed all the year

through by the immense glaciers that fill the hollows of the mountains

on either side the valley.

Though the scenery of Bourg d'Oisans is not, as its eulogists allege,

equal to that of Switzerland, it will at least stand a comparison

with that of Savoy. Its mountains are more precipitous and abrupt, its

peaks more jagged, and its aspect more savage and wild. The scenery of

Mont Pelvoux, which is best approached from Bourg d'Oisans, is

especially grand and sublime, though of a wild and desolate character.

The road from Bourg d'Oisans to Briancon also presents some

magnificent scenery; and there is one part of it that is not perhaps

surpassed even by the famous Via Mala leading up to the Spluegen. It is

about three miles above Bourg d'Oisans, from which we started early

next morning. There the road leaves the plain and enters the wild

gorge of Freney, climbing by a steep road up the Rampe des Commieres.

The view from the height when gained is really superb, commanding an

extremely bold and picturesque valley, hemmed in by mountains. The

ledges on the hillsides spread out in some places so as to afford

sufficient breadths for cultivation; occasional hamlets appear amidst

the fields and pine-woods; and far up, between you and the sky, an

occasional church spire peeps up, indicating still loftier

settlements, though how the people contrive to climb up to those

heights is a wonder to the spectator who views them from below.

The route follows the profile of the mountain, winding in and out

along its rugged face, scarped and blasted so as to form the road. At

one place it passes along a gallery about six hundred feet in length,

cut through a precipitous rock overhanging the river, which dashes,

roaring and foaming, more than a thousand feet below, through the

rocky abyss of the Gorge de l'Infernet. Perhaps there is nothing to be

seen in Switzerland finer of its kind than the succession of charming

landscapes which meet the eye in descending this pass.

Beyond the village of Freney we enter another defile, so narrow that

in places there is room only for the river and the road; and in winter

the river sometimes plays sad havoc with the engineer's constructions.

Above this gorge, the Romanche is joined by the Ferrand, an impetuous

torrent which comes down from the glaciers of the Grand Rousses.

Immediately over their point of confluence, seated on a lofty

promontory, is the village of Mizoen--a place which, because of the

outlook it commands, as well as because of its natural strength, was

one of the places in which the Vaudois were accustomed to take refuge

in the times of the persecutions. Further on, we pass through another

gallery in the rock, then across the little green valley of Chambon to

Le Dauphin, after which the scenery becomes wilder, the valley--here

called the Combe de Malaval (the "Cursed Valley")--rocky and sterile,

the only feature to enliven it being the Cascade de la Pisse, which

falls from a height of over six hundred feet, first in one jet, then

becomes split by a projecting rock into two, and finally reaches the

ground in a shower of spray. Shortly after we pass another cascade,

that of the Riftort, which also joins the Romanche, and marks the

boundary between the department of the Isere and that of the Hautes

Alpes, which we now enter.

More waterfalls--the Sau de la Pucelle, which falls from a height of

some two hundred and fifty feet, resembling the Staubbach--besides

rivulets without number, running down the mountain-sides like silver

threads; until we arrive at La Grave, a village about five thousand

feet above the sea-level, directly opposite the grand glaciers of

Tabuchet, Pacave, and Vallon, which almost overhang the Romanche,

descending from the steep slopes of the gigantic Aiguille du Midi, the

highest mountain in the French Alps,--being over 13,200 feet above

the level of the sea.

After resting some two hours at La Grave, we proceeded by the two

tunnels under the hamlet of Ventelong--one of which is 650 and the

other 1,800 feet long--to the village of Villard d'Arene, which,

though some five thousand feet above the level of the sea, is so

surrounded by lofty mountains that for months together the sun never

shines on it. From thence a gradual ascent leads up to the summit of

the Col de Lauteret, which divides the valley of the Romanche from

that of the Guisanne. The pastures along the mountain-side are of the

richest verdure; and so many rare and beautiful plants are found

growing there that M. Rousillon has described it as a "very botanical

Eden." Here Jean Jacques Rousseau delighted to herborize, and here the

celebrated botanist Mathonnet, originally a customs officer, born at

the haggard village of Villard d'Arene, which we have just passed,

cultivated his taste for natural history, and laid the foundations of

his European reputation. The variety of temperature which exists along

the mountain-side, from the bottom to the summit, its exposure to the

full rays of the sun in some places, and its sheltered aspect in

others, facilitate the growth of an extraordinary variety of beautiful

plants and wild flowers. In the low grounds meridional plants

flourish; on the middle slopes those of genial climates; while on the

summit are found specimens of the flora of Lapland and Greenland. Thus

almost every variety of flowers is represented in this brilliant

natural garden--orchids, cruciferae, leguminae, rosaceae, caryophyllae,

lilies of various kinds, saxifrages, anemones, ranunculuses, swertia,

primula, varieties of the sedum, some of which are peculiar to this

mountain, and are elsewhere unknown.

After passing the Hospice near the summit of the Col, the valley of

the Guisanne comes in sight, showing a line of bare and rugged

mountains on the right hand and on the left, with a narrow strip of

land in the bottom, in many parts strewn with stones carried down by

the avalanches from the cliffs above. Shortly we come in sight of the

distant ramparts of Briancon, apparently closing in the valley, the

snow-clad peak of Monte Viso rising in the distance. Halfway between

the Col and Briancon we pass through the village of Monestier, where,

being a saint's day, the bulk of the population are in the street,

holding festival. The place was originally a Roman station, and the

people still give indications of their origin, being extremely

swarthy, black-haired, and large-eyed, evidently much more Italian

than French.

But though the villagers of Monestier were taking holiday, no one can

reproach them with idleness. Never was there a more hard-working

people than the peasantry of these valleys. Every little patch of

ground that the plough or spade can be got into is turned to account.

The piles of stone and rock collected by the sides of the fields

testify to the industry of the people in clearing the soil for

culture. And their farming is carried on in the face of difficulties

and discouragements of no ordinary character, for sometimes the soil

of many of the little farms will be swept away in a night by an

avalanche of snow in winter or of stones in spring. The wrecks of

fields are visible all along the valley, especially at its upper part.

Lower down it widens, and affords greater room for culture; the sides

of the mountains become better wooded; and, as we approach the

fortress of Briancon, with its battlements seemingly piled one over

the other up the mountain-sides, the landscape becomes exceedingly

bold and picturesque.

When passing the village of Villeneuve la Salle, a few miles from

Briancon, we were pointed to a spot on the opposite mountain-side,

over the pathway leading to the Col de l'Echuada, where a cavern was

discovered a few years since, which, upon examination, was found to

contain a considerable quantity of human bones. It was one of the

caves in which the hunted Vaudois were accustomed to take refuge

during the persecutions; and it continued to be called by the

peasantry "La Roche armee"--the name being thus perpetuated, though

the circumstances in which it originated had been forgotten.

The fortress of Briancon, which we entered by a narrow winding roadway

round the western rampart, is the frontier fortress which guards the

pass from Italy into France by the road over Mont Genevre. It must

always have been a strong place by nature, overlooking as it does the

valley of the Durance on the one hand, and the mountain road from

Italy on the other, while the river Clairee, running in a deep defile,

cuts it off from the high ground to the south and east. The highest

part of the town is the citadel, or Fort du Chateau, built upon a peak

of rock on the site of the ancient castle. It was doubtless the

nucleus round which the early town became clustered, until it filled

the lower plateau to the verge of the walls and battlements. There

being no room for the town to expand, the houses are closely packed

together and squeezed up, as it were, so as to occupy the smallest

possible space. The streets are narrow, dark, gloomy, and steep, being

altogether impassable for carriages. The liveliest sight in the place

is a stream of pure water, that rushes down an open conduit in the

middle of the principal street, which is exceedingly steep and narrow.

The town is sacrificed to the fortifications, which dominate

everywhere. With the increasing range and power of cannon, they have

been extended in all directions, until they occupy the flanks of the

adjoining mountains and many of their summits, so that the original

castle now forms but a comparatively insignificant part of the

fortress. The most important part of the population is the

soldiery--the red-trousered missionaries of "civilisation," according

to the gospel of Louis Napoleon, published a short time before our

visit.

Other missionaries, are, however, at work in the town and

neighbourhood; and both at Briancon and Villeneuve Protestant stations

have been recently established, under the auspices of the Protestant

Society of Lyons. In former times, the population of Briancon included

a large number of Protestants. In the year 1575, three years after the

massacre of St. Bartholomew, they were so numerous and wealthy as to

be able to build a handsome temple, almost alongside the cathedral,

and it still stands there in the street called Rue du Temple, with the

motto over the entrance, in old French, "Cerches et vos troveres." But

at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the temple was seized by the

King and converted into a granary, and the Protestants of the place

were either executed, banished, or forced to conform to the Papal

religion. Since then the voice of Protestantism has been mute in

Briancon until within the last few years, during which a mission has

been in operation. Some of the leading persons in the town have

embraced the Reform faith, amongst others the professor of literature

in the public college; but he had no sooner acknowledged to the

authorities the fact of his conversion, than he was dismissed from his

office, though he has since been appointed to a more important

profession at Nice. The number of members is, however, as yet very

small, and the mission has to contend with limited means, and to carry

on its operations in the face of many obstructions and difficulties.

* * * * *

What are the prospects of the extension of Protestantism in France?

Various answers have been given to the question. Some think that the

prevailing dissensions among French Protestants interpose a serious

barrier in the way of progress. Others, more hopeful, think, that

these divisions are only the indications of renewed life and vigour,

of the friction of mind with mind, which evinces earnestness, and

cannot fail to lead to increased activity and effort. The observations

of a young Protestant pastor on this point are worth repeating.

"Protestantism," said he, "is based on individualism: it recognises

the free action of the human mind; and so long as the mind acts freely

there will be controversy. The end of controversy is death. True,

there is much incredulity abroad; but the incredulity is occasioned by

the incredibilities of Popery. Let the ground once be cleared by free

inquiry, and our Church will rise up amidst the ruins of superstition

and unbelief, for man _must_ have religion; only it must be consistent

with reason on the one hand, and with Divine revelation on the other.

I for one do not fear the fullest and freest inquiry, having the most

perfect confidence in the triumph of the truth."

It is alleged by others that the bald form in which Protestantism is

for the most part presented abroad, is not conformable with the

"genius" of the men of Celtic and Latin race. However this may be, it

is too generally the case that where Frenchmen, like Italians and

Spaniards, throw off Roman Catholicism, they do not stop at rejecting

its superstitions, but reject religion itself. They find no

intermediate standpoint in Protestantism, but fly off into the void of

utter unbelief. The same tendency characterizes them in politics. They

seem to oscillate between Caesarism and Red Republicanism; aiming not

at reform so much as revolution. They are averse to any _via media_.

When they have tried constitutionalism, they have broken down. So it

has been with Protestantism, the constitutionalism of Christianity.

The Huguenots at one time constituted a great power in France; but

despotism in politics and religion proved too strong for them, and

they were persecuted, banished, and stamped for a time out of

existence, or at least out of sight.

Protestantism was more successful in Germany. Was it because it was

more conformable to the "genius" of its people? When the Germans

"protested" against the prevailing corruptions in the Church, they did

not seek to destroy it, but to reform it. They "stood upon the old

ways," and sought to make them broader, straighter, and purer. They

have pursued the same course in politics. Cooler and less impulsive

than their Gallican neighbours, they have avoided revolutions, but are

constantly seeking reforms. Of this course England itself furnishes a

notable example.

It is certainly a remarkable fact, that the stronghold of

Protestantism in France was recently to be found among the population

of Germanic origin seated along the valley of the Rhine; whereas in

the western districts Protestantism is split up by the two

irreconcilable parties of Evangelicals and Rationalists. At the same

time it should be borne in mind that Alsace did not become part of

France until the year 1715, and that the Lutherans of that province

were never exposed to the ferocious persecutions to which the

Evangelical Protestants of Old France were subjected, before as well

as after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

In Languedoc, in Dauphiny, and in the southern provinces generally,

men and women who professed Protestantism were liable to be hanged or

sent to the galleys, down to nearly the end of the last century. A

Protestant pastor who exercised his vocation did so at the daily peril

of his life. Nothing in the shape of a Protestant congregation was

permitted to exist, and if Protestants worshipped together, it was in

secret, in caves, in woods, among the hills, or in the "Desert." Yet

Protestantism nevertheless contrived to exist through this long dark

period of persecution, and even to increase. And when at length it

became tolerated, towards the close of the last century, the numbers

of its adherents appeared surprising to those who had imagined it to

be altogether extinct.

Indeed, looking at the persistent efforts made by Louis XIV. to

exterminate the Huguenots, and to the fact that many hundred thousand

of the best of them emigrated into foreign countries, while an equal

number are supposed to have perished in prison, on the scaffold, at

the galleys, and in their attempts to escape, it may almost be

regarded as matter of wonder that the Eglise Reformee--the Church of

the old Huguenots--should at the present day number about a thousand

congregations, besides the five hundred Lutheran congregations of

Alsatia, and that the Protestants of France should amount, in the

whole, to about two millions of souls.

CHAPTER III.

VAL LOUISE--HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF.

Some eight miles south of Briancon, on the road to Fort Dauphin, a

little river called the Gyronde comes down from the glaciers of Mont

Pelvoux, and falls into the Durance nearly opposite the village of La

Bessie. This river flows through Val Louise, the entrance into which

can be discerned towards the northwest. Near the junction of the

rivers, the ruins of an embattled wall, with entrenchments, are

observed extending across the valley of the Durance, a little below

the narrow pass called the "Pertuis-Rostan," evidently designed to

close it against an army advancing from the south. The country people

still call those ruins the "Walls of the Vaudois;"[101] and according

to tradition a great Vaudois battle was fought there; but of any such

battle history makes no mention.

[Footnote 101: A gap in the mountain-wall to the left, nearly

over La Bessie, is still known as "La Porte de Hannibal,"

through which, it is conjectured, that general led his army.

But opinion, which is much divided as to the route he took,

is more generally in favour of his marching up the Isere, and

passing into Italy by the Little St. Bernard.]

Indeed, so far as can be ascertained, the Vaudois of Dauphiny rarely

if ever fought battles. They were too few in number, too much

scattered among the mountains, and too poor and ill-armed, to be able

to contend against the masses of disciplined soldiery that were

occasionally sent into the valleys. All that they did was to watch,

from their mountain look-outs, their enemies' approach, and hide

themselves in caves; or flee up to the foot of the glaciers till they

had passed by. The attitude of the French Vaudois was thus for the

most part passive; and they very rarely, like the Italian Vaudois,

offered any determined or organized resistance to persecution. Hence

they have no such heroic story to tell of battles and sieges and

victories. Their heroism was displayed in patience, steadfastness, and

long-suffering, rather than in resisting force by force; and they were

usually ready to endure death in its most frightful forms rather than

prove false to their faith.

The ancient people of these valleys formed part of the flock of the

Archbishop of Embrun. But history exhibits him as a very cruel

shepherd. Thus, in 1335, there appears this remarkable entry in the

accounts current of the bailli of Embrun: "Item, for persecuting the

Vaudois, eight sols and thirty deniers of gold," as if the persecution

of the Vaudois had become a regular department of the public service.

What was done with the Vaudois when they were seized and tried at

Embrun further appears from the records of the diocese. In 1348,

twelve of the inhabitants of Val Louise were strangled at Embrun by

the public executioner; and in 1393, a hundred and fifty inhabitants

of the same valley were burned alive at the same place by order of the

Inquisitor Borelli. But the most fatal of all the events that befell

the inhabitants of Val Louise was that which occurred about a century

later, in 1488, when nearly the whole of the remaining population of

the valley were destroyed in a cavern near the foot of Mont Pelvoux.

This dreadful massacre was perpetrated by a French army, under the

direction of Albert Catanee, the papal legate. The army had been sent

into Piedmont with the object of subjugating or destroying the Vaudois

on the Italian side of the Alps, but had returned discomfited to

Briancon, unable to effect their object. The legate then determined to

take his revenge by an assault upon the helpless and unarmed French

Vaudois, and suddenly directed his soldiers upon the valleys of

Fressinieres and Louise. The inhabitants of the latter valley,

surprised, and unable to resist an army of some twenty thousand men,

abandoned their dwellings, and made for the mountains with all haste,

accompanied by their families, and driving their flocks before them.

On the slope of Mont Pelvoux, about a third of the way up, there was

formerly a great cavern, on the combe of Capescure, called La

Balme-Chapelle--though now nearly worn away by the disintegration of

the mountain-side--in which the poor hunted people contrived to find

shelter. They built up the approaches to the cavern, filled the

entrance with rocks, and considered themselves to be safe. But their

confidence proved fatal to them. The Count La Palud, who was in

command of the troops, seeing that it was impossible to force the

entrance, sent his men up the mountain provided with ropes; and fixing

them so that they should hang over the mouth of the cavern, a number

of the soldiers slid down in full equipment, landing on the ledge

right in front of the concealed Vaudois. Seized with a sudden panic,

and being unarmed, many of them precipitated themselves over the rocks

and were killed. The soldiers slaughtered all whom they could reach,

after which they proceeded to heap up wood at the cavern mouth which

they set on fire, and thus suffocated the remainder. Perrin says four

hundred children were afterwards found in the cavern, stifled, in the

arms of their dead mothers, and that not fewer than three thousand

persons were thus ruthlessly destroyed. The little property of the

slaughtered peasants was ordered by the Pope's legate to be divided

amongst the vagabonds who had carried out his savage orders. The

population having been thus exterminated, the district was settled

anew some years later, in the reign of Louis XII., who gave his name

to the valley; and a number of "good and true Catholics," including

many goitres and idiots,[102] occupied the dwellings and possessed the

lands of the slaughtered Vaudois. There is an old saying that "the

blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," but assuredly it does

not apply to Val Louise, where the primitive Christian Church has been

completely extinguished.

[Footnote 102: It has been noted that these unfortunates

abound most in the villages occupied by the new settlers.

Thus, of the population of the village of St. Crepin, in the

valley of the Durance, not fewer than one-tenth are deaf and

dumb, with a large proportion of idiots.]

There were other valleys in the same neighbourhood, whither we are now

wending, where the persecution, though equally ferocious, proved less

destructive; the inhabitants succeeding in making their escape into

comparatively inaccessible places in the mountains before they could

be put to the sword. For instance, in Val Fressinieres--also opening

into the valley of the Durance a little lower down than Val

Louise--the Vaudois Church has never ceased to exist, and to this day

the majority of the inhabitants belong to it. From the earliest times

the people of the valley were distinguished for their "heresy;" and as

early as the fourteenth century eighty persons of Fressinieres and

the neighbouring valley of Argentieres,--willing to be martyrs rather

than apostates,--were burnt at Embrun because of their religion. In

the following century (1483) we find ninety-nine informations laid

before John Lord Archbishop of Embrun against supposed heretics of Val

Fressinieres. The suspected were ordered to wear a cross upon their

dress, before and behind, and not to appear at church without

displaying such crosses. But it further appears from the records,

that, instead of wearing the crosses, most of the persons so informed

against fled into the mountains and hid themselves away in caves for

the space of five years.

The nest steps taken by the Archbishop are described in a Latin

manuscript,[103] of which the following is a translation:--

"Also, that in consequence of the above, the monk Francis

Splireti, of the order of Mendicants, Professor in Theology, was

deputed in the quality of Inquisitor of the said valleys; and

that in the year 1489, on the 1st of January, knowing that those

of Freyssinier had relapsed into infamous heresy, and had not

obeyed their orders, nor carried the cross on their dress, but on

the contrary had received their excommunicated and banished

brethren without delivering them over to the Church, sent to them

new citation, to which not having appeared, an adjournment of

their condemnation as hardened heretics, when their goods would

be confiscated, and themselves handed over the secular power, was

made to the 28th of June; but they remaining more obstinate than

ever, so much so that no hope remains of bringing them back, all

persons were forbidden to hold any communication whatsoever with

them without permission of the Church, and it was ordered by the

Procureur Fiscal that the aforesaid Inquisitor do proceed,

without further notice, to the execution of his office."

[Footnote 103: This was one of the MSS deposited by Samuel

Morland (Oliver Cromwell's ambassador to Piedmont) at

Cambridge in 1658, and is quoted by Jean Leger in his History

of the Vaudois Churches.]

What the execution of the Inquisitor's office meant, is, alas! but too

well known. Bonds and imprisonment, scourgings and burnings at Embrun.

The poor people appealed to the King of France for help against their

persecutors, but in vain. In 1498 the inhabitants of Fressinieres

appeared by a procurator at Paris, on the occasion of the new

sovereign, Louis XII., ascending the throne. But as the King was then

seeking the favour of a divorce from his wife, Anne of Brittany, from

Pope Alexander VI., he turned a deaf ear to their petition for mercy.

On the contrary, Louis confirmed all the decisions of the clergy, and

in return for the divorce which he obtained, he granted to the Pope's

son, the infamous Caesar Borgia, that very part of Dauphiny inhabited

by the Vaudois, together with the title of Duke of Valentinois. They

had appealed, as it were, to the tiger for mercy, and they were

referred to the vulture.

The persecution of the people of the valleys thus suffered no

relaxation, and all that remained for them was flight into the

mountains, to places where they were most likely to remain unmolested.

Hence they fled up to the very edge of the glaciers, and formed their

settlements at almost the farthest limits of vegetation. There the

barrenness of the soil, the inhospitality of the climate, and the

comparative inaccessibility of their villages, proved their security.

Of them it might be truly said, that they "wandered about in

sheepskins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of

whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts and in

mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Yet the character of

these poor peasants was altogether irreproachable. Even Louis XII.

said of them, "Would to God that I were as good a Christian as the

worst of these people!" The wonder is that, in the face of their

long-continued persecutions, extending over so many centuries, any

remnant of the original population of the valleys should have been

preserved. Long after the time of Louis XII. and Caesar Borgia, the

French historian, De Thou (writing in 1556), thus describes the people

of Val Fressinieres: "Notwithstanding their squalidness, it is

surprising that they are very far from being uncultivated in their

morals. They almost all understand Latin; and are able to write fairly

enough. They understand also as much of French as will enable them to

read the Bible and to sing psalms; nor would you easily find a boy

among them who, if he were questioned as to the religious opinions

which they hold in common with the Waldenses, would not be able to

give from memory a reasonable account of them."[104]

[Footnote 104: De Thou's History, book xxvii.]

After the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, the Vaudois enjoyed a

brief respite from their sufferings. They then erected temples,

appointed ministers, and worshipped openly. This, however, only lasted

for a short time, and when the Edict was revoked, and persecution

began again, in the reign of Louis XIV., their worship was suppressed

wherever practicable. But though the Vaudois temples were pulled down

and their ministers banished, the Roman Catholics failed to obtain a

footing in the valley. Some of the pastors continued to brave the fury

of the persecutors, and wandered about from place to place among the

scattered flocks, ministering to them at the peril of their lives.

Rewards were offered for their apprehension, and a sort of "Hue and

Cry" was issued by the police, describing their age, and height, and

features, as if they had been veritable criminals. And when they were

apprehended they were invariably hanged. As late as 1767 the

parliament of Grenoble condemned their pastor Berenger to death for

continuing to preach to congregations in the "Desert."

This religious destitution of the Vaudois continued to exist until a

comparatively recent period. The people were without either pastors or

teachers, and religion had become a tradition with them rather than an

active living faith. Still, though poor and destitute, they held to

their traditional belief, and refused to conform to the dominant

religion. And so they continued until within the last forty years,

when the fact of the existence of these remnants of the ancient

Vaudois in the valleys of the High Alps came to the knowledge of Felix

Neff, and he determined to go to their help and devote himself to

their service.

* * * * *

One would scarcely expect to find the apostle of the High Alps in the

person of a young Swiss soldier of artillery. Yet so it was. In his

boyhood, Neff read Plutarch, which filled his mind with admiration of

the deeds of the great men of old. While passing through the soldier

phase of his career the "Memoirs of Oberlin" accidentally came under

his notice, the perusal of which gave quite a new direction to his

life. Becoming impressed by religion, his ambition now was to be a

missionary. Leaving the army, in which he had reached the rank of

sergeant at nineteen, he proceeded to prepare himself for the

ministry, and after studying for a time, and passing his preliminary

examinations, he was, in conformity with the custom of the Geneva

Church, employed on probation as a lay helper in parochial work. In

this capacity Neff first went to Mens, in the department of Isere,

where he officiated in the absence of the regular pastor, as well as

occasionally at Vizille, for a period of about two years.

It was while residing at Mens that the young missionary first heard of

the existence of the scattered communities of primitive Christians on

the High Alps, descendants of the ancient Vaudois; and his mind became

inflamed with the desire of doing for them what Oberlin had done for

the poor Protestants of the Ban de la Roche. "I am always dreaming of

the High Alps," he wrote to a friend, "and I would rather be stationed

there than under the beautiful sky of Languedoc."

But it was first necessary that he should receive ordination for the

ministry; and accordingly in 1823, when in his twenty-fifth year, he

left Mens with that object. He did not, however, seek ordination by

the National Church of Geneva, which, in his opinion, had in a great

measure ceased to hold Evangelical truth; but he came over to London,

at the invitation of Mr. Cook and Mr. Wilks, two Congregational

ministers, by whom he was duly ordained a minister in the Independent

Chapel, Poultry.

Shortly after his return to France, Neff, much to his own

satisfaction, was invited as pastor to the very district in which he

so much desired to minister--the most destitute in the High Alps.

Before setting out he wrote in his journal, "To-morrow, with the

blessing of God, I mean to push for the Alps by the sombre and

picturesque valley of L'Oisan." After a few days, the young pastor was

in the scene of his future labours; and he proceeded to explore hamlet

after hamlet in search of the widely-scattered flock committed to his

charge, and to arrange his plans for the working of his extensive

parish.

But it was more than a parish, for it embraced several of the most

extensive, rugged, and mountainous arrondissements of the High Alps.

Though the whole number of people in his charge did not amount to more

than six or seven hundred, they lived at great distances from each

other, the churches to which he ministered being in some cases as much

as eighty miles apart, separated by gorges and mountain-passes, for

the most part impassable in winter. Neff's district extended in one

direction from Vars to Briancon, and in another from Champsaur in the

valley of the Drac to San Veran on the slope of Monte Viso, close to

the Italian frontier. His residence was fixed at La Chalp, above

Queyras, but as he rarely slept more than three nights in one place,

he very seldom enjoyed its seclusion.

The labour which Neff imposed upon himself was immense; and it was

especially in the poorest and most destitute districts that he worked

the hardest. He disregarded alike the summer's heat and the winter's

cold. His first visit to Dormilhouse, in Val Fressinieres, was made in

January, when the mountain-paths were blocked with ice and snow; but,

assembling the young men of the village, he went out with them armed

with hatchets, and cut steps in the ice to enable the worshippers from

the lower hamlets to climb up to service in the village church. The

people who first came to hear him preach at Violens brought wisps of

straw with them, which they lighted to guide them through the snow,

while others, who had a greater distance to walk, brought pine

torches.

Nothing daunted, the valiant soldier, furnished with a stout staff and

shod with heavy-nailed shoes, covered with linen socks to prevent

slipping on the snow, would set out with his wallet on his back across

the Col d'Orcieres in winter, in the track of the lynx and the

chamois, with the snow and sleet beating against his face, to visit

his people on the other side of the mountain. His patience, his

perseverance, his sweetness of temper, were unfailing. "Ah!" said one

unbelieving Thomas of Val Fressinieres in his mountain patois, "you

have come among us like a woman who attempts to kindle a fire with

green wood; she exhausts her breath in blowing it to keep the little

flame alive, but the moment she quits it, it is instantly

extinguished."

Neff nevertheless laboured on with hope, and neither discouragement

nor obstruction slackened his efforts. And such labours could not fail

of their effect. He succeeded in inspiring the simple mountaineers

with his own zeal, he evoked their love, and excited their

enthusiastic admiration. When he returned to Dormilhouse after a brief

absence, the whole village would turn out and come down the mountain

to meet and embrace him. "The rocks, the cascades, nay, the very

glaciers," he wrote to a friend, "all seemed animated, and presented a

smiling aspect; the savage country became agreeable and dear to me

from the moment its inhabitants were my brethren."

Unresting and indefatigable, Neff was always at work. He exhorted the

people in hovels, held schools in barns in which he taught the

children, and catechised them in stables. His hand was in every good

work. He taught the people to sing, he taught them to read, he taught

them to pray. To be able to speak to them familiarly, he learnt their

native patois, and laboured at it like a schoolboy. He worked as a

missionary among savages. The poor mountaineers had been so long

destitute of instruction, that everything had as it were to be begun

with them from the beginning. Sharing in their hovels and stables,

with their squalor and smoke, he taught them how to improve them by

adding chimneys and windows, and showed how warmth might be obtained

more healthfully than by huddling together in winter-time with the

cattle. He taught them manners, and especially greater respect for

women, inculcating the lesson by his own gentleness and tender

deference. Out of doors, he showed how they might till the ground to

greater advantage, and introduced an improved culture of the potato,

which more than doubled the production. Observing how the pastures of

Dormilhouse were scorched by the summer sun, he urged the adoption of

a system of irrigation. The villagers were at first most obstinate in

their opposition to his plans; but he persevered, laid out a canal,

and succeeded at last in enlisting a body of workmen, whom he led out,

pickaxe in hand, himself taking a foremost part in the work; and at

last the waters were let into the canal amidst joy and triumph. At

Violens he helped to build and finish the chapel, himself doing

mason-work, smith-work, and carpenter-work by turns. At Dormilhouse a

school was needed, and he showed the villagers how to build one;

preparing the design, and taking part in the erection, until it was

finished and ready for use. In short, he turned his hand to

everything--nothing was too high or too low for this noble citizen of

two worlds. At length, a serious accident almost entirely disabled

him. While on one of his mountain journeys, he was making a detour

amongst a mass of rocky debris, to avoid the dangers of an avalanche,

when he had the misfortune to fall and severely sprain his knee. He

became laid up for a time, and when able to move, he set out for his

mother's home at Geneva, in the hope of recovering health and

strength; for his digestive powers were also by this time seriously

injured. When he went away, the people of the valleys felt as if they

should never see him more; and their sorrow at his departure was

heart-rending. After trying the baths of Plombieres without effect, he

proceeded onwards to Geneva, which he reached only to die; and thus

this good and noble soldier--one of the bravest of earth's

heroes--passed away to his eternal reward at the early age of

thirty-one.

* * * * *

The valley of Fressinieres--the principle scene of Neff's

labours--joins the valley of the Durance nearly opposite the little

hamlet of La Roche. There we leave the high road from Briancon to Fort

Dauphin, and crossing the river by a timber bridge, ascend the steep

mountain-side by a mule path, in order to reach the entrance to the

valley of Fressinieres, the level of which is high above that of the

Durance. Not many years since, the higher valley could only be

approached from this point by a very difficult mountain-path amidst

rocks and stones, called the Ladder, or Pas de l'Echelle. It was

dangerous at all times, and quite impassable in winter. The mule-path

which has lately been made, though steep, is comparatively easy.

What the old path was, and what were the discomforts of travelling

through this district in Neff's time, may be appreciated on a perusal

of the narrative of the young pastor Bost, who in 1840 determined to

make a sort of pilgrimage to the scenes of his friend's labours some

seventeen years before. M. Bost, however, rather exaggerates the

difficulties and discomforts of the valleys than otherwise. He saw no

beauty nor grandeur in the scenery, only "horrible mountains in a

state of dissolution" and constantly ready to fall upon the heads of

massing travellers. He had no eyes for the picturesque though gloomy

lake of La Roche, but saw only the miserable hamlet itself. He slept

in the dismal little inn, as doubtless Neff had often done before, and

was horrified by the multitudinous companions that shared his bed;

and, tumbling out, he spent the rest of the night on the floor. The

food was still worse--cold _cafe noir_, and bread eighteen months old,

soaked in water before it could be eaten. His breakfast that morning

made him ill for a week. Then his mounting up the Pas de l'Echelle,

which he did not climb "without profound emotion," was a great trouble

to him. Of all this we find not a word in the journals or letters of

Neff, whose early life as a soldier had perhaps better inured him to

"roughing it" than the more tender bringing-up of Pastor Bost.

As we rounded the shoulder of the hill, almost directly overlooking

the ancient Roman town of Rama in the valley of the Durance

underneath, we shortly came in sight of the little hamlet of Palons, a

group of "peasants' nests," overhung by rocks, with the one good house

in it, the comfortable parsonage of the Protestant pastor, situated at

the very entrance to the valley. Although the peasants' houses which

constitute the hamlet of Palons are still very poor and miserable, the

place has been greatly improved since Neff's time, by the erection of

the parsonage. It was found that the pastors who were successively

appointed to minister to the poor congregations in the valley very

soon became unfitted for their work by the hardships to which they

were exposed; and being without any suitable domestic accommodation,

one after another of them resigned their charge.

To remedy this defect, a movement was begun in 1852 by the Rev. Mr.

Freemantle, rector of Claydon, Bucks, assisted by the Foreign Aid

Society and a few private friends, with the object of providing

pastors' dwellings, as well as chapels when required, in the more

destitute places. The movement has already been attended with

considerable success; and among its first results was the erection in

1857 of the comfortable parsonage of Palons, the large lower room of

which also serves the purpose of a chapel. The present incumbent is M.

Charpiot, of venerable and patriarchal aspect, whose white hairs are a

crown of glory--a man beloved by his extensive flock, for his parish

embraces the whole valley, about twelve miles in extent, including the

four villages of Ribes, Violens, Minsals, and Dormilhouse; other

pastors having been appointed of late years to the more distant

stations included in the original widely-scattered charge of Felix

Neff.

The situation of the parsonage and adjoining grounds at Palons is

charmingly picturesque. It stands at the entrance to the defile which

leads into Val Fressinieres, having a background of bold rocks

enclosing a mountain plateau known as the "Camp of Catinat," a

notorious persecutor of the Vaudois. In front of the parsonage extends

a green field planted with walnut and other trees, part of which is

walled off as the burying-ground of the hamlet. Alongside, in a deep

rocky gully, runs the torrent of the Biasse, leaping from rock to rock

on its way to the valley of the Durance, far below. This fall, or

cataract, is not inappropriately named the "Gouffouran," or roaring

gulf; and its sullen roar is heard all through the night in the

adjoining parsonage. The whole height of the fall, as it tumbles from

rock to rock, is about four hundred and fifty feet; and about halfway

down, the water shoots into a deep, dark cavern, where it becomes

completely lost to sight.

The inhabitants of the hamlet are a poor hard-working people, pursuing

their industry after very primitive methods. Part of the Biasse, as it

issues from the defile, is turned aside here and there to drive little

fulling-mills of the rudest construction, where the people "waulk" the

cloth of their own making. In the adjoining narrow fields overhanging

the Gouffouran, where the ploughs are at work, the oxen are yoked to

them in the old Roman fashion, the pull being by a bar fixed across

the animals' foreheads.

In the neighbourhood of Palons, as at various other places in the

valley, there are numerous caverns which served by turns in early

times as hiding-places and as churches, and which were not

unfrequently consecrated by the Vaudois with their blood. One of these

is still known as the "Glesia," or "Eglise." Its opening is on the

crest of a frightful precipice, but its diameter has of late years

been considerably reduced by the disintegration of the adjoining rock.

Neff once took Captain Cotton up to see it, and chanted the _Te Deum_

in the rude temple with great emotion.

Palons is, perhaps, the most genial and fertile spot in the valley; it

looks like a little oasis in the desert. Indeed, Neff thought the soil

of the place too rich for the growth of piety. "Palons," said he in

his journal, "is more fertile than the rest of the valley, and even

produces wine: the consequence is, that there is less piety here."

Neff even entertained the theory that the poorer the people the

greater was their humility and fervour, and the less their selfishness

and spiritual pride. Thus, he considered "the fertility of the commune

of Champsaur, and its proximity to the high road and to Gap, great

stumbling-blocks." The loftiest, coldest, and most barren spots--such

as San Veran and Dormilhouse--were, in his opinion, by far the most

promising. Of the former he said, "It is the highest, and consequently

the most pious, village in the valley of Queyras;" and of the

inhabitants of the latter he said, "From the first moment of my

arrival I took them to my heart, and I ardently desired to be unto

them even as another Oberlin."

CHAPTER IV.

THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSE.

The valley of Fressinieres could never have maintained a large

population. Though about twelve miles in extent, it contains a very

small proportion of arable land--only a narrow strip, of varying

width, lying in the bottom, with occasional little patches of

cultivated ground along the mountain-sides, where the soil has settled

on the ledges, the fields seeming in many cases to hang over

precipices. At the upper end of the valley, the mountains come down so

close to the river Biasse that no space is left for cultivation, and

the slopes are so rocky and abrupt as to be unavailable even for

pasturage, excepting of goats.

Yet the valley seems never to have been without a population, more or

less numerous according to the rigour of the religious persecutions

which prevailed in the neighbourhood. Its comparative inaccessibility,

its inhospitable climate, and its sterility, combined to render it one

of the most secure refuges of the Vaudois in the Middle Ages. It could

neither be easily entered by an armed force, nor permanently occupied

by them. The scouts on the hills overlooking the Durance could always

see their enemies approach, and the inhabitants were enabled to take

refuge in caves in the mountain-sides, or flee to the upper parts of

the valley, before the soldiers could clamber up the steep Pas de

l'Echelle, and reach the barricaded defile through which the Biasse

rushes down the rocky gorge of the Gouffouran. When the invaders

succeeded in penetrating this barrier, they usually found the hamlets

deserted and the people fled. They could then only wreak their

vengeance on the fields, which they laid waste, and on the dwellings,

which they burned; and when the "brigands" had at length done their

worst and departed, the poor people crept back to their ruined homes

to pray, amidst their ashes, for strength to enable them to bear the

heavy afflictions which they were thus called upon to suffer for

conscience' sake.

The villages in the lower part of the valley were thus repeatedly

ravaged and destroyed. But far up, at its extremest point, a difficult

footpath led, across the face almost of a precipice, which the

persecutors never ventured to scale, to the hamlet of Dormilhouse,

seated on a few ledges of rock on a lofty mountain-side, five thousand

feet above the level of the sea; and this place, which was for

centuries a mountain fastness of the persecuted, remains a Vaudois

settlement to this day.

An excursion to this interesting mountain hamlet having been arranged,

our little party of five persons set out for the place on the morning

of the 1st of July, under the guidance of Pastor Charpiot. Though the

morning was fine and warm, yet, as the place of our destination was

situated well up amongst the clouds, we were warned to provide

ourselves with umbrellas and waterproofs, nor did the provision prove

in vain. We were also warned that there was an utter want of

accommodation for visitors at Dormilhouse, for which we must be

prepared. The words scratched on the window of the Norwegian inn

might indeed apply to it: "Here the stranger may find very good

entertainment--_provided he bring it with him_!" We accordingly

carried our entertainment with us, in the form of a store of blankets,

bread, chocolate, and other articles, which, with the traveller's

knapsacks, were slung across the back of a donkey.

After entering the defile, an open part of the valley was passed,

amidst which the little river, at present occupying very narrow

limits, meandered; but it was obvious from the width of the channel

and the debris widely strewn about, that in winter it is a roaring

torrent. A little way up we met an old man coming down driving a

loaded donkey, with whom one of our party, recognising him as an old

acquaintance, entered into conversation. In answer to an inquiry made

as to the progress of the good cause in the valley, the old man

replied very despondingly. "There was," he said, "a great lack of

faith, of zeal, of earnestness, amongst the rising generation. They

were too fond of pleasures, too apt to be led away by the fleeting

vanities of this world." It was only the old story--the complaint of

the aged against the young. When this old peasant was a boy, his

elders doubtless thought and said the same of him. The generation

growing old always think the generation still young in a state of

degeneracy. So it was forty years since, when Felix Neff was amongst

them, and so it will be forty years hence. One day Neff met an old man

near Mens, who recounted to him the story of the persecutions which

his parents and himself had endured, and he added: "In those times

there was more zeal than there is now; my father and mother used to

cross mountains and forests by night, in the worst weather, at the

risk of their lives, to be present at divine service performed in

secret; but now we are grown lazy: religious freedom is the deathblow

to piety."

An hour's walking brought us to the principal hamlet of the commune,

formerly called Fressinieres, but now known as Les Ribes, occupying a

wooded height on the left bank of the river. The population is partly

Roman Catholic and partly Protestant. The Roman Catholics have a

church here, the last in the valley, the two other places of worship

higher up being Protestant. The principal person of Les Ribes is M.

Baridon, son of the Joseph Baridon, receiver of the commune, so often

mentioned with such affection in the journal of Neff. He is the only

person in the valley whose position and education give him a claim to

the title of "Monsieur;" and his house contains the only decent

apartment in the Val Fressinieres where pastors and visitors could be

lodged previous to the erection, by Mr. Freemantle, of the pleasant

little parsonage at Palons. This apartment in the Baridons' house Neff

used to call the "Prophet's Chamber."

Half an hour higher up the valley we reached the hamlet of Violens,

where all the inhabitants are Protestants. It was at this place that

Neff helped to build and finish the church, for which he designed the

seats and pulpit, and which he opened and dedicated on the 29th of

August, 1824, the year before he finally left the neighbourhood.

Violens is a poor hamlet situated at the bottom of a deep glen, or

rocky abyss, called La Combe; the narrow valleys of Dauphiny, like

those of Devon, being usually called combes, doubtless from the same

original Celtic word _cwm_, signifying a hollow or dingle.

A little above Violens the valley contracts almost to a ravine, until

we reach the miserable hamlet of Minsals, so shut in by steep crags

that for nine months of the year it never sees the sun, and during

several months in winter it lies buried in snow. The hamlet consists

for the most part of hovels of mud and stone, without windows or

chimneys, being little better than stables; indeed, in winter time,

for the sake of warmth, the poor people share them with their cattle.

How they contrive to scrape a living out of the patches of soil

rescued from the rocks, or hung upon the precipices on the

mountain-side, is a wonder.

One of the horrors of this valley consists in the constant state of

disintegration of the adjoining rocks, which, being of a slaty

formation, frequently break away in large masses, and are hurled into

the lower grounds. This, together with the fall of avalanches in

winter, makes the valley a most perilous place to live in. A little

above Minsals, only a few years since, a tremendous fall of rock and

mud swept over nearly the whole of the cultivated ground, since which

many of the peasantry have had to remove elsewhere. What before was a

well-tilled meadow, is now only a desolate waste, covered with rocks

and debris.

Another of the horrors of the place is its liability to floods, which

come rushing down, from the mountains, and often work sad havoc.

Sometimes a fall of rocks from the cliffs above dams up the bed of the

river, when a lake accumulates behind the barrier until it bursts, and

the torrent swoops down the valley, washing away fields, and bridges,

and mills, and hovels.

Even the stouter-built dwelling of M. Baridon at Les Ribes was nearly

carried away by one of such inundations twelve years ago. It stands

about a hundred yards from the mountain-stream which comes down from

the Pic de la Sea. One day in summer a storm burst over the mountain,

and the stream at once became swollen to a torrent. The inmates of the

dwelling thought the house must eventually be washed away, and gave

themselves up to prayer. The flood, bearing with it rolling rocks,

came nearer and nearer, until it reached a few old walnut trees on a

line with the torrent. A rock of some thirty feet square tumbled

against one of the trees, which staggered and bent, but held fast and

stopped the rock. The debris at once rolled upon it into a bank, the

course of the torrent was turned, and the dwelling and its inmates

were saved.

Another incident, illustrative of the perils of daily life in Val

Fressinieres, was related to me by Mr. Milsom while passing the scene

of one of the mud and rock avalanches so common in the valley. Etienne

Baridon, a member of the same Les Ribes family, an intelligent young

man, disabled for ordinary work by lameness and deformity, occupied

himself in teaching the children in the Protestant school at Violens,

whither he walked daily, accompanied by the pupils from Les Ribes. One

day, a heavy thunderstorm burst over the valley, and sent down an

avalanche of mud, debris, and boulders, which rolled quite across the

valley and extended to the river. The news of the circumstance reached

Etienne when in school at Violens; the road to Les Ribes was closed;

and he was accordingly urged to stay over the night with the children.

But thinking of the anxiety of their parents, he determined to guide

them back over the fall of rocks if possible. Arrived at the place, he

found the mass still on the move, rolling slowly down in a ridge of

from ten to twenty feet high, towards the river. Supported by a stout

staff; the lame Baridon took first one child and then another upon

his hump-back; and contrived to carry them across in safety; but while

making his last journey with the last child, his foot slipped and his

leg got badly crushed among the still-rolling stones. He was, however,

able to extricate himself, and reached Les Ribes in safety with all

the children. "This Etienne," concluded Mr. Milsom, "was really a

noble fellow, and his poor deformed body covered the soul of a hero."

At length, after a journey of about ten miles up this valley of the

shadow of death, along which the poor persecuted Vaudois were so often

hunted, we reached an apparent _cul-de-sac_ amongst the mountains,

beyond which further progress seemed impracticable. Precipitous rocks,

with their slopes of debris at foot, closed in the valley all round,

excepting only the narrow gullet by which we had come; but, following

the footpath, a way up the mountain-side gradually disclosed itself--a

zigzag up the face of what seemed to be a sheer precipice--and this we

were told was the road to Dormilhouse. The zigzag path is known as the

Tourniquet. The ascent is long, steep, and fatiguing. As we passed up,

we observed that the precipice contained many narrow ledges upon which

soil has settled, or to which it has been carried. Some of these are

very narrow, only a few yards in extent, but wherever there is room

for a spade to turn, the little patches bear marks of cultivation; and

these are the fields of the people of Dormilhouse!

Far up the mountain, the footpath crosses in front of a lofty

cascade--La Pisse du Dormilhouse--which leaps from the summit of the

precipice, and sometimes dashes over the roadway itself. Looking down

into the valley from this point, we see the Biasse meandering like a

thread in the hollow of the mountains, becoming lost to sight in the

ravine near Minsals. We have now ascended to a great height, and the

air feels cold and raw. When we left Palons, the sun was shining

brightly, and its heat was almost oppressive, but now the temperature

feels wintry. 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.

This, then, is the famous mountain fastness of the Vaudois--their last

and loftiest and least accessible retreat when hunted from their

settlements in the lower valleys hundreds of years ago. Driven from

rock to rock, from Alp to Alp, they clambered up on to this lofty

mountain-ledge, five thousand feet high, and made good their

settlement, though at the daily peril of their lives. It was a place

of refuge, a fortress and citadel of the faithful, where they

continued to worship God according to conscience during the long dark

ages of persecution and tyranny. The dangers and terrors of the

situation are indeed so great, that it never could have been chosen

even for a hiding-place, much less for a permanent abode, but from the

direst necessity. What the poor people suffered while establishing

themselves on these barren mountain heights no one can tell, but they

contrived at length to make the place their home, and to become inured

to their hard life, until it became almost a second nature to them.

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. It has been alleged that the people are the

descendants of a colony of refugee Lombards; but M. Muston, and others

well able to judge, after careful inquiry on the spot, have come to

the conclusion that they bear all the marks of being genuine

descendants of the ancient Vaudois. 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. There is very little soil capable of cultivation in the

neighbourhood, but the villagers seek out little patches in the valley

below and on the mountain shelves, from which they contrive to grow a

little grain for home use. The place is so elevated and so exposed,

that in some seasons even rye will not ripen at Dormilhouse, while the

pasturages are in many places inaccessible to cattle, and scarcely

safe for sheep.

The principal food of the people is goats' milk and unsifted rye,

which they bake into cakes in the autumn, and these cakes last them

the whole year--the grain, if left unbaked, being apt to grow mouldy

and spoil in so damp an atmosphere. Besides, fuel is so scarce that it

is necessary to exercise the greatest economy in its use, every stick

burnt in the village having to be brought from a distance of some

twelve miles, on the backs of donkeys, by the steep mountain-path

leading up to the hamlet. Hence, also, the unsavoury means which they

are under the necessity of adopting to economize warmth in the winter,

by stabling the cattle with themselves in the cottages. The huts are

for the most part wretched constructions of stone and mud, from which

fresh air, comfort, and cleanliness seem to be entirely excluded.

Excepting that the people are for the most part comfortably dressed,

in clothing of coarse wool, which they dress and weave themselves,

their domestic accommodation and manner of living are centuries behind

the age; and were a stranger suddenly to be set down in the village,

he could with difficulty be made to believe that he was in the land of

civilised Frenchmen.

The place is dreary, stern, and desolate-looking even in summer. Thus,

we entered it with the snow falling on the 1st of July! Few of the

balmy airs of the sweet South of France breathe here. In the hollow of

the mountains the heat may be like that of an oven; but here, far up

on the heights, though the air may be fresh and invigorating at times,

when the wind blows it often rises to a hurricane. 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. Right over

against the hamlet, separated from it by a deep gully, rises up the

grim, bare Gramusac, as black as a wall, but along the ledges of

which, the hunters of Dormilhouse, who are very daring and skilful, do

not fear to stalk the chamois.

But if the place is thus stern and even appalling in summer, what must

it be in winter? There is scarcely a habitation in the village that is

not exposed to the danger of being carried away by avalanches or

falling rocks. The approach to the mountain is closed by ice and

snow, while the rocks are all tapestried with icicles. The

_tourmente_, or snow whirlwind, occasionally swoops up the valley,

tears the roofs from the huts, and scatters them in destruction.

Here is a passage from Neff's journal, vividly descriptive of winter

life at Dormilhouse:--

"The weather has been rigorous in the extreme; the falls of snow

are very frequent, and when it becomes a little milder, a general

thaw takes place, and our hymns are often sung amid the roar of

the avalanches, which, gliding along the smooth face of the

glacier, hurl themselves from precipice to precipice, like vast

cataracts of silver."

Writing in January, he says:--

"We have been buried in four feet of snow since of 1st of

November. At this very moment a terrible blast is whirling the

snow in thick blinding clouds. Travelling is exceedingly

difficult and even dangerous among these valleys, particularly in

the neighbourhood of Dormilhouse, by reason of the numerous

avalanches falling everywhere.... One Sunday evening our scholars

and many of the Dormilhouse people, when returning home after the

sermon at Violens, narrowly escaped an avalanche. It rolled

through a narrow defile between two groups of persons: a few

seconds sooner or later, and it would have plunged the flower of

our youth into the depths of an unfathomable gorge.... In fact,

there are very few habitations in these parts which are not

liable to be swept away, for there is not a spot in the narrow

corner of the valley which can be considered absolutely safe. But

terrible as their situation is, they owe to it their religion,

and perhaps their physical existence. If their country had been

more secure and more accessible, they would have been

exterminated like the inhabitants of Val Louise."

Such is the interesting though desolate mountain hamlet to the service

of whose hardy inhabitants the brave Felix Neff devoted himself during

the greater part of his brief missionary career. It was characteristic

of him to prefer to serve them because their destitution was greater

than that which existed in any other quarter of his extensive parish;

and he turned from the grand mountain scenery of Arvieux and his

comfortable cottage at La Chalp, to spend his winters in the dismal

hovels and amidst the barren wastes of Dormilhouse.

When Neff first went amongst them, the people were in a state of

almost total spiritual destitution. They had not had any pastor

stationed amongst them for nearly a hundred and fifty years. During

all that time they had been without schools of any kind, and

generation after generation had grown up and passed away in ignorance.

Yet with all the inborn tenacity of their race, they had throughout

refused to conform to the dominant religion. They belonged to the

Vaudois Church, and repudiated Romanism.

There was probably a Protestant church existing at Dormilhouse

previous to the Revocation, as is shown by the existence of an ancient

Vaudois church-bell, which was hid away until of late years, when it

was dug up and hung in the belfry of the present church. In 1745, the

Roman Catholics endeavoured to effect a settlement in the place, and

then erected the existing church, with a residence for the cure. But

the people, though they were on the best of terms with the cure,

refused to enter his church. During the twenty years that he

ministered there, it is said the sole congregation consisted of his

domestic servant, who assisted him at mass.

The story is still told of the cure 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. The cure complained that during the whole time

he had been in the place he had not been able to get a single person

to cross himself. So, finding he was not likely to be of any use

there, he petitioned his bishop to be allowed to leave; on which, his

request being complied with, the church was closed.

This continued until the period of the French Revolution, when

religious toleration became recognised. The Dormilhouse people then

took possession of the church. They found in it several dusty images,

the basin for the holy water, the altar candlesticks, and other

furniture, just as the cure had left them many years before; and they

are still preserved as curiosities. The new occupants of the church

whitewashed the pictures, took down the crosses, dug up the old

Vaudois bell and hung it up in the belfry, and rang the villagers

together to celebrate the old worship again. But they were still in

want of a regular minister until the period when Felix Neff settled

amongst them. A zealous young preacher, Henry Laget, had before then

paid them a few visits, and been warmly welcomed; and when, in his

last address, he told them they would see his face no more, "it

seemed," said a peasant who related the incident to Neff, "as if a

gust of wind had extinguished the torch which was to light us in our

passage by night across the precipice." 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. To give _eclat_ to their enterprise,

the Archbishop of Embrun himself went up, clothed in a purple dress,

riding a white horse, and accompanied by a party of men bearing a

great red cross, which he caused to be set up at the entrance to the

village. But when the archbishop appeared, not a single inhabitant

went out to meet him; they had all assembled in the church to hold a

prayer-meeting, and it lasted during the whole period of his visit.

All that he accomplished was to set up the great red cross, after

which he went down the Tourniquet again; and shortly after, the priest

and the sister of mercy, finding they could not obtain a footing, also

left the village. Somehow or other, the red cross which had been set

up mysteriously disappeared, but how it had been disposed of no one

would ever reveal. It was lately proposed to commemorate the event of

the archbishop's visit by the erection of an obelisk on the spot where

he had set up the red cross; and a tablet, with a suitable

inscription, was provided for it by the Rev. Mr. Freemantle, of

Claydon. But when he was told that the site was exposed to the full

force of the avalanches descending from the upper part of the mountain

in winter, and would speedily be swept away, the project of the

memorial pillar was abandoned, and the tablet was inserted, instead,

in the front wall of the village church, where it reads as follows:--

A LA GLOIRE DE DIEU

DONT DE LES TEMPS ANCIENS

ET A TRAVERS LE MARTYR DE LEURS PERES

A MAINTENU

A DORMILHOUSE

LA FOI DONNE AUX SAINTS

ET LA CONNAISSANCE DE LA PAROLE

LES HABITANTS ONT ELEVE

CETTE PIERRE

MDCCCLXIV.

Having thus described the village and its history, a few words remain

to be added as to the visit of our little party of travellers from

Palons. On reaching the elevated point at which the archbishop had set

up the red cross, the whole of the huts lay before us, and a little

way down the mountain-side we discerned the village church,

distinguished by its little belfry. Leaving on our right the

Swiss-looking chalet 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. Arrived at the school-house, we there

found shelter and accommodation for the night. The schoolroom, fitted

with its forms and desks, was our parlour, and our bedrooms, furnished

with the blankets we had brought with us, were in the little chambers

adjoining.

At eight in the evening the church bell rang for service--the

summoning bell. The people had been expecting the visit, and turned

out in full force, so that at nine o'clock, when the last bell rang,

the church was found filled to the door. Every seat was occupied--by

men on one side, and by women on the other. The service was conducted

by Mr. Milsom, the missionary visitor from Lyons, who opened with

prayer, then gave out the twenty-third Psalm, which was sung to an

accompaniment on the harmonium; then another prayer, followed by the

reading of a chapter in the New Testament, was wound up by an address,

in which the speaker urged the people to their continuance in

well-doing. In the course of his remarks he said: "Be not discouraged

because the results of your Labours may appear but small. Work on and

faint not, and God will give the spiritual increase. Pastors,

teachers, and colporteurs are too often ready to despond, because the

fruit does not seem to ripen while they are watching it. But the best

fruit grows slowly. Think how the Apostles laboured. They were all

poor men, but men of brave hearts; and they passed away to their rest

long before the seed which they planted grew up and ripened to

perfection. Work on then in patience and hope, and be assured that God

will at length help you."

Mr. Milsom's address was followed by another from the pastor, and then

by a final prayer and hymn, after which the service was concluded, and

the villagers dispersed to their respective homes a little after ten

o'clock. The snow had ceased falling, but the sky was still overcast,

and the night felt cold and raw, like February rather than July.

The wonder is, that this community of Dormilhouse should cling to

their mountain eyrie so long after the necessity for their living

above the clouds has ceased; but it is their home, and they have come

to love it, and are satisfied to live and die there. Rather than live

elsewhere, they will walk, as some of them do, twelve miles in the

early morning, to their work down in the valley of the Durance, and

twelve miles home again, in the evenings, to their perch on the rocks

at Dormilhouse.

They are even proud of their mountain home, and would not change it

for the most smiling vineyard of the plains. They are like a little

mountain clan--all Baridons, or Michels, or Orcieres, or Bertholons,

or Arnouds--proud of their descent from the ancient Vaudois. It is

their boast that a Roman Catholic does not live among them. Once, when

a young shepherd came up from the valley to pasture his flock in the

mountains, he fell in love with a maiden of the village, and proposed

to marry her. "Yes," was the answer, with this condition, that he

joined the Vaudois Church. And he assented, married the girl, and

settled for life at Dormilhouse.[105]

[Footnote 105: Since the date of our visit, we learn that a

sad accident--strikingly illustrative of the perils of

village life at Dormilhouse--has befallen this young

shepherd, by name Jean Joseph Lagier. One day in October,

1869, while engaged in gathering wood near the brink of the

precipice overhanging Minsals, he accidently fell over and

was killed on the spot, leaving behind him a widow and a

large family. He was a person of such excellent character and

conduct, that he had been selected as colporteur for the

neighbourhood.]

* * * * *

The next morning broke clear and bright overhead. The sun shone along

the rugged face of the Gramusac right over against the hamlet,

bringing out its bolder prominences. Far below, the fleecy clouds were

still rolling themselves up the mountain-sides, or gradually

dispersing as the sun caught them on their emerging from the valley

below. 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. Looking back, the

whole village appeared above us, cottage over cottage, and ledge over

ledge, with its stern background of rocky mountain.

Immediately under the village, in a hollow between two shoulders of

rock, the cascade of the Biasse leaps down into the valley. The

highest leap falls in a jet of about a hundred feet, and the lower,

divided into two by a projecting ledge, breaks into a shower of spray

which falls about a hundred and fifty feet more into the abyss below.

Even in Switzerland this fall would be considered a fine object; but

in this out-of-the-way place, it is rarely seen except by the

villagers, who have water and cascades more than enough.

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 debris that extend far down into the

valley.

At the bottom of the Tourniquet we joined M. Charpiot, accompanying

the donkey laden with the blankets and knapsacks, and proceeded with

him on our way down the valley towards his hospitable parsonage at

Palons.

CHAPTER V.

GUILLESTRE AND THE VALLEY OF QUEYRAS.

We left Palons on a sharp, bright morning in July, with the prospect

of a fine day before us, though there had been a fall of snow in the

night, which whitened the tops of the neighbouring hills. Following

the road along the heights on the right bank of the Biasse, and

passing the hamlet of Chancellas, another favourite station of Neff's,

a rapid descent led us down into the valley of the Durance, which we

crossed a little above the village of St. Crepin, with the strong

fortress of Mont Dauphin before us a few miles lower down the valley.

This remote corner in the mountains was the scene of much fighting in

early times between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots, and

afterwards between the French and the Piedmontese. It was in this

neighbourhood that Lesdiguieres first gave evidence of his skill and

valour as a soldier. The massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris in 1572

had been followed by like massacres in various parts of France,

especially in the south. The Roman Catholics of Dauphiny, deeming the

opportunity favourable for the extirpation of the heretical Vaudois,

dispatched the military commandant of Embrun against the inhabitants

of Val Fressinieres at the head of an army of twelve hundred men.

Lesdiguieres, then scarce twenty-four years old, being informed of

their march, hastily assembled a Huguenot force in the valley of the

Drac, and, crossing the Col d'Orcieres from Champsaur into the valley

of the Durance, he suddenly fell upon the enemy at St. Crepin, routed

them, and drove them down the valley to Embrun. Twelve years later,

during the wars of the League, Lesdiguieres distinguished himself in

the same neighbourhood, capturing Embrun, Guillestre, and Chateau

Queyras, in the valley of the Guil, thereby securing the entire

province for his royal master, Henry of Navarre.

The strong fortress of Mont Dauphin, at the junction of the Guil with

the Durance, was not constructed until a century later. Victor-Amadeus

II., when invading the province with a Piedmontese army, at sight of

the plateau commanding the entrance of both valleys, exclaimed, "There

is a pass to fortify." The hint was not neglected by the French

general, Catinat, under whose directions the great engineer, Vauban,

traced the plan of the present fortifications. It is a very strong

place, completely commanding the valley of the Durance, while it is

regarded as the key of the passage into Italy by the Guil and the Col

de la Croix.

Guillestre is a small old-fashioned town, situated on the lowest slope

of the pine-clad mountain, the Tete de Quigoulet, at the junction of

the Rioubel and the Chagne, rivulets in summer but torrents in winter,

which join the Guil a little below the town. Guillestre was in ancient

times a strong place, and had for its lords the Archbishops of Embrun,

the ancient persecutors of the Vaudois. The castle of the archbishop,

flanked by six towers, occupied a commanding site immediately

overlooking the town; but at the French Revolution of 1789, the first

thing which the archbishop's flock did was to pull his castle in

pieces, leaving not one stone upon another; and, strange to say, the

only walled enclosure now within its precincts is the little

burying-ground of the Guillestre Protestants. One memorable stone has,

however, been preserved, the stone trough in which the peasants were

required to measure the tribute of grain payable by them to their

reverend seigneurs. It is still to be seen laid against a wall in an

open space in front of the church.

It happened that the fair of Guillestre, which is held every two

months, was afoot at the time of our visit. It is frequented by the

people of the adjoining valleys, of which Guillestre is the centre, as

well as by Piedmontese from beyond the Italian frontier. On the

principal day of the fair we found the streets filled with peasants

buying and selling beasts. They were apparently of many races. Amongst

them were many well-grown men, some with rings in their

ears--horse-dealers from Piedmont, we were told; but the greater

number were little, dark, thin, and poorly-fed peasants. Some of them,

dark-eyed and tawny-skinned, looked like Arabs, possibly descendants

of the Saracens who once occupied the province. There were one or two

groups of gipsies, differing from all else; but the district is too

poor to be much frequented by people of that race.

The animals brought for sale showed the limited resources of the

neighbourhood. One hill-woman came along dragging two goats in milk;

another led a sheep and a goat; a third a donkey in foal; a fourth a

cow in milk; and so on. The largest lot consisted of about forty

lambs, of various sizes and breeds, which had been driven down from

the cool air of the mountains, and, gasping with heat, were cooling

their heads against the shady side of a stone wall. There were several

lots of pigs, of a bad but probably hardy sort--mostly black,

round-backed, long-legged, and long-eared. In selling the animals,

there was the usual chaffering, in shrill patois, at the top of the

voice--the seller of some poor scraggy beast extolling its merits, the

intending buyer running it down as a "miserable bossu," &c., and

disputing every point raised in its behalf, until the contest of words

rose to such a height--men, women, and even children, on both sides,

taking part in it--that the bystander would have thought it impossible

they could separate without a fight. But matters always came to a

peaceable conclusion, for the French are by no means a quarrelsome

people.

There were also various other sorts of produce offered for sale--wool,

undressed sheepskins, sticks for firewood, onions and vegetable

produce, and considerable quantities of honeycomb; while the sellers

of scythes, whetstones, caps, and articles of dress, seemed to meet

with a ready sale for their wares, arranged on stalls in the open

space in front of the church. Altogether, the queer collection of

beasts and their drivers, who were to be seen drinking together

greedily and promiscuously from the fountains in the market-place; the

steep streets, crowded with lean goats and cows and pigs, and their

buyers and sellers; the braying of donkeys and the shrieking of

chafferers, with here and there a goitred dwarf of hideous aspect,

presented a picture of an Alpine mountain fair, which, once seen, is

not readily forgotten.

There is a similar fair held at the village of La Bessie, before

mentioned, a little higher up the Durance, on the road to Briancon;

but it is held only once a year, at the end of October, when the

inhabitants of Dormilhouse come down in a body to lay in their stock

of necessaries for the winter. "There then arrives," says M. Albert,

"a caravan of about the most singular character that can be imagined.

It consists of nearly the whole population of the mountain hamlet, who

resort thither to supply themselves with the articles required for

family use during the winter, such as leather, lint, salt, and oil.

These poor mountaineers are provided with very little money, and, to

procure the necessary commodities, they have recourse to barter, the

most ancient and primitive method of conducting trade. Hence they

bring with them rye, barley, pigs, lambs, chamois skins and horns, and

the produce of their knitting during the past year, to exchange for

the required articles, with which they set out homeward, laden as they

had come."

* * * * *

The same circumstances which have concurred in making Guillestre the

seat of the principal fair of the valleys, led Felix Neff to regard it

as an important centre of missionary operations amongst the Vaudois.

In nearly all the mountain villages in its neighbourhood descendants

of the ancient Vaudois are to be found, sometimes in the most remote

and inaccessible places, whither they had fled in the times of the

persecutions. Thus at Vars, a mountain hamlet up the torrent Rioubel,

about nine miles from Guillestre, there is a little Christian

community, which, though under the necessity of long concealing their

faith, never ceased to be Vaudois in spirit.[106] Then, up the valley

of the Guil, and in the lateral valleys which join it, there are, in

some places close to the mountain barrier which divides France from

Italy, other villages and hamlets, such as Arvieux, San Veran,

Fongilarde, &c., the inhabitants of which, though they concealed their

faith subsequent to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, never

conformed to Roman Catholicism, but took the earliest opportunity of

declaring themselves openly so soon as the dark period of persecution

had passed by.

[Footnote 106: The well-known Alpine missionary, J. L.

Rostan, of whom an interesting biography has recently been

published by the Rev. A. J. French, for the Wesleyan

Conference, was a native of Vars. He was one of the favourite

pupils of Felix Neff, with whom he resided at Dormilhouse in

1825-7; Neff saying of him: "Among the best of my pupils, as

regards spiritual things and secular too, is Jean Rostan, of

Vars: he is probably destined for the ministry; such at least

is my hope." Neff bequeathed to him the charge of his parish

during his temporary absence, but he never returned; and

shortly after, Rostan left, to pursue his studies at

Montauban. He joined the Methodist Church, settled and

ministered for a time in La Vaunage and the Cevennes,

afterwards labouring as a missionary in the High Alps, and

eventually settled as minister of the church at Lisieux,

Jersey, in charge of which he died, July, 1859.]

The people of these scattered and distant hamlets were, however, too

poor to supply themselves with religious instructors, and they long

remained in a state of spiritual destitution. Felix Neff's labours

were too short, and scattered over too extensive a field, to produce

much permanent effect. Besides, they were principally confined to the

village of Dormilhouse, which, as being the most destitute, had, he

thought, the greatest claim upon his help; and at his death

comparatively little had been done or attempted in the Guillestre

district. But he left behind him what was worth more than any

endowment of money, a noble example, which still lives, and inspires

the labourers who have come after him.

It was not until within the last twenty years that a few Vaudois

families of Guillestre began to meet together for religious purposes,

which they did at first in the upper chamber of an inn. There the Rev.

Mr. Freemantle found them when paying his first visit to the valleys

in 1851. He was rejoiced to see the zeal of the people, holding to

their faith in the face of considerable opposition and opprobrium; and

he exerted himself to raise the requisite funds amongst his friends in

England to provide the Guillestre Vaudois with a place of worship of

their own. His efforts were attended with success; and in 1854 a

comfortable parsonage, with a commodious room for public worship, was

purchased for their use. A fund was also provided for the maintenance

of a settled ministry; a pastor was appointed; and in 1857 a

congregation of from forty to seventy persons attended worship every

Sunday. Mr. Freemantle, in a communication with which he has favoured

us, says: "Our object has not been to make an aggression upon the

Roman Catholics, but to strengthen the hands and establish the faith

of the Vaudois. And in so doing we have found, not unfrequently, that

when an interest has been excited among the Roman Catholic population

of the district, there has been some family or hereditary connection

with ancestors who were independent of the see of Rome, and such have

again joined themselves to the faith of their fathers."

The new movement was not, however, allowed to proceed without great

opposition. The "Momiers," or mummers--the modern nickname of the

Vaudois--were denounced by the cure of the place, and the people were

cautioned, as they valued their souls' safety, against giving any

countenance to their proceedings. The cure was doubtless seriously

impressed by the gravity of the situation; and to protect the parish

against the assaults of the evil one, he had a large number of crosses

erected upon the heights overlooking the town. On one occasion he had

a bad dream, in which he beheld the valley filled with a vast assembly

come to be judged; and on the site of the judgment-seat which he saw

in his dream, he set up, on the summit of the Come Chauve, a large tin

cross hearted with wood. We were standing in the garden in front of

the parsonage at Guillestre late in the evening, when M. Schell, the

pastor, pointing up to the height, said, "There you see it now; that

is the cure's erection." The valley below lay in deep shadow, while

the cross upon the summit brightly reflected the last rays of the

setting sun.

The cure, finding that the "Momiers" did not cease to exist, next

adopted the expedient of preaching them down. On the occasion of the

Fete Napoleon, 1862, when the Rev. Mr. Freemantle visited Guillestre

for the purpose of being present at the Vaudois services on Sunday,

the 10th of August, the cure preached a special sermon to his

congregation at early morning mass, telling them that an Englishman

had come into the town with millions of francs to buy up the souls of

Guillestre, and warning them to abstain from such men.

The people were immediately filled with curiosity to know what it was

that this stranger had come all the way from England to do, backed by

"millions of francs." Many of them did not as yet know that there was

such a thing as a Vaudois church in Guillestre; but now that they did

know, they were desirous of ascertaining something about the doctrines

taught there. The consequence was, that a crowd of people--amongst

whom were some of the highest authorities in the town, the registrar,

the douaniers, the chief of a neighbouring commune, and persons of all

classes--assembled at noon to hear M. de Faye, the Protestant pastor,

who preached to them an excellent sermon under the trees of the

parsonage orchard, while a still larger number attended in the

afternoon.

When the cure heard of the conduct of his flock he was greatly

annoyed. "What did you hear from the heretics?" he asked of one of the

delinquents. "I heard _your_ sermon in the morning, and a sermon _upon

charity_ in the afternoon," was the reply.

Great were the surprise and excitement in Guillestre when it became

known that the principal sergeant of gendarmerie--the very embodiment

of law and order in the place--had gone over and joined the "Momiers"

with his wife and family. M. Laugier was quite a model gendarme. He

was a man of excellent character, steady, sensible, and patient, a

diligent self-improver, a reader of books, a botanist, and a bit of a

geologist. He knew all the rare mountain plants, and had a collection

of those that would bear transplantation, in his garden at the back of

the town. No man was more respected in Guillestre than the sergeant.

His long and faithful service entitled him to the _medaille

militaire_, and it would have been awarded to him, but for the

circumstance which came to light, and which he did not seek to

conceal, that he had joined the Protestant connexion. Not only was the

medal withheld, but influence was used to get him sent away from the

place; and he was packed off to a station in the mountains at Chateau

Queyras.

Though this banishment from Guillestre was intended as a punishment,

it only served to bring out the sterling qualities of the sergeant,

and to ensure his eventual reward. It so happened that the station at

Chateau Queyras commanded the approaches into an extensive range of

mountain pasturage. Although not required specially to attend to their

safety, our sergeant had nevertheless carefully noted the flocks and

herds as they went up the valleys in the spring. When winter

approached, they were all brought down again from the mountains for

safety.

The winter of that year set in early and severely. The sergeant,

making his observations on the flocks as they passed down the valley,

noted that one large flock of about three thousand sheep had not yet

made its appearance. The mountains were now covered with snow, and he

apprehended that the sheep and their shepherds had been storm-stayed.

Summoning to his assistance a body of men, he set out at their head in

search of the lost flock. After a long, laborious, and dangerous

journey--for the snow by this time lay deep in the hollows of the

hills--he succeeded in discovering the shepherds and the sheep, almost

reduced to their last gasp--the sheep, for want of food, actually

gnawing each other's tails. With great difficulty the whole were

extricated from their perilous position, and brought down the

mountains in safety.

No representation was made to head-quarters by the authorities of

Guillestre of the conduct of the Protestant sergeant in the matter;

but when the shepherds got down to Gap, they were so full of the

sergeant's praises, and of his bravery in rescuing them and their

flock from certain death, that a paragraph descriptive of the affair

was inserted in the local papers, and was eventually copied into the

Parisian journals. Then it was that an inquiry was made into his

conduct, and the result was so satisfactory that the sergeant was at

once decorated not only with the _medaille militaire_, but with the

_medaille de sauvetage_--a still higher honour; and, shortly after, he

was allowed to retire from the service on full pay. He then returned

to his home and family at Guillestre, where he now officiates as

_Regent_ of the Vaudois church, reading the prayers and conducting the

service in the absence of the stated minister.

* * * * *

We spent a Sunday in the comfortable parsonage at Guillestre. There

was divine service in the temple at half-past ten A.M., conducted by

the regular pastor, M. Schell, and instruction and catechizing of the

children in the afternoon. The pastor's regular work consists of two

services at Guillestre and Vars on alternate Sundays, with

Sunday-school and singing lesson; and on week days he gives religious

instruction in the Guillestre school. The missionary's wife is a true

"helpmeet," and having been trained as a deaconess at Strasbourg, she

regularly visits the poor, occasionally assisting them with medical

advice.

Another important part of the work at Guillestre is the girls' school,

for which suitable premises have been taken; and it is conducted by an

excellent female teacher. Here not only the usual branches of

education are taught, but domestic industry of different kinds.

Through the instrumentality of Mr. Milsom, glove-sewing has been

taught to the girls, and it is hoped that by this and similar efforts

this branch of home manufacture may become introduced in the High

Alps, and furnish profitable employment to many poor persons during

their long and dreary winter.

By the aid of a special fund, a few girl boarders, belonging to

scattered Protestant families who have no other means for the

education of their children, are also received at the school. The

girls seem to be extremely well taken care of, and the house, which we

went over, is a very pattern of cleanliness and comfort.

* * * * *

The route from Guillestre into Italy lies up the valley of the Guil,

through one of the wildest and deepest gorges, or rather chasms, to be

found in Europe. Brockedon says it is "one of the finest in the Alps."

M. Bost compares it to the Moutier-Grand-Val, in the canton of Berne,

but says it is much wilder. He even calls it frightful, which it is

not, except in rainy weather, when the rocks occasionally fall from

overhead. At such times people avoid travelling through the gorge. M.

Bost also likens it to the Via Mala, though here the road, at the

narrowest and most precipitous parts, runs in the _bottom_ of the

gorge, in a ledge cut in the rock, there being room only for the river

and the road. It is only of late years that the road has been

completed, and it is often partly washed away in winter, or covered

with rock and stones brought down by the torrent. When Neff travelled

the gorge, it was passable only on foot, or on mule-back. Yet

light-footed armies have passed into Italy by this route. Lesdiguieres

clambered over the mountains and along the Guil to reach Chateau

Queyras, which he assaulted and took. Louis XIII. once accompanied a

French army about a league up the gorge, but he turned back, afraid to

go farther; and the hamlet at which his progress was arrested is still

called Maison du Roi. About three leagues higher up, after crossing

the Guil from bank to bank several times, in order to make use of such

ledges of the rock as are suitable for the road, the gorge opens into

the Combe du Queyras, and very shortly the picturesque-looking Castle

of Queyras comes in sight, occupying the summit of a lofty conical

rock in the middle of the valley.

As we approached Chateau Queyras the ruins of a building were pointed

out by Mr. Milsom in the bottom of the valley, close by the

river-side. "That," said he, "was once the Protestant temple of the

place. It was burnt to the ground at the Revocation. You see that old

elm-tree growing near it. That tree was at the same time burnt to a

black stump. It became a saying in the valley that Protestantism was

as dead as that stump, and that it would only reappear when that dead

stump came to life! And, strange to say, since Felix Neff has been

here, the stump _has_ come to life--you see how green it is--and again

Protestantism is like the elm-tree, sending out its vigorous

offshoots, in the valley."

Chateau Queyras stands in the centre of the valley of the Guil, which

is joined near this point by two other valleys, the Combe of Arvieux

joining it on the right bank, and that of San Veran on the left. The

heads of the streams which traverse these valleys have their origin in

the snowy range of the Cottian Alps, which form the boundary between

France and Italy. As in the case of the descendants of the ancient

Vaudois at Dormilhouse, they are here also found at the farthest limit

of vegetation, penetrating almost to the edge of the glacier, where

they were least likely to be molested. The inhabitants of Arvieux were

formerly almost entirely Protestant, and had a temple there, which was

pulled down at the Revocation. From that time down to the Revolution

they worshipped only in secret, occasionally ministered to by Vaudois

pastors, who made precarious visits to them from the Italian valleys

at the risk of their lives.

Above Arvieux is the hamlet of La Chalp, containing a considerable

number of Protestants, and where Neff had his home--a small, low

cottage undistinguishable from the others save by its whitewashed

front. Its situation is cheerful, facing the south, and commanding a

pleasant mountain prospect, contrasting strongly with the barren

outlook and dismal hovels of Dormilhouse. But Neff never could regard

the place as his home. "The inhabitants," he observed in his journal,

"have more traffic, and the mildness of the climate appears somehow or

other not favourable to the growth of piety. They are zealous

Protestants, and show me a thousand attentions, but they are at

present absolutely impenetrable." The members of the congregation at

Arvieux, indeed, complained of his spending so little of his time

among them; but the comfort of his cottage at La Chalp, and the

comparative mildness of the climate of Arvieux, were insufficient to

attract him from the barren crags but warm hearts of Dormilhouse.