he valley beneath, lighting their
bivouac fires, and intending to pass the night there. Before darkness
fell, however, an accidental circumstance led to an engagement. A
Vaudois boy, who had got hold of a drum, began beating it in a ravine
close by. The soldiers, thinking a hostile troop had arrived, sprang
up in disorder and seized their arms. The Vaudois, on their part,
seeing the movement, and imagining that an attack was about to be made
on them, rushed forward to repel it. The soldiers, surprised and
confused, for the most part threw away their arms, and fled down the
valley. Irritated by this disgraceful retreat of some twelve hundred
soldiers before two hundred peasants, the Count advanced a second
time, and was again, repulsed by the little band of heroes, who
charged his troops with loud shouts of "Viva Jesu Christo!" driving
the invaders in confusion down the valley.

It may be mentioned that the object of the Savoy general, in making
this attack, was to force the valley, and capture the strong position
of the Pra du Tour, the celebrated stronghold of the Vaudois, from
whence we shall afterwards find them, again driven back, baffled and
defeated.

A hundred years passed, and still the Vaudois remained unconverted and
unexterminated. The Marquis of Pianesse now advanced upon
Angrogna--always with the same object, "ad extirpandos hereticos," in
obedience to the order of the Propaganda. On this occasion not only
Italian and Spanish but Irish troops were engaged in a combined effort
to exterminate the Vaudois. The Irish were known as "the assassins"
by the people of the valleys, because of their almost exceptional
ferocity; and the hatred they excited by their outrages on women and
children was so great, that on the assault and capture of St. Legont
by the Vaudois peasantry, an Irish regiment surprised in barracks was
completely destroyed.

A combined attack was made on Angrogna on the 15th of June, 1655. On
that day four separate bodies of troops advanced up the heights from
different directions, thereby enclosing the little Vaudois army of
three hundred men assembled there, and led by the heroic Javanel. This
leader first threw himself upon the head of the column which advanced
from Rocheplate, and drove it downhill. Then he drew off his little
body towards Rochemalan, when he suddenly found himself opposed by the
two bodies which had come up from St. John and La Tour. Retiring
before them, he next found him