tween 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