kes of Savoy had so often attempted in vain was
now accomplished. A second St. Bartholomew had been achieved, and Rome
rang with _Te Deums_ in praise of the final dispersion of the Vaudois.
The Pope sent to Victor Amadeus II. a special brief, congratulating
him on the extirpation of heresy in his dominions; and Piedmontese and
Savoyards, good Catholics, were presented with the lands from which
the Vaudois had been driven. Those of them who remained in the country
"unconverted" were as so many scattered fugitives in the
mountains--sheep wandering about without a shepherd. Some of the
Vaudois, for the sake of their families and homes, pretended
conversion; but these are admitted to have been comparatively few in
number. In short, the "Israel of the Alps" seemed to be no more, and
its people utterly and for ever dispersed. Pierre Allix, the Huguenot
refugee pastor in England, in his "History of the Ancient Churches of
Piedmont," dedicated to William III., regarded the Vaudois Church as
obliterated--"their present desolation seeming so universal, that the
world looks upon them no otherwise than as irrecoverably lost, and
finally destroyed."

Three years passed. The expelled Vaudois reached Switzerland in
greatly reduced numbers, many women and children having perished on
their mountain journey. The inhabitants of Geneva received them with
great hospitality, clothing and feeding them until they were able to
proceed on their way northward. Some went into Brandenburg, some into
Holland, while others settled to various branches of industry in
different parts of Switzerland. Many of them, however, experienced
great difficulty in obtaining a settlement. Those who had entered the
Palatinate were driven thence by war, and those who had entered
Wurtemburg were expelled by the Grand Duke, who feared incurring the
ire of Louis XIV. by giving them shelter and protection. Hence many
little bands of the Vaudois refugees long continued to wander along
the valley of the Rhine, unable to find rest for their weary feet.
There were others trying to earn, a precarious living in Geneva and
Lausanne, and along the shores of Lake Leman. Some of these were men
who had fought under Javanel in his heroic combats with the
Piedmontese; and they thought with bitter grief of the manner in which
they had fallen into the trap of Catinat and the Duke of Savoy, and
abandoned their country almost without a struggle.

Then it was that the thought occurred t