Towards the end of August, Farel and Saunier took leave of the brethren around them, got on their horses, and departed. Their course was enveloped in mystery: they avoided the places where they might be known and traversed uninhabited districts. Having crossed the Alps and passed through Pignerol, they fixed their eyes, beaming with mournful interest, on the lonely places where almost inaccessible caverns, pierced in the ragged sides of the mountains, often formed the only temple of the Christians, and where every rock had a history of persecution and martyrdom. Their place of meeting was Angrogne, in the parish of the pious Martin Gonin. The two reformers quitted La Tour, and following the sinuosities of the torrent, and turning the precipices, they arrived at the foot of a magnificent forest, and then reached a vast plateau abounding in pastures: this was the Val d'Angrogne. They gazed upon the steep ranges of the Soirnan and Infernet, the pyramidal flanks of mount Vandalin, and the gentler slopes upon which stood the lowly hamlets of the valley. They found Waldenses here and there in the meadows and at the foot of the rocks; some were prepared 'to be a guard for the ministers of the good law;' and all looked with astonishment and joy at the pastors who came from Switzerland. 'That one with the red beard and riding the white horse is Farel,' said John Peyret of Angrogne, one of their escort, to his companions; 'the other on the dark horse is Saunier.' 'There was also a third,' add the eye-witnesses, 'a tall man and rather lame:' he may have been a Waldensian who had acted as a guide to the two deputies.[464] Other foreign Christians met in this remote valley of the Alps. There were some from the southern extremity of Italy, from Burgundy, Lorraine, Bohemia, and countries nearer home. There was also a certain number of persons of more distinguished appearance: the lords of Rive Noble, Mirandola, and Solaro had quitted their castles to take part in this Alpine council. Clergy, senate, and people were thus assembled; and as no room could have held the number, it was resolved to meet in the open air. Gonin selected for this purpose the hamlet of Chanforans, where there is now only one solitary house. There, in a shady spot, on the side of the mountain, surrounded by an amphitheatre of rugged cliffs and distant peaks, the barbe had arranged the rude benches on which the members of this Christian assembly were to sit.