inform the Vaudois that their brethren of the
Val St. Martin had laid down their arms and been pardoned, inviting
them to follow their example. The result of further parley was, that
on the express promise of his Royal Highness that they should receive
pardon, and that neither their persons nor those of their wives or
children should be touched, the credulous Vaudois, still hoping for
fair treatment, laid down their arms, and permitted the ducal troops
to take possession of their entrenchments!

The same treacherous strategy proved equally successful against the
defenders of the Pra du Tour. After beating back their assailants and
firmly holding their ground for an entire day, they were told of the
surrender of their compatriots, promised a full pardon, and assured of
life and liberty, on condition of immediately ceasing further
hostilities. They accordingly consented to lay down their arms, and
the impregnable fastness of the Pra du Tour, which had never been
taken by force, thus fell before falsehood and perfidy. "The defenders
of this ancient sanctuary of the Church," says Dr. Huston, "were
loaded with irons; their children were carried off and scattered
through the Roman Catholic districts; their wives and daughters were
violated, massacred, or made captives. As for those that still
remained, all whom the enemy could seize became a prey devoted to
carnage, spoliation, fire, excesses which cannot be told, and outrages
which it would be impossible to describe."[108]

[Footnote 108: Huston's "Israel of the Alps," translated by
Montgomery; Glasgow, 1857; vol. i. p. 446.]

"All the valleys are now exterminated," wrote a French officer to his
friends; "the people are all killed, hanged, or massacred." The Duke,
Victor Amadeus, issued a decree, declaring the Vaudois to be guilty of
high treason, and confiscating all their property. Arnaud says as many
as eleven thousand persons were killed, or perished in prison, or died
of want, in consequence of this horrible Easter festival of blood.
Six thousand were taken prisoners, and the greater number of these
died in gaol of hunger and disease. When the prisons were opened, and
the wretched survivors were ordered to quit the country, forbidden to
return to it on pain of death, only about two thousand six hundred
contrived to struggle across the frontier into Switzerland.

And thus at last the Vaudois Church seemed utterly uprooted and
destroyed. What the Du