Our route now turned sharply to the left, and all were glad that the day was drawing to a close, so that we had the shadows from the mountains. A more frightful and desolate valley it is scarcely possible to imagine; it contains miles of boulders, débris, stones, sand, and mud; few trees, and they placed so high as to be almost out of sight; not a soul inhabits it; no birds are in the air, no fish in its waters; the mountain is too steep for the chamois, its slopes too inhospitable for the marmot, the whole too repulsive for the eagle. Not a living thing did we see in this sterile and savage valley during four days, except some few poor goats which had been driven there against their will. It was a scene in keeping with the diabolical deed perpetrated here about four hundred years ago—the murder of the Vaudois of Val Louise, in the cavern which was now in sight, though high above us. Their story is very sad. Peaceful and industrious, for more than three centuries they had inhabited these retired valleys in tranquil obscurity. The Archbishops of Embrun endeavoured, though with little success, to get them within the pale of their church. Their efforts were aided by others, who commenced by imprisonments and torture,(21) and at last adopted the method of burning them by hundreds at the stake.(22) In the year 1488, Albert Cattanée, Archdeacon of Cremona and legate of Pope Innocent VIII., would have anticipated the barbarities which at a later date roused the indignation of Milton and the fears of Cromwell;(23) but, driven everywhere back by the Waldenses of Piedmont, he left their valleys and crossed the Mont Genèvre to attack the weaker and more thinly populated valleys of the Vaudois in Dauphiné. At the head of an army which is said to have been composed of vagabonds, robbers, and assassins (who had been tempted to his banner by promises of absolution beforehand, of being set free from the obligation of vows which they might have made, and by the confirmation of property to them which they might have wrongfully acquired), as well as regular troops, Cattanée poured down the valley of the Durance. The inhabitants of the Val Louise fled before a host that was ten times their number, and took up their abode in this cavern, where they had collected provisions sufficient for two years. But intolerance is ever painstaking; their retreat was discovered. Cattanée had a captain who combined the resources of a Herod to the cruelty of a Pelissier, and, lowering his men by ropes, fired piles of brushwood at the entrance to the cavern, suffocated the majority, and slew the remainder. The Vaudois were relentlessly exterminated, without distinction of age or sex. More than three thousand persons, it is said, perished in this frightful massacre; the growth of three hundred and fifty years was destroyed at one blow, and the valley was completely depopulated. Louis XII. caused it to be re-peopled, and, after another three centuries and a half, behold the