ountry in which, and for
which, they fought.

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

One of the strongest of such places--the Thermopylae of the
Vaudois--was the valley of Angrogna, up which the inhabitants of La
Tour were accustomed to retreat on any sudden invasion by the army of
Savoy. The valley is one of exquisite beauty, presenting a combination
of mingled picturesqueness and sublimity, the like of which is rarely
to be seen. It is hemmed in by mountains, in some places rounded and
majestic, in others jagged and abrupt. The sides of the valley are in
many places finely wooded, while in others well-tilled fields,
pastures, and vineyards slope down to the river-side. Orchards are
succeeded by pine-woods, and these again by farms and gardens.
Sometimes a little cascade leaps from a rock on its way to the valley
below; and little is heard around, save the rippling of water, and the
occasional lowing of cattle in the pastures, mingled with the music of
their bells.

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

Then Catanee took the field at the head of his army, advancing upon
Angrogna. He extended his lin