Some 18,000 soldiers responded to the call of De Capitaneis. He forms them into two bodies. One proceeds to devastate Dauphine and the district near from the west, while the other division, attacking from Piedmont, is to ravage the east; and as the two bodies approach each other they aim to enclose their victims, and so to prevent their escape. These victims were all unprepared for the vengeance which impended. Engaged in peaceful tillage, they had no means of defence, but fled to the rocks and caves, where their persecutors followed them, and being unable to reach them in their retreats, they piled up fuel at the mouths of the caverns, and so compelled the Vaudois to choose between death by suffocation or the sword. By such conduct some 3000 persons, including 400 young children, perished in the vale of Loyse. The Val Pragela also suffered much. But in the Clusone, after the first feelings of surprise had passed away, the inhabitants successfully repulsed their invaders. In the valley of Lucerna, San Giovanni, La Torre, Villaro Bobbio, and their hamlets, fell into the hands of the enemy. Still their career was sometimes checked by successful resistance, and deserved retribution. An example of this occurred to a detachment numbering some 700 Piedmontese troops, who were attempting to surprise the valley of San Martino by way of the Col Juliano. This body of soldiers, on reaching Pommiers, was attacked with such vigour and determination by the inhabitants of Prali, that only one of their number escaped destruction. This was an ensign, who concealed himself under a mass of snow, which had been excavated by the summer heat. Cold and hunger eventually compelled him to descend and ask mercy from those whom he had come to destroy. His petition was granted, and he was allowed to depart with the news of the defeat and destruction of his companions. After this humiliating repulse, the invaders sought to attack the vale of Angrogna, as being the heart and centre of the valleys, and the place of refuge and defence to their threatened inhabitants.