Tradition relates that Calvin, instead of going northwards towards Switzerland, skirted the Apennines, turned to the west, and reached the Val di Grana, between Saluzzo and Coni, where he preached. It is affirmed that the priests of the village of Carigliano so excited the women of the parish, that with savage cries they stoned the Frenchman out of the place. It is added that Calvin went thence to Saluzzo, and preached there, but with as little success.[820] In our opinion, these traditions are not sufficiently corroborated to deserve a place in history. It seems more likely that Calvin took the shortest road to Switzerland and made for the St. Bernard pass. If he had possessed leisure for evangelical excursions, he might no doubt have gone to the Waldensian valleys, which his cousin Olivetan had visited, and where the latter had conceived the project of translating the Bible, at which he himself also labored and was still to labor. But there is no indication of his having ever visited those mountains. He arrived at the city of Aosta. [Sidenote: THE CITY OF AOSTA.] The first gleams of the Word of God were beginning, as we have said, to enlighten that cisalpine region which lies at the foot of the St. Bernard, Mont Blanc, and Mont Rosa. Aosta, founded by Augustus, after whom it was named, had received an evangelical impulse from Switzerland. The Bernese had thought that if the Divine Word crossing the St. Gothard had made conquests near the banks of the Ticino, it might make others in the valley of Aosta by crossing the St. Bernard. Italian, Bernese, and Genevan documents all bear witness alike to the religious fermentation then prevailing in that city. 'The Gospel is spreading beyond the mountains,' wrote Porral, the envoy of Geneva at Berne, 'and it must go forward in despite of princes, for it is from God.' Ere long the Roman hierarchy made use of their customary weapons against those who embraced the Reform, and Porral announced that the Aostans had 'serious questions with their bishop, on account of the _excommunications_, which they could not bear.'[821] We have told how the Bernese plenipotentiaries went to Aosta in November 1535, to confer with the duke of Savoy. They pleaded there in favor of Geneva, and demanded the liberation of Saunier, then a prisoner at Pignerol.[822] They talked with everybody they met about the great questions then under discussion, and invited them to receive the teaching of Holy Scripture. Some dwellers in the valley, both among the nobility and burghers, welcomed the principles of the Reformation.[823] Among those won to the Gospel were the Seigneurs De la Crète and De la Visière, the pious and zealous Leonard de Vaudan, Besenval, Tillier, Challans, Bovet, Borgnion, Philippon, Gay, and others.[824]