rch
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