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