"In this country," says Gilles, "there are beautiful ranges of fertile soil, clothed with every kind of fruit trees, such as the olive and orange; in the plains, vines, and chestnut trees; along the shore, the hazel and the oak; upon the sides and summits of the mountains, the larch and the fir tree, as in the Alps--every where were signs both of a land promising rich rewards to the laborer, and but few inhabitants. The expatriation was decided on; the young, ready to depart, married; proprietors sold their farms; some member of every family prepared for the journey." The joys of the nuptial ceremony mingled with the sorrow of departure from home, and more than one marriage cortege took its place in the caravan of exile. But they could say, as the Hebrews going forth to the promised land, _The tabernacle of the Lord is with us_, for the travellers took with them an ancestral Bible, the source of all consolation and courage. At the foot of the mountains, father and son, and mother and daughter embraced, weeping and praying together, that the God of their fathers would bless them. And the blessing of heaven was not wanting to this colony. The industrious cities of Saint-Sixte, la Quardia, and Montolieu, arose as by magic amid this land of ignorance, and presented the spectacle of a praying and working Christian people, refusing homage to the superstitions of the age. The reformation in the West brought many fears, and the wrath of the Roman pontiffs was not stayed; the emissaries of the inquisition hunted these faithful people through their peaceful valleys; they were destined to perish; and the massacre of the Vaudois of Provence was a mournful pendant to the extermination of the Vaudois of Calabria. The historian weeps that he cannot cast a veil over this picture; yet the mind, agonized with scenes so atrocious, finds repose in the contemplation of such an admirable character as that of the martyr-pastor, Louis Pascal, exhaling all his soul in his last letter to his affianced Camilla Guarina: 'The love which I bear you is increased by that which I bear to God, and as much as I have been refined by the Christian religion, so much the more have I been enabled to love you. Adieu. Console yourself in Jesus, and may you be a pattern of his doctrines.' "There are few subjects," says the reviewer, "more worthy the ambition of a writer, or that are more inspiring, than the history of the martyred Vaudois, in the inaccessible solitudes of the Alps, for some time protected by their obscurity, but at last devoted for ages to the most cruel persecutions." The mystery of the origin of this people, the drama of their destiny, the melancholy interest which attaches itself to the different phases of their existence, command in their favor the attention of the world, and suffuse the pages of the historian with that sympathetic emotion so easily communicated to the reader, and which is the very soul of departed times. * * * * *