ciliation. Ambassadors next came from Switzerland, who urged them
to submit to the clemency of the Duke, and suggested that they should
petition him for permission to leave the country! The Vaudois were
stupefied by the proposal. They were thus asked, without a contest, to
submit to all the ignominy and punishment of defeat, and to terminate
their very existence as a people! The ambassadors represented that
resistance to the combined armies of Savoy, France, and Spain, without
leaders, and with less than three thousand combatants, was little
short of madness.

Nevertheless, a number of the Vaudois determined not to leave their
valleys without an attempt to hold them, as they had so often
successfully done before. The united armies of France and Savoy then
advanced upon the valleys, and arrangements were made for a general
attack upon the Vaudois position on Easter Monday, 1686, at break of
day,--the Duke of Savoy assailing the valley of Luzerna, while
Catinat, commander of the French troops, advanced on St. Martin.
Catinat made the first attack on the village of St. Germain, and was
beaten back with heavy loss after six hours' fighting. Henry Arnaud,
the Huguenot pastor from Die in Dauphiny, of which he was a native,
particularly distinguished himself by his bravery in this affair, and
from that time began to be regarded as one of the most promising of
the Vaudois leaders.

Catinat renewed the attack on the following day with the assistance of
fresh troops; and he eventually succeeded in overcoming the resistance
of the handful of men who opposed him, and sweeping the valley of St.
Martin. Men, women, and children were indiscriminately put to the
sword. In some of the parishes no resistance was offered, the
inhabitants submitting to the Duke's proclamation; but whether they
submitted or not, made no difference in their treatment, which was
barbarous in all cases.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Savoy's army advanced from the vale of Luzerna
upon the celebrated heights of Angrogna, and assailed the Vaudois
assembled there at all points. The resistance lasted for an entire
day, and when night fell, both forces slept on the ground upon which
they had fought, kindling their bivouac fires on both sides. On the
following day the attack was renewed, and again the battle raged until
night. Then Don Gabriel of Savoy, who was in command, resolved to
employ the means which Catinat had found so successful: he sent
forward messengers to