It was, however, in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, to which they spread from Dauphiné, that they settled themselves most firmly. In those inhospitable regions, till then almost uninhabited, their marvellous and self-denying industry occupied every spot where incessant labor could support life. There they rapidly increased and filled the valleys of Luserna, Angrogna, San Martino, and Perosa. In 1210 Giacomo di Carisio, Bishop of Turin, alarmed at the constant growth of this heresy in his diocese, applied to Otho IV. for aid in its suppression, but the emperor in reply merely ordered him to use severity in their punishment and expulsion. Authority for this he already had in abundance under the canons, but he lacked the physical force to render it effective, and the imperial rescript went for naught. This shows that the local suzerains took no measures to enforce persecution, and the heretics continued to increase. The immediate sovereign of the district most deeply infected was the Abbey of Ripaille, which found itself unable to control them, and made over its temporal rights to Tommaso I., Count of Savoy. He issued an edict, to which I have already referred, imposing a fine of ten sols for giving refuge to heretics, which proved altogether ineffective. Thus, in the absence of efficient repression, were established those Alpine communities whose tenacity of belief supplied through centuries an unfailing succession of humble martyrs, and who ennobled human nature by their marvellous example of constancy and endurance.[216] Although the Lombard Waldenses admitted their descent from the Poor Men of Lyons, their more rapid development gave rise to differences, and in 1218 a conference was held at Bergamo between delegates of both parties. This did not succeed in removing the points of dissidence, and about 1230 the Lombards sent to the brethren in Germany a statement of the discussion and of their views. It is not our province to enter into these minute details of faith and Church government, but the affair is worth alluding to as illustrating the flourishing condition of the Church, the practical toleration which it enjoyed, and the active communication which existed between its organizations throughout Europe.[217] * * * * *